Page 45 of Creeping Lily

LILY

T he first thing I notice is the pounding in my skull—deep, throbbing, like someone took a hammer to the inside of my head.

I force my eyes open. The room is dim, shadows stretching and curling along the walls. My limbs feel like they’ve been filled with wet sand. Heavy. Slow. Wrong.

“You’re finally awake,” a voice rumbles from the corner.

I know that voice. I know the scent. The charged air.

My stomach drops even before he steps into view, mask in place, presence hitting me like a wall.

His presence slams into my soul in the confined space of the room.

I recoil on instinct alone, fear coursing through every one of my veins.

His piercing gaze collides with mine, causing a shiver to run down my spine.

“Where am I?” I demand, my eyes narrowing as I struggle to keep them from closing again. “What did you do to me?”

His lips curl into a cruel smile as he steps closer, slow and deliberate.

My hands shake when I touch my face, feeling the last traces of sleep clinging to me and a slick, cold film crawling under my skin like it doesn’t belong there.

My thoughts are scattered, my memories flashing in and out at the edges of my mind like flickering shadows in the dim light.

I force myself upright, every muscle protesting, my heartbeat slamming against my ribs.

A rush of panic races through me, cold and sharp, when I realize I’m not in any place I recognize.

I’m in an unfamiliar room, the air heavy with the scent of the woods and something else, something unsettlingly familiar.

The room is substantial but furnished simply, and it does nothing to calm my nerves.

My voice quivers with a mix of anger and terror, my eyes wide and searching. I feel the tightness in my face as I feel for that elusive thing which continues to crawl along my skin.

“What did you do to me?”

My stalker steps forward slowly, his hands at his sides, his chest heaving as he breathes in and out; he’s so big, it’s hard to miss his movements, no matter how ordinary they may be.

“It’s the chloroform; it’ll wear off in a few hours.”

He says it so casually, it’s as though this is a common enough occurrence. Maybe it is for him, but it isn’t for me. My mind races, trying to make sense of what’s happening amidst the chaos of my thoughts.

“You drugged me?” My voice rises, edged with accusation. He drugged me. There’s no two ways about it. “You coward!”

My eyes skate over my body, my surroundings, looking for any evidence of violation. I see and feel none, but that does nothing to settle my thumping heart.

I scramble off the bed, my legs shaky as I back away from him. My anger ignites as my body rages. His mask remains unreadable as I lunge forward, but in my drugged state, I only grasp air and stumble, throwing my arms out to catch my fall.

His thick, heavy arms grab me around the waist, lifting me before I touch the ground and setting me back on the edge of the bed, where my head continues to roil with dizziness.

“Why am I here? Why did you drug me? ”

My stalker snickers behind his mask. He’s not going to give me answers.

He thinks he’s beyond that, now that I’m under his control.

But I need answers. And I need to know who he is.

I try to push past the fog assailing me to remember how I came to be here.

Vaguely, I remember the ice cream Parlor and sitting in the car lot.

Then he appeared out of no-where, and that’s the last I remember of anything.

Oh my God, has he kidnapped me? Have I been abducted?

I tilt my head awkwardly and regard my stalker, as though seeing him for the first time.

Why the fuck would he kidnap me? And what does he want?

I travelled hundreds of miles away from Colt and the place where I first saw him; did he bring me here so he could get his way far from the prying eyes of the college community? And where exactly is here?

My breath comes in shallow gasps, my mind racing through a labyrinth of uncertainty.

“I can’t be here,” I gasp. “I need to leave. Now.”

Before he can respond, I lunge for the door, my hands fumbling with the lock in my haste. Adrenaline surges through me, overriding the dizziness and confusion that threatens to overwhelm me. That chloroform hits me like some heavy shit as it buzzes around in my system, throwing me off-kilter.

Fear, rough and pervasive, causes my blood pressure to spike. I don’t know what my stalker is capable of, but I know I have to get out of here and far away from him.

Just as my fingers find purchase on the lock, his hand closes around my wrist with a grip that is surprisingly gentle but firm. He pulls me back into the room and I spin around, eyes blazing with defiance and fear.

“Let me go!”

For a moment, it’s a tense standoff as we stand locked in a battle of wills. I try to decipher his intentions, but I get nothing; he’s hiding beneath his mask, and all I can see are his flat eyes as they singe me.

“If you were half a man, not the coward you are,” I spit “you’d take off your mask and face me like a man.

” His hands at his sides twitch. His fingers flick against his nails.

His gaze remains on me, brutal and intense.

He doesn’t like what I’m saying, but he says nothing as he continues to watch me.

Then he surprises me with his next words.

“If I were playing by the average man’s rules, I would have unraveled you a long time ago, Lily.”

It’s a breathy admission; the first time he’s said anything that remotely resembles any forthcoming information.

And I finally realize that I’m in the company of a psychopath.

Never mind that my insides tingle at his proximity.

Don’t even get me started on how my knees got weak and my heart fluttered when he kissed me.

The man kidnapped me off the side of the street in broad daylight.

There’s no way he’s anything but a psycho.

Said psycho also saved your life , a little voice inside my head reminds me.

My resolve falters for a heartbeat, exhaustion threatening to overwhelm me. I can still feel the lethargy, the disorientation caused by the drugs in my system, and I float back down to the bed in resignation, sitting on the edge, looking down at my feet like a petulant child.

“You kidnapped me.”

My voice cracks with raw emotion, accusation hanging heavy in the air.

I can’t say he looks defeated, but he does give me another morsel.

“You wouldn’t let this thing with the Walkers go.”

I feel my brows crease in confusion as I look up at him. “This is about the Walkers?” Tears well up in my eyes, a mix of anger and confusion clouding my vision. “What is it with you and that family?”

I don’t understand how this man, this criminal for all intents and purposes, could in any way be associated with the Walkers. But it just serves to remind me that Bentley’s appearance and his timing were suspect at best. Do the two men know each other? Could they?

I stand watching him and wait, trembling with adrenaline and uncertainty, caught between the desire to flee and the need to understand.

Everything in me screams at me to run, to escape this strange and terrifying man in the mask.

A man without a name. A man without a soul.

And where is his heart, exactly? Because he sure as hell doesn’t seem to have one, judging from the way he’s treating me.

“I told you to leave it alone,” he hisses. “The Walkers are dangerous people.”

I angle my head curiously, watching him as though he’s a puzzle I need to decipher.

If he means to keep me from asking questions about the Walkers, my curiosity is piqued.

There’s no way I’m going to stop now. But just as I need to know about the family that once acted as my own, I now also need to unmask the stranger standing before me.

“Who are you?” I ask him, my voice barely above a whisper.

His eyes drop to my lips, then glide downwards, until he covets the whole of my body with his dark glare.

“I’m your salvation, Lily.”

His mask does not cover enough of him that I don’t see the way his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows.

I watch him carefully as his eyes float back up to my lips.

There’s only so much a mask can cover, and in this moment, I recognize the darkness that encompasses him.

He wants to bend me, break me. He wants to shape me; bend my will, turn me into what he wants me to be.

He wants to control me. To ruin me. Destroy me.

And the danger he poses only spurs me on, cutting into the lifeblood deep within my depths.

I’m not scared of him. I know I should be, but I’m not. I want to remove his mask. I want to see him, feel him. I want to have all of him.

His tongue darts out as he licks the edge of his lips, before he raises his eyes to my own. He’s so close, so close to removing the barrier between us.

I reach a hand out to his face, lay it on the side of the mask. I can’t see him, but I can feel him. I need to see him without the mask.

His dark soul penetrates mine, even between the layers that separate us.

His longing cannot be ignored; it mirrors my own emotions, and despite the fact that he has drugged me and dragged me to the pits of hell, I can’t lie and say I feel nothing.

Because I do. He’s just as tainted as I am. He has just as many secrets as I do.

With a sudden, unexpected movement, he steps back and grabs my wrist, his grip firm and unyielding. His touch ignites a fire within me that threatens to consume everything in its path. The world around us fades into insignificance as we stand on the edge of something raw yet undeniably real.

His eyes, filled with a mixture of desire and danger, lock onto mine with an intensity that sends shivers down my spine. I can feel the tension crackling in the air between us, thick and suffocating.

“Don’t,” he growls, his voice low and gravelly. The mask hides his expression, but I can hear the warning in his tone. His mask is his armor, and he’s not ready to remove it yet. For whatever reason.

The desire to unmask him wars with the instinct to protect myself from whatever lies beneath.

But as his grip on my wrist tightens ever so slightly, a silent threat laced within the gesture, I realize that he is not just a man of ordinary means.

He is a man used to getting what he wants, and he means to do just that with me here with him.

He releases my wrist abruptly, stepping back as the tension between us crackles like electricity. I can feel the weight of his gaze even through the mask, a heavy silence enveloping us both.

“You don’t get to touch me,” he says, his voice laced with a hard edge. “Not unless I invite you to.”

Same can be said for you, stalker boy.

I take a cautious step forward, curiosity mingling with apprehension. There's a story behind those guarded eyes, a tale of pain and loss that he's concealing beneath layers of fabric and silicone.

“Why are you hiding from me?” I whisper, reaching out a trembling hand to touch his arm.

His muscles tense at my touch, but he doesn't pull away.

Instead, he leans into my hand ever so slightly, a silent invitation for me to delve deeper into the enigma that is him.

And as my mind starts to peel back the layers one by one, I start to believe that beneath the mask lies not a monster, but a wounded soul.