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

Chapter Ten

A fter we part with a promise to meet at the MRF the next day, sleep doesn’t come easily. My emotions are a tug-of-war between hope and dread, relief and fear. Ezra is the first person who has ever seen the real me since I first ran from Ash Valley. And yet…do I even know the real me, with so much of my memory lost?

I bring my laptop to bed and try scouring the internet for anything I can find about my parents, but there’s little available. The MRF must have scrubbed everything clean. It’s almost as though my parents never existed at all.

My fingers hover over the keyboard. I type: Dorian Elwood.

There’s not much about him online, either, but I devour the few articles I can find. One has the same picture of a dark-eyed young boy that Ezra showed me. His disappearance was never solved. The details are sparse, but they paint a sad story. A few years before Dorian’s disappearance, his mother left the family. And shortly after, Dorian’s father killed himself.

One article has a photograph of the three of them. It’s blurry and pixelated, but they have the same dark eyes, and they look…troubled. Unhappy. I squint and zoom in further, trying to get a better look at the faces.

Creak .

I freeze at a sound outside of my bedroom, my eyes darting to the open doorway. It almost sounded like a footstep. But try as I might, I hear nothing else.

I shake my head and shut my laptop. No sense in frightening myself with stories like this in a creaky old house. Tomorrow, I hope, Ezra will have answers for us both.

* * *

I’m tense as I walk through the doors of the MRF. Every instinct screams that this is wrong. I’m ready to be apprehended at the gate, at the security checkpoint, in the lobby, but Ezra is the only one waiting for me, smiling as though nothing has changed. As though the truth couldn’t get both of us locked up within these walls.

He hands me a coffee, and I manage a small, tired smile. I tossed and turned last night after reading about Dorian, tormented by thoughts of him and imagining I could hear footsteps in the attic.

“Thanks,” I say, taking a sip. It’s sweet but not too sweet, just how I like it.

“Of course.”

Ezra opens the door for me, and I steal a glance at him as I scoot past. I wondered if things might feel different between us now that he knows my secrets. And they do, but not in a bad way. Is this what it’s like to have a friend? I’ve spent so long keeping everyone at arm’s length that I hardly remember.

“I took a look at our files before you arrived.” Ezra toys with his MRF ID card as he walks. “According to them, it’s an open-and-shut case. Dorian killed your parents, they took him into custody, problem solved. But of course, the MRF has historically been in favor of locking monsters up first and asking questions…well, never.”

I chew the inside of my cheek. “Right. Was there anything else? Anything useful?”

“They have photographs of the crime scene.”

My steps falter. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he says. “They’re graphic. You’re under no obligation to look at them, of course…”

“No,” I say. “I-I should. If there’s any chance it could help…”

He nods, grim, and reaches over me to scan his ID card and unlock the observation room door. “Go on in, then, and I’ll grab those files.”

My heart is still racing as I step inside. I pace in front of the observation window, trying to calm my nerves—and nearly jump out of my skin as music starts playing from within the cell.

I step up to the window, pressing my palm to the glass. There’s a new radio sitting on the table inside the cell. “Dorian?”

The radio crackles. The song is a familiar one—“Daisy Bell”—but it sounds lower and slower than usual. Sadder.

“I know, Dorian,” I whisper. “I’m trying.”

The song speeds up again, faster and faster, till it’s feverish and panicky. I lean against the glass, wanting, wanting —

The door opens, and the radio cuts off. I step back, cheeks flushing, but Ezra’s attention is on the folder in his hands.

I join him at the table, and he places it between us.

“Have you seen the photographs before?” he asks.

I shake my head, wordless.

“Like I said, they’re graphic,” he warns.

My fingers shake as I reach for the file, but I flip it open anyway and look through. It takes every ounce of my willpower not to look away when I see the first photograph of my house’s foyer splashed with a torrent of crimson. My mother’s twisted body at the bottom of the stairs—all red, raw meat and glint of spine.

Could Dorian have done that? Could I have?

I swallow back bile and flip to the next picture. An axe, its blade coated in blood.

Scraaaape .

I can hear the sound, and it makes every hair on my body stand tall.

The axe looks heavy. I’m not sure I could carry it easily. But Dorian? Or…what about my father?

I flip to the next photograph, and that hope extinguishes when I see my father’s face cleaved open by that same axe blade. Not just his face—his skull , split in half down the middle. He couldn’t possibly have done that to himself. The enormous strength it would take…

I imagine Dorian gripping the axe’s handle with all four hands, and flinch, dropping the picture.

“Daisy, you don’t have to look,” Ezra says, mistaking my reaction. He reaches to shut the file as I reach for the next photo, and our fingers accidentally brush. There’s a familiar crackle between us, and then Ezra is the one flinching away, color draining from his face.

I go still. “Did you…see something?”

He swallows hard. “Yes,” he says. “You were standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at…” He glances at the photographs strewn in front of me and taps the corner of the one depicting my mother’s body.

I stare at it, trying to remember what he’s describing. But try as I might, I can’t.

“You saw something I don’t even remember,” I murmur, goose bumps rippling over my skin. “How is that possible?”

“The memories are still in there somewhere. You just can’t access them.”

“What if…you can?” I hold out one of my hands, palm up, in offering.

He stares for a moment before reaching over and clasping my hand. Again, my power sparks from his closeness. But his brow furrows, and he shakes his head.

“I’m not getting anything now. Like I said, it comes and goes.”

I blow out a frustrated breath and pull back. I lift my legs onto the chair, wrapping my arms around my knees. “None of this is sparking anything for me, either.”

Ezra gathers the papers and shuts the file. “The MRF was eager to blame Dorian and scrub the public record clean to avoid anyone looking into it. I doubt we’ll find anything else useful about that night.”

I lower my head, my chest tightening as I think of that sad song playing in the cell earlier. “Then…what do we do?” I ask, trying not to give in to despair. “There has to be some way we can help him.”

Ezra pauses. “I have an idea, but it might be a little…out there.”

I lift my eyes to him. He’s hesitating, just like he did last night. Holding something back. “Tell me.”

He taps his fingers on the table. “I’ve spent some time digging through old MRF files. Especially those that are related to psychic abilities. Most of the supposed psychics they brought in were hoaxes.” He glances back at the camera, and leans closer to me, lowering his voice. “Still, with a real psychic—with two of us—we might be able to apply some of their ideas with more success. But I’m going to need you to trust me.”

I’ve done plenty of reading on the subject too, trying to understand my own nature. MK Ultra, subliminal messages, mind control… Imagining myself locked up in the MRF, electrodes strapped to my head, I hug my knees tighter. I’m not sure I want to know the kinds of things the MRF did to supposed psychics, let alone live through it myself.

But then I remember that glimpse of Dorian through the window. The ache in my chest when I saw his familiar mask for the first time in years. Ezra is right, there is a bond between us, even if I can’t remember it. And I owe him, my oldest friend.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to save him,” I say.

Ezra nods. “Have you ever been hypnotized?”