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

Chapter Twelve

S tep, scrape.

I wake in the middle of the night to a sound outside of my door. A heavy footstep, like a man’s boot, followed by a metallic scraping of something being dragged across the floor.

The photograph of the bloodied axe flashes through my mind.

Step, scrape.

Step, scrape.

I clutch my covers to my chest, straining to see in the darkness. My bedroom door is open, moonlight streaming through my window, but there is nothing in the hallway outside. My breath fogs in the air. Cold, I’m always so cold.

“Hello?” I whisper.

Step . A floorboard creaks just outside of my door. Scraaape …

* * *

I gasp awake to sunlight and blink back confusion and exhaustion. Was that…a nightmare? A memory? I climb out of bed, rubbing my eyes, and pause. There, in the floorboards beside my bed, is an old scuff mark, like something was dragged across it. Something metal. The axe.

I swallow hard and reach for a sweater. It’s awfully cold in here.

Despite the lingering disquiet, a few hours later I’m back at the MRF, ready to be hypnotized again. I’m not sure what happened yesterday, and I haven’t told Ezra what happened last night…but I’m not ready to give up.

I can’t deny that I’m terrified of going back into my memories. But I need to remember what happened between me and Dorian. My gut tells me that this is the only way to save him from fading. Ezra seems to think that this is all about a chance for me to say goodbye to Dorian, but I know I can convince him that Dorian belongs with me, if only I can remember enough to prove it.

And like Ezra keeps saying, it’s not as though a memory can hurt me. Whatever I find in my own head, it’s already happened.

“You sure you’re ready to try again?” Ezra asks, looking up from his notebook. “We can give it a few days. Memories may start coming back to you naturally.”

I shake my head. “We don’t know how much time we have before Dorian fades. I can handle this.” I have to be able to handle it.

“Then let’s begin.”

It’s easier this time. It takes hardly any effort on my part. I just let myself be led by Ezra’s words, and I’m back in the house of my memories.

It seems even more real than the first time. I can see the dust lining the portraits on the walls, smell the musty scent of a house left empty for too long. The attic access hatch is still there, but it’s quiet.

“Remember that you’re the one in control here.” Ezra’s disembodied voice echoes down the hallway. “This is your mind. These are your memories. Your intent and emotions will guide you through.”

I nod, though I know he can’t see me here. My intent… I shut my eyes and think. “I want to see a happy memory,” I murmur. “I want to see the bond that I’ve forgotten.” Holding that in mind, I move forward with my eyes still shut, stopping in front of a door that feels right, and twist the handle.

When I open my eyes, there is a young version of myself sitting cross-legged on the floor of the attic, reading a book while the record player sings softly in the background. Dorian sits behind me, his chin resting on my shoulder, peering out from behind his mask. He’s young, too, slim-shouldered and barely taller than I am. It’s strange to see him like this, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, with only two hands instead of four. At a glance, we could almost be two normal children playing together, except for the mask he wears.

With a sudden jolt, I’m living this memory instead of watching it play out. I shut the book and sigh, setting it aside.

“So romantic,” I say. “I wish my life could be like that.”

“Why shouldn’t it be?” Dorian asks—a boyish voice with a whisper of static, coming through the record player while his mouth moves.

“You know why,” I say sullenly.

I let out a low whine of protest as he pulls away from my shoulder. But he stands only to bow dramatically and offer a gloved hand to help me up.

I bite my lip. “So dashing,” I say, shy all of a sudden.

“I live to serve,” he says, eyes crinkled behind the mask.

“Oh yeah?” I grin and shut my eyes, concentrating. When I open them again, his old clothes have shifted into a suit and bowtie, like an old-fashioned butler.

Dorian laughs, delighted, as I take his hand. He lifts me to my feet with ease and places the other hand on my hip. His warmth bleeds through his glove and my skirt, and my stomach swoops.

Dorian leads me in a slow waltz around the room to the sound of the record player. My steps are clumsy, but he is careful and sure-footed as he leads me. When one of my socks slips on a floorboard, I start to fall; he catches me and turns it into a graceful dip.

I giggle, breathless as he lifts me again. I’m as light as a feather in his arms. While plenty of other people make me feel small in a frightening way, with Dorian I know I’m safe.

“Maybe you’re right. You are kind of like a real-life prince,” I say.

He stops at my words, eyes turning sad. His gloved hand slips free of mine.

“I’m not, though,” he says. “I’m more of a monster.”

“What?” I clutch him tighter as he tries to pull away from me. “Why would you say that? You’re not—”

The thump of angry footsteps drifts up from the hallway below the attic and climbs up the ladder to where we are. Dorian pulls me closer, his eyes narrowing as he glares toward the opening hatch. But even as his shoulders and jaw stiffen, he trembles against me.

“Go,” I whisper.

“Daisy…”

“There’s nothing you can do. Go,” I urge.

Still, he stays. One hand clinging to my shoulder, the other balled into a fist at his side.

When my father reaches the top of the ladder, Dorian steps in front of him. He looks so small in comparison, yet still he stands with his chin up.

But my father steps right through him. He pauses, shivers faintly, and then advances on me.

“What did I tell you about coming up here?” My father’s voice is low, dangerous, and slurred.

I hang my head.

“I want to wake up now, Ezra,” I say.

“When I snap my fingers, you’re back in the room with me,” his voice says from somewhere behind me.

My father steps closer, his face like a storm cloud. “And what did I tell you about talking to people who aren’t real?”

“Three… two… one…”

My father bends down to grab my discarded book off the floor and rips the cover off. I flinch back, but he grabs my hand before I can retreat.

Dorian yells and swings a fist at him, but it goes through my father’s torso. His grip tightens.

Snap .

I blink, and I’m back in my body at the MRF. I lift a hand and wipe away a tear before it can fall. When I lower it again, I study my fingers, the crook in my pinky and ring finger where my father grabbed me in that memory.

“Are you all right?” Ezra asks. “What did you see?”

I drop my eyes to my lap. It’s hard to speak about, but I’ve spent so long keeping it bottled up that I find I want to. I need to.

I walk over to the viewing window. Dorian’s cell is still empty, but I know he’s there.

“I remember now,” I say softly, looking through the glass. “I was rarely allowed to leave home when I was a child. Dorian was my only friend.”

“What about school?” Ezra asks.

I shake my head. “They insisted on homeschooling me. They said it was because public school wasn’t good enough.” My lips tilt. They always thought they were too good for Ash Valley, as if they hadn’t moved there to escape my father’s debts and reputation. “Though mostly, I think it was in case anyone noticed the bruises.” I look down at my fingers again, biting my lip. “Dorian was my only escape. The only good thing about life in that house.”

I think again of my father’s thunderous face in my memory. After seven years, I had almost managed to forget what he looked like, but now it’s as bright as a beacon in my mind.

“I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but…” I fold my arms over my chest, hugging myself, remembering how Dorian would hold me like this while I cried. How he’d cry with me, agonized that he couldn’t help.

“People should be remembered as they were,” Ezra says. “Nothing more and nothing less.”

“I agree,” I say, my voice quavering as another tear slips free. “So why do I remember so little about Dorian?”

I stare into the cell as if it will give me answers, but they don’t appear, and neither does Dorian.

* * *

When I’m standing in the kitchen making tea that night, absently rubbing my crooked pinky again, I suddenly remember a pretend tea party I had with Dorian, his gloved hand holding the porcelain cup so carefully. Pinky out, of course, because we were being fancy.

As I climb the stairs to my bedroom, I remember him walking backward in front of me, showing me where to put my socked feet so the steps wouldn’t creak and wake my parents.

The more memories trickle in, the more questions I have. How could I have forgotten all of this? Dorian was my best friend, my only friend. How is it possible I convinced myself, even for a second, that he wasn’t real?

Remembering the happy days of our childhood together also makes my day-to-day existence feel even lonelier. I ache for Dorian. Sometimes I can barely stand it. I curl up in bed with my hands clutching my stomach, his absence like a physical pain.

And I am still no closer to remembering the most important thing of all: what happened on that fateful night.

Even when I’m in the observation room next to his cell, he feels so far away. It’s painful, to be so close but unable to see him or talk to him. This would be so much easier if he were here to talk to me…and it frightens me that he must still be so weak that he cannot. Is he still on the verge of fading? Ezra seems certain that our progress with my memories will help him, but Dorian is so far from what I remember him to be. I never thought of him as something as insubstantial as a ghost . In my memories, he was always present and solid and playful.

Yet…he was also shy.

* * *

“Do you think I could talk to him alone today?” I ask the next morning in the observation room.

Ezra hesitates. “I really shouldn’t…”

“Just through the glass, I mean,” I say. “I’m worried he’s hiding because you’re here. I’ve always been the only one who could see him, and…” I don’t want to resort to begging, but the tremble in my voice betrays my desperation. “I really just want some sign that any of this is working. How are we supposed to know we’re on the right track?”

Ezra shifts his weight from foot to foot, glancing at me and away again. “I can give you five minutes.”

I can only stare, stunned into silence. Then I whisper, “Thank you.”

I wait until the door shuts behind him and then rush up to the window and press my palm against it, fingers splayed wide. “Dorian,” I say through the intercom. “It’s me. It’s Daisy. Just Daisy. Please, talk to me.”

I wait, pulse pounding in anticipation. But nothing happens.

“Dorian, I— I need you to help me. Show me what to do. Show me what I’m missing.” I only realize I’m crying when the tears blur my vision. I wipe them away. “Why are you hiding from me?” I ask. “Why can’t I remember anything?”

Still nothing. I choke back a sob and step back from the glass.

The moment I do, Dorian flickers into view on the other side. Tall and masked and suited. But his image is faded, blurry, weak in a way that drives a spike of worry through my chest. He presses two of his hands to his heart, as if feeling the same pain. His dark eyes are unreadable.

I gasp and lurch toward the glass, one hand outstretched. As I step forward, he steps back—with a slight delay, a stuttered awkwardness in his movements, like we’re separated by time in addition to space.

I stop, fingers slowly curling inward, and lower my hand. The yearning to be with him is like a chain lodged in my chest and pulling me toward him—but I resist it. His aversion is clear, though I don’t understand why. I step back, and Dorian moves closer to the window again.

“Why?” I whisper. I keep stepping back; he keeps stepping forward, until he’s the one pressed against the glass. “Why are you doing this? Are you angry with me for abandoning you?”

He shakes his head. Again, his movements are jerky, strange.

My lower lip trembles. “Then why ? All I want is for us to be together again.” I don’t have to remember everything to know that’s true. I feel it deep in my gut, deep in my bones, deep in my heart. We are meant to be together. “Don’t you want that too?”

He lowers his head. When he raises it again, his mouth moves behind the slit in his mask, like he’s trying to speak—but no sound comes out. A half-second’s delay later, a burst of static comes through the intercom.

I shake my head, helpless and frustrated. “I can’t hear you.”

Dorian leans against the window so that his breath fogs up the glass from the other side. He raises one long, gloved finger and begins to write. One word.

D-A-N-G-E-R.

I glance back at the camera and angle my body so I’m blocking the word from view.

“What danger?” I ask, voice low and urgent. “I’m in danger? You’re in danger? Is it the MRF?”

He nods after a moment. I forgot about the delay in his reactions, so it’s impossible to tell which question he’s answering, and we’re almost out of time. Ezra could walk through the door at any second.

“Just tell me what I should do,” I plead.

He wipes the word, breathes again, and writes another message.

R-U-N.

I’m still standing in shock when the door opens and Ezra comes in. My head whips toward him automatically, and I see Dorian disappear out of the corner of my eye. The word—that damning word—lingers on the glass.

But Ezra looks only at me, concern softening his features as he takes in the tears still spilling down my face.

“Did something happen?” he asks. “Did he—”

He starts to turn to the viewing window, but I throw my arms around his neck and pull him into a hug. He freezes before awkwardly patting me on the back. “Daisy… Um…”

I stare over his shoulder at the fogged-up window and cry into his shirt until the letters have faded from view. Then I pull back and wipe my eyes, sniffling.

“Sorry,” I say. “This is so hard.”

This time, I let him turn to look at the viewing panel. “Still nothing?”

“Still nothing,” I lie. “I don’t know why he’s hiding from me.”