Page 39 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

Alone.

Blinking, I press myself up straight again and reach down to readjust my panties and pull down my nightgown. Did I just…masturbate with my powers? My already flushed face goes hotter still at the thought, and I press the back of my hand to my mouth to stifle an embarrassed laugh.

I guess relearning to control them does havesomebenefits. And not all of the memories this house holds are bad…

But many of them are. The house changes as the sun sets. The shadows grow longer, darker. I turn on every light in every room, but it never seems to reach the corners. The temperature drops, too. The dry cold of the desert in winter creeps through the walls and settles into my bones. Even wrapped in a blanket and armed with a mug of tea, I find it impossible to warm up.

As I climb the creaking stairs to my bedroom, I hear a sound behind me, almost like a crackle of static, or a whisper. When I turn to look over my shoulder, a memory hits me like a fist. I lurch off-balance as I recall a body lying at the bottom of the steps. I see limbs splayed, long hair in a halo on the floor, blood slowing pooling—my mother?—and myself, standing here …

I gasp, grabbing the railing to steady myself. A splash of red on the top stair gives me the disorienting sense that the memory has bled into the present. But then I blink and refocus and realize it’s my own nose that’s bleeding. I rush to the bathroom. As I wash my bloody hands in the sink, that, too, gives me a queasy, alarming sense of déjà vu.

I crawl into bed, but I find no escape in my dreams.

“Daisy.” My mother’s voice is a harsh, painful wheeze, barely recognizable. Dread churns my stomach as I turn to face her. A part of me already knows what I’ll see, but that doesn’t stop it from being a gut punch. She stands a foot away from the bed with her back bent at a horrible angle and blood running from the corners of her eyes, which are fixed on me. “Daisy, what have you done?”

I whimper, crawling across the bed away from her. “I didn’t… I don’t…”

She takes a step closer, reaching for me. But when she grabs my arm, the flesh melts from her fingers, leaving only skeletal claws digging into my skin. “Why, Daisy? Why?”

I yank free from her grip, shaking my head, and back away into something solid. I shriek and whip around, and there’s my father at the foot of the bed, his face twisted in fury. He grabs my ankle and yanks me toward him. When he opens his mouth, I expect him to shout, but instead, only a horrible gurgle and a rush of blood comes out. It drips down his chin and over his shirt, puddling at his feet. His face splits down the middle into an awful, gaping wound.

“No,” I groan. “Please…”

“Daisy, why?” my mother asks again.

I yank my foot free and retreat from both of them. “Please, leave me alone, I…” But when I raise my hands to cover my ears to block out their accusations and horrible sounds, they stick to my skin, damp and tacky. I jerk in surprise and then stare down at my own hands in horror.

They’re covered in blood.

* * *

I wake with a gasp, and it takes me a disoriented moment to realize why the room looks different. It’s because I’m floating in the air. My bed is suspended beneath me, along with the nightstand, and the lamp. Everything in the room is levitating lazily, as if gravity has been turned off. But as soon as I realize it, panic grips me, and everything falls. Including me.

The bed hits the floorboards with athump, and I hit it half a second later, bouncing off the mattress. The nightstand topples over, sending my glass of water to the floor; it shatters. The lamp hits the floor and flickers out, bathing the room in darkness.

I catch a glimpse of movement in the shadows. A pair of eyes, watching me. But I blink and they’re gone, and the scream dies in my throat.

I sit stunned, clutching my bedsheets and trying to breathe normally. Cold sweat clings to my skin. I swallow thickly, release my grip on my blanket, and push my hair out of my face.Just a nightmare, I tell myself, but I’m not sure I believe it. It isn’t just a nightmare when it might be a glimpse into my lost memories, or a side effect of my developing abilities.

It’s impossible to know if I should be afraid when I can’t even trust my own mind anymore.

Chapter Nineteen

The next day, Ezra is pacing in the observation room when I enter, hair askew from running his fingers through it. He stops when he sees me and offers a smile that’s strained around the edges.

“You look tired,” he says.

“So do you,” I say, studying the shadows under his eyes.

“I have a meeting with Dr. Wright and the director today,” he says. “You can stay here, practice your abilities, or speak to Dorian through the panel if you want.”

I can’t deny I’m eager for a chance to be alone with Dorian, but the tension in his expression unsettles me. I’ve always been hypervigilant about noticing such things, and now, it’s like a prickle of alarm under my skin. “Is something wrong?”

His gaze darts away from mine. One of his shoes taps against the tile. “No. I don’t think so.”

His anxiety is contagious; now it’s pooling in my gut as well. “You don’t think they know what we’ve been doing? Did they notice the camera being turned off?”

“If they knew I was carrying out unapproved experiments in one of their labs, I’m sure they’d be here this very second, shutting us down.”

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