Page 43 of Twilight Mask

This was going to happen sooner or later. My tenuous grip on reality was shaky at best, and now it’s totally gone.

“I’m hallucinating,” I say, thinking maybe if I admit it out loud, that’ll snap me out of it, like telling myself to wake up during a dream.

“No, you’re not.” He comes toward me.

I brandish the chisel at him. “You can’t actually be here. There’s no way.”

“There’s always a way.”

I try to stab him. I figure, if I do something drastic, it’ll break the illusion and I’ll find myself lying on the floor passed out from dust inhalation or something. Instead, my hallucination catches my wrist with a grunt and yanks me off balance. I try to punch him, but he turns his shoulder and lifts me, throwing me down onto my back, and cradling my head to keep it from bumping off the floor.

I land with a gasp as the chisel clatters from my fingers.

His other hand brushes my cheek.

“You’re not hallucinating,” he says gently. “And please don’t try to stab me anymore.”

I blink up at him. My brain starts to catch up with reality. “You’re really here?”

“I’m really here.” He releases me and helps me to sit up. I rub my shoulder and gape, trying to come to grips with what I’m seeing.

Jackal is in my house. He snuck past the guards, the snipers, and the electronic surveillance system, and now he’s here, in my basement, in my workshop. I’m a dusty, ugly mess, sweaty from working for hours, and he’s looking right at me.

I probably smell bad.

This can’t really be happening.

But if he were a hallucination, there’s no way my own mind would let me miss killing him twice.

“How?” is all I can think to ask.

“Set off a distraction. I rigged the alarm in one of the houses furthest from here to go off, and I sent a drone to start shooting at it for good measure. That pulled the guards away.”

I rub my face and realize my hands are trembling. “I could’ve killed you.”

“I think if you actually wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have missed.” The humor in his tone is unmissable, and suddenly I wish I could see the expression on his face. Instead, it’s the usual impassive jackal face staring at me with only a pair of light gray-blue eyes visible through the slits.

“You realize what’ll happen if they catch you here?”

“Then we better make sure they don’t.”

I groan and push myself to my feet. I pace away, caught between raw excitement and fear.

Up until this point, the game was fun. I liked the mystery and the danger, but most of all I liked that it was taking place outside of my usual world. I could go to Jackal, push my boundaries, and still have my home to return to in the end. This place is my sanctuary.

Except now, for the first time ever, a man is standing in my basement. At least, a man who I’m not related to.

“This is beautiful, you know.” Jackal stands over my sculpture and runs a hand down the raw edge.

“It’s not finished.” I resist the urge to tell him to stop. “I don’t usually show people unfinished pieces.”

“I’ll close my eyes if you want.”

“I mean—” I realize he’s kidding and give him a hard look. “That’s not funny.”

“Relax. I’ve seen it already, remember?” He gestures toward the camera and I realize with a flush that he’s been watching me this whole time. I wanted him to watch. Except there’s a difference between him on the other end of a camera lens and him standing in my basement.

“I’m just having trouble coming to terms with this.” I keep backing up until I bump into my workbench.

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