Page 72 of Creeping Lily

TITAN

M y shoulder screams with every breath, the bandage clinging wet and sticky, doing nothing to cage the fire tearing through muscle and bone.

Each heartbeat hammers against the wound, and for a moment I think it might split me open from the inside.

But I grit my teeth and bury the pain, because Lily’s in there. Trapped. And she’s all that matters.

Justin crouches beside me, rigid as stone, his fingers locked white around the grip of his gun. He hasn’t said much since we got here, but his silence is violent. It radiates off him in waves, hot and crackling, the kind of fury that burns a man hollow if he doesn’t find something to unleash it on.

Finally, he breaks. His voice is a low growl, so sharp it could cut skin.

“How much longer we sitting here, Titan?”

His judgment needles under my skin, but I don’t look away from the lodge. “We wait until one leaves. If we storm in now, we’re dead before we even hit the door.”

Justin scoffs, bitter and reckless. “You mean you’re dead. You can barely stand. Why the hell did you even come if you’re just gonna drag me down?”

The fury sparks hot in my chest. I snap my gaze toward him. “Drag you down? I’m the reason we’re here at all. You don’t know this place. Every hallway in there is a trap. You go in blind, you die—and you take her with you.”

His jaw flexes, eyes blazing. “And what’s your grand plan, then? Bleed out across the floor and hope they trip over your corpse?”

His voice rises, dangerous, and I lunge, grabbing his arm and yanking him down into the mud before the shadows can betray us.

My teeth grind against the pain in my shoulder as I hiss, “Keep your voice down. You think I don’t know what’s at stake here?

You think I don’t know what it means if we fail? ”

The words tear out of me, ragged and raw.

“Lily’s my—” I choke it back, snap my jaw shut like I’m chewing on glass.

My voice drops to a razor whisper. “This isn’t about pride.

It isn’t about who bleeds more. It’s about her walking out alive.

And if you can’t keep your head, if you let your rage do the thinking, you’ll kill us all. ”

Justin glares at me, chest heaving, his anger a mirror of mine. For a long moment, neither of us breathes. Then he looks away, his jaw tight enough to crack. “This is Lily, man. Lily .”

Before I can answer, the lodge door creaks open, loud as a scream in the silence. Both of us freeze.

Tom Walker steps into the night, his bulk a silhouette in the yellow wash of light spilling from inside.

He pulls on a heavy coat, muttering over his shoulder to whoever still lurks in the house—Bentley, no doubt.

His words are muffled, but his arrogance carries, like even the night itself owes him silence.

Then he moves toward the line of cars parked out front, boots crunching over the frozen earth .

I glance at Justin, and for the first time tonight, we’re in agreement.

“There’s our opening,” I whisper, the taste of blood and fury sharp in my mouth.

We move fast, shadows swallowing us as Tom’s car vanishes down the dirt road. My heart pounds like war drums in my chest. The lodge looms ahead—black, jagged, alive. Not just a house, but a beast with teeth, waiting to chew us apart.

We slip through the side wall hatch, the old wood groaning under my hand as I force it open.

The cellar breathes cold over us, air heavy with damp earth, smoke, and something fouler—fear baked into the walls after decades of suffering.

Every board creaks under Justin’s boots like a warning shot, but we press on.

“This way,” I whisper, pushing through a narrow hall. My shoulder rages with fire at every movement, blood soaking the bandage, but I shove the pain into the void. Pain is nothing. Pain is a promise—I’ll pay it a thousand times over if it means Lily walks free.

Then I hear it. A scrape. Metal against stone. It sounds like rattling bones. I freeze, and my blood chills. I raise a hand, and Justin halts mid-step, his breath snagging in his throat. Together, we track the noise, one foot at a time, until the shadows peel back and I see her.

Lily.

She isn’t Lily anymore. She’s a ruin of the girl I remember, and she sits crumpled in the corner, knees drawn tight to her chest, arms wrapped around herself like she’s the only thing holding her body together.

Her head droops forward, hair tangled and clotted with sweat and blood, strands glued to her hollow cheeks.

Every rise of her chest is shallow, as if breathing costs too much.

For one jagged heartbeat, I forget the gun in my hand.

Forget the mission. Forget the wound screaming fire through my shoulder.

All I know is that she’s still alive, and somehow, that feels worse.

“Lily,” I whisper, my voice splintering through the iron bars.

Her body jolts at the sound. Slowly—so slowly—her head tilts up, her eyes peeling open like it takes the last of her strength. And when those eyes land on me, they don’t shine with relief. They shatter. Her lips crack apart, trembling, dry as parchment.

“T…Titan…”

The word is broken glass dragged across my soul. It’s not a name anymore. It’s a plea. A memory. A ghost of something she used to believe in.

Justin curses under his breath and lunges for the door.

The metal rattle and she flinches, shrinking in on herself like even the sound of help is too much to bear.

He shakes the lock, jaw tight, before ripping his pick set from his pocket.

His hands work fast, desperate, the small click of metal against tumblers like frantic heartbeats in the silence.

But before hope can breathe, a voice slithers out of the dark—cold, amused, dripping venom.

“Well,” he drawls, low and venomous. “Isn’t this touching.”

Bentley.

He fills the doorway like evil incarnate, a gun loose in his hand, his smile cruel.

The light behind him distorts his face, painting him less human and more monster.

His eyes don’t even bother with Lily at first. They find me.

They find the scar he carved into my chest and linger there, greedy, savoring it.

“You just can’t stay dead, can you?” His tone simmers with hate. He glances at the crimson soaking my shirt, and his smirk widens like he’s already savoring the next hole he’ll put through me. His finger twitches against the trigger, hungry .

Justin raises his gun, steady, steel in his voice. “Let her go.”

Bentley laughs. The sound isn’t laughter—it’s hollow, jagged, humorless. “You call this a rescue mission?” He spreads his arms, the gun dangling carelessly like an afterthought. “This is my kingdom. And you—” his eyes slash back to me—“you’re just a ghost trespassing on my throne.”

“You can have your fucking kingdom,” I snarl, stepping closer, hand hovering near my knife. “But Lily comes with me.”

For a flicker, his smile falters. Rage seethes in his eyes before the mask snaps back into place.

His lip curls, teeth bared in a parody of amusement.

“Always so righteous, Lincoln. Pretending you’re the savior.

But you’re not. You’re filth, just like me.

Broken. Selfish. You don’t save women—you hollow them out until there’s nothing left. ”

His gaze finally drags to Lily. And that’s when he twists the knife.

“Isn’t that right, Lily?” His tone is poison in my ear. “Tell him how many times you begged me to stop whispering his name in your ear. How many nights you cried because I reminded you that no one was coming. That he left you. That he forgot you.”

Lily folds in on herself in the corner, her body trembling.

Her hands clutch at her hair like she can claw his words out of her skull, but they’ve already rooted there.

Her lips part soundlessly, her eyes glazed over, drowning in old torment.

She doesn’t deny him. She doesn’t have the strength left to.

Something inside me snaps.

“Maybe I am broken,” I growl, my voice splintering under the weight of fury. “But at least I bleed for the people I love. You? You destroy everything you touch.”

Bentley’s smirk tears away, replaced by raw madness. He jerks the gun higher, voice cracking with obsession. “Sacrifices! You don’t know what I gave up for her. For all of it. You’ll never understand what it costs to keep a kingdom! ”

“The only thing you’ve sacrificed,” I spit back, my throat raw, “is your soul.”

The room ignites.

Bentley fires. The gun’s roar is thunder in the stone chamber. But I’m already moving, knife flashing silver in the dark. Justin slams into him with bone-breaking force. The gun clatters to the ground. Bentley snarls, ripping a blade from his belt, slashing Justin’s arm open, blood spraying.

Lily screams. The sound shatters, her voice shredded. It isn’t just fear—it’s grief and despair and years of torment breaking loose.

“Get her out!” Justin bellows, wrestling Bentley, blood pouring from his sleeve.

But I can’t. My body’s failing, vision narrowing, but rage drags me forward. Bentley doesn’t see me until my boot collides with his face. Bone crunches. His head slams the floor, skull cracking against stone. His body slumps, limp.

The silence that follows is merciless. My chest burns, blood soaking me, dripping from my boot where it crushed him.

I lean down, close enough for him to hear me if he’s still clinging to consciousness. My voice is a blade pressed to his throat.

“Don’t you dare die yet, brother . Open your fucking eyes. I want you screaming when I carve the debt from your skin. You haven’t even started paying.”