That’s what Daemon and Dark had meant about all those right-handed bubbles. But this was impossible. Runo was so fucking real. He was everything to me.
Ourfather mentioned that we used to be worse. What did that mean?
“Fuck if I know,” I grumbled. I slipped back into the car, beating the horn a few times to relieve my anger. It did absolutely nothing, echoing through the empty car lot, a murder of crows flocking into the air. Well,thatwasn’t creepy. I needed to figure all of this shit out. I had hallucinated my best friend? No wonder Jade was fucking freaked around me.
I sped off back the way I came, warring with my emotions and the unsettling feeling of having lost to my own mental diagnosis. Maybe my father was right; that I needed help far beyond what any of them could give. I punched a few numbers into the console, waiting until the dial tone ended. “Where the fuck is he? Where did you take Runo?”
My father sighed. “Just come home and I’ll explain everything.”
“I don’t want shit explained to me. Why did we think it was at Grimrose? Where are his messages? His calls? You fucking deleted everything, didn’t you?” I swerved to the right, tears gathering in my eyes as I tried to focus.
Maybe pull over.
“Fuck that. Tell me where he is.”
My father let out another sigh. “Just come home.”
I hung up on him, swerving again when someone jumped out into the road. “Runo?” The individual ran around to the passenger side of the car and pulled the door open before slidinginto the seat. “I knew you were fucking real! Why the fuck was everyone messing with me? You’re out. Why were you just walking around and what are you wearing?” I stared at clothes that resembled mine but Runo had always had a wildly different style.
He didn’t look like a man who had spent nearly a decade in prison. He looked good, lively,vibrant.When he turned to face me, his smile full of teeth, I tensed. “Finn, I’m not actuallyhere.”
“Bullshit. Stop playing with me. I’ll show them—”
Runo pointed to the rearview mirror and I grunted, choosing to follow his command when the impossible stared back at me. Killian, Dark, and Daemon were seated in that back row, all of us sharing a glance. “I’m not here, Finn. Just as they aren’t. You better turn right.”
“What?”
My head whipped backward as the car crashed into something, the airbag pounded me in the chest and neck. A grunt tore from my throat as the windshield shattered on impact, my entire body ripped from the car. I fell hard on asphalt, groaning as pain shot through my side. When I turned around to check on Runo, he wasn’t there.
“This can’t be happening!” This wasn’t part of the fucking plan.
He’s one of us.
That’s some fucked up shit.
I never said that I was the original. Finn just thought I was because he wasn’t. Runo is and if you thought Finn was a nightmare, Runo is worse.
I don’t understand. He was in jail!
The jail he put himself in. He played all of us.
“I always knew Killian would be the smart one. Finn, I told you to turn right.”
FINN
My lids felt like sandpaper as they opened, pain throbbing along my right side as I came to. I had no idea what was real, if the image of my new car smashed into a telephone pole was there, or if it was all in my head. The smoke from the vehicle swarmed around me, filling my lungs as I hacked for fresh air, my fingers curling into the asphalt below me.
A few feet away, Runo sat cross-legged, head tilted, nothing behind those ocean-gray eyes of his. “I told you to turn right, Finn. I did warn you but you wouldn’t listen. Hell, everyone told you something or other along the way but you just had to have me out, didn’t you?”
A wild grin split across his face as he lay down in front of me, propping himself up on his elbows. I didn’t understand whatwas going on. If he was me, then was this pain real, or had I manufactured it in my head? The mirages of the other alters were littered around me, all of us watching Runo for answers.
“Killian knew about me all along, didn’t you,Primrose?”
That’s my name for him. Find your own.
Runo chuckled, kicking his feet up amid the destruction of my car accident. “But we’re all the same people, Daemon. Technically, it’sourname for Killian. That’s not the point. I was going to stay in my little cell for a very long time but you had to go and fuck things up, Finn.”
I growled and then hissed as the pain resurged. “Killian was the one who stuffed me away. Blame him for me wanting to resurface. Fuck, this hurts.”
