Page 52 of Creeping Lily

LILY

T he mansion crowns the hill, its dark silhouette dissolving into the mist that rises from the valley each night.

Turrets and chimneys fade into the fog until the whole place looks less like a house and more like the ghost of a dream—one that clings to you long after waking, cold and damp against your skin.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think I’d stepped into a Du Maurier novel— Rebecca , maybe—where the house itself is as alive as the people trapped inside. The thought coils through me, each shiver running down my spine like rungs on a ladder of unease.

It’s too much house for two people. Too much history in its bones.

The whitewashed stone walls are worn smooth by centuries, yet still strong enough to lock their secrets away.

Time doesn’t touch this place—it circles it, hesitant, as though wary of what it holds.

The gardens sprawl wild at its feet, paths swallowed by tangled vines, statues buried under ivy like bodies under shrouds.

Inside, the study breathes with shadows.

A single lamp burns low, casting a thin amber light that shivers against the dark.

Each flicker sends shadows gliding along the walls, shapes that seem to loosen themselves from the corners.

The wallpaper is ornate, its muted florals faded to the color of old parchment.

If you pressed your ear to the wall, you might hear the centuries sigh—every whisper, every confession seeping deep into the plaster.

The room is sparsely furnished, stripped of comfort as if by design. Yet the air still carries the scent of polished wood and cold stone—a mingling of something alive and something ancient. It feels as though the mansion is watching, patient and still, waiting for something to happen.

The ledger sits at the edge of the desk like a secret daring me to touch it.

Its cover is deep red, the leather cracked and weathered with age. I don’t know exactly how old it is, but it’s old enough to smell faintly of dust and ink that’s had decades to sink into paper. Titan hasn’t opened it since he brought it here… at least, not that I’ve seen.

My palm itches with the urge to feel its surface, to lift the cover and turn each fragile page until I find whatever truth it’s holding hostage.

“Can I?” I ask, letting my fingertips graze the leather. It’s cool under my skin, supple in places but stiff at the spine, like it’s reluctant to be opened.

Across the room, Titan stands at the window, a tall, immovable figure framed in pale light.

He doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at me, silent, as though weighing the cost of letting me inside his secrets.

His mask hides most of his face, but I don’t need to see his expression to know the answer he’s wrestling with.

I’ve learned to read him in subtler ways—in the stillness of his body, the tightness in his shoulders, the quiet tension in the air between us.

When he finally moves toward me, it’s slow and deliberate, each step a measured choice. He drops into the chair at the far end of the desk, leaning back with casual precision, one long leg crossing over the other. His gaze pins me in place—steady, unblinking, the weight of it making my pulse race.

I keep tracing a finger along the spine of the book, dragging out the moment, reminding him I’m still waiting for permission. Questions churn in my head. Not just about the ledger, but about this house. About him.

Who is Titan, really? The masked man who stalks me from the shadows? Is he the man who pulled me out of the dark one night? Or the one who keeps me caged here under the pretense of protection? His presence is a paradox—unnerving and strangely reassuring at the same time.

“You think if you know what’s in that book, you’ll get the answers you need?” His voice is low, gravel scratching over stone.

I meet his gaze and shake my head slowly. “What I do know is that if I sit here another minute doing nothing, I’m going to lose my mind. This ledger… it’s why you came here, isn’t it?”

He nods once. “It’s part of it.”

Part of it. That’s all I get. The rest stays locked up behind his unreadable stare. It doesn’t tell me why I’m here. Why he abducted me after I visited the Walker home. Or why he warned me away from the Walkers in the first place.

Every question that forms in my mind drags another one with it, until they’re swarming in my head, restless and loud. “So why are we still here?” I ask.

As if on cue, his phone buzzes. The sound is small but sharp in the stillness. He glances at the screen of a battered burner phone, then looks back at me with a flash of something—warning, maybe—before answering.

His voice drops lower as he turns back toward the window. I catch only fragments: a grunt here, a short murmur there. It’s all useless to me, the words swallowed in the distance and the way he keeps them guarded.

When he’s done, he slides the phone into his pocket and returns to me, his steps measured again, his presence heavier somehow. “We have to leave,” he says.

“Where are we going?” I rise halfway from my chair, but he’s already beside me.

His fingers curl around my elbow, firm but not rough, and he pulls me to my feet until we’re standing so close I can feel the heat of him. His height swallows mine, the shadows from his mask cutting his face into sharper edges.

“For someone so quiet,” he rasps, his breath brushing my cheek, “you sure do ask a lot of questions.” His gaze lingers, a glint of something unreadable flashing there. “You’re a curious cat, aren’t you, Lily Snow?”

The way he says my name sends a shiver racing through me—not fear exactly, but the kind that tells you you’re standing on the edge of something dangerous, and that part of you wants to step closer anyway.

We drive in silence, the night pressing in on all sides.

The headlights slice through the darkness in pale, narrow beams, but beyond that is nothing—just the endless black swallowing the edges of the road.

The mansion is long gone behind us, hidden somewhere back in the folds of the hills, though I can still feel its presence like a weight in my chest.

Titan doesn’t speak. He grips the steering wheel with the easy strength of someone who could crush it if he wanted to.

His attention is fixed on the winding road ahead, jaw set beneath the shadow of his mask.

I keep stealing glances at him, waiting for a hint, a clue, anything that tells me where we’re going.

But he doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t answer the questions I don’t bother asking out loud.

We pass stretches of forest, the trees leaning over us like they’re trying to listen in on our non-existent conversation.

Then, after what feels like forever, the road spills us into a small town center.

A strip of closed shops sits under buzzing streetlights, their painted signs faded from years of rain and sun.

Titan pulls into a spot in front of a hardware store and kills the engine. The sudden quiet hums in my ears. Then he turns to me, leaning across the space between us until his presence fills the air.

“Your choice,” he says, voice low and unreadable. “Wait here, or come with me.”

I unclip my seatbelt, my answer automatic. “I’ll come with.”

Before I can move, his hand lands on my thigh—firm, hot, and high enough that heat blooms in my stomach.

My breath catches. His grip tightens, just enough to send a rush of tension curling through me.

The warning in his eyes is unmistakable, though there’s something else there too, something I can’t name.

“Behave yourself,” he murmurs.

I nod slowly, caught in the pull of his gaze. For a second, I wish he wouldn’t move his hand at all. But then it’s gone, and the night air feels colder without it.

Inside, the hardware store smells faintly of sawdust and metal. The harsh fluorescent lights buzz overhead, making the whole place feel too bright after the shadows of the car. I follow him down the aisles, my footsteps echoing on the polished floor.

He moves with purpose, grabbing items without hesitation: a coil of rope, a roll of duct tape, a pack of zip ties, thick work gloves. My eyebrows lift as I watch the collection grow in the basket he’s carrying.

It’s a strange list. Strange, unless you remember who you’re dealing with. Then it makes perfect sense .

Of course Titan would need these things.

The thought sends a ripple through me—half curiosity, half something darker.

When he catches me staring, he quirks a brow and lets the corner of his mouth tilt into a grin. It’s quick, sharp, gone almost before I can be sure I saw it. Then he pushes his hood forward, letting the shadow fall across his mask again, and keeps walking.

I trail after him, pulse thudding in my ears, wondering—not for the first time—what exactly I’ve gotten myself into.

Our footsteps echo against the emptiness, the sound sharp and hollow, like we’re walking through the ribcage of something long dead.

Titan moves ahead of me, broad shoulders shifting beneath his hoodie, his boots steady, unhurried. The faint clink of items hitting the bottom of his basket breaks the silence, each drop ringing like a warning I can’t quite read.

We round a corner, and he stops so abruptly that I slam into his back.

Before I can step around him, his arm shoots out, barring my way. A silent wall of muscle. Stay behind me . The command vibrates in the air without a word.

Peering past him, I see them. Four men at the far end of the aisle. Cowboy hats pulled low, shadows swallowing their eyes. The air changes instantly, thick and electric, like a storm is about to break.

One steps forward, boots pounding the floor—slow, deliberate, like a countdown. His smirk is small but razor-sharp, curling with cruel intent, and there’s something about it that makes my skin crawl.

My pulse spikes, pounding in my ears, louder than the buzzing lights. Titan doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even turn his head. His calm is almost worse than if he’d reacted .

“We’re just shopping,” Titan says evenly, voice so level it borders on bored. “Not looking for trouble.”

The man’s smirk widens, turning into something uglier. “Trouble’s looking for you.” He pulls a gun from his waistband, the metal catching the light.

The air snaps tight. I freeze. Titan only tilts his head, studying the man like he’s already decided how he’ll dismantle him.

I glance at the others—bigger, meaner than the first man. Four against one. My chest squeezes.

Titan’s hand rises to his hood. He pushes it back, shadows slipping from his mask. Under the sick light, it gleams, cold and unfeeling. A lock of brown hair falls across his brow. Then he smiles. Chilling.

It’s not a friendly smile. It’s a wolf’s smile. All teeth and malice.

“Oh,” he says, voice silky. “You brought a gun? How quaint. I prefer knives.”

The leader barely has time to scowl before Titan moves.

He shoves me back so hard my knees hit the floor, his basket already flying through the air. It smashes into the man’s wrist—gun clattering, a shot going wild into the shelves.

“Stay down!” His growl rattles my bones.

I crawl back, wedging myself between two shelves stacked with power tools. My breath comes fast, shallow.

Chaos explodes in the aisle. Titan is a blur—dark hoodie, glinting mask, the sharp crash of shelves giving way. The thud of fists on flesh. The dull crack of bone. Someone screams. Someone else gurgles a curse.

Through the narrow gaps in the shelves, I catch flashes—Titan slamming a man’s head into the floor, his gloved fist smashing into a jaw so hard teeth scatter across the linoleum. He moves like a machine built for killing, his precision terrifying.

The leader lunges. Titan sidesteps, a box cutter flashing in his grip. One smooth slice across the thigh sends the man collapsing, blood blooming fast.

I squeeze my eyes shut until I see stars. The sounds are worse than anything I could imagine—the muffled grunt of a man losing air, the sharp snap of cartilage breaking, the heavy, wet thud of a body collapsing to the floor.

I press my palms to my ears, trying to block it out, but the noise still seeps through.

The clang of metal hitting metal. A strangled cry that turns into a gurgle.

The shatter of something breaking, maybe a shelf, maybe bone—I don’t want to know.

My stomach twists, hot and sour, and I tuck my knees closer to my chest.

The chaos goes on and on, each sound a fresh bruise on my nerves.

Then—silence.

It’s so sudden it makes my pulse skip.

When I finally force my eyes open, the aisle looks like a war zone.

Shelves have toppled like dominos, spilling their contents into heaps.

Tools lie scattered across the linoleum like shrapnel from some mechanical explosion.

And everywhere—on the floor, on the walls, on the jagged edges of torn cardboard—there’s blood.

Thick, dark, and wet, painting the scene in violence.

Titan stands at the center of it, over one of the bodies.

His shoulders are squared, his stance wide, his whole frame still coiled with threat like he hasn’t quite finished.

Blood freckles his hoodie, splashes his gloves, streaks across the sharp angles of his mask.

Even the eyeholes look darker somehow, shadowed in a way that makes my breath catch.

He turns toward me, slow and deliberate, each step a measured thud. The sound of his boots sticking to the bloodied floor is sharp in the silence, and for a moment, it’s the only sound in the world.

When he stops in front of me, he holds out a gloved hand.

I can’t take it. My muscles are locked, my fingers curled into fists against my knees. My voice is gone, swallowed by the lump in my throat. All I can do is stare past him, past the mask, to the wreckage he’s left behind.

This isn’t the shadowy, watchful Titan I’ve known up until now. The beast inside him is out in the open, unrestrained, unapologetic. And as I sit frozen on the blood-slick floor, one thought circles in my mind like a slow, cold tide?—

I don’t think it will ever go back into its cage.