Chapter Twenty-Four
I scrabble at the hand holding my hair, but my struggles are in vain. My powers don’t answer when I call, either; I’m too scared. They have always come to me in moments of anger or concentration, and I can find neither when I am drowning in the sound of my own heartbeat.
Suddenly, Dorian is there. He appears, visible and solid, pushing between us. He has always been the bigger one, the faster one, the braver of the two of us. I hit the floor and scramble backward, gasping for breath.
The thing possessing my father tilts his head, looking at Dorian.
“Leave her alone,” Dorian says, “Dad.”
My father’s red eyes narrow even as he grins. “Was wondering when you’d have the guts to show yourself, boy.” He takes a step closer, radiating menace, but Dorian holds his ground even as he shakes.
I remember Dorian whispering to me the first night he crawled out from under my bed, when I held his bloodied hands and asked what happened to him.
“My dad,” he whispered. “He killed my mama. When I found her body in the attic, he killed me too.”
Dorian got his revenge, eventually—whispering into his father’s ear every time he tried to sleep till the awful man put a gun in his mouth. But that only trapped him here with Dorian. And he’s been getting stronger—growing until he twisted into something else, something even more evil than he was in life.
“Didn’t I teach you this lesson already, boy?” he snarls, and swings the axe at Dorian.
I expect it to go straight through him. So, I think, does Dorian. But instead, it strikes him right in the mask, splitting it down the middle.
The broken pieces clatter to the floorboards. Dorian stumbles back, covering his face with both hands. With each step back, he grows smaller, until his back hits the wall and he’s in the form of the child he was when we first met. Just a thin, cowering boy, his fingertips raw and bloody from when he was dragged out from under the bed by the same man he’s now facing. His face a mess of gore and bone. Terrified and alone.
But no. Not alone. Because I am still here, and the sight of my friend reduced to such a state reawakens the anger I’ve been searching for.
“Leave him alone!” I scream, rising to my feet. Dorian has defended me so many times. Protected me, comforted me, reassured me. Now it’s my turn.
The monster in my father’s body laughs, an awful, grating sound.
“What are you going to do, little rabbit?” he asks.
In response, I jut out a hand and push . He slides back on the floorboards, face shifting into an almost comical mask of surprise. It takes only a second to recover, though. He raises the axe and lunges. I push with my mind again, and he jerks to a stop—but then slowly, as if moving against a current, he takes a step forward. And another. Each grows easier, more confident. And he’s moving not toward me, but toward the cowering form of Dorian, still curled into a ball in the corner.
“Dorian,” I force out, struggling to regain my hold. “Run!”
Instead of disappearing, Dorian peeks at me through his fingers. “Go,” he mouths, and I realize it isn’t fear that’s keeping him rooted and vulnerable. He’s trying, as always, to protect me.
“No!” I could run for the door but can’t bear to leave Dorian behind. I can’t lose him. No matter what it takes, I have to save him.
I shut my eyes, curl my fingers, and scream as I push at the thing possessing my father with all of the energy I have.
I hear a horrible, wet squelch. The thump of a body hitting the floor.
I fall to my knees on the floorboards, gasping, my vision going white. But I force myself to lift my head and look to see if Dorian— If Dorian is—
Fine. He’s fine.
And my father’s body is slumped on the floor just a foot from him, with the blade of the axe buried deeply in his face. Splitting it directly down the middle, just like what was done to Dorian so long ago.
A sob wrenches out of my throat as I crawl forward on my hands and knees. “Dad…” I whisper, voice shaking. I reach for the body, but then I recoil and turn instead to Dorian. He’s growing already, changing until he’s an adult again. Without the mask, his face is still a mess of scar tissue, cheekbone caved in and most of his nose destroyed.
I pull his hands away from his face and kiss him.
“You saved me,” I whisper.
“You saved me ,” he murmurs back, his forehead pressing against mine.
“Dorian, what are we going to do?” I ask. “My parents…” My voice wobbles. I feel numb, ears ringing, unable to wrap my mind around this. I can’t stop shaking. “I have to call the police. But what if they take me away? From this house, from you? I’ll—”
I cut off as I hear something upstairs. The scratch of the record player…and a jaunty, familiar tune beginning to play again.
My eyes widen. I pull back from Dorian, see an answering fear in his eyes. I open my mouth to voice a question—
But suddenly I can’t speak. Can’t move. Cold fingers wrap around my neck from behind, chilly breath ghosting against my ear. When I glance sideways, a pair of red eyes and a horrible, leering grin await.
“Godric Elwood,” he mouths, but it’s my lips that speak the word. His name.
And then my body turns and looks at Dorian. I am a passenger in my own mind. It’s like I’m viewing the world from within a cage. I can even feel the cold bars against my hands, rattle them mentally, but I am helpless to do anything but watch as my body reaches out and grabs Dorian by the throat. He struggles against my grip, but he doesn’t fight. He won’t fight me.
“Dorian,” I scream within the confines of my head. I hear Godric’s laughter echoing around me. I can see him through the bars of this cage, even as I simultaneously view myself choking Dorian. A disconcerting double vision, my mind and body torn apart.
In my mindscape, Godric is red and wet like flayed-open muscle, his eyes twin flames, horns curling out of his head. Once a horrible man, now become even something worse in death.
“I’ve been waiting so long for this,” he hisses. “Waiting, feeding… But such power . It was worth the wait. Your mind is a weapon. And your body…” His forked tongue slides out from behind his blackened lips.
One of my hands is still gripping Dorian by the throat, holding him with preternatural strength. The other slides down over my body, my breasts. I can feel it, the horrifying sensation of being violated by my own hand. Nobody but Dorian has touched me so intimately. I never wanted anyone else to.
I scream and thrash against the bars of my own mind. Dorian’s eyes are rolling back in his head. His form flickers around the edges. Can he die again ?
“There are worse things than death,” Godric says, answering the question I only asked in my mind. “I can send him down to the pits of hell, a new plaything for my master.”
Nothing is mine anymore. Not my body, my thoughts, my Dorian, my power…
My power .
I am not helpless. I have control of my power. I reach for it buried inside of me, let it wrap around me like a comforting cloak, along with my anger. How dare this entity use my body like this. I am not a tool or a weapon or a thing. I picture the cage around me again, and then I picture the door opening and me striding out.
I let go of Dorian’s throat. My hand remains in the air, trembling as I battle for control.
Dorian has done his best to protect me. Now it’s my turn to return the favor. I raise my trembling, resisting hands to my temples and screw my eyes shut as I concentrate.
“Get out ,” I say through gritted teeth.
The creature howls in response. He digs his claws into me mentally, resisting me as I try to shove him away. Warm blood trickles from my nose, cascading over my lips and chin, but I ignore it.
“This is my body,” I whisper. “My mind. You can’t have it.”
Another gush of blood from my nose, and pain racks me. I crumble to my knees. But warm hands are there to catch me before I hit the floor. Dorian’s long arms wrap around me, and he presses his unmasked forehead to mine in a show of silent support. He’s weak and flickering, but he’s here, lending me strength. My other half. Power pulses through me—power that I loaned him every time I spoke with him, laughed with him, shaped him. Now it flows back into me, helping me fight.
The monster is still snarling and clawing at me, trying to break free. It’s agony to try to force him out of my head, but I realize, all of a sudden, that I don’t have to.
I can do something better.
I picture the cage again, the one he locked me in. But I build it stronger this time. Not a cage but a room with four sturdy walls. Somewhere out of the way, where he can rage all he wants and no one will hear. Somewhere like-
The attic.
I picture myself standing in front of the monster as he struggles and snarls, held in place by the combined power of me and Dorian. Then I place my hands on his chest and shove . He stumbles, tries to recover, and all four of Dorian’s hands appear from behind me to shove as well, forcing the creature into the room.
I shut the hatch, slam a mental lock into place, and suddenly my head is quiet. I’m alone in my body, sagging on the floor in Dorian’s arms.
“We did it,” I whisper, leaning against him. But he doesn’t feel as solid as before. He’s still fuzzy around the edges, his form indistinct. I raise my head, blinking, confusion soon sharpening into fear. “Dorian? What’s wrong?” I grab hold of his arms, forcibly anchoring him as his form flickers. “Oh, no. What did I do?” He gave me my power back to help me fight. And I…
I blink, disoriented, as the memory slips through my fingers. What did I do? I shake my head to clear it, and the world spins. I reach for Dorian, but my hand goes through him, and he disappears. It’s just me, alone with the bodies of my parents, blood dripping from my nose, memories bleeding away…
* * *
The scene freezes like a movie being paused. But my eyes can still move, flickering around the room. Blood still seeps from my nose, a drip growing into a stream, forming a puddle on the floorboards where Dorian used to be.
Bubbles form, and then a hand reaches out, coated in the viscous red liquid. Long nails dig into the floorboards, and a figure slowly drags itself out of the blood, inch by inch, and stands over me.
Red and grinning and horned. Godric .
He wipes blood off his face and turns burning eyes on me. He grins, a mouthful of sharp white teeth emerging from beneath the blood still dripping from its skin.
“Yes, that’s how it happened,” he says. “You locked me away. Me and every memory that I appeared in.” He takes a step toward me, gait awkward and shuffling, like he’s still remembering how. “But now you’ve opened the door.”
I’m paralyzed as memories slam into me. I remember that night, and I remember that it’s been years since then. My body isn’t really here; it’s sitting in the attic.
I shut my eyes. “Wake up, wake up…” I tell myself. I try to hear the song on the record player so I can follow it back to reality, but there’s nothing but Godric’s echoing laughter.
“Just you and me now, little rabbit,” he snarls. He grabs me by the chin and my eyes fly open. He leans down to drag one claw down my cheek, leaving a line of burning pain. I scream and try to pull away, but I can’t.
I’m trapped in my own mind with him.
That hatch rattling in the hallway of my memories…it was never just a bad memory trapped on the other side. It was this thing that I forced myself to forget. I’ve had him locked away all this time.
And that’s why Dorian said it was dangerous to remember. The more time I spent with him, the more I recalled my lost memories, the more the cage I had placed around Godric weakened. But in the end, it didn’t matter. I released him myself.
He grips my chin between his pointer and thumb. Claws dig into my skin, and his hot, rank breath ghosts over my face. This is real. He can really hurt me. I already knew that from exploring my mind with Ezra, but now I’m trapped here.
“All these years I’ve spent locked away,” he whispers. “And I…am so… hungry .” A long tongue flicks out of his mouth and rakes over the tears trickling down my face.
“Those nights in my house,” I whisper. The song. The sounds in the night. The incident in my bathtub. I thought I was going crazy, or my abilities were going haywire, but I was wrong all along. “That was you.”
“Every time you unlocked a memory, the door cracked open a little further,” he says. “I wanted to speed things along. Jolt your memory.” He grips my face hard. “And I couldn’t resist taking your body on a couple of test rides.”
I shut my eyes, trying in vain to turn away, but his grip holds me steady. All this time, and Dorian knew. That’s why he tried to push me away, to stop me. He knew the danger of remembering. He was willing to be forgotten if it kept me safe. And I didn’t listen.
“He can’t help you this time,” Godric says, hearing my thoughts. He leans closer, nose brushing my cheek, smearing blood over my skin. “It’s just you and me now, Daisy. I may be locked up in your mind, but now you’re here with me. We’re going to have so much fun together…”
“Daisy!”
The voice is familiar but so far away, so very far. But Godric pauses, glancing around like he’s trying to find the source.
“Ezra!” I scream. “Help me!”
Godric chuckles. “He can’t hear you. Not here.”
He’s probably right. But it doesn’t matter, because I can hear him. I shut my eyes, using Ezra’s voice as a lifeline, an anchor back to reality, like I did so many times in the MRF.
“Listen to the sound of my voice.”
“What is this?” Godric hisses.
“Let it guide you back to your body .”
“No. Stop that. You’re mine. You’re trapped here with me!” His voice is growing frantic. His claws rake my cheek, slashing deep into my skin, but the pain feels distant now—and Ezra’s voice sounds closer.
This isn’t real. That is reality.
“On the count of three, you’re going to open your eyes and wake up.”
“No!” Godric howls.
“One… two… three .”
I open my eyes.