Page 64 of Creeping Lily
“You had your say,” I bite out. “Now leave, Bentley. Go back to your life, and let me lead mine in peace.
He doesn’t move. Instead, he closes the distance between us in a slow, deliberate step, like a predator advancing. He’s too close. Claustrophobically close. Close enough that his cologne—sharp, expensive, suffocating—mixes with the faint bitterness of coffee on his breath. My stomach lurches at the familiarity.
“You don’t get to walk away like this,” he says softly, but his voice is poison, slick and dangerous. “We’re not done.”
My laugh is sharp, humorless, choked in anger. “We were done years ago.”
His face tightens, but he presses forward anyway. “You think you can just—” His hand shoots out, fingers clamping down on my arm like a vice.
Big mistake.
I rip free with a violent twist, my heart hammering, fury spilling from every pore. My voice cracks the air, jagged and loud. “Don’t youdaretouch me.”
Two students walking past hesitate, their eyes darting between us, curiosity sharpening into unease. I see them pause, hover, unsure. And Bentley—oh, Bentley notices.
Like a man slipping into his favorite suit, he pulls his mask back on. He straightens, rolls his shoulders back, rearranges his face into something calmer. Smoother. Safe. His hand falls casually to his side as though he hadn’t just tried to get his claws into me.
“You’re making a scene,” he murmurs, his voice lower now, meant only for me.
I step forward, cutting through the distance, my voice sharpened to ice. “You think I care?” The venom burns as I spit it out. “You followed me. You grabbed me. And now you dare tell me I’m the one making a scene?”
His jaw clenches, a vein twitching beneath the surface. For a split second, the cracks appear—the mask slips. And there it is. That flash of temper I know too well. The darkness that lived just under his skin, the rage he never could quite leash. The same rage that left me bruised in places no one else could see.
And in that flicker, that heartbeat of truth, I remember exactly who Bentley Walker is. And why I’ll never trust him again.
“Leave me alone, Bentley.” My words scrape raw, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of my fear.
“Lily—” Bentley’s voice cuts through the air, low and heavy, chasing after me before I can take more than a step away from him. “You never asked me about Lincoln.”
The name detonates between us.
I freeze. It’s like the ground pitches beneath me, reality buckling. And Bentley smiles—not wide, not obvious. Just that quiet, poisonous curve of his lips. The kind of smile that says he’s already won.
His eyes glint, a predator’s patience masking itself as charm. He leans in just enough that his breath grazes my cheek, soft enough that anyone passing would think this was an intimate exchange instead of a battlefield.
The sentence hangs between us like smoke, choking the air. My body locks, hand curling into a fist so tight my nails bite my palm. He’s right—I never asked. I never dared. I built walls around Lincoln, high and silent, and I let them stand because some truths felt too jagged to touch.
But now? Now the cracks split wide, and curiosity crawls in like a parasite. I can’t stop it. Lincoln leaving me had been the deepest cut of all—the wound that festered, never scarred over. I told myself I was stronger for ignoring it. But Bentley’s voice rips that lie away.
I turn, slow as a noose tightening. My eyes lock on his. He wants me to hear this. Wants me to bleed for it.
“What about Lincoln?” My voice doesn’t shake, but my insides do. I’m bracing for a truth I can’t survive.
Bentley doesn’t blink. “He died in a house fire. A year after he left.”
The words slam into me. Too heavy. Too final. My mind scrambles, claws for purchase, but there’s nothing to hold onto. Just ash. Just silence.
Dead.
Lincoln.
Burned alive.
The thought coils in my chest, jagged and wrong. It can’t be real. I would’ve felt it—should’ve felt it—the instant his heart stopped. Some part of me should’ve shattered. Instead, there’s only this cavernous hollow where he should be. My grief doesn’t even know where to land, doesn’t know if it’s mourning him or the years I wasted hating him.
My throat constricts until every breath is a knife. “You should’ve told me.” The words scrape out of me, broken, raw.
Bentley’s face is stone. “Would it have changed anything?”
