Page 34 of Creeping Lily

LILY

M y pulse kicks into overdrive, pounding in my ears as I catch movement at the far end of the path. My stalker—the one who slips into my dorm room like he owns the place—is standing there. A shadow carved from menace.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Just stands in a silent standoff with Bentley.

I don’t know who scares me more.

Bentley, with his sharp edges and the defiance radiating from him like a shield, or the stalker, who wears fear the way other people wear skin—using it, controlling it, bending it to his will.

The air between them feels like a drawn bowstring, seconds away from snapping. The stalker tilts his head in a slow, deliberate motion. A nod. Or a warning. Then another tilt, almost a question, before he turns and melts into the darkness like he was never there at all.

My heart caves in on itself, leaving me gasping in the hollow space it leaves behind .

“Who was that?” Bentley’s voice is sharp, slicing through the night, his eyes pinning me in place.

I swallow, my throat dry as dust. “I… it doesn’t matter.” The words barely make it past my lips.

But it does matter. It matters too much.

Because his presence is never random. He told me—don’t dig into the Walkers, don’t go looking for answers. And then Bentley Walker showed up on my doorstep.

The realization slams into me like a freight train: my stalker warned me to stay away from Bentley’s family, and now Bentley is here, dragging all of it—the shadows, the danger—back into my life.

The odds aren’t slim. They’re impossible. And that impossibility is starting to feel like a noose tightening around my neck.

Bentley studies me, his brows drawn together, concern flickering across his face. “Are you okay?”

I nod, though my throat feels sealed shut, the words trapped like they’ll betray me if I let them out.

My thoughts are a storm, circling and circling, refusing to settle.

He wasn’t here by accident. My stalker never moves without reason, and tonight was no different.

The way he lingered, the way his shadow pressed in around me—it was like a warning.

A claim. His silent way of saying, I’m still here.

I’m still watching. And I told you to stay away from them.

Relief floods me in shaky bursts, but it tangles with something colder, sharper. He’s gone now, but it’s temporary. He’ll be back. He always comes back. And that knowledge gnaws at me, picking and pulling like sharp teeth scraping against bone.

Because his connection to the Walkers isn’t just suspicion—it’s real. A pulse I can feel in the air when he looks at them. At him. That stare he leveled at the man beside me—long, searching, like he was hunting for answers only he could see—wasn’t empty. It was thick with meaning. With history .

He told me to stay away from them. That should’ve been enough to scare me into obedience.

But instead it does the opposite. It feeds the hunger clawing at my chest, the desperate need to understand why.

What secret ties them together? What truth is buried so deep that even my stalker wants me kept from it?

I need to know. I need to dig.

“Why did you come here, Bentley? The truth, now.”

Bentley’s jaw tenses. I can tell he’s holding something back, weighing whether to say it. Finally, he exhales, gaze steady on mine.

“The three men who were there the night of…” Bentley’s voice drops, like he’s dragging the words up from somewhere deep and painful. “…the incident? They’re dead.”

The sentence hits me like a sledgehammer to the ribs. Air rushes out of my lungs in a startled gasp I can’t stop. For a moment, I can only stare at him, searching for the crack—the twitch of an eye, the tremor in a lip—that would tell me he’s lying.

But there’s nothing. Just that grim, steady look that makes my stomach knot.

“What do you mean—they’re dead?”

He exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for my reaction. “On paper, the deaths look clean. Normal. The kind people write off as bad luck or bad timing. But I know better.” His eyes shift away, scanning the empty air beyond my shoulder, as if he’s seeing something—someone—that’s not here.

“There’s something else at play. Something… deliberate.”

The words slide down my spine like a cold blade.

I shake my head, not understanding, not wanting to. “Bentley, what does this have to do with?—”

He cuts me off, his gaze snapping back to mine. “I don’t think they were accidents,” he says, voice low and certain. “I think someone killed them. Intentionally. ”

My pulse spikes, a sick rush of adrenaline heating my face. I take a step back, the ground tilting slightly under my feet.

“You think… they were murdered?” My voice comes out thinner than I want, almost childlike. And then the truth clicks into place, sharp and unforgiving. “And you think you’re next?”

His gaze hardens into something darker, heavier. “I don’t think,” he says, his voice stripped of any doubt. “I know.”

That’s why he’s here. Not just to dredge up the past. Not just to remind me of every scar I’ve been trying to bury. He’s here because he’s looking for something—penance, maybe. And answers.

The problem is, I don’t have either.

Four men committed a crime that night. Three of them are in the ground. What are the odds?

The question falls from my mouth before I can stop it.

“And do you think their murders are connected to Lincoln’s death?”

The words feel like they scorch the air between us.

I mean—what are the chances? Murders. Lincoln.

His name and their blood in the same breath makes my skin crawl.

I believe in coincidence, sure, but this?

This is tipping into something darker, something that makes the hairs rise on my arms as if the night itself is listening.

I half expect him to laugh it off, to tell me I’m being dramatic. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even flinch. The silence is worse than any denial.

My stomach twists, a coil winding tighter and tighter.

I bite back the dozen other questions clawing at my throat—questions about Lincoln, about the fire, about the stranger in the mask, about everything that no one seems willing to give me straight answers to.

The weight of them presses hard against my ribs, each unspoken word a bruise.

We fall back into step, walking toward my dorm, but it doesn’t feel like walking. It feels like dragging chains through wet cement. Every step is heavier than the last. The silence presses down on me like a storm cloud about to break, thick and charged, the air tasting metallic.

I glance sideways, searching his face for anything—any crack, any tell. His jaw is tight, his eyes fixed ahead like he’s marching toward some invisible finish line only he can see. My pulse won’t slow, beating like a trapped thing in my throat.

The lamps along the path flicker in the night breeze, throwing us in and out of shadow, as though the world itself is split between what I know and what I’m not allowed to see.

I want to scream at him. I want to demand answers, claw them out if I have to. But instead, I swallow them whole, choking on the taste of my own restraint.

And maybe that’s what gnaws at me most—that this silence feels less like peace, and more like a warning.

“Bentley…” My voice is tentative. “Who else knows about what happened that night?”

He stops. Looks at me. Hesitates. “No one. Why?”

“You said three of the four men are dead. You’re the fourth. That’s not a coincidence, Bentley. Even you know that.”

His lips press into a hard line. “No, it’s not.” His steps are measured as we start moving again. “Aside from my family—my parents, my brother—the only other person who knew was the doctor who examined you.”

“Oh my God, Bentley. The doctor?—”

“He’s dead. Heart attack. Last year.”

I stumble over my next step, the weight of it all pressing on my chest.

“You don’t think it’s strange? That everyone involved is?—”

“Dead?” he finishes for me. His voice is heavy, like the word costs him something to say.

I stop walking entirely. “Where’s your father? ”

Something sharp flashes in his eyes. “Why are you asking about him?”

The suspicion in his tone hits me like a slap. “You think I’m the killer?” I whisper.

“It’s not that I think you are,” he says, voice steady but laced with something darker. “But if anyone had the right to be…” He trails off, the rest unspoken—but I hear it anyway.

I’m too stunned to answer.

Because in Bentley’s world, justice and vengeance are the same thing. And the most dangerous thought of all is the one I can’t shake?—

He doesn’t just think the killer is close.

He thinks he’s doing it for me.