The Imaginary Friend’s Obsession (Monster Research Facility #3)

Chapter Two

A fter 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.

I drum my fingers on my laptop keyboard. My thoughts are a mess. “D-Dorian,” I say, nearly choking on the name. It’s been so long since I let myself say it, let myself even think about him. He’s not real, he can’t be real…but I can’t fight the surge of emotions every time his name comes up. “Is… Is he…?” I don’t even know what I’m trying to ask.

“He’s… I’m not sure ‘alive’ is the right word, but he’s still here.”

Relief shudders out of me even as I struggle to wrap my mind around this. No one at the MRF ever called Dorian him when they interrogated me. They always said “it,” or “the subject,” or “this so-called friend.” They never talked about him like he was real.

Ezra clears his throat. “The reason I called is that we—the MRF—are under new leadership and taking a fresh approach to things. We’ve been going through our files, reevaluating our subjects in addition to our protocols. X-15— Dorian , that is—is a particularly interesting case, especially given his connection to you.”

The silence stretches while I try to work up the courage to say something.

“But how did you find me?” I manage. “I’ve changed my name three times. I’ve been all over the country. You went through all of the trouble to find me? To contact me at work?”

“I… well… It wasn’t me personally that…” Another pause, this one almost guilty.

“The MRF has known where I am the entire time,” I say, realizing.

“The MRF has some strong feelings about loose ends,” he says. “But I didn’t contact you on a whim. I know you’ve been through a lot, Daisy. And so has he. So the reason I’m calling to ask is… Well. Do you want to come see Dorian?”

I stop breathing.

It’s a trick. A trap. It has to be. When they took Dorian from me, I asked so many times to be allowed to speak to him. I begged, cried, pleaded. They always said the same thing: “It’s a figment of your imagination, a way to deal with the trauma…”

When I persisted, they had me committed.

He’s not real. He’s not real. He’s not real.

“I…” My voice is barely more than a whisper. “I don’t… I can’t…”

A vague memory stirs. A record spinning. Running through the hallways of my home with a larger, heavier set of footsteps following mine. There’s a dull pain behind my eyes, a nameless ache in my chest.

I spent so long convincing myself that he was a coping mechanism, a false memory. But the yearning never went away. I’ve spent so many nights curled up in bed, crying over something I can’t name. Is it possible to miss someone who never existed?

My thoughts are a jagged, painful jumble. But my emotions tug toward home for the first time in seven years.

But that means returning to Ash Valley. To the house. To being Daisy .

“I understand this must be strange and sudden, but I could use your help,” Ezra says on the other end of the line. “Something is wrong with Dorian, and I’m afraid we don’t have much time. You may not have another chance to see him.”

I can practically hear the metal jaws of a trap snapping shut around me. Even as I will myself to hang up, I know he’s caught me with something impossible to refuse.

If there’s the smallest chance that Dorian is real, that he needs me, then I can’t possibly stay away. This could be my one opportunity to find out the truth about everything that happened.

I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. “What can I do?”

“It’s easier to explain in person. When’s the soonest you can come?”

I hesitate. “I’ll need some time to wrap things up at work. Next weekend?”

“Of course.”

We exchange information. I let him buy me a plane ticket. I promise to be there over the weekend.

Then I hang up and head to my already packed car. If I drive without stopping, it will take me about twenty-four hours.

I won’t run from this. But I refuse to follow blindly where the MRF leads. They chose to summon me with a phone call instead of sending men in black suits to collect me by force, so perhaps there’s some truth in what Ezra said over the phone. Perhaps they’ve changed.

Perhaps.

But before I go to the MRF, I want to go home, for the first time since my parents were murdered there.