Chapter Twenty-Nine
“ D aisy,” Ezra gasps.
I lift my head as the world slowly comes into focus. I find myself in an all too familiar room. White walls, white tile, a metal table with a radio sitting on top of it…this is Dorian’s cell. But it’s Ezra strapped to the bed in a straitjacket.
I rush over to release him, undoing the straps on his back and pulling it off. “This isn’t real,” I tell him. “It’s all in your mind.” I remember how it felt to be trapped in a mental cage while Godric used my body.
But I broke out. Once I’ve released Ezra, I march over to the door to demonstrate. I raise a hand and reach for my power to crush it like I crushed it in real life—but nothing happens.
I blink, lower my hand, doubt seeping in. “ Your mind,” I repeat, turning to face Ezra. He’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, his face pale and stricken. “You have to be the one to let us out of here.”
“I’m not strong enough to stop him,” Ezra says. “He-he killed those people. I saw it, and I couldn’t do anything… I can’t do anything.”
“Don’t say that.” I cross the room to him and bend down to take his trembling hands in mine. Electricity sparks between us. “Do you feel that?” I ask, squeezing his fingers. “We amplify each other. We always have. And I’m here to help you now.”
But he shakes his head, pulling his fingers free. “You shouldn’t have come,” he says. “Just do what you did before. Trap him in here with me.”
“I’m not going to do that to you,” I say. “There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t,” Ezra says. “It’s for the best. Trap him in my head and put me in a cell at the MRF where I can’t get free.”
“What?” I whisper. “Ezra…”
The radio on the table crackles to life. I turn to it, hoping Dorian has found his way to us—but instead the disturbingly cheery tune of “Run, Rabbit, Run!” begins to play.
The shutters on the viewing panel slide open, and Godric peers through from the observation room, grinning and horrible.
“One cage for two psychics,” he says through the intercom, voice crackling from a speaker on the wall. “How practical.”
I glower at him. “You’re trapped in here too.”
He shrugs. “I already did what I came here to do. Now I get to have some fun.” He bends down and flips a switch on the control panel in front of him. The cell shudders around us, and then the walls start to shrink inward.
I swallow my panic. “Ezra.” I squeeze his hands again. “You need to get us out of here.”
“If we get out, so does he,” Ezra says. “It’s not safe.”
“And Ezra has always known this is exactly where he belongs,” Godric says, his voice full of false cheer. “He never would have worked at the MRF if he wasn’t ready to end up a prisoner there. He knew he deserved it. Isn’t that right, Ezra?”
“That’s not true!” I say. It frightens me to see that Ezra still isn’t arguing; his hand is limp in mine, and his eyes are dull, missing some vital spark. I grab him by the shoulder and shake him. “You don’t deserve this. Neither of us do. We can fight him!”
The metal table creaks and bends as one of the walls reaches it. They’re still closing in.
“He hoped he would get caught,” Godric says. There’s a screech of metal as the table gives way, and I climb onto the bed, pulling Ezra with me, because there’s no space left on the floor. The room is shrinking, walls threatening to crush us. “Especially after the terrible things he did. You don’t even know the half of it, Daisy! The things he’s seen in this place, the experiments he’s been complicit in… He’s worse than a monster. A coward, a freak, a traitor—”
“You told me that yourself,” Ezra whispers.
My chest aches. “I didn’t. That was him in my body. I would never say that, because you’re not any of those things.” I’m done talking to Godric; I whisper directly to Ezra as the room shrinks around us.
There’s not even enough space to stand on the bed. A wall presses against my back. The one behind Ezra is doing the same to him.
“You saved Dorian.” I think of that day he wrote I am like you and changed the world for me. I smile, tears blurring my vision. “You saved me .” I throw my arms around his neck and squeeze him. “Before you, my only friend was the one I created for myself,” I tell him, holding him close. If we don’t make it out of here, I at least want him to understand. “I’m so grateful for you, Ezra. I’m so grateful that we met. You made me realize I’m not alone.”
The walls are on all sides now. They’re pressing in, crushing the air from my lungs as I’m shoved into Ezra’s chest. There’s a terrible weight, a bone-cracking pressure, and then—
* * *
I shudder awake on the floor of the MRF. Dorian is cradling me in his arms.
“Ezra,” I croak, and turn to see his limp body lying on the tile with blood streaming from his nose. He is completely still.
My heart lurches—but a moment later, his chest rises. Falls. Rises again. His eyes snap open and he sits up, a shaky hand pushing his glasses up his nose.
“I pushed him out,” he croaks. “Don’t let him get away.”
I scramble to my feet alongside Dorian, but there’s no sign of Godric anywhere. “He’s here? I can’t— I don’t—”
Ezra raises a hand and points. “Right there!”
I whirl around, but there’s nothing but an empty hallway. Dorian turns in a circle, eyes darting everywhere, but he seems similarly at a loss. But Ezra— Ezra is staring like he can see Godric clear as day.
I reach over, grab his hand. And suddenly I can see him too.
The demon looks a whole lot smaller outside of our heads. He’s a hunched red form, wizened and withered. Pathetic and barely a few feet tall. His black eyes widen as he sees Ezra and I staring at him. He turns to run, but I thrust out a hand.
“ Stop ,” I command, and he does. One leg lifted, one hand outstretched, he freezes in place, trembling with fury and fear. “Dorian,” I say, strained with the effort of holding Godric in place—but Dorian doesn’t need more encouragement than that.
He falls upon his father, his killer, the demon. All four hands grasp at him. Without a vessel or time to feed, Godric suddenly seems so small and weak. And Dorian is no longer the terrified boy he once dragged out from under the bed to kill.
“You’re too late,” Godric snarls. “I’ve already released him—”
Dorian rips him limb from limb. The demon erupts in a shriek and a spray of gore, and as Dorian lets the pieces fall to the floor, they crumble away into ash and leave nothing but dust.