Page 69 of The Reckoning
TWENTY
LILIAN
The night air hits my face like a slap, cold and clarifying after the suffocating tension inside. I grip the railing, metal biting into my palms, and just try to breathe. In, out. In, out. The way the doctor taught me during panic attacks, though this isn’t quite that. This is something else—a pressure building inside my chest, a feeling of being pulled in too many directions at once.
Below me, the campus stretches out in carefully manicured lawns and winding paths. Students move between buildings, their laughter floating up to me, oblivious to the drama unfolding above them. God, I envy their normal problems—tests to study for, relationships to navigate, and futures to plan. Not life-and-death medical procedures, not twins locked in some eternal revenge cycle, not mysterious backers with cryptic warnings.
Just normal college bullshit. Bullshit I would have killed to be a part of only a few short months ago.
I tilt my head back, searching for stars through the light pollution. Finding constellations used to calm me as a kid—connect the dots, find the pattern, make sense of randompoints of light. But there’s no pattern to this mess I’m in. No constellation to guide me home.
Home. What a joke. I don’t even know where that is anymore. The mansion certainly isn’t—it never was, really. Just a gilded cage my mother built around me. The warehouse isn’t home either, just a temporary shelter in the storm. And this place, this college campus where I’ve spent the last three months pretending to be normal? It feels like someone else’s life now.
I’m caught in a web, each strand pulling me in a different direction until I’m stretched so thin I might snap.
The door opens behind me, and I know without looking who it is. Arson moves differently than his brother—more fluid, more predatory. Even their footsteps sound different to me now.
“You okay?” he asks, keeping his distance and giving me space.
“Peachy,” I reply, not turning around. “Just needed some air.”
He moves closer, coming to stand beside me at the railing. Not touching, but close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body.
“It’s a lot,” he says, voice uncharacteristically gentle. “All of them in there, the planning, the tension.”
“Yeah.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “‘A lot’ doesn’t begin to cover it.”
We stand in silence for a moment, watching the campus below. It’s almost peaceful, almost normal. Almost.
“I’ve never had many people in my life,” Arson says suddenly. “The facility wasn’t big on socialization.”
The admission catches me off guard. Arson doesn’t talk about the Facility willingly. He doesn’t share personal details unless pushed.
“Makes sense,” I say, not sure where he’s going with this.
“What I’m trying to say is...” He hesitates, searching for words. “I understand being overwhelmed by people. By their expectations, their demands. Their constant fucking talking.”
That pulls a genuine laugh from me, small but real. “Yeah. The constant fucking talking.”
“We don’t have to go back in there,” he offers. “We could leave. Find somewhere quiet to regroup.”
“Where else would we go?” I ask, turning to look at him finally. “Back to the warehouse? Another hotel? We’re running out of places to hide, Arson.”
“We could leave town,” he suggests, and I can tell by his expression that he’s only half joking. “Start over somewhere new. Somewhere without Hayes baggage.”
For a brief, wild moment, I let myself imagine it. Just walking away from all of this—the medical mystery, the family secrets, the revenge plots. Starting fresh somewhere no one knows the name Hayes or Harlowe. Somewhere I’m just Lilian and not the fragile daughter or the pawn in someone else’s game.
It’s a beautiful fantasy, but that’s all it is.
“You know we can’t,” I say softly. “Whatever my mother’s planning, whatever these backers want—it doesn’t go away just because we do.”
“Worth a shot.” He shrugs, the casual gesture belied by the intensity in his eyes.
I study his face—so identical to Aries’s in features yet so different in expression. Aries wears his emotions more openly, even if they are often lies, raw and unfiltered, while Arson keeps his locked down and controlled. Except when he doesn’t. Except in rare moments like this, when he lets me see beyond the mask.
“Thank you,” I say, surprising myself with the words. “For offering.”
He looks almost embarrassed, turning back to the view. “Just an option. Not a good one, probably.”
