10. Lilith
CHAPTER TEN
I was dead.
Not metaphorically, not dramatically—actually, fully, indisputably deceased.
My skull throbbed, my stomach was one wrong move away from emptying itself onto the sheets, and my mouth was so dry it could be legally classified as a desert.
Molly’s twenty-eighth birthday. Right. That’s how I’d ended up like this. I’d been dragged out to some overcrowded, neon-lit bar with a pack of her cousins. It wasn’t my thing. At all. Too many bodies, too much noise, too much everything.
But somewhere in the haze, the sharp, stinging burn of the tequila had melted into a slow, syrupy warmth, smoothing out the edges of my discomfort, turning everything easy and reckless.
“We are so getting laid tonight!” she’d screamed over the music before disappearing. Only to reappear with some guy whose face I could barely picture. Did I even remember his name? Austin? Adam? Aaron? Whatever. It didn’t matter.
All I knew was that I’d been drunk and my inhibitions had disappeared further into the abyss with every shot I’d downed.
We’d danced. We’d kissed.
Shit. I was going to go home with him.
But then— poof. Gone.
Molly’s guy had been pissed about having to wait around with us, so he’d disappeared into the night too, leaving us standing there in the freezing cold, confused and sobering up.
I cracked one eye open, immediately regretted it, and groaned, dragging my pillow over my face in the hope it would somehow shield me from the consequences of my own actions.
Beside me, Molly made a noise that was somewhere between a cry and a death rattle. “I think I’m dying,” she mumbled into the mattress.
“Same,” I croaked, voice shredded, throat raw from either too much alcohol or too much yelling over club music.
Probably both.
There was a long, heavy silence, the kind that only existed between two idiots who had massively overestimated their ability to drink and were now paying for it in full.
She groaned beside me. “You sad you’re waking up to me?”
I let out a rough breath and shifted enough to confirm that, yep, every single part of my body hurt. “Devastated,” I rasped. “This is actually my worse nightmare.”
“Kick me while I’m down, why don’t you?”
“You’re not my type.”
She peeked at me from under her arm. “Not even a little disappointed that Alvin—or whatever the hell his name was—didn’t come through?”
I let out a slow, pained laugh, rubbing my temples. “Not even a little. Solid 97% chance it would’ve been terrible—he’d have said the wrong name, made a really weird face when he came, or cried afterward.”
She gagged, burrowing deeper into the blankets. “No. Don’t put that image in my head. I’m already dying.”
“Too late.” I stretched my legs out, trying to pretend like I hadn’t very clearly been hit by a truck.
The chime of the doorbell echoed through the house.
She lifted her head up enough to squint at me. “You expecting someone?”
A small prickle of unease crawled up my spine. “Nope.”
“What kind of psychopath shows up unannounced this early?”
I didn’t answer, I was already reaching for my phone, opening up the app for my doorbell camera, waiting for the grainy image to load.
Nothing. No one. Just the empty front porch.
Of course. Perfect. Exactly what I needed.
It had been a week since I’d—in no uncertain terms—told him to fuck off and leave me alone.
He hadn’t come knocking again. But the gifts hadn’t stopped, and I was sick to death of it.
The sheer audacity . He was the one who had told me not to crawl back to him.
And yet, here he was, still sending his manipulative, guilt-trippy bullshit.
Like I was supposed to forget anything. I didn’t understand it at all.
“I’ve got it,” she muttered, shoving herself upright and swinging her legs off the bed, knees buckling the second her feet hit the floor.
“Yeah, you look real stable there.”
She scoffed and shot me the middle finger before wobbling downstairs, then stumbled back in a few minutes later looking half-dead, and dumped two tote bags onto the bed.
The scent of warm, greasy, God-tier breakfast food seeped into the air like some cruel, manipulative gift from the devil himself .
She collapsed down beside me, rubbing her temples. “Clark?”
I didn’t even need to answer.
She let out a long groan but still opened up one of the bags.
Fresh bagels, still warm. Egg sandwiches wrapped in brown paper.
Perfectly golden hash browns. Croissants flaking apart at the edges.
Even freshly squeezed orange juice, because apparently being a manipulative piece of shit required attention to detail.
She pulled out a slip of paper that was tucked neatly in the bag and passed it to me.
‘ My head was swimming, my limbs were leaden, my lips parched. In other words, I was in that painful condition which, I am given to understand, is sometimes called a ‘hangover’’’ - Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat.
I stared down at the paper, then at the heart attack waiting to happen, then at Molly.
My stomach dropped. This wasn’t just another gift.
This meant he knew that I’d been out, and he knew that Molly was here.
Which meant he was watching. She must have had the same realisation, because she sat back, arms crossed, brows furrowed.
“How though?” she muttered. “I have him blocked. He couldn’t have seen anything. And you blocked him, right?”
I nodded, jaw clenching.
“So how does he know?” she asked.
The air in the room shifted, and not just because it was thick with the hot, stuffy mess of a hangover. It was heavier now, denser, like I could physically smell the gaslighting baked into the grease and pastry.
“Are we throwing it or are we eating it?” she asked, nudging my knee.
My stomach answered for me with a loud, humiliating growl.
She snorted. “Same.”
And then we dug in. Because fuck Clark. Fuck his mind games and his bullshit, and whatever weird, obsessive fantasy he thought he was creating.
Because this bagel?
This bagel was fucking delicious.
And if he was going to be a creepy, obsessive piece of shit, the least he could do was fund my breakfast. He wanted me to see this as thoughtful. As caring. But his control, his little game, had its limits.
And I could use that.
The thought had slithered in, slow and quiet, settling itself somewhere in the back of my mind days ago.
Small at first, just a flicker, a tiny spark, an idea I hadn’t fully let myself touch, because I wasn’t stupid.
I knew what Clark wanted. I knew how his mind worked, how he expected me to react, how he was waiting for me to cave and acknowledge him.
I thought I’d won. But it hadn’t stopped. The game just shifted. He didn’t need to scream his presence anymore. He just wanted me to feel it .
Molly must have caught the shift in my expression. “Okay. What’s going on in there?”
I shrugged, still chewing.
“Uh-uh.” She pointed at me. “That’s your scheming look.”
I swallowed, leaning back against the headboard. “I don’t have a scheming look.”
“You do.”
I rolled my eyes, reaching for a hash brown. “It’s nothing.”
She wasn’t buying it. “Don’t make me drag it out of you, Lils. You know I will.”
I let the silence stretch, taking my time with the next bite of crispy, potatoey goodness before leaning in slightly.
“Fine,” I murmured. “But you can’t laugh.”
“Oh, for the love of God, Lilith. I can’t do this anymore.” Molly groaned, flopping back against the couch like a damsel in distress. “I’m tapping out. This is torture .”
The flickering light from the TV was the only thing illuminating the room. On the coffee table, two pizza boxes sat among half-eaten bags of popcorn, a scattered deck of cards, and Molly’s abandoned wine glass.
“Molly, it’s witching hour. You can’t leave now,” I whispered. “If we stop here, something bad is bound to happen.”
Her head lolled toward me, eyes narrowing. “Why do you sound like you’re narrating a horror movie?”
“First of all,” I said, holding up a finger. “Witching hour is real, and we don’t mess with that energy. Second of all, I’m serious. If we stop now, we’re basically inviting death and destruction into our lives.”
She sat up, hair sticking out in every direction. “We’ve watched four rom-coms in a row, and not the fun ones—If I have to watch one more emotionally repressed British man confess his love at the last possible second, I’m gonna combust.”
“We agreed to stay up. This is staying up, “I sighed. My eyelids had been replaced with bricks and my knees popped loudly as I stretched my legs out. “If anything’s going to happen, it’ll be soon. This is prime creepy stalker activity time.”
“You seriously think he’d show up now?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t actually know what time he’s been doing all of this. It varies. But this is textbook Clark behaviour. The dead of night, weird vibes, the kind of time you’d regret not locking your doors.”
“If I go missing because of this, will you please use a hot picture of me for the press? ”
“Sure thing,” I said, ruffling her hair as I pushed up from the couch, dodging her half-hearted swat. “Come on, emergency caffeine time.”
We shuffled into the kitchen, feet dragging against the floor.
Molly slumped against the counter like she physically couldn’t hold herself up, yawning so hard her jaw cracked. “Do we even remember how to make coffee at this hour?”
“Push the buttons, pray for magic,” I replied, grabbing two mugs and jabbing at the machine until it spluttered to life. The hum and gurgle of it working almost made me emotional.
Molly rummaged through the fridge, emerging with the carton of oat milk. “I don’t know why you drink this stuff. Real milk exists, you know.”
I shot her a pointed look. “Molly, I want to spend tonight catching Clark. Not actively shitting my pants because I’ve decided to ignore my lactose intolerance.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You eat cheese though?”
“Some things are worth the pain,” I said with a shrug.