Page 76 of Creeping Lily

TITAN

T he silence after killing is never clean.

It’s thick, clotted, suffocating. Like the air itself has learned how to keep its silence.

Bentley’s body twitches once before it goes still, the last shudder of a brother I should have loved. Tom’s head lolls forward, his blood pooling, soaking the floorboards. The stink of iron, piss, and fear fills the room, seeping into my skin, my lungs, my bones.

I stand there for a long time, knife dangling from my hand, dripping. My knuckles are split, my chest heaving, and all I feel is the furnace still raging inside me. Fury doesn’t leave easy—it clings like smoke, choking, demanding more.

They’re gone. Finally. Erased from Lily’s world.

But the truth carves into me with every heartbeat: I killed my father. I killed my brother. And I don’t feel regret. Not one shred. Only the ache in my chest where something human should be.

I wipe the blade on Tom’s shirt, slow and deliberate, watching the red smear across the fabric.

My hands are stained, my clothes soaked, and when I catch sight of myself in the dark window, I almost don’t recognize the man staring back.

Hollow- eyed. Blood-slick. Not Titan, not Lincoln. Just the monster they made.

The monster Lily still chose.

A rasping laugh tears from my throat—broken, joyless. If she could see me now, she’d never look at me the same again. She begged me to let the mask go, but maybe this—this bloodied ruin—is all I am without it.

The house groans around me, settling like it knows it’s holding ghosts now. My boots drag through blood as I move toward the door, every step heavy, echoing with the weight of what I’ve done.

Outside, the night air slams into me, cold and sharp, trying to cleanse what can’t be cleansed. I tilt my head back, suck it in, but the taste of copper clings to my tongue.

I should feel free. I should feel victorious. Instead, I feel empty. Like I carved out pieces of myself with every slash of the blade.

But she’s safe. That’s the only thing that matters.

I’ll burn in hell for this. I’ll carry their ghosts, their screams, their blood.

As long as Lily never has to.

Driving feels like a fever dream. Headlights slice the dark; the road smears into one long vein I can’t stop following.

Every mile between me and Lily feels endless.

My hands keep slipping on the wheel—tacky with dried blood—so I wipe them on my shirt and only make the smear worse.

My pulse hammers in my ears with the memory of their screams. The car smells like iron and rage.

Tom. Bentley.

The words won’t sit right in my mouth anymore. Father. Brother. They don’t fit what’s left of them. The only thing that fits is the quiet in that house and the red I tracked across the floorboards when I walked out.

I picture her waiting—pale face lit by a phone screen, eyes searching the dark, lips whispering my name even when I’m not there. Lincoln. Titan. Both of them mine and neither of them enough. My rage spikes again, sharp and blinding. They wanted to steal that from me. They wanted to steal her.

I grip the wheel tighter. Lean into the speed. I should be empty after the kill. I’m not. I’m wired, skin too tight, heart dragging in broken beats. Alive in a way that terrifies me, because nothing quiets this fire but her. The only thing that drowns the blood still burning on my skin… is her .

Lily.

I need her like oxygen.

I cut down a side street and kill the lights a block early. Habit. Paranoia. Survival. The car coasts, tires hissing over the road. I park where shadows swallow the curb and step out into night air that tries to bite clean through me. It doesn’t. The stench of copper clings.

I promised myself I’d never let my shadow touch her again.

Then she walked straight into it.

A streetlight burns a cone of dull yellow over an empty lot. I see her before she sees me—standing out of Justin’s car, phone clutched in small hands, worry carving lines into her face. She looks up, as if pulled by a string in my chest, and finds me in the dark.

Everything inside me fractures open.

Justin steps forward first, arm going out like he thinks he should intercept me. He takes in the red on my shirt, the stains at my cuffs, the mud and blood laced on my boots, and stops. The muscles in his jaw jump. He’s not stupid. He knows what I’ve done .

“Thank you for watching over her,” I say. My voice comes out low. “You can go.”

He looks from me to Lily. Something like grief passes over his face.

Not for me. For the thing he’s finally admitting he can’t touch.

His hand tightens once on her shoulder. “Be safe,” he tells her, and then he peels himself away and gets into the car.

The engine turns. Tail lights flare. He’s gone.

We stand under the light, two people with a graveyard between them.

Her eyes sweep me—neck, chest, hands—like she’s counting cuts. Her throat works. “Are you?—”

“No.” I close the last step and take her wrist, not hard, but firm enough that the world narrows to the thud of her pulse against my fingers. “But I’m here.”

She lets me pull her to me, no hesitation. Maybe she knows this is the only thing keeping me human right now. Maybe she hears the unspoken: If you leave me in this dark, I won’t find my way back.

The safehouse is three blocks away, up a stairwell that smells like dust and old heat.

I keep her close, my thumb tracing the tendons on the inside of her wrist like a man reading braille—proof of life, proof of hers.

The door opens on a small room—bare floorboards, a mattress, a table with a gun I forgot to hide.

I flip the bathroom light and the tile throws back a harsh, honest truth: blood on my face, flecks in my hair, a smear across my mouth I didn’t feel.

Lily’s breath catches. Not fear. Not exactly. It’s something softer and sharper at once—hurt that I needed to do this for her, fury that I ever had to.

“Did they?—”

“They won’t touch you again,” I say, and it’s a vow that tastes like an ending .

Her eyes shine. She steps into me, my brave little bird. “Then come back to me.”

The words split me. There’s no gentleness left to give. There’s only this savage need that feels like drowning and being dragged to shore at the same time.

I don’t give her time to think, to question, to breathe. My palm slams the shower knob, and water explodes cold before scalding hot, pouring down over us in a hissing torrent.

Blood runs in rivers down my chest, pooling at our feet, streaking her pale skin where I press her against me.

“Lincoln—” she starts, voice breaking.

“Don’t call me that,” I snarl against her mouth. My lips crash into hers, punishing, desperate, like I can devour every ounce of fear she has left. Her taste cuts through copper and rage, and I tear at her clothes until the fabric gives way in my fists. Wet cotton rips like paper.

She gasps, bare skin colliding with mine, hot water slicking every inch of her body. Her nipples pebble against my chest, and I groan into her mouth, my cock hard, aching, pressing into the seam of her thighs.

“You sent me away,” she whispers, breath ragged as her hands clutch my face, smeared in blood and water.

“So you wouldn’t see this,” I rasp, grinding into her until she whimpers. “But you’re gonna feel it. Every fucking bit of me.”

I lift her, her thighs locking tight around my waist. My cock slides against her drenched slit, heat scorching me even through the water. She claws at my shoulders, nails sinking deep, and I hiss, slamming her back against the tile.

“Titan—”

“Say it again.” My teeth graze her throat, biting down hard enough to bruise. “Say my name while I ruin you.”

“Titan,” she sobs, and it’s the only prayer I’ll ever believe in.

I line up, no hesitation, and slam into her in one brutal thrust. Her cry tears through the steam, her walls clenching around me so tight it borders on pain. My fingers dig bruises into her hips as I drive into her again, again, harder, until the sound of flesh and water echoes off the walls.

Her head knocks against the tile, water plastering her hair to her face. I bite her lip, blood mixing with the kiss, my tongue fucking her mouth while my cock pounds her open.

“You’re mine,” I growl, every thrust a vow. “Not his. Not anyone’s. Mine.”

Her cunt squeezes me like it agrees, like it’s starving for me, and I lose the last shred of control. I fuck her savagely, hips slamming, her cries turning to broken moans as the shower sprays red-tinged water down our bodies.

I drop my hand between us, fingers finding her clit, rubbing hard, ruthless. She jerks, cries out, nails carving red lines down my back. Her pussy clenches, choking me in heat, and I know she’s close.

“Come for me,” I snarl against her ear, pumping into her like I’m trying to drive her into the wall. “Drown with me.”

Her scream rips through the bathroom as she shatters, body convulsing, cunt milking me until I lose it. I bury myself deep, spilling into her with a roar, grinding hard, desperate to keep every drop inside.

The water hisses, steam rising, but all I feel is her trembling around me, her sobs against my throat. My arms lock tight around her, holding her like I’ll never let go.

I bite her shoulder, sucking bruises into her skin, staking my claim with teeth and come and rage.

And when the tremors fade, when her breathing evens against my chest, I finally whisper the only truth I have left.

“I killed them for you. I’ll kill the world for you. You’re mine, Lily. Only mine. Forever.”