Page 2 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

“Daisy,” the man—Ezra—says, gentler than before. “You’re not in any trouble. I’m sorry, I should’ve led with that.”

The apology keeps me from hanging up the phone. No one else inthat placehas ever apologized to me for anything. But it still doesn’t quash the terror sending shards of ice through my chest.

“This is about Subject X-15,” Ezra continues. “I think you know him as Dorian.”

Dorian.

My heart cracks open. Even now, the name is enough to bring up a dangerous surge of emotions—pain, longing, loneliness. An ache that has never quite gone away lifts to the surface.

I swallow hard, wet my lips. “Dorian’s not real,” I whisper, forcing the words out through a tight throat.

There’s silence on the other end of the line. Then, “I know that’s what they told you to say. I’m sorry you’ve been forced to pretend it’s the truth. But we both know it’s not.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. This is a trap. A test. It must be. “Dorian was just a way for me to cope with the death of my parents,” I say. “He was my childhood imaginary friend.”

“Daisy…” Uncertainty leaks into the voice on the phone. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

I have to believe it. Because if I don’t, then…

Panic jolts through me, and I hang up.

Chapter Two

After a quick excuse to Brad, I rush to my apartment and pack my things.

My life is, by design, easy to uproot. My meager belongings fit neatly into a single suitcase. I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to the little studio apartment I rent month-to-month. I’ll email my resignation to work. Brad will be angry, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not as though I’ll be using him as a reference. The moment I received that phone call, I knew I was going to have to shed the persona of Gwen Bailey like I’ve shed so many before.

I should head out the door the second I’m done. But instead, I hesitate, thinking about that phone call and the past I’ve tried so hard to forget.

I pace grooves into the ugly, beige carpet. My fingers keep digging into my wrist, scratching at the skin where a hospital bracelet once sat.

But I’m not like that anymore. I don’t need the doctors and the pills and the white walls to tell me what’s real and what’s not. I don’t need them to tell me that the monster who lurked under my bed was a figment of my imagination. That Dorian was a way for me to cope with the real monsters of my childhood. Including my parents, and whoever killed them.

I worked so hard to bury it. To build myself a new and normal life, far from padded rooms and monsters in the darkness and a research facility deep in the Arizona desert.

Don’t speak of it. Don’t even think of it.I did my best to follow the rules I set for myself, and yet somehow, the past caught up to me anyway.

After I’m done gnawing my fingernails to stubs, I sit with my laptop and type with shaking fingers:Melsbach Research Facility.

As usual, a blank page stares back at me.No results found. The facility doesn’t exist online, or in maps of Ash Valley. By all measures, it’s not real. Just like everybody told me. But that phone call…that phone call was real. And the man on the other end spoke like Dorian was real, too.

I type in the name he gave me:Ezra Bradford. And there he is. Real.

It isn’t hard to find information on him—including an address in Ash Valley, Arizona, and a phone number with a familiar area code.

I stare until the words blur.

I’ve spent so long trying to convince myself that Dorian was a figment of my imagination. But if Dorian is real, then that means he really was taken by those men in suits with the MRF logo on their clipboards. It means I abandoned him all of those years ago.

If there’s even a chance that’s true, I can’t run from this. I have to try to make things right.

I call Ezra with a burner phone I keep for emergencies.

“Ezra speaking.”

“Why did you call me?”

A brief pause on the other end, and then, “Daisy?” he asks.

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