Page 26 of The Imaginary Friend’s Obsession (Monster Research Facility #3)

W hen I pull up to the gate to the MRF, the lights flicker and die. All of them. The facility is usually a beacon on the edge of the late-night town, but now it is as dark and dead quiet as the rest of Ash Valley.

The guard station is empty, the gate to the facility parking lot left wide open. Dread is a cold knot in my stomach as I drive through, and I’m not surprised to see that Ezra’s car is already here, parked haphazardly in front of the entrance.

I slam the car door and rush into the empty, dark lobby. I flash my cell phone around the room, but there’s nothing here but a smear of blood across the tile. The door that leads to the holding cells has been blown off its hinges, leaving a hole like a gaping maw. Beyond is a hallway lit only by dim red emergency lights.

My gut urges me to run for the exit without looking back. Instead, I slide along the wall. The silence and darkness in this building are thick, suffocating. The sound of my own breathing seems to echo. I’m scared to use my cell phone and attract attention, so I feel my way through and count the cells as I pass them.

Thirteen…fourteen…fifteen. This should be Dorian’s room. I grab the handle, but it’s locked.

I pause to breathe. I was hoping the power shutdown would have released him, but there must be a backup generator providing the emergency lighting and security. When I look over my shoulder, the light on the hallway camera is still blinking, too.

I’m cut off from Dorian. Fear is a living thing wrapped around me, constricting my throat and my chest. It makes it hard to breathe, hard to think. But I dig past it and reach for what it’s kept buried for far too long: my anger.

All my life I have pushed that anger down for the sake of staying in control. Of maintaining appearances. Of keeping myself small and unnoticed. But now, I let myself feel it. The years of running, of loneliness. The unfairness of how everything has been ripped away from me. I have been forced to be small for far too long. I have forced myself to be submissive and docile in the name of being safe.

Not this time. Never again.

If I use my powers here, in the middle of the MRF, the camera will record it. They will know I’m exactly the kind of monster they keep locked within these walls. I may never be able to conceal myself again…

But if that’s what it takes to save Dorian, then so be it. I am tired of hiding from what I really am.

I press my hands against the cell door and let my anger fill me. First it’s a trickle clawing up the back of my throat. Then the dam breaks and the anger pours out until it fills me to the brim and overflows in a scream. I scream until my throat is raw, and my body is shaking, and the door in front of me is rattling with the force of my fury and my power .

And I let it out.

Metal shrieks as the door dents and warps. I scream again, shoving my palms against the iron. This time it flies off its hinges, slamming backward and into the secondary door trapping Dorian. It blows right through it, and both hit the wall inside Dorian’s cell, leaving the room open.

I step through the doorway, panting. I instinctively wipe my nose, but there’s no blood. That was always Godric bashing against the inside of his cell. My own power doesn’t hurt me.

“Dorian?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper, hoarse in the aftermath of that scream. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized I’m going to have to tell him everything—that I ignored his warnings, that I released his father just like he feared I would.

Dorian was willing to lose me to keep Godric trapped. What if he hates me for what I’ve done?

A tear rolls down my cheek—and Dorian blinks into existence in front of me, lit by the red emergency lights, wiping it away with one gloved thumb. His fingers lightly graze the scratch marks his father left on my cheek. I stare up at him. His mask is still cracked down the middle, revealing a sliver of scars, the evidence of what his father did to him when he was just a child. My throat is so tight with guilt that I can’t force out any words. But he pulls me against him as if he already knows.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my face muffled where it presses against Dorian’s chest. “You were just trying to protect me. But I didn’t listen.”

Dorian strokes my hair with one gloved hand, the other three holding me safe against him. The radio is silent behind him, likely dead from the power outage.

I pull back enough to look up at him, blinking away my tears. “I let him out, Dorian. He took Ezra’s body. He’s free now, and he’s here , and it’s all my fault.”

His eyes widen in panic, and he nudges me toward the door.

“I’m not leaving without you,” I say. I step back, tugging his hand. He follows, step by step, but stops as I step over the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

He looks at the open doorway and then past it, into the hallway. He looks at me, a terrible sadness in his eyes, and shakes his head.

“What do you mean, you can’t? I’ve remembered everything, your father is out, we can be together now…” I trail off, realizing he’s still looking at me with those sad, sad eyes. He points at the walls, the floor, the ceiling, gesturing all around him with all four hands.

“You’re still trapped,” I whisper. Of course it wasn’t the doors keeping Dorian in; he’s incorporeal most of the time. I never figured out how they moved Dorian from my house to this place, but somehow this entire cell must be built to contain him. “But…no. No, this can’t be. I…” I suck in a shaky breath, trying to make sense of it. This can’t end with me walking away again. We’re supposed to be together. I did all of this so we could be together.

“No,” I say again. “Not now. Not when we’re so close.” Tears build behind my eyes, and I struggle to keep myself from breaking down. This is our chance to get out of here. “I’m not leaving you behind again.”

Dorian takes a step back, away from me, his image starting to fade.

I shake my head, unable to speak through the tears thickening my throat. It’s not fair. I can’t come this far, get this close to being with Dorian, only to have it ripped away like this.

“I don’t want to live without you,” I say. “Because I’m yours, and you’re mine. Forever, remember? That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Memories flicker through my mind. Our childlike laughter as we ran through the halls of my house. Nights spent curled around each other in bed. Our kiss in this very cell. When I thought he disappeared, and I brought him back…

My rushing thoughts halt.

“Ezra said that iron and salt trap ghosts,” I say, thinking as I speak. “Maybe that’s what’s keeping you here. But Dorian…” I step forward into the cell, reach out, and take two of his gloved hands in mine. “You’re not a ghost.” I press my lips to one glove and look up at him, into his dark eyes behind the mask. “You’re my imaginary friend.” I smile through my tears. “Which means you are what I make you.”

Ezra has always said that I shaped Dorian, changed him. That he doesn’t act like any other ghost that Ezra has seen in his years of study.

Maybe he was a poltergeist when I found him, but now he’s something different. Something more powerful.

Something that isn’t restricted by whatever rules bind him here, because I believe he isn’t.

I hold that thought in my mind, pouring every ounce of myself into it. Pouring my power into Dorian, willing him to change , like he’s changed so many times for me. When I gave him the mask, when I grew up and wanted him to grow with me, when he grew extra appendages just to please me. When he stopped existing and I summoned him back.

Still holding his hands, I step backward, pulling him with me. And then another. When he stalls, I give an insistent tug. His hands tense as they move toward the barrier as if fearing pain—but still trusting me.

His hands move into the doorway and through it.

And Dorian steps into the hallway with me, free of his cell.