Page 17 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

He hands me a coffee, and I manage a small, tired smile. I tossed and turned last night after reading about Dorian, tormented by thoughts of him and imagining I could hear footsteps in the attic.

“Thanks,” I say, taking a sip. It’s sweet but not too sweet, just how I like it.

“Of course.”

Ezra opens the door for me, and I steal a glance at him as I scoot past. I wondered if things might feel different between us now that he knows my secrets. And they do, but not in a bad way. Is this what it’s like to have a friend? I’ve spent so long keeping everyone at arm’s length that I hardly remember.

“I took a look at our files before you arrived.” Ezra toys with his MRF ID card as he walks. “According to them, it’s an open-and-shut case. Dorian killed your parents, they took him into custody, problem solved. But of course, the MRF has historically been in favor of locking monsters up first and asking questions…well, never.”

I chew the inside of my cheek. “Right. Was there anything else? Anything useful?”

“They have photographs of the crime scene.”

My steps falter. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he says. “They’re graphic. You’re under no obligation to look at them, of course…”

“No,” I say. “I-I should. If there’s any chance it could help…”

He nods, grim, and reaches over me to scan his ID card and unlock the observation room door. “Go on in, then, and I’ll grab those files.”

My heart is still racing as I step inside. I pace in front of the observation window, trying to calm my nerves—and nearly jump out of my skin as music starts playing from within the cell.

I step up to the window, pressing my palm to the glass. There’s a new radio sitting on the table inside the cell. “Dorian?”

The radio crackles. The song is a familiar one—“Daisy Bell”—but it sounds lower and slower than usual. Sadder.

“I know, Dorian,” I whisper. “I’m trying.”

The song speeds up again, faster and faster, till it’s feverish and panicky. I lean against the glass, wanting,wanting—

The door opens, and the radio cuts off. I step back, cheeks flushing, but Ezra’s attention is on the folder in his hands.

I join him at the table, and he places it between us.

“Have you seen the photographs before?” he asks.

I shake my head, wordless.

“Like I said, they’re graphic,” he warns.

My fingers shake as I reach for the file, but I flip it open anyway and look through. It takes every ounce of my willpower not to look away when I see the first photograph of my house’s foyer splashed with a torrent of crimson. My mother’s twisted body at the bottom of the stairs—all red, raw meat and glint of spine.

Could Dorian have done that? Could I have?

I swallow back bile and flip to the next picture. An axe, its blade coated in blood.

Scraaaape.

I canhearthe sound, and it makes every hair on my body stand tall.

The axe looks heavy. I’m not sure I could carry it easily. But Dorian? Or…what about my father?

I flip to the next photograph, and that hope extinguishes when I see my father’s face cleaved open by that same axe blade. Not just his face—hisskull, split in half down the middle. He couldn’t possibly have done that to himself. The enormous strength it would take…

I imagine Dorian gripping the axe’s handle with all four hands, and flinch, dropping the picture.

“Daisy, you don’t have to look,” Ezra says, mistaking my reaction. He reaches to shut the file as I reach for the next photo, and our fingers accidentally brush. There’s a familiar crackle between us, and then Ezra is the one flinching away, color draining from his face.

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