Page 59 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

His eyes widen in panic, and he nudges me toward the door.

“I’m not leaving without you,” I say. I step back, tugging his hand. He follows, step by step, but stops as I step over the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

He looks at the open doorway and then past it, into the hallway. He looks at me, a terrible sadness in his eyes, and shakes his head.

“What do you mean, you can’t? I’ve remembered everything, your father is out, we can be together now…” I trail off, realizing he’s still looking at me with those sad, sad eyes. He points at the walls, the floor, the ceiling, gesturing all around him with all four hands.

“You’re still trapped,” I whisper. Of course it wasn’t the doors keeping Dorian in; he’s incorporeal most of the time. I never figured out how they moved Dorian from my house to this place, but somehow this entire cell must be built to contain him. “But…no. No, this can’t be. I…” I suck in a shaky breath, trying to make sense of it. This can’t end with me walking away again. We’re supposed to be together. I didallof this so we could be together.

“No,” I say again. “Not now. Not when we’re so close.” Tears build behind my eyes, and I struggle to keep myself from breaking down. This is our chance to get out of here. “I’m not leaving you behind again.”

Dorian takes a step back, away from me, his image starting to fade.

I shake my head, unable to speak through the tears thickening my throat. It’s not fair. I can’t come this far, get this close to being with Dorian, only to have it ripped away like this.

“I don’t want to live without you,” I say. “Because I’m yours, and you’re mine. Forever, remember? That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Memories flicker through my mind. Our childlike laughter as we ran through the halls of my house. Nights spent curled around each other in bed. Our kiss in this very cell. When I thought he disappeared, and I brought him back…

My rushing thoughts halt.

“Ezra said that iron and salt trap ghosts,” I say, thinking as I speak. “Maybe that’s what’s keeping you here. But Dorian…” I step forward into the cell, reach out, and take two of his gloved hands in mine. “You’re not a ghost.” I press my lips to one glove and look up at him, into his dark eyes behind the mask. “You’re my imaginary friend.” I smile through my tears. “Which means you are what I make you.”

Ezra has always said that I shaped Dorian, changed him. That he doesn’t act like any other ghost that Ezra has seen in his years of study.

Maybe he was a poltergeist when I found him, but now he’s something different. Something more powerful.

Something that isn’t restricted by whatever rules bind him here, because Ibelievehe isn’t.

I hold that thought in my mind, pouring every ounce of myself into it. Pouring my power into Dorian, willing him tochange, like he’s changed so many times for me. When I gave him the mask, when I grew up and wanted him to grow with me, when he grew extra appendages just to please me. When he stopped existing and I summoned him back.

Still holding his hands, I step backward, pulling him with me. And then another. When he stalls, I give an insistent tug. His hands tense as they move toward the barrier as if fearing pain—but still trusting me.

His hands move into the doorway and through it.

And Dorian steps into the hallway with me, free of his cell.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dorian is finally free, and we are finally together, as we were always supposed to be. But stepping into the dark hallway reminds me that he’s not the only monster loose in this facility, and we’re not safe yet.

Dorian cups my face with his gloved hand, tilting my chin up so I look at him. I watch as the crack in his mask seals together until it’s whole once more. “What now, my darling?”

I startle. He’sspeakingwithout the radio. He stillsoundslike a radio, his voice faintly staticky and musical, but the words and the voice are all his own. I’ve freed him in more ways than one, it seems.

But my smile fades as I consider his question.

What next, indeed. It would be easy for us to slip out amid the chaos. Now that Dorian is free, we could leave the MRF and Ash Valley behind and start a new life together, just the two of us. That would be safest, now that I’ve revealed myself to their security cameras.

I could run away again, leaving behind the monster that I set free and all of the destruction he’ll cause. I can abandon Ezra like I once abandoned Dorian.

I shake my head before the thought is fully formed. “We can’t leave,” I say. Then I correct, “Ican’t leave. You can. You should. Go while you can. You can go to the house and wait for me there, or…or go wherever you want.” I’ve finally set him free, like he should’ve been all this time. Free even from me. “You don’t need me anymore.”

But Dorian huffs a laugh from behind his mask. “You think I’ll leave you now?” His grip on my chin tightens, and he shakes me playfully. “Never again, Daisy.”

“But I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I say. “Even if I can banish that thing once and for all, you might end up locked in a cell again. And if I can’t beat Godric, then…” Then I’ll die trying. Even that will be better than running and living with the guilt.

“We will never be parted again,” Dorian says. “Not even by death. I swear it.”

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