Page 84 of Creeping Lily

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 angerand 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. Andthe 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, Irealize 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.

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