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Shrugging, I step into the kitchen and place the massive tub onto the counter. Pulling the note from my pocket, I place it on the lid, making sure it’s perfectly centered before stepping back to admire my newest present.
Perfect. Much better than worms.
With a satisfied sigh, I go to leave the apartment, but something stops me just as I pass the door. I’ve never been in Lillith’s apartment without her here, without the fear she’ll wake and catch me watching her from the foot of her bed.
I’ve certainly never had the chance to go through her belongings. The compulsion is too strong to fight, and in a moment, I’m stepping past the threshold of her closet. I palm the silky fabrics and pause, savoring the way her floral perfume fills my senses. Like sweet magnolias in springtime. Visions of pure white blooms flood my mind as I close my eyes, leaning my head back and breathing in the nostalgia it brings. I used to wait months for the trees to bloom when I was little. I’d stare out the little triangle window in my father’s attic for hours, willing the brilliant petals to unfold before my eyes.
A swell of rage builds in my veins as I think back to how my father mowed down the row of trees for kindling during that one exceptionally cold winter. My hands weren’t large enough to wrap around his useless neck back then. Otherwise, I would have killed him much sooner than I actually did. The anger from that memory brings me crashing back to reality, and I tear a black crop top from its hanger with so much force it rips in two.
“Fuck,” I sigh, letting it slip from my fingers as I rifle through the rest of her wardrobe.
The small nightstand to the left of her bed holds her underwear, and I paw through the collection, shoving a few silky ones into my pocket. She may not know it yet, but she has a wild side to her. She just never had someone worthy of unlocking it.
I stalk over to the bathroom and pull open the door to her medicine cabinet, taking in the various potions and products she has stowed away. Now I know why she has to live in such a shithole—she spends all her fucking money on skincare and body wash.
I roll my eye as I close the mirror and reach down to the drawers, pulling them open with enough force to send their contents flying across the room. I groan, picking them off the floor and shoveling them haphazardly back into the drawer. With a sigh, I slam it closed and leave the small space, pulling up the tracking app on my phone as I stomp toward the exit. Lillith will be home soon, and I need to make sure I’m not here when she is.
I frown down at the screen, watching the tiny red blip move down the street away from the apartment building. That’s fucking odd. Lillith never goes anywhere after work. Something must have happened.
After slamming the door closed behind me, I rush down the steps and over to the alleyway where my bike is stashed. Throwing my leg over the side, I rev the engine and speed in the same direction as that red marker.
There’s only one way to find out what she’s up to.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LILLITH
I speed down the two-lane road with tears threatening to burst from my eyes. I should be heading home to get some sleep before my next shift, but for some reason, I turned the wheel in the opposite direction of my apartment when I left work.
My last case of the day sent me reeling, and for the first time, it wasn’t because something bad happened. My heart clenches as I think back to the little blond girl who came in with her parents. Compared to the usual drug addicts and trauma victims I tend to, the girl was the picture of health, minus a slight cough that hadn’t gone away for a few days.
The way her parents doted over her, held her close, and wiped her little tearstained cheeks… broke something in me. I couldn’t even force myself to be happy when all the tests showed it was just a cold. I was just… empty.
I drive for several minutes, so lost in my thoughts that I almost miss my turn. A pair of wrought-iron gates tower ominously at the entrance to Moriton Cemetery, and a shudder runs down my spine as I look through the mist shrouding the stone markers, expecting a pair of glowing eyes to be peering back through the dusk. Cemeteries are creepy enough in the daytime. Lord only knows what possessed me to visit my parents' gravesite at midnight.
Sighing, I park in the grass and hop out of the car, forcing my feet down the cobblestone walkway. Kicking off my clogs, I veer off the pathway to the left, feeling the satisfying crunch of dying grass between my toes as I make my way through the rows of cracked and weathered slabs. I stop in front of the patch of freshly planted white lilies, their vibrancy barely visible in the shadows.
“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad.” I smile sadly, reaching forward to run my fingertips over the names etched in the stone. “It’s been a while. I’m sorry about that.” One of the flowers crunches under my toe, and I reel back with a grimace.
“Sorry,” I mumble. I crouch down to the crushed plant, taking its delicate petals between my fingers and plucking it from the stem on impulse.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I whisper, fisting the broken flower and squeezing it in my palm until it’s practically unrecognizable. “I’m worried something is wrong with me, and I don’t have anyone to talk to about it,” I whisper, the tears falling freely from my eyes as I look back up toward my parents’ headstones. “Why aren’t you here? Why does life have to be this way?”
I sob into my hands as all of the emotion I’ve been suppressing this week starts to spill down my cheeks. All the confusion, all the anxiety from the past couple of days is suddenly too much to bear, and I wish someone was here to hold me. To stop me from falling apart.
Wiping the back of my hand over my eyes, I straighten up, blinking away the last of the tears as I berate myself for thinking such things. I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I’ve been doing it since I was sixteen, and a damn good job at it. How many other twenty-four-year-olds can say they’re interning at one of the best teaching hospitals in the country? None that I know of, and I got here all by my-damn-self. I should be proud. I should feel good.
Instead, I feel empty. Worthless.
“I’m so lonely,” I whisper, another wave of emotion taking all the air out of my lungs. “So fucking lonely.”
I never should have left my grandma’s cabin in Bumfuck, Georgia. I should have stayed there and rotted like everyone wanted me to. At least then, I’d have something other than a pigeon to talk to. Another silent sob wracks my body, and I curl my arms over my stomach.
A twig breaks somewhere off in the distance, snapping me clean out of my personal pity-fest. My eyes dart around wildly in the darkness, desperately searching for the cause of the noise. It was probably just a raccoon, right? I’ve seen them around here sometimes, creeping between the headstones like little furry bandits.
The hair on my neck rises with an inexplicable sensation of being watched, and I shoot my arm up, clutching onto my locket as I whip my head from side to side. I didn’t see any other cars when I pulled up, so unless someone waits in the shadows to axe-murder me, I must be going insane.
A nervous chuckle tumbles from my lips as the silence becomes stifling, and before I know what I’m doing, I leap to my feet and tear back in the direction of my car. Snatching up my discarded clogs, I sprint down the walkway, barely registering the pain as shards of gravel pierce my bare soles. No matter how many times I check over my shoulder, I can’t see anyone, and I’m left with nothing to explain the strange sensation that overcame me.
