Page 56 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

I’m paralyzed as memories slam into me. I remember that night, and I remember that it’s been years since then. My body isn’t really here; it’s sitting in the attic.

I shut my eyes. “Wake up, wake up…” I tell myself. I try to hear the song on the record player so I can follow it back to reality, but there’s nothing but Godric’s echoing laughter.

“Just you and me now, little rabbit,” he snarls. He grabs me by the chin and my eyes fly open. He leans down to drag one claw down my cheek, leaving a line of burning pain. I scream and try to pull away, but I can’t.

I’m trapped in my own mind with him.

That hatch rattling in the hallway of my memories…it was never just a bad memory trapped on the other side. It was thisthingthat I forced myself to forget. I’ve had him locked away all this time.

And that’s why Dorian said it was dangerous to remember. The more time I spent with him, the more I recalled my lost memories, the more the cage I had placed around Godric weakened. But in the end, it didn’t matter. I released him myself.

He grips my chin between his pointer and thumb. Claws dig into my skin, and his hot, rank breath ghosts over my face. This is real. He can really hurt me. I already knew that from exploring my mind with Ezra, but now I’m trapped here.

“All these years I’ve spent locked away,” he whispers. “And I…am so…hungry.” A long tongue flicks out of his mouth and rakes over the tears trickling down my face.

“Those nights in my house,” I whisper. The song. The sounds in the night. The incident in my bathtub. I thought I was going crazy, or my abilities were going haywire, but I was wrong all along. “That was you.”

“Every time you unlocked a memory, the door cracked open a little further,” he says. “I wanted to speed things along. Jolt your memory.” He grips my face hard. “And I couldn’t resist taking your body on a couple of test rides.”

I shut my eyes, trying in vain to turn away, but his grip holds me steady. All this time, and Dorian knew.That’swhy he tried to push me away, to stop me. He knew the danger of remembering. He was willing to be forgotten if it kept me safe. And I didn’t listen.

“He can’t help you this time,” Godric says, hearing my thoughts. He leans closer, nose brushing my cheek, smearing blood over my skin. “It’s just you and me now, Daisy. I may be locked up in your mind, but now you’re here with me. We’re going to have so much fun together…”

“Daisy!”

The voice is familiar but so far away, so very far. But Godric pauses, glancing around like he’s trying to find the source.

“Ezra!” I scream. “Help me!”

Godric chuckles. “He can’t hear you. Not here.”

He’s probably right. But it doesn’t matter, because I can hear him. I shut my eyes, using Ezra’s voice as a lifeline, an anchor back to reality, like I did so many times in the MRF.

“Listen to the sound of my voice.”

“What is this?” Godric hisses.

“Let it guide you back to your body.”

“No. Stop that. You’re mine. You’re trapped here with me!” His voice is growing frantic. His claws rake my cheek, slashing deep into my skin, but the pain feels distant now—and Ezra’s voice sounds closer.

This isn’t real.Thatis reality.

“On the count of three, you’re going to open your eyes and wake up.”

“No!” Godric howls.

“One… two…three.”

I open my eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Igasp awake, pulling air into my starved lungs. Terror still grips me, making my chest tight and my heart pound. My cheek burns where Godric’s claws raked my skin. But I amawake. I amout.I escaped the prison of my own mind. This is real, and I am here in the attic. I clutch the mirror to ground myself, gripping it so hard that it hurts. The pain is almost comforting. I look at my own reflection, see the bleeding gashes over my cheekbone.

“Ezra.” My voice trembles. He’s kneeling in front of me in the pentagram, his head lowered. “We had it all wrong. It wasn’t me or Dorian that killed my parents. And it wasn’t my house that’s haunted. It’s me, it’s been me this whole time, he’s been inside of my headthis whole time…”

I look up and my breath catches. Ezra is staring at me, unblinking, head cocked at an unnatural angle. Blood drips from one nostril, spills over his lips and down his chin to splatter on the floorboards, and he doesn’t react.

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