Page 27 of I Will Mend You

I stare up at the screen, where there’s now a slow-motion replay of Mom’s death. My chest burns, and the pulse between my ears pounds to the beat of my broken heart.

If Dolly hadn’t gotten to Mom first, I would be the one slashing her throat. Dolly manipulated me into thinking Mom was behind the attacks and those threatening notes. Dolly made me think Xero arranged for me to be gang-raped, just so I would turn on my protector, eliminate the one person who cared for me, and run into her trap.

“What are you going to do now, little ghost?” Xero asks.

I swallow hard, my head dipping toward my shoulders to wipe away the tears. “Xero, I’m so sorry. If I’d known?—”

“Don’t apologize to a figment of your imagination,” he snaps.

“Right.” I gulp. “Sorry.” I cringe at the words.

He snaps his fingers, bringing my attention back to his pale eyes. “Amethyst. This isn’t the time to zone out. You can’t keep thinking you’re stuck in a nightmare. You’re alone, surrounded by enemies. You need to stay alert.”

“Right,” I say, my voice breathy, my mind still whirring with these revelations. “So, that photo of me with the electrodes… Is that her?”

His eyes soften, and the pity in his expression makes my throat tighten. Maybe it’s because I’m asking questions where the answer is already obvious. Breathing hard, I force myself to stay calm, but my eyes still burn with fresh tears.

“It’s good that you’re acknowledging she’s real, but you need to open your eyes to think about what I told you earlier?”

Nodding, I remember Xero’s assessment of my blank memories. They’re consistent with suffering from medical abuse. My insides roil as I think back to the intensity of Dolly’s resentment. She remembers everything, while I hadn’t even known I had a sister. “That was me.”

He nods.

“So, I must have been at an institution like this when I was young, while Dolly got sent somewhere worse?”

“That’s how it seems,” Xero replies.

“Why would my mom do something so cruel?”

“Dolly hinted at the reasons when she called you a sniveling psychopath.”

“Mom believed me over her,” I whisper.“But she hasn’t explained what even happened. Now she’s going to make me die slowly for something I don’t even remember.”

“I’ll protect you,” Xero says.

Dipping my head, I force myself not to say the obvious in case he disappears. Figments of the imagination can’t break through locks. Nor can they fight off attackers. I’m trapped, all alone, and far away from home. The only person strong enough to break me out of this asylum is dead.

Because I killed him.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I can protect your mind,” he says.

“How?”

“Because, no matter what they do or say to you, no matter how they break your spirit, I’ll be here to piece you back together. Even when you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll believe in me.”

I shudder, the truth of that settling deep into my soul. Despite my bone-deep terror, despite everything that’s happened between Xero and me, his spirit is keeping me grounded. Even if he’s no more than a trick of my damaged mind.

“Okay,” I whisper, breathing hard to stave off the waves of guilt and grief and overwhelming dread.

He settles beside me on the cushioned floor and wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his strong chest.

“You feel so real,” I murmur.

“Locke injected you with ketamine and DMT,” he says. “Now, you really are having a compound hallucination.”

All those times I thought my hallucinations were a mix of visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory, it was Xero terrorizing me from the shadows. And I was so angry with him. I’d give anything for that to be true now.

“What’s DMT?” I ask.

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