Chapter Fifteen
A s he reaches to cup my cheek, Dorian’s glove is warm and leathery and familiar against my skin. I shut my eyes, breath hitching, hardly able to believe this is real. But when I open my eyes again, he is still standing there. More solid than his earlier appearances, barely a blur around his edges. My gaze combs over him—the dark eyes behind his white mask, all four gloved hands hanging at his sides, that all too familiar suit that I always found so dashing.
Perhaps I should be afraid. The mystery of my parents’ murders…that recollection of almost drowning in the bathtub…the way he’s changed over the years since I abandoned him. All of those things seemed so important before tonight, when I faced the reality of losing him.
Now, I clamber to my feet and throw my arms around him. “ Dorian . But how…?”
He tries to pull away from me, but I clutch him closer—needy, desperate to know that he’s solid and real and here . And after a brief hesitation, all four arms wrap around me and his chin settles on my head.
As Dorian holds me for the first time in years, I find that I don’t care enough about the how . I hadn’t realized how cold I was, shivering on the tile in my nightgown and my coat, until his warmth surrounded me. I have never felt as safe as I do now. My body knows him even if I can’t remember the details.
“You’re here,” I whisper. I stand on my tiptoes to press my face into his chest, wind my fingers into his dark hair, hold him as tightly as I can. I will hold him forever if it means he will stay visible and solid and real. I want to climb under his skin, stitch us together so we can never be separated again. “Don’t disappear on me again. Please. Stay .”
Before I’m aware of what I’m doing, I reach up and pull his face toward me. He yields to my touch, and I push his mask just above his mouth and kiss him.
When our lips collide, I know that it’s right . The contact sends a shock all the way through my body, tingling in my fingers…and elsewhere. Dorian’s grip on me tightens, all four hands clutching at me like he wants to somehow pull me closer. He kisses me back with hunger to match mine. Hot breath, a slide of tongue. A whimper escapes me as he crushes me against his chest, my breasts rubbing against his stomach; even through his suit, I can feel the hard muscles of his abs. I kiss him again and again, until I am panting, and even then it is not enough. I nip his bottom lip, breathe him in; I’m struck by a desire to consume him. To be consumed.
I have always kept everyone else at arm’s length, but Dorian can never be close enough. I need him. I’ve always needed him. How could I have forgotten this ?
He pulls away, breath shuddering out. I catch a glimpse of full, swollen lips, and then he yanks his mask down to cover his mouth again.
“Daisy,” he whispers.
I freeze at the sound of his voice coming from the radio. Deep and whispery and all too familiar. He still sounds far away, distorted, like a channel with a bad connection. But he spoke .
I gaze up at him in wonder. “Dorian.”
“Can’t be…” His mouth keeps moving, but the words turn to static. “D-D-D—”
My heart wrenches. “I can’t hear you.”
He reaches up to wipe my face. When he draws his hands back, his white glove is red and wet with blood. I wipe at my nose; I hadn’t even realized it was bleeding. He clenches his hand into a fist.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “It’s just from using my powers, I think.” I wipe my nose again; it won’t stop bleeding. “I’m fine.”
He shakes his head.
“ Danger !”
I flinch at the burst of noise from the radio, clasp a hand to my ear as it crescendos in an awful shriek of sound before cutting off. When I look back at Dorian, he’s going fuzzy around the edges again. Fading.
“Don’t go,” I plead. I reach for his shirt, but my hand goes through him. “Tell me what’s going on!”
The door to the cell opens. “Daisy? I just saw something on the EMF, are you…?”
I look over my shoulder at Ezra, who freezes in the doorway, staring. Then back toward Dorian, expecting him to have disappeared already—but he hasn’t. He’s still standing there, his masked face tilted to one side as he looks at Ezra. His eyes narrow, his shoulders stiffening.
Then two of his gloved hands jut out and shove me backward. Gasping, I stumble directly into Ezra, sending us both falling to the tile. While we’re still sitting there, Dorian grabs the door and shuts it behind him, closing himself in his cell.
* * *
I stand in front of the viewing window, holding a tissue to my nose and watching Dorian walk around the room. After the fleeting appearances of the last few weeks, followed by what seemed to be a total disappearance, it’s shocking to see him so clearly. He is so visible and… real . He doesn’t so much as flicker as he paces the room, and when he pauses to pick up the rubber ball and bounce it against the floor, it’s obvious that he is still solid as well.
“You can still see him?” Ezra asks.
I smile without taking my eyes off Dorian. “Yes.”
Beside me, Ezra fusses over an array of instruments on the desk—the EMF reader, a temperature gauge, and more that I don’t understand. As he records numbers in his notebooks, his eyebrows lift toward his hairline. “Amazing,” he murmurs. “Dorian hasn’t shown such a solid manifestation in the entire time I’ve been observing him.” He looks up from his notebook at me with something like awe. “You brought him back. He was gone , and you brought him back.”
I drop my gaze. “I don’t think I did anything special.”
“Regardless, the strength of your bond is impressive.” He shuts his notebook and comes to stand beside me, peering through the viewing window.
“Can you see him now?” I ask.
“Mm…sort of. If I concentrate. I can definitely feel him now, like I can with other spirits.”
Dorian pauses as he notices Ezra in the window, and stiffens. Then he disappears from view. The ball drops from his hand and bounces against the floor before rolling to a stop.
I hit the intercom. “You don’t have to be shy. Ezra is helping you. Helping us .”
The coloring book and crayons fly off the table and hit the wall. A burst of static comes through the radio, and the lights flicker.
“Be nice,” I scold. “Ezra is my friend.”
The coloring book flips over, and a crayon scribbles: MINE MINE MINE .
“I’m allowed to have other friends,” I say.
The crayon snaps in half and clatters to the floor.
I flinch at the crack of it, my mind leaping to that last hypnosis session, the memory of being pushed down in the tub by invisible hands.
But that memory was wrong . Dorian would never do that to me.
I clear my throat, turning to Ezra. “I’m sorry.”
His lips lift in a half-smile. He’s looking into the cell, distracted enough to miss my doubt. “I’m just happy to see that he’s strong enough to act out like this.” He folds his arms over his chest, drumming his fingers against the opposite bicep. “Though I hope we can find a way to get him to cooperate.”
My good mood dampens. He’s right. Bringing Dorian back from the brink of nonexistence was only the first step in us being reunited.
“Can’t you let me bring him home?” I ask, my voice barely more than a whisper. “You…you could tell the MRF he disappeared today and let me leave with him. Couldn’t you?”
Ezra opens his mouth, shuts it again. When he finally speaks, instead of an answer, he asks, “Why did he push you out of the cell?”
I blink. “What?”
“I saw him push you,” he says, studying my face. “Like he didn’t want you to be there. Why?”
“I…” My mouth hangs open before I shut it and wordlessly shake my head.
“Have you remembered what happened that night?” he presses. “Do you know if he killed your parents?”
I flush under his scrutiny and lower my eyes. I believe, deep in my heart, that Dorian didn’t do it…but he’s right that I don’t know for certain.
“There are too many things we don’t know,” Ezra says when I don’t respond. “I’ve always suspected there was more to the story of what happened that night, but Dorian still isn’t communicating with us. He seems unstable. And like I said before, sometimes, spirits can warp. Lose themselves. I need to be sure that isn’t happening, and Dorian is harmless to you and the rest of the world, before I can think about doing something like that.”
I almost insist he is, but I stop short. I am certain Dorian is harmless to me. But the rest of the world?
“And if I can prove that?” I ask, lifting my eyes to meet his again. “Then what? Will you help me get him out of here?”
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “If we do this right…” He turns and looks at Dorian’s cell, a fragile hope blooming on his face. “I’ve told you the MRF is different now. The new leadership is sympathetic. If we could prove that he’s harmless, maybe they’ll agree to release him.”
I stare at him, searching his face. I’ve been nursing a vague hope that Ezra would help stage an escape for Dorian if I could convince him he was innocent, but I never dared to dream of that. “You think that’s possible?” I ask. “This place, you think they would actually let him go?”
“I do,” Ezra says. “And I think it could change everything about the MRF’s future.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, nodding. It’s hard to make myself care about the MRF. But it means my interests and Ezra’s are aligned, for now.
“So where should we start?” I ask, gazing into the cell.
Dorian reappears, grabbing his rubber ball from the floor and beginning to toss it and catch it again, alternating between his four arms.
I can still feel those arms around me. All four hands touching, caressing, grabbing, like he can’t get enough.
Ezra squints through the viewing window, his brow furrowing. “Does he…? His arms. It almost looks like…”
“He has four of them,” I say, smiling. But Ezra’s startled look makes my grin fade. Surely that can’t be the most unusual thing Ezra has heard of in this place.
“But that’s…” He shakes his head, pushes his glasses up. “In the drawing you showed me, he only had two.”
“Yeah, he grew them later,” I say.
“When?”
“I…” I’m about to say “I don’t remember” when a memory jolts through my brain. I’m pinning Dorian down in bed, grinning in triumph as I hold his wrists at his sides. But his eyes turn sly behind the mask, and suddenly two more hands sprout from his torso and grab me. He twists so he’s on top and leans down to—
I blink away the memory, heat rising to my face. A trickle of wetness at my nose alerts me to more bleeding, and I wipe at it hastily before Ezra can see. “I-I… Is that important?”
“I suppose not,” Ezra says, staring at Dorian instead of me. “I’m just trying to understand.” He glances down at his notebook and shakes his head. “But you’re right. We should focus. He’s here now, so maybe he can answer our questions?”
“Right,” I say quietly. Did my contact with Dorian crack the dam holding back my memories? Something to explore later, but for now, Ezra is right. I can just ask Dorian about that night instead of trying to drag the truth from my fractured mind. I should’ve suggested it myself…or maybe some part of me was—is—afraid of what his answer might be.
But I have to ask. I have to know. I suppress my nerves as I reach over to press the intercom button. “Dorian?”
Dorian flickers out of existence. The rubber ball drops to the floor, bounces a couple of times, and stops. Then all of a sudden he is back, standing just in front of the viewing window, his head tilted to one side and his mask practically pressed against the glass.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He spreads his gloved arms, hands out, as if to say “Be my guest.”
Now that the opportunity to ask him has finally arrived, my mouth is dry. Dorian spoke to me when I was in the cell—maybe he will again. This is an opportunity to face the truth… But am I going to like what I find out? I’m all too aware of Ezra listening and taking notes beside me.
I swallow hard, and my voice shakes as I ask, “Could you tell me about what happened? The night…the night my parents died?”
Dorian is still and silent on the other side of the glass. Then his neck twitches and he steps back, clasping both sets of hands behind his back. It’s impossible to read his emotions behind that smiling mask.
The radio on the table flickers to life and begins to flicker through stations.
An official-sounding broadcast: “This is an emergency alert.” A crackle of the station changing, now a singer crooning sadly. “Oh, my darling—” Crackle, shift to an upbeat advertisement. “—running out of time! Act now or—” Crackle. “Hello darkness…”
My brow furrows as the radio fades into static. “I don’t understand,” I whisper. “I’m running out of time to…save you? I know that. That’s why I’m here.”
Dorian shakes his head. I can sense his frustration mirroring my own. Once, it was so easy for us to understand each other, but now there’s a gap that feels impossible to overcome.
As I’m trying to think of other ways to communicate with him, the radio buzzes to life again. A familiar, jaunty tune. “Run, Rabbit, Run!” starts to play. I glance toward it, an odd prickling sensation spreading across my skin as my memory strains for something—and when I look back toward Dorian, he’s gone.
“Wait,” I say, pressing myself against the glass. “Dorian, don’t go—”
The music cuts off and I hear the faint sound of scratching.
A tug of memory. That scratching. That was the sound that made me first notice Dorian, the one that happened under my bed every night at—
I glance at the clock.
Midnight.
Dorian emerges from under the bed, but something’s wrong. He twists and writhes across the floor like he’s being dragged by someone I can’t see. His fingertips scrabble against the floor, making that awful scratching sound. His mouth is open in a silent scream.
“Wh-what’s happening?” I ask. “Something’s wrong. Ezra—” I turn to him as he steps up beside me. “We have to do something!”
His expression is grim as he surveys the cell. “I wish we could.”
“What do you mean?” I cry out as Dorian’s mouth moves in an inaudible plea. He cowers on the floor, raising his hand against an invisible attacker. A blow sends him sprawling on his back. He tries to get up, but a weight presses him down again. His ribs compress as though under a crushing weight.
Ezra places a hand on my shoulder, but I wrench away. I don’t understand how he can be so calm about this, why he isn’t rushing into the cell to help Dorian right now.
“He’s reliving his death,” Ezra says. “It happens with ghosts. I know it’s awful, I’m sorry, but he’ll be okay afterward—”
I ignore him and slam my fist against the window. I can’t stand here and watch this. I refuse . “Dorian,” I cry. “ Dorian !”
The desk beside us shudders as I scream, papers falling to the floor. The furniture inside of Dorian’s cell shifts, too, as if blown back by a powerful force.
Dorian, one shaking hand still raised to defend himself, blinks out. Then he appears again, on his feet in front of the viewing window. Two of his arms wrap around his torso as he looks around, shaking his head. His chest rises and falls in a deep breath, and he reaches up, touching his mask as if reassuring himself it’s still there. Then he looks at me and inclines his body in a graceful bow of thanks before disappearing again.
My legs go weak with relief. I sink to my knees on the tile.
“You…stopped it.” Ezra stares down at me. “But… I’ve never…”
While he struggles for words, I pull my knees to my chest, struggling to calm my breathing. “He’s done this before?”
“Yes. Most ghosts do at their time of death,” Ezra says, still staring into the now-empty cell. “The first time you mentioned the scratching in your childhood, I thought that was why.”
I swallow back revulsion as the realization hits me. The scratching . That’s what was happening under my bed every night when I was a kid. He was reliving a horrible, painful death. “He didn’t do it every night,” I say. “Well, he did at the beginning, but then it stopped, until now…”
Ezra frowns. He turns away from the cell and looks at me. “Repetitive behavior is standard for ghosts. They’re echoes of the past; they fall into old patterns. They don’t… change like this.” His brow furrows in thought. “But many things about Dorian aren’t quite how a ghost behaves.”
“I’ve been telling you,” I whisper, “he’s different. ”
“But he behaved like a textbook poltergeist at the beginning,” Ezra says, still staring at me, like I’m the puzzle here instead of Dorian. “And then….” Understanding breaks across his face. “Something changed him.”
“What?” I ask, though I have an idea of what he’s about to say.
“You.”