Chapter 5
5
Sonny
F or being a figment of my imagination, Finley sure has a lot to say.
Once I finally lean into the idea of psychosis, I decide I might as well listen to it all, even just for entertainment purposes. If this is a dream or a hallucination, it’s much better than the reality I’ve found myself in.
I can either sit alone in silence or let my thoughts distract me.
So, what’s the harm in playing along?
“...We couldn’t risk them figuring out that Lewis was the leak.” He’s lying back on my makeshift bed, eyes cast toward the ceiling as I sit cross-legged on the floor before him.
“That’s why you left Nocturne Valley?” I’m eating up every word. His story is so interesting, and he speaks in the same pattern he did in the journals—holding back enough to keep me wanting more.
He nods once, his lips cast downward in a frown. “It wasn’t worth fighting a war I couldn’t win. It killed me to leave the place my family created a home in, but I was losing myself in Nocturne Valley. Lewis, bless his soul, was begging me to move on. The poor guy was destined to be with my sister and got plagued with me instead.”
“Did he ever start a new family?”
“We both did.” He shrugs, then raises his voice defensively, like I’ve argued that point. “What else was there to do? I knew that if I couldn’t take those bastards down, my future legacies would. I even had a vision about it.”
That catches my attention. “A vision? Like, of the future?”
“Yes, my darling girl.”
I shake the thought away. “That isn’t possible. The Landrys were Aeternum and Valerian. They couldn’t see the future.”
Hopelessness settles in my chest, hollowing it out as the harsh realization that none of this is really happening dawns on me. I am a lonely, lonely woman.
Fake Finley sits up in the bed, turning toward me with furrowed brows. “The Landrys were far more than those two things, and whoever told you anything different was lying.”
“I read the journals and studied the textbooks,” I argue back with what I assume is my own imagination.
God, I’m so ridiculous.
“Clearly, you haven’t.”
I open my mouth to respond but nearly choke on the words when I’m shocked by a light. It’s so bright, I can hardly crack my eyes open without searing my retinas. It’s drastically different from the gentle glow that was around Finley. When I turn back toward the bed, his apparition has disappeared.
Calm, calculated steps thud against the stone, the sound growing louder as my new visitor gets closer and my heart races faster.
Two visits in one day? That can’t be good.
I pace back and forth in a panic, mentally weighing my options, but there really aren’t any. I’m trapped in this cell and whoever is on their way to me is walking with intent. Could it be Divina back to confuse me more? Raze coming to skin me alive? Or, what if Divina wasn’t lying, and it’s one of the Midnight Syndicate members coming to make the offer she was so hellbent on telling me to reject?
I don’t have to wonder for long. Just as I stop in front of the window of my cell door, one of the men from the woods appears on the other side of it—I think his name was James.
“Have a moment to talk?” he asks, his harsh smile deepening at the small, cruel joke.