Page 25 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

I nod, folding my trembling hands in my lap. I’m terrified about what I’m going to see as I venture further into my lost memories, but I need to do this.

“Close your eyes and focus on the sound of my voice,” Ezra begins, like usual.

It’s even easier than last time to follow the sound of the metronome into my memories. The house in my mind appears realer than ever; I can hear the creaks and groans in the old foundation, feel the dust tickling my nose. I hold my intent in mind—let me see us growing up together—as I grab a door handle at random. I lift my foot—

My boot comes down with a disorientingcrunchon gravel. I’m no longer in the house but outside somewhere, on a familiar-but-not street. I barely have a second to reorient myself before a waifish young woman runs past me, long blonde hair streaming behind her. She—I—am running hard, chest heaving, face a mask of panic. Moving with the speed of the hunted. And the hunters are not far behind: two teenage boys with their grins full of cruel delight.

“Where you going, Daisy?”

“Crazy Daisy! Crazy Daisy!”

“Come back! We just wanna talk!”

I watch my teenage self stumble past the gate of my house—all fresh white paint in my memory, far from its current dilapidation. I don’t have to remember this moment to know it’s not going to go the way these boys expect. I smile as I follow them into the front yard of my home.

Teenage me collapses just past the front gate, breathing hard. She licks her split lip; I taste blood. But as she rests her palms on the gravel around her, I know she’s no longer afraid. The boys are no longer the hunters here, but they don’t realize it as they skid to a stop a couple of feet from her.

“Running home to Mommy and Daddy?” one of them asks, his voice mocking. “You think they’re going to rescue you?”

I shake my head half a second before the teenage version of me does. “Not them,” I say.

The boy sneers. “Who else would care enough to help you?”

We both pause, heads tilting. Waiting, and then smiling. “Him.”

A gloved hand shoots up from the ground and grabs one of the boys by the ankle. It yanks, and the boy falls on his face with a yelp of shock and pain. “What the f—” is all he has time to say before he’s yanked backward, hands scrabbling for purchase on the gravel.

We watch him, a ghost of a smile still on our lips.

The other boy blanches. He takes one step back, and another, watching his friend be dragged out the front gate. “Please don’t hurt me,” he says.

I look at the gravel embedded in my palms from the fall. “I’mnot doing anything,” I say, and smile as a gloved hand taps on his shoulder. He whirls around and goes white as a sheet as he comes face-to-face with…nothing, as far as he can see.

But I see a white mask, and two gloved hands that shove the boy backward.

Dorian and I both watch as the boy runs screaming from the property. Then he bends down and offers me a gloved hand, the perfect gentleman. I take it and grin as he lifts me up. When he sets me on my feet, my head barely reaches his shoulder.

Teenage Dorian is long and lanky, his dark hair worn shaggy. Messy strands fall in front of his white mask as he tilts his head down to meet my eyes.

“My protector,” I say, and stand on my tiptoes, tugging on the front of his shirt. He obligingly leans down so I can plant a kiss on the cheek of his mask—but at the last second, he turns his head.

My lips touch only cold porcelain, but I can feel his breath through the mouth hole of his mask, so very close. Mischief lights his dark eyes.

“You—” I sputter, flushing red but grinning. I reach for his hand and—

The world spins around me as the memory changes.

I’m still standing on the edge of the property. But now I’m pulling at Dorian’s hand desperately, tears streaming down my face. He’s even taller than the last memory, his shoulders broader and stronger, and he’s grown an additional set of hands, each one gloved. I grasp at one hand with both of mine while the other three hang limp at his sides.

“Come with me,” I beg. “There has to be a way!”

Dorian’s feet are stopped just beyond the gate, and his gloved hand is stuck midair in the same spot, like it meets an invisible barrier there. No matter how hard I strain, I can’t get him to move.

His eyes are sad behind the mask. He shakes his head.

“I can’t leave without you,” I sob, frantic. “I can’t go on my own…”

“Daisy!”

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