Page 63 of Creeping Lily

LILY

I can’t stop the gasp that rips out of me, sharp and raw, even though I bite down on it like it’s a secret I can keep buried.

He never took the mask off for me—not once.

I told myself it was about the danger, about the shadows he lived in, about the need to stay faceless.

I convinced myself anonymity was his armor.

I clung to that lie like it could shield me from the truth.

But now, standing here, I see it was never about anonymity. It was about something far uglier. Far darker.

The silicone clings to him like a second skin, molded to every hard edge and sharp plane. I stand frozen as his hand moves—not because he wants to, but because Walker’s presence is a noose at his back, forcing this moment. Forcing him to strip himself bare.

He peels it away, inch by agonizing inch. The sound is quiet but obscene—flesh releasing from silicone with a damp, sticky whisper. The skin underneath blooms red, starving for air.

When the final strip comes free, he lets the mask fall. The dull thud it makes when it hits the floor feels final. Funereal.

Lincoln.

Lincoln Walker .

The name detonates in my head. My vision narrows, walls bending inward, the world swaying under my feet. A hundred truths flash and shatter before I can grasp even one. Linc is alive. Linc has been following me. Linc has been hiding right here in plain sight.

And Linc wears the ruin of fire across his face—a molten tide of scar tissue, thick and rubbery, crawling over his cheek, devouring his ear, disappearing into his hairline.

It’s enough to make my stomach pitch, but it doesn’t erase him.

Somehow, impossibly… he’s still beautiful. A beauty sharpened by tragedy.

My knees buckle, the floor surging up to swallow me whole—until Bentley’s arm snakes around my waist, locking me upright. His grip is hard, possessive, keeping me standing when all I want is to collapse into the dark. The gun in his other hand never strays from his brother.

Linc doesn’t move toward me. Doesn’t say my name.

He just watches—silent, unblinking, his stillness heavy enough to press the air from my lungs.

And somehow, in that deadly quiet, when I should be falling apart completely, I feel steadied. Not saved. Not safe. Just… tethered.

“What happened to you?” My voice is barely a thread, splitting under its own weight.

I want to go to him. I want to reach past the years, the lies, and touch something real. But Bentley’s hand is a shackle around my arm, his fingers digging deep enough to bruise, his grip a silent threat.

Pieces start falling into place in my mind—crooked, jagged things that don’t fit clean, slicing as they land—but the whole picture remains just out of reach. The picture they’re building is wrong, jagged, ugly. And still incomplete.

“The fire got him,” Bentley says, voice flat. “It got him, but it couldn’t keep him. Brother dearest tried to play hero and got scorched for his trouble.”

The way he says it—casual, cruel—curdles something in my gut. These two were once a matched set, tighter than blood, thicker than loyalty. Now they look like they’d gut each other in the street and walk away without a backward glance.

“Faked his own death,” Bentley adds, like he’s tossing out weather. “Had us all fooled. Until the Somer suicide.”

My head jerks up. “So what—” my voice spikes, breaking, “you dug up his grave?”

Bentley’s laugh is a low, sharp snort, like I’m the idiot here.

“There was never a body to bury. Just a service. Empty coffin. All for show. Witnesses swore they saw him go into that house before it collapsed. Swore they never saw him come out.” His gaze cuts sideways, razor-edged, toward Linc.

“So tell me, brother… how’d you pull that one off? Teach me.”

Linc’s eyes never leave Bentley’s. They’re cold enough to burn through him. And those eyes—Christ—they were blue once.

“Are you wearing contacts?” I ask before I can stop myself.

He scoffs. “We’ve got guns pointed at each other, and that’s your question?”

“You’re brothers,” I snap back, desperation leaking into my tone, like saying it might tether them to something human.

Linc shakes his head slow, deliberate, the tiniest shadow of pity in it. He knows. And I know he knows. This was never just about me—it’s about debts, about blood spilled and names carved into ledgers no one can burn.

Because whatever connection they had before is dead and buried. If brotherhood can’t survive, then whatever’s between them is blacker and deeper than I can fathom.

“Brothers don’t fake their deaths,” Bentley spits. “Brothers don’t try to kill each other. Our bond ended the moment you took a life.”

“Our bond ended the moment you took a life,” Linc fires back, voice razor-sharp, each word a slow bleed. “And taking a life doesn’t always mean death.”

His eyes slice to me, and I flinch before he turns back to Bentley. His voice drops to something honed and dangerous. “You killed her before she was even born.”

The air shifts, heavy, electric. Bentley’s face hardens into stone. Linc’s voice isn’t just angry—it’s the sound of a man who’s been living with a knife in his chest for years and just found the hand that put it there.

“That’s different,” Bentley growls, his gun steady but his fingers flexing. “You kill for the rush. To feed whatever sickness has been growing in you since birth. You kill for destruction.”

“I kill those who hurt others,” Linc says, deadly calm. “And you’re high on that list.”

“Don’t,” I whisper. The taste of salt hits my lips before I realize I’m crying. “Don’t do this to each other.”

“Don’t think I don’t know,” Linc growls, the tremor in his voice not weakness but rage, rattling like something barely caged. “Don’t think I don’t know exactly what happened in that house.”

“You know nothing,” Bentley snaps, his arm jerking, gun lifting higher.

The leather of his jacket creaks; the scent of metal blooms in the air. I can almost hear the metallic kiss of a safety being tested. My pulse counts the seconds we’ve got left.

“You never wondered why Peter Masters was particularly bloody?” Linc tilts his head, a slow, wolfish smile curling his mouth. My heart betrays me—God help me, I still think that smile is beautiful. But there’s nothing kind in it. It’s the smile of a predator .

Bentley’s hand shakes, just enough to rattle me. Fear slides through me like ice water. I’ve just found Linc again—I can’t watch him vanish into a pool of blood at my feet.

“You made yourself the hero that night,” Linc says, each word like a splintered bone. “The one who saved her.”

“You hated me for not protecting her,” Bentley snarls.

“We fought because you didn’t protect her,” Linc agrees, voice steady and lethal. “When we should’ve fought because you were the one who hurt her most. You were her worst monster that night—and you made me think otherwise.”

“I held her,” Bentley bites out. “I comforted her.”

“You raped her!”

The words are a resounding echo in the small cabin. Linc’s tone is the crack of a coffin nail—final, absolute.

“I was fixing her!” Bentley roars, spit flying.

“Fixing her?” Linc’s laugh is sharp and humorless. “She wasn’t yours to fix. And you knew exactly how I felt about her.”

“We were drunk,” Bentley mutters, his voice splintering. “We were idiots.”

“Excuses,” Linc murmurs, almost to himself, the disgust curling like smoke. “Excuses excuse everything, don’t they, Bentley?”

And then the silence comes—thick, humming, seconds from shattering into violence.

In my mind, we’re still just three kids tearing down the street on our bikes, sunlight melting over our backs, the taste of summer sugar in the air as we shriek with laughter outside the ice cream parlor.

In my mind, I’m wedged between two older brothers who keep me in their shadow like I’m something rare—something fragile and worth guarding.

Back then, I had everything I needed. Safety.

Joy. That warm, unshakable cocoon of belonging.

Until I didn’t.

One lapse in judgment—just one—and I wasn’t that girl anymore. I wasn’t the kid they doted on, who they carried on their shoulders and protected from the world. One careless, reckless moment snapped the thread and left it dangling over the edge of something darker. After that, I lost everything.

Now they stand in front of me, bickering like rabid dogs, and I can’t reconcile them with the boys I knew—the brothers I idolized. The summers spent side by side from the time I was eight feel like someone else’s life.

“Why did you come back, Bentley?” My voice is quiet but it cuts through their venom.

So much about this is hidden in shadows I can’t see through. Linc—Titan—may be a killer, but at least he’s never pretended otherwise. He doesn’t sugarcoat. He doesn’t dodge. He doesn’t lie. Bentley, on the other hand, hasn’t given me a single straight answer since he showed up.

And between the two of them, he’s the one who’s cut me deepest. He’s the one who took something I can’t ever get back. I might not want to see either of them bleed, but Linc never physically hurt me the way Bentley did.

“I came back for you.”

I almost laugh. “I don’t doubt that. But why? The truth, Bentley.”

His eyes shift, just enough for me to see the lie before it leaves his mouth.

This isn’t the Bentley I once knew. Not the man I spent my summers with.

Not the one I looked to like an older brother, never once imagining he could betray me in the most unforgivable way.

He’s here for a reason, and it reeks of self-interest.

“Tell her,” Linc says, voice like a blade pressing into skin .

I glance between them, seeing the differences I used to overlook.

Bentley—dirty-blond hair, piercing blue eyes, that sharp Scandinavian jawline.

He’s all breadth and angles, shoulders stretching his tailored suit like he was born inside one.

Always dressed for power, even when it’s wildly out of place.

Linc is the one who answers. Linc is always the one to tear me open.

“He’s running for the Senate,” he says, every syllable a nail in Bentley’s coffin. “The only thing in his way is the ghost of his past.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you, Lily,” Bentley says. His tone almost fools me—it’s softer, almost human. Maybe he even believes it. But I know better. Monsters never see themselves as demons.

“I’m a loose end,” I whisper, the realization slamming into me. “I’m the part of your history you can’t risk anyone finding out about.”

I know exactly what he stands to lose if the truth surfaces. I could ruin him without even trying. One word from me and his political career dies before it’s even born. And Bentley has always craved power more than anything else.

“I won’t hurt you,” he repeats.

“You already have.”

My voice is low, choked, like it’s clawing its way through water. He hurt me, and I buried it. I moved on. I was living my life. He never should have come back.

I turn to Linc. “Is that why you came back?”

He nods, slow and certain, his gaze drifting from me to Bentley, then back to me, carrying a quiet promise.

“I came back because I knew he would,” Linc says. “I knew he’d make a move. Bentley Walker doesn’t leave loose ends. You’re the wild card.”

“That’s why you told me to stop digging into the Walkers.”

“I don’t want you anywhere near that family. ”

“ We’re your family!” Bentley roars, the sound cracking like a whip. “You fucking traitor! Everything we’ve done— everything —was for this family, but you… you had to fuck it all up and turn yourself into a goddamn serial killer!”

“You’re the one who fucked this up, Bentley!” Linc’s fury is a living thing now, clawing its way out of him. “Sitting up there on your high horse, thinking you could get away with what you did to her! How many other girls have you ruined, you worthless piece of shit?”

I’ve never seen him like this—deranged, vibrating with pure rage. He lifts his gun, aims it at his brother without hesitation. Bentley mirrors him, and suddenly they’re locked in a standoff that makes the air feel heavy and dangerous.

“Lily, come here,” Bentley orders, his voice sharp enough to slice skin.

“Lily, don’t,” Linc says, all steel and warning.

I stay frozen, halfway between them, my heart hammering.

I am the grenade in Bentley’s perfect little political war room, the one thing that can collapse his entire house of cards.

He’s not here to mend anything—he’s here to erase me.

Linc, on the other hand, is burning himself alive just to keep me standing.

“Lily.” Bentley’s voice drops into something feral.

The gunshot is an explosion.

The sound rips the air apart. The smell of gunpowder slams into me, acrid and sharp. My ears ring as I drop my hands to my head, too late to stop the sound from cutting through me.

Then comes the thump.

I turn in time to see the red spreading across Linc’s chest, the bloom too dark, too fast. His hoodie drinks it in greedily, and my stomach twists.

The pain in my chest is instant and blinding, like my ribs have been split open. My legs lock, refusing to move toward him even as every nerve in me screams to .

His eyes find mine. There’s no fear there—only something fierce, almost defiant. He spreads his arms wide, like a man offering himself up to the blade. Then his knees hit the floor, and he folds forward, face-first into the hardwood.

“You shot him,” I breathe, though it’s barely sound at all. My lungs form a scream that refuses to leave my throat.

I can’t look away from him. From the stillness that’s replaced all that fire. I’m split open by too many shocks at once—seeing him alive after believing him dead, unmasking the man who’s stalked me from the shadows, and now… watching him bleed out at my feet.