Page 91 of Creeping Lily
We makethe drive back to the house in loaded silence. Even the soft hum of the radio starts to grate on her nerves, and after a few tense minutes, Lily reaches over and clicks it off. The quiet between us isn’t peaceful—it’s thick, taut, like a rope pulled to the point of snapping.
I pull into a drive-thru on the way, order without asking her what she wants, and pass her a bag of fries when they hand me the food. I catch the faintest twitch of her mouth as she bites into one, and I can’t help but smirk. Even drowning in anxiety, she hasn’t lost her appetite.
When we finally pull up to the mansion, she says, “I need to use the restroom.”
My eyes slide toward her across the console, slow and deliberate—a wordless warning. We both know what will happen if she tries another stunt.
“Down the hall, to the left,” I say as we step inside.
She disappears and comes back a few minutes later, settling at the small kitchen table with her food. Once, this table was surrounded by the chatter and laughter of hired staff. Now it’s just her chewing quietly, the occasional scrape of a chair leg against tile.
I stand at the window, burger in hand, phone pressed to my ear as I check my voicemails. Outside, the garden beds are the only thriving part of this decaying estate. The rest is shadows and echoing halls, walls heavy with stories—some say haunted. I don’t buy into that crap, but the place’s macabre reputation did get me a good deal. One of my better acquisitions.
“So… obviously you’ve planned this well,” she says when I finally take a seat across from her.
“Planned what?” I ask.
“My kidnapping. I’m obviously valuable to someone.”
I snort, and her glare sharpens.
“What?” she demands.
“Looks like your friend Bethany was right about one thing,” I say.
She’s practically vibrating with fury as she waits for me to elaborate.
“And what would that be?”
“You’re so daft if you can’t figure out why you’re here, Lily.”
“That’s me. Daft is my middle name!” she fires back, slamming her palm on the table hard enough to rattle it.
She pushes to her feet and stalks to the window, eyeing the frame like she’s calculating the climb.
“Don’t even think about it, Lily,” I warn, my voice low and sharp.
She whirls on me, eyes blazing with contempt. Perfect. I can work with contempt. Break it down. Bend it into something else.
“The sooner you understand there’s no way out unless I say so, the sooner you can be at peace.”
“Peace? Peace? Are you fucking crazy? No—don’t answer that. Of course you’re crazy. You’re stark raving mad if you think you can hold me here and I’ll just… play along. M-A-D!”
“I don’t think anything,” I say, my voice quiet but absolute.
Something in the way I say it stops her cold. Her words die in her throat, her anger wavering for just a heartbeat. Maybe it’s the calm certainty in my tone. Maybe it’s because, deep down, she knows I’m not bluffing.
“Why am I here?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper, and for the first time tonight, defeat creeps back into her eyes.
I lean back, meet her gaze without flinching. “Absolution, Lily. Absolution.”
I tellLily the truth about the house—it’s locked down tighter than Fort Knox. The walls aren’t just walls; they’re barriers designed to keep her in as much as they keep the outside world out. She finally believes me when I explain that if she so much as steps across the threshold without my say-so, an invisible alarm will trip, and the consequences won’t be pretty.
What she doesn’t realize is that I’ll take her any way I can get her. If I can’t have her whole and perfect—just as she is—then I’ll keep her sedated until she learns. Some people would call it monstrous, claim I’m no better than the predators I’ve hunted down and destroyed. But Lily… Lily is different. She’s the one flaw in my armor, my kryptonite. And I’ll be damned if I spend one more day without her.
I think back to earlier, to the exact moment her eyes went wide with horror as she watched me work—watched me end Sheila Shine. I had to cut the session short, finish the job fast, because I knew Lily would run. I wanted her to. I wanted the hunt, the rush of chasing her down, the satisfaction of catching her and showing her there’s no corner of this earth she can disappear into that I won’t find.
Now, she keeps her questions close to her chest. She used to be more relaxed around me before she saw me open a throat, but that’s the price of my line of work. I can win her back. It’ll take time, patience, maybe even a little charm—things I’m more than capable of when I want something badly enough. And I want her.
