Page 9 of Darkness and Deceit
“Okay. Thanks.” She turns, then hesitates. “Is this about Lilith? The first-year you’ve been mentoring?”
Before I can answer, Vaughn cuts in.
“No,” he snaps, blowing smoke like a wall between us. “It’s not about her. But it’s definitely about a lot of other bullshit. Now go.”
Hannah blinks, clearly thrown, but she listens and leaves without another word.
I exhale and shoot Vaughn a look. “You’re a real people person, you know that?”
“Mm,” he hums. “You’re welcome.”
He lights yet another cigarette. But I don’t bother calling him out on it.
“You know,” I murmur, “you’re not fooling anyone, Vaughn. You care. Maybe more than you want to.”
Vaughn’s jaw tightens, his eyes flicking to the sealed interrogation room. “Don’t pretend you’re not thinking the same thing.”
I don’t answer. Because I am.
Finally,the door opens after what feels like forever, and Lilith steps out. If I calculated right, she’s been in there for three and a half hours—and it shows. She looks absolutely drained, like she’s two seconds from punching one of the Keepers in the face.
Her black hair, streaked with faint purple, is twisted into a messy ponytail, and her gray eyes with that violet shimmer look completely done with everything.
Even her shoulders, usually squared with stubborn pride, are slumped. Not in weakness, but in something that looks a hell of a lot like quiet devastation. Just enough to make my stomach twist.
Her eyes find us almost immediately. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t smile. But something flickers across her face—recognition, maybe. Relief. Then it’s gone, swallowed by exhaustion as she drifts toward us on autopilot.
We fall into step beside her, like we’ve always belonged there.
No one speaks—not until the stone corridor curves us out of Keeper earshot.
Then Lilith halts so suddenly I nearly walk into her. She turns on us with an expression I’ve never seen before: raw, exposed, like someone’s scraped her defenses down to the nerve.
Her gaze moves over me and Vaughn, quiet and searching.
“They dug into my mind,” she says. “Literally. Without warning. They just... tore through everything I had. My memories, my thoughts like it was their right. Like I was a door they could kick open and walk through without wiping their feet.”
The words slam into my chest, leave something hollow in their wake. My fists clench at my sides.
“They didn’t ask?” Vaughn demands, voice low and razor-edged.
Lilith shakes her head, a bitter laugh catching in her throat. “They didn’t evenpause.Just went rifling through my entire life like it belonged to them. I could feel them—feel them—tearing things open.”
She’s trembling now, jaw tight, eyes glassy with fury. “It didn’t feel like magic. It felt likeviolence.Like being held down and unmade from the inside out.”
I take a step toward her, helpless against the surge of protectiveness rising up in me. Every instinct screams to close the distance, to offer her something solid to lean on, to prove she’s not alone in this.
But I stop myself. Her shoulders are squared, spine stiff, like she’s holding herself together by sheer will. One wrong move and she might either shatter or snap. And I won’t be the reason she falls apart.
So I stay where I am.
Close. But not touching.
Not yet.
Vaughn explodes. “Fuckingbastards.” He storms a few feet away, rakes his hands through his hair, then pivots back, wild-eyed and pacing like he might combust. His fingers twitch toward his lighter, but he fists his hands instead.
He’s never been good with pain—not his own, not anyone’s—and Lilith’s hits him harder than most. Not sure if that’s how she sees it. But I know him well enough to recognize it.
