Lilia’s throat tightened, at the mention of her father cutting through her like a knife. He had been the one who balanced out her mother’s strictness, who had encouraged her to find her path. But he was gone, and now it was just the two of them, trying to make sense of a world that felt increasingly hostile.
“My friend is dead, Mom,” Lilia said finally, her voice barely audible.
“And most of this town assumes you, and your so-called friends, had something to do with it,” Mai pointed out. “This the second time in a single day that you’ve been called down to the police station, and this time it was in handcuffs, Liliana. You need to stop this.”
“Yes, Mother,” she whispered.
“You should head up to your room.” Her mother nodded toward the stairwell, her tone final but the worry in her eyes didn’t fade. “It’s late,” she said softly. She turned her back to the sink, her movements slower now, as if the conversation had drained the last of her energy.
Lilia stood for a moment, the weight of her mother’s expectations pressing down on her. She wanted to say more, to offer some reassurance, but the words wouldn’t come. The distance between them felt like an insurmountable chasm, one that had only grown wider since her father’s death.
“Before you go up,” her mother said as she turned to leave, “a letter came for you today.”
She frowned, confused. “A letter?”
Her mother nodded, pointing to the envelope on the table. “There’s no return address though, just your name.”
Lilia picked up the envelope, her thumb running along the slightly torn edge. She shot her mother a glance, but there was no recognition in her eyes. With a quiet, “Thanks,” she headed up the stairs to her room.
Once inside, Lilia closed the door and sat on her bed, the envelope resting on her lap. Her room was the one place in the house that felt like her own—a mix of old books, art supplies, and mementos from a life she sometimes struggled to reconcile with the one her mother wanted for her. Taking a deep breath, she tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter inside. The handwriting was neat but unfamiliar, the words carefully chosen, each dripping with malice.
DO YOU THINK YOU CAN KEEP THIS QUIET? JACOB’S BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS. CONFESS, OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.
The letter dropped from her trembling hands.
The text was bad, but this—this was so much worse. They were screwed. Someone knew what they had done. Someone knew that they had killed someone.
Lilia: We need to meet. Park. Now.
She didn’t bother waiting for their responses. She knew that they would come. They always did.
She grabbed her coat from the back of her desk chair and bounded out of her bedroom. The door reverberated against the frame, and her footsteps echoed loudly among the empty home. She ignored her mother’s angered shouts and rushed out of the front door.
The cool air nipped at her skin but she didn’t care. The black dress she had worn to the funeral clung to her legs, but she just ran. She ran and ran. The threat from the letter was hangingover her like a guillotine. But she kept running until the vacated park came into view.
It didn’t take the others long to show up, Augustus arriving first—his home the closest to the park next to her own. He took in her disheveled form, the slight redness and flush of her cheeks with a frown. “What happened?”
“Someone sent me a letter. Someone knows what we did to him—to Jacob, that we killed him,” she rushed out. “We are screwed, Gus. We are beyond screwed.”
“No, okay. We’re going to be fine,” Augustus attempted to reassure her.
“This”—she held the crumbled letter up—“is far from fine. We’re going to jail. We need to tell someone.”
“What’s going on?” Sebastian asked.
“Someone knows.” Lilia thrust the paper at him.
“Where did you find this? Do you know who sent this to you?” Sebastian turned the letter over. “There’s no return address.”
“My mom said that there wasn’t one. I suppose whoever sent it would rather stay anonymous, don’t you think?”
“But why, if they already know what we did? Why not just go to the police? Why not just rat us out?” Augustus questioned. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe they’re trying to punish us.” Lilia lowered to the bench behind her.
She had once loved coming here to this park. The turning leaves and the waning moon overhead had once been peaceful. Now all she could think about was the circumstances that she seemed to find himself in as of late; the pressure to perform—to be happy and place a smile on her face.
“We need to find out who’s doing this,” she said. “It could be the person who killed Willow. Maybe getting revenge for uskilling Jacob. If we figure out who is sending the texts, we might be able to find out who did this. We can end this.”
