Chapter Seven #3
“I don’t owe you explanations.” Danny moved to the couch, picking up a box Isaac hadn’t noticed before. “We were roommates. That’s it. You made it into something bigger in your head, but that’s your problem, not mine.”
“That’s not true.” Isaac’s voice cracked despite his efforts to keep it steady. “You’re my best friend. You said—”
“I said what you needed to hear to keep you stable.” Danny’s eyes met his, and there was nothing there.
No recognition, no affection, just a blank assessment that made Isaac feel like he was disappearing.
“But honestly? You’re exhausting. Always running from something, always needing someone to pick up your pieces. I’m done being that person.”
The room tilted slightly, or maybe that was just Isaac fracturing under the weight of those words. This wasn’t right. Danny hadn’t said these things, would never say these things. Even when he’d broken the news, he’d been kind about it, tears falling before he could get the words out.
“You’re moving in with Ash because you’re mates.” Isaac clung to the memory of how it had actually happened. “You told me you were sorry for leaving but you belonged with Ash. You said it wouldn’t change our friendship.”
“Friends?” Danny’s laughed sounded mocking. “Is that what you think we were? I tolerated you because the rent was cheap. That’s all. Now I have Ash, someone who actually matters, and I don’t need to pretend anymore.”
Each word felt like a blade finding soft tissue.
Isaac wanted to argue, to point out all the late-night conversations, remind him of how he’d found Danny bleeding out, how Isaac had been shot protecting his best friend, to prove this was wrong.
But his throat closed up, making it impossible to breathe.
“Whichello’s never going to love you, you know.” Danny set the box down, his attention fully on Isaac now in a way that felt predatory. “How could anyone love someone as damaged as you? Your damage run so deep they’ve carved out anything worth caring about.”
“You’ve never met Whichello,” Isaac snarled, feeling protective of his demon. “You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know enough.” Danny took a step closer, and his face twisted into something cruel.
“I know he bought you at an auction like property. I know you’re so desperate for someone to want you that you’re convincing yourself a demon who purchased you actually cares.
But he doesn't. He can’t. Not when you’re so broken. ”
“Fuck you. You’re not my Danny.” Isaac reached for the handle that should’ve been there but wasn’t. The walls were closing in, the apartment shrinking around him until all that existed was Danny’s voice saying things that carved into every insecurity Isaac had spent years trying to bury.
“You’re not real.” He forced the words out, clinging to logic even as everything else dissolved. “This isn’t real. Danny would never say those things to me.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Danny’s smile was all teeth, nothing warm or familiar in the expression. “Keep believing someone could actually want you. It’s easier than admitting the truth.”
“What truth?” Isaac heard himself ask, even though he didn’t want to know the answer.
“That you’re unlovable. That everyone who’s ever claimed to care about you was lying or using you or waiting for a better option to come along.
” He picked up his box again, moving toward a door that hadn’t existed in their real apartment.
“Your father knew it. That’s why you killed him.
And eventually, Whichello will figure it out too. ”
Danny was revealing secrets Isaac had never confessed. He’d never mentioned Whichello or talked about his father.
“Whatever you are, get out of my goddamn head,” Isaac snarled.
The door opened, revealing darkness beyond.
Danny stepped through without looking back, and Isaac was left alone in an apartment that had stopped feeling real the moment he’d arrived.
Yet, the walls breathed around him, expanding and contracting like living things.
The floor beneath his feet felt unstable, tilting at angles that shouldn’t be possible.
His father’s voice echoed from somewhere Isaac couldn’t see. “Worthless. Always were, always will be.”
The apartment dissolved, walls melting into shadows that reached for him with fingers that felt like ice.
Isaac tried to run, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate, feet rooted to a floor that was no longer there.
Falling… He was falling through darkness that had no bottom, and every fear he’d ever harbored whispered in his ears with voices that sounded like everyone he’d ever known.
Alone. You’ll always be alone. No one stays. No one cares. You’re not worth the effort.
The darkness pressed in from all sides. Isaac couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except fall through an endless void while voices taunted him with every failure and shortcoming and reason why he didn’t deserve to be loved.
Then there was suddenly stone beneath him. Cold and solid and real in a way nothing else had been. Isaac’s cheek pressed against the rough surface, his body sprawled across a floor. An actual floor, not the dissolving nightmare he’d been trapped in moments ago.
“Isaac.” Whichello’s voice cut through the fog in his head, the deep timbre grounding and familiar. “Isaac, look at me.”
Every movement felt like wading through syrup. Whichello’s face came into focus slowly, those gray eyes wide with something Isaac had never seen there before. Fear. Actual terror etched into features that usually held nothing but control.
Not real. The apartment. Danny’s cruel words. None of it had been real. Isaac’s breath shuddered out in a rush, and the tears he’d been holding back finally spilled over. His body started shaking, tremors running through muscles that felt like they’d been wrung out and left to dry.
Whichello pulled him up and into strong arms, one hand cradling the back of Isaac’s head while the other wrapped around his back. The embrace was solid, real in a way nothing else had been since he’d heard that click and seen the wall panel open.
“I’ve got you, little panda.” There was a roughness to Whichello’s voice, a quiet weight that made the air seem heavier.
Isaac fisted Whichello’s shirt, holding on with strength he didn’t know he still possessed. His face pressed against the demon’s shoulder, breathing in a scent that grounded him in ways no words could. Cedar and winter and something uniquely Whichello that made Isaac cling harder.
The tears kept coming despite his attempts to stop them. Those had been his fears, the ones he kept buried deep where they couldn’t hurt him. But hearing them in Danny’s voice, seeing them reflected in his best friend’s eyes, made them impossible to ignore.
“The castle tried to eat me,” he said against Whichello’s shoulder. “I’m pretty sure we’re not going to be besties.” Isaac was still shaken to his core.
“You’re moving into my room until Dimitri is found and this nightmare is over.” Whichello kept moving. “Not debatable.”
Isaac wasn’t going to argue. Not when fake-Danny’s cruel words still echoed in his ears. Not when Whichello’s arms made him feel safe, regardless of what the castle tried to convince him of. He’d thought the place was haunted, but now he knew the truth.
Annunziata Castle was sentient and contained malevolent passages Isaac had been lucky to survive.