Page 79 of Dual

The air conditioning kicks on with a soft hum, raising goosebumps on my bare arms. Outside, thunder rumbles, distant but threatening.

"I wanted to get rid of Mads," I say, my voice barely audible over the rain. "For good."

Dr. Ezra doesn't look surprised, exactly, but his shoulders tense slightly. He sets his pen down, giving me his full attention.

"And how did that work out?" he asks, though I suspect he already knows the answer.

I stare at my hands, hating the rust-colored stains that still haunt me beneath my fingernails despite how I've scrubbed them raw. "It worked," I say bitterly. "Mads is gone."

"But?" he prompts when I fall silent.

"But someone else came in her place." The words taste like ash in my mouth. "Someone who calls herself Red."

Lightning flashes outside, briefly illuminating the room in stark white before plunging us back into the soft amber glow of his desk lamp. I count---one, two, three---before thunder follows, closer now.

"And this... concerns you?" Dr. Ezra asks, his voice frustratingly measured.

"Concerns me?" All that I can't say out loud bubbles up as a sudden, hysterical laugh from my chest instead.Oh, I don'tknow, Dr. Ezra, she just happened to kill someone. In our home. And then she... cleaned up tidily after herself.

Dr. Ezra's expression doesn't change, but his eyes sharpen, focusing on me with an intensity that makes me want to shrink into the chair.

I reach into my purse---the suede one Domhnall bought me last Christmas---and pull out the bottom half of the crumpled journal page. I ripped off the part mentioning the attack and shoved it in my glove box before coming in. My hand trembles as I pass it across the desk.

Dr. Ezra reads it, his face impassive. When he looks up, his eyes are grave behind his glasses.

"May I keep this?" he asks.

"Please," I whisper. "I don't want it anywhere near me."

He tucks the page into a folder, movements precise and deliberate. The storm has started properly now, rain lashing the windows, thunder shaking the building's bones.

"Anna," he says, and there's a gentleness to his tone that makes tears spring to my eyes. "I have to be blunt with you. Given your history of hypnosis-induced amnesia, this was a highly predictable outcome of such measures."

Heat rushes to my face, anger flaring hot and bright. "Well, why didn't you tell me that before?!"

"Because I thought we'd established enough trust that you would discuss treatment options with me before taking alternative measures." His voice remains calm, though his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly on his armrests. "And Ididdiscuss all treatment modalities with you when we first beganworking together. But granted, that was a long time ago, and you weren't in the best state at the time. I should have reiterated the reasons for our current approach as we continued."

I sink back into the chair, deflated. The leather squeaks beneath me, the sound oddly childish in the serious room.

"I take it Mads did something to push you to take such extreme actions?" he asks after a moment.

My eyes burn with unshed tears. "She ran away. I thought... I thought I was doing the right thing."

The memory hits me with physical force---waking up bloody in the middle of nowhere, the car smashed all to hell. And me too fucking stubborn to realize she must have been running from danger.

"But the appearance of this new alter has changed your mind?"

"Yes," I say softly, watching rain streak the window like tears. "I need Mads back. She understood... things. Red is different. Colder. I'm afraid of what she might do next."

Dr. Ezra steeples his fingers beneath his chin. "Well, we'll just have to start over and try to establish co-consciousness with the new alter and bring her into conversation with you as primary."

"No!" The word explodes from me, sharp and panicked. I lean forward, pulse racing. "You can't talk to her. I just need you to find Mads."

Something shifts in Dr. Ezra's expression---a softening around the eyes, a sadness I don't want to see.

"Anna," he says gently, "it doesn't work like that. There'sno magic pill, no simple hypnotic suggestion that can bring Mads back and send Red away. The mind is infinitely more complex."

"But there must be something---"