Page 58 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

Twelve for wealth.

Thirteen, beware!

“It’s the devil himself,” I whisper, and raise my shaking hands to grip the wheel.

“Spirits can warp over time, become something that most of us would call a demon,”Ezra once said.

“I can send him down to the pits of hell, a new plaything for my master,”Godric told me.

He was always a monster, but now he’s something worse.

I consider driving home or out into the desert, leaving Ash Valley behind forever. But then I think of Dorian sitting in that cell, waiting for me. Trying to push me away to protect me. Willing to fade from existence if it meant I was safe.

I can’t leave him. Not this time. No matter the risk. I wipe my eyes, steel myself, and press on the gas, racing toward the MRF and the monster that killed my parents.

Chapter Twenty-Six

When I pull up to the gate to the MRF, the lights flicker and die.Allof them. The facility is usually a beacon on the edge of the late-night town, but now it is as dark and dead quiet as the rest of Ash Valley.

The guard station is empty, the gate to the facility parking lot left wide open. Dread is a cold knot in my stomach as I drive through, and I’m not surprised to see that Ezra’s car is already here, parked haphazardly in front of the entrance.

I slam the car door and rush into the empty, dark lobby. I flash my cell phone around the room, but there’s nothing here but a smear of blood across the tile. The door that leads to the holding cells has been blown off its hinges, leaving a hole like a gaping maw. Beyond is a hallway lit only by dim red emergency lights.

My gut urges me to run for the exit without looking back. Instead, I slide along the wall. The silence and darkness in this building are thick, suffocating. The sound of my own breathing seems to echo. I’m scared to use my cell phone and attract attention, so I feel my way through and count the cells as I pass them.

Thirteen…fourteen…fifteen.This should be Dorian’s room. I grab the handle, but it’s locked.

I pause to breathe. I was hoping the power shutdown would have released him, but there must be a backup generator providing the emergency lighting and security. When I look over my shoulder, the light on the hallway camera is still blinking, too.

I’m cut off from Dorian. Fear is a living thing wrapped around me, constricting my throat and my chest. It makes it hard to breathe, hard to think. But I dig past it and reach for what it’s kept buried for far too long: my anger.

All my life I have pushed that anger down for the sake of staying in control. Of maintaining appearances. Of keeping myself small and unnoticed. But now, I let myself feel it. The years of running, of loneliness. The unfairness of how everything has been ripped away from me. I have been forced to be small for far too long. I have forced myself to be submissive and docile in the name of being safe.

Not this time. Never again.

If I use my powers here, in the middle of the MRF, the camera will record it. They will know I’m exactly the kind of monster they keep locked within these walls. I may never be able to conceal myself again…

But if that’s what it takes to save Dorian, then so be it. I am tired of hiding from what I really am.

I press my hands against the cell door and let my anger fill me. First it’s a trickle clawing up the back of my throat. Then the dam breaks and the anger pours out until it fills me to the brim and overflows in a scream. I scream until my throat is raw, and my body is shaking, and the door in front of me is rattling with the force of my fury and mypower.

And I let it out.

Metal shrieks as the door dents and warps. I scream again, shoving my palms against the iron. This time it flies off its hinges, slamming backward and into the secondary door trapping Dorian. It blows right through it, and both hit the wall inside Dorian’s cell, leaving the room open.

I step through the doorway, panting. I instinctively wipe my nose, but there’s no blood. That was always Godric bashing against the inside of his cell. My own power doesn’t hurt me.

“Dorian?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper, hoarse in the aftermath of that scream. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized I’m going to have to tell him everything—that I ignored his warnings, that I released his father just like he feared I would.

Dorian was willing to lose me to keep Godric trapped. What if he hates me for what I’ve done?

A tear rolls down my cheek—and Dorian blinks into existence in front of me, lit by the red emergency lights, wiping it away with one gloved thumb. His fingers lightly graze the scratch marks his father left on my cheek. I stare up at him. His mask is still cracked down the middle, revealing a sliver of scars, the evidence of what his father did to him when he was just a child. My throat is so tight with guilt that I can’t force out any words. But he pulls me against him as if he already knows.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my face muffled where it presses against Dorian’s chest. “You were just trying to protect me. But I didn’t listen.”

Dorian strokes my hair with one gloved hand, the other three holding me safe against him. The radio is silent behind him, likely dead from the power outage.

I pull back enough to look up at him, blinking away my tears. “I let him out, Dorian. He took Ezra’s body. He’s free now, and he’shere, and it’s all my fault.”

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