Chapter 2 - RUN, LILY
Hours before reaching Nathan’s mansion, Lily Carter had been walking through the worst storm Washington had seen all winter.
Wind screamed through the pine trees. Snow erased the road beyond a few feet. Lily could no longer see the sky, the woods, or the house she had escaped.
There was only white.
The weight of the twins.
And the directions her mother had forced into her memory.
A large house on the mountain.
Walls made of glass.
Lights bright enough to see through a storm.
Find Uncle Nathan.
Run, Lily.
Do not look back.
She had looked back once.
Through the open kitchen door, Lily saw her mother lying on the white tile. Sarah’s blond hair spread across the floor while a dark mark grew beneath her temple.
Marcus Kane stood over her with a broken bottle in his hand.
Lily had seen monsters in books.
None had looked as frightening as her father did that night.
Sarah turned her head and found her daughter with what little strength she had left.
“Baby, get your brothers.”
Lily could barely hear her over the storm striking the windows.
“The paper is in your coat. Take the bracelet. Find Nathan.”
“What about you?”
Sarah’s face folded.
“I’ll come after you.”
Even at five, Lily understood that adults sometimes made promises because children needed enough hope to move.
She climbed into the twins’ crib and wrapped Owen and Ethan inside the only blanket she could reach. She pushed her feet into shoes near the back door, but one disappeared in the first snowdrift and the other came off near the road.
She kept walking barefoot because stopping meant her brothers might die.
Owen made small sounds beneath the blanket.
Ethan had been quiet for too long.
“Don’t sleep,” Lily begged. “We’re almost there.”
She did not know whether that was true.
The paper inside her coat was wet and nearly destroyed, but Sarah had taught her the shapes of three lines:
Dr. Nathan Pierce.
Cascade Ridge Estate.
Washington.
Lily did not know what an estate was.
She knew what light looked like.
Through the storm, a golden glow appeared above the mountain road. Iron gates emerged from the snow, followed by a long driveway leading toward a mansion that looked like fire trapped behind glass.
“See?” Lily whispered to her brothers. “Mommy was right.”
Her knees buckled twice on the driveway.
Each time, she twisted so the babies landed on her instead of the frozen ground.
At the front steps, Lily could no longer stand.
So she crawled.
One hand.
One knee.
Drag the blanket.
Breathe.
When she reached the door, she knocked once.
The storm swallowed the sound.
May you like
She knocked again.
Then the cold told her to sleep.
