Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
L ilia’s dreams were not of comforting landscapes or familiar faces, but of a darkness so thick it smothered her breath. The world around her was a blur. The lines between reality and nightmare were indistinguishable. The light from the hallway crept in under the door, casting long, wavering shadows across her bedroom. She stirred, half-conscious, when she heard the unmistakable sound of someone rummaging through her things. Her eyes fluttered open, groggy and disoriented. She tried to focus, but the world was a blur of dark shapes and muted colors.
“Hello?” she called out, her voice barely a whisper, thick with sleep and confusion.
A figure, silhouetted against the dim glow of the hallway light, turned to face her. It was Willow, but she looked different, not at all how she remembered her. Her hair was matted with blood, and deep gashes marred her face and forearms. Her clothes were torn and filthy, smeared with dirt and grime.
“Shh,” Willow hissed, raising a trembling finger to her lips. “He’s coming.”
Lilia’s heart shuttered. She could barely make out Willow’s features, but the fear in her eyes was unmistakable. The distance between them seemed to stretch into infinity, but she could see the terror etched into her face. Her body was trembling as she clutched at the edge of Lilia’s dresser.
“Willow.” Lilia’s voice broke as she struggled to sit up. “Is this real?”
Willow shook her head slowly. Her moments were almost mechanical. Her eyes were wide and distant, filled with a silent scream.
“Who killed you, Willow?”
“You’re looking in all the wrong places, Lilia,” Willow replied, her voice echoing, as if the walls themselves were whispering to her.
Lilia’s mind spun, her heart pounded against her ribcage, her pulse seeming to reverberate against her ears. “You have to help us. We’re going to go to jail for this, Willow. You have to tell me who killed you.”
The wooden floor creaked ominously, and Willow wailed, a haunting sound that seemed to vibrate through the walls.
“Willow, what’s happening?” Lilia stumbled forward, her feet unsteady beneath her.
“He’s coming,” Willow whimpered, retreating further into the shadows. “He’s going to kill me. You have to help me.”
“Who, Willow? Who’s going to kill you?” Lilia’s voice trembled with desperation.
The floor creaked again, louder this time, and from the darkness emerged a figure—a man dressed in black, his face obscured, moving closer to Willow with slow, deliberate steps.
“You’re looking in all the wrong places. You can’t trust anyone. Nothing is as it seems, Lilia.” Willow shook her head. “Help me!” she begged, her voice rising as the man inched closer.
“I can’t—I don’t know what to do!” she cried, her hands reaching out for Willow, but finding only air.
“He’s coming, I have to go.” Willow’s voice broke.
“Willow? Willow, wait?—”
But before she could finish, the darkness swallowed Willow, leaving Lilia alone in the suffocating silence.
Lilia’s eyes snapped open, her heart hammering in her chest. She gasped for air, disoriented and drenched in a cold sweat. Her surroundings blurred and then slowly came into focus. The darkened library, the scattered books across the table, and the heavy quiet that hung in the air.
She ran a trembling hand down her face, trying to shake off the lingering dread. Gathering her things, she hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and made her way toward the exit, the huge double doors creaking open as she stepped out into the dark autumn night.
The leaves crunched under her feet as she walked off campus, the chill of the winter creeping in. Her mind raced with fragments of the dream, her thoughts too tangled to make sense of anything. The walk home was short, the streets nearly empty, and soon she found herself fumbling with her keys at her front door.
The house was dark, except for the soft overhead light from the kitchen. A package lay on the doorstep and she sighed, bending down to grab it, the weight of the day pressing down on her shoulders.
Inside, the silence was thick, the kind that made every little sound amplified. She set the package down on the counter, her mind still buzzing from the remnants of the dream as she dropped her bag to the floor and shrugged her jacket off.
With a deep breath, she flicked the kitchen light on and rummaged through a drawer for scissors. The blades sliced through the tape with a sharp sound that echoed in the stillness. As she peeled back the bubble wrap, a faint, pungent smell wafted up, making her pause. Her hands stilled on the box, and dread pooled in her stomach.
When she finally pulled back the last layer of wrapping paper, a scream tore through her throat.
Her hands shook violently as she stumbled backward, her breaths coming out in ragged bursts. Her eyes squeezed shut, but the image was seared into her mind—the contents of the box, so horrifying, so wrong. She scrambled across the floor, her hands desperately reaching for her bag, her hands trembling as she searched for her phone.
She was about to dial 911 when a message pinged on her screen, the sharp sound like a punch to her gut.
“No,” she whimpered. “Please no.”
Her breath hitched as she opened the message.
Unknown : Need a hand? I figured you could use some help. Cops in this town are shady business—just ask Detective McCall.
Lilia shook her head, her breath hitching in panic. A photo was embedded in the message—a grainy image of Detective McCall and Willow on the night she disappeared.
Her world tilted, and the floor seemed to drop out from under her as she stared at the screen in horror.
Her fingers trembled as she stared at the message. The image of Willow and Detective McCall burned into her mind. Her pulse thundered in her ears, and the room seemed to spin on its axis; she swallowed hard, forcing herself to take a steadying breath, but it did little to calm her.
She needed to talk to someone, anyone, who could make sense of this. Her mind immediately went to Augustus. He’d know what to do, he always knew what to do. With shaky hands, she found his contact.
It felt like an eternity before he picked up.
“Gus,” she whimpered.
“Lilia? What’s going on?”
“Gus,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I need you. I-I need you to come over. It’s . . . it’s bad. Bad.”
“Lilia, I need you to slow down. Breathe, okay?” She could hear the sound of his car door opening. “Talk to me, baby. What happened?”
She can hardly even think about the slip up.
“I got a package. And there’s . . . there’s something in it. It smells funny, like . . . death?” Her words were tumbling out now, frantic and breathless. “There’s something inside.”
There was a pause on the other end, heavy with tension. “I’m on my way. Don’t touch anything. Just sit tight.”
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Okay. Please hurry, Gus.”
The line went dead, leaving Lilia alone with the oppressive silence of the house. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to ward off the cold that seemed to seep into her bones. Her gaze flickered back to the box on the counter, and she shook her head.
What felt like hours passed, but it was only minutes before she heard a car pull up outside, followed by the hurried sound of footsteps. The door burst open, and Augustus rushed in, his eyes scanning the room until they landed on her.
“Lilia,” he said, his voice dripping with relief as he crossed the room to her. His hands cupped her cheeks, the pads of his thumb wiping tears from her face. “Are you okay?” His eyes traveled across her face. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, unable to form the words. Instead, she pointed toward the counter, where the box sat, its context partially visible through the torn bubble wrap.
Augustus’ expression darkened as he moved toward it. He carefully pulled back the remaining layers of wrapping, and his face hardened when he saw what lay inside—a severed hand, cold and lifeless, the skin pale and mottled.
“Jesus Christ,” Augustus muttered under his breath, his stomach turning. He quickly covered it back up before turning back to Lilia, who was now sitting on the floor with her knees pulled to her chest, her eyes brimming with fear.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked. “Who would do this?”
Lilia didn’t answer, because she didn’t have a single one. Augustus crouched in front of her, his hands squeezing her shoulders softly, before running up and down her arms in an attempt to offer some comfort.
“We need to call the police,” he said softly. “They need to know about this.”
“No.” Lilia shook her head, shaking her head. “We can’t. I got a message, something about the cops being shady. And then, they sent me this.” She held up her phone.
“Is that . . . ”
“McCall and Willow. Yeah.” Lilia gulped.
Augustus’ jaw clenched. “We’ll handle this ourselves. But we can’t stay here. Whoever sent this could come back.”
She looked up at him. “What are we going to do?”
“We’ll figure it out,” he assured her. “We’ll go to my place for now. Get out of here, somewhere safe.”
Lilia was too tired to argue. Augustus helped her to her feet, keeping his arm around her as they quickly gathered what she needed. The night felt colder, the shadows darker as they stepped outside, the weight of what they had just seen pressing heavily on them.
As they drove away from the house, the world outside seemed distorted and unreal. Her mind kept going back to the dream, the man in the shadows.
She wondered what it meant—if it meant anything.
She couldn’t figure out what was real anymore, what was imagined—fabricated.
“Are you cold?” Augustus asked, as took the curve.
She sniffled, her knees touching the dash as she moved lower into the seat, “No,” she murmured.
Augustus turned the heat up, regardless.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“Mhm.”
The trees blurred, molding in shape and color as they sped down the road.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
“You only had to ask. You know that.”
She did know; she always knew.
He slowed at the stop light, the car’s engine purring softly abaft the silence. His head leaned back against the headrest, and he inclined to look at her.
“You look exhausted,” he commented. The bags under her eyes were noticeable even in the darkness.
She snorted. “Gee, thanks.”
“You know that I didn’t mean it like that, Lils.”
“Go.” She nodded toward the now green light.
He embedded forward, sighing. “Don’t shut me out. I know that was a lot but—you can talk to me.”
She shook her head. “I lost that ability a long time ago.” The words leave her mouth before she can stop them.
He sniffed, his hand flexing against the steering wheel. The familiar tick of his jaw made her clench her eyes shut. She didn’t have time for this argument.
“You know for someone who doesn’t want to talk about it—you bring it up quite a lot.”
“Must be the crippling guilt,” she responded dryly.
“Willow, and I weren’t together then. We had broken up. We didn’t do anything wrong that night.”
“I slept with my best friend’s boyfriend—I think that’s about as low as you can go on the asshole meter.”
“We were broken up,” Augustus retorted.
“And then you got back together with her weeks later. So obviously it meant nothing to you, anyway,” Lilia shot back, her eyes trained outside her window.
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to,” she muttered.
“I had no choice. You know that; her dad had started his reelection campaign. If he hadn’t, we would have never gotten back together. But then he announced that he was running again—I didn’t have a choice.”
“We all have choices, Gus. You made yours, and it wasn’t me. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter, anyway. You’ll always be hers—that’s just how it’s always going to be.”
“I would’ve chosen you if I could. You know that. Willow knew that. But I didn’t have a choice. Our entire lives have been planned out for us since birth. The colleges we’d go to, the jobs we would work. I’ve had a plan crafted since before I was born. It was going to be Willow whether I liked it or not.”
Lilia swallowed thickly. She knew he was right.
This was their life; picked and thumbed through like magazines until they were customized to perfection.
The Montgomerys and Clarks were close-knit families, empires, dynasties. Their ties went back decades.
Willow and Augustus were always going to be together. That wasn’t a choice, it was a fact.
“But that doesn’t change how I feel about you; how I’ve always felt about you.”
“Stop, please. It’s been a long night.” Lilia brushed her bangs out of her face, sighing. “I just need to sleep.”
His brownstone came into view.
A silence settled between them. So many things they had wanted to say, but couldn’t—it wouldn’t matter.
“There are sheets on the guest bed,” he said, putting the car into park. “There should be some of your old clothes still in the dresser.”
Lilia nodded, unbuckling. “Thanks.”
The walk up was dreadful, tension was palpable and there was a lingering scent of despair following them.
Augustus dropped his keys on the counter, his hand dragging down his face as a deepened sigh escaped his lips. He shook his head like it would free him from the fatigue. He snagged a wine glass from the sink, and looked over at her. “Would you like a glass?”
“I think I’ll just head to bed.”
His shoulders deflated. “Right.”
“Goodnight, Gus.”
But she didn’t move.
They just stared at each other.
“Goodnight,” he replied.
She took in the freckles that peppered his cheeks, the soft frown lines on either side of his lips—his red, plump lips. There was a crease in his forehead from how much he furrowed his brow, and the specks of gold in his irises made her heart skip. And she wished that he was hers. That he belonged to her solely, but there were pieces of Willow everywhere, splintered into his heart, into his life and she feared there will never be room for her. Ever.
And she saw that look in his eyes that told her everything that she’d always known and feared.
“Lilia . . . ” he started.
“I know.” She nodded, once and then again.
God, she knew.
But he wasn’t hers.
And he never would be.
Willow Montgomery lived on in each of them, a ghost that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Never leaving, never wavering—a demon of the past that had ruined them forever.