No response. Just darkness and that faint voice, still calling his name like a question mark hanging in stale air.
Isaac reached for the panel, fingers closing around the edge. The wood felt solid and real, cool under his palm. He pushed to shut it, but before the panel could close more than an inch, something grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward with enough force to lift him off his feet.
Darkness swallowed him.
When his feet hit solid ground again, it wasn’t a passage at all. Isaac blinked against sudden brightness, his eyes adjusting to reveal the cramped living room of his apartment. The sagging couch with the broken spring in the middle cushion. The coffee table with rings stained into the cheap wood from too many nights of forgetting to use coasters. The window that looked out over a parking lot where his beat-up Honda used to sit.
Home. Except it hadn’t felt like home since Danny had moved out to live with Ash.
Danny stood by the window, his back to Isaac, shoulders tense. Isaac frowned when he noticed that day had suddenly turned into night, darkness on the other side of the windows.
What the hell?
“Danny?” Isaac took a step forward, confusion making his thoughts sluggish. How was he here? He’d been in Whichello’s castle, in the demon realm, and now he was back in his apartment.
A memory flickered in Isaac’s mind. This was the night. The night Danny had told Isaac he was moving in with Ash.
Danny turned, but his expression held none of the gentle concern Isaac remembered from that night. No apology in his eyes, no softness around his mouth to cushion the blow. Just cold indifference, like Isaac was a stranger who’d wandered in off the street.
“What are you doing here?” Danny’s voice was flat, empty of the warmth that had defined their friendship.
“I don’t...” Isaac looked around the apartment, trying to make sense of what was happening. “I was in the castle. Whichello left and then there was a passage and I heard you—”
“You always do this.” Danny cut him off, crossing his arms over his body. “Make everything about you. I came here to get the last of my stuff, not to deal with your drama.”
The words hit like fists to the gut. Isaac took a step back, his shoulder blades finding the door behind him. “What are you talking about? You asked me to be here when you moved out. You said you wanted to explain—”
“I don’t owe you explanations.” Danny moved to the couch, picking up a box Isaac hadn’t noticed before. “We were roommates. That’s it. You made it into something bigger in your head, but that’s your problem, not mine.”
“That’s not true.” Isaac’s voice cracked despite his efforts to keep it steady. “You’re my best friend. You said—”
“I said what you needed to hear to keep you stable.” Danny’s eyes met his, and there was nothing there. No recognition, no affection, just a blank assessment that made Isaac feel like he was disappearing. “But honestly? You’re exhausting. Always running from something, always needing someone to pick up your pieces. I’m done being that person.”
The room tilted slightly, or maybe that was just Isaac fracturing under the weight of those words. This wasn’t right. Danny hadn’t said these things, would never say these things. Even when he’d broken the news, he’d been kind about it, tears falling before he could get the words out.
“You’re moving in with Ash because you’re mates.” Isaac clung to the memory of how it had actually happened. “You told me you were sorry for leaving but you belonged with Ash. You said it wouldn’t change our friendship.”
“Friends?” Danny’s laughed sounded mocking. “Is that what you think we were? I tolerated you because the rent was cheap. That’s all. Now I have Ash, someone who actually matters, and I don’t need to pretend anymore.”
Each word felt like a blade finding soft tissue. Isaac wanted to argue, to point out all the late-night conversations, remind him of how he’d found Danny bleeding out, how Isaac had been shot protecting his best friend, to prove this was wrong. But his throat closed up, making it impossible to breathe.
“Whichello’s never going to love you, you know.” Danny set the box down, his attention fully on Isaac now in a way that felt predatory. “How could anyone love someone as damaged as you? Your damage run so deep they’ve carved out anything worth caring about.”
“You’ve never met Whichello,” Isaac snarled, feeling protective of his demon. “You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know enough.” Danny took a step closer, and his face twisted into something cruel. “I know he bought you at an auction like property. I know you’re so desperate for someone to want you that you’re convincing yourself a demon who purchased you actually cares. But he doesn't. He can’t. Not when you’re so broken.”
“Fuck you. You’re not my Danny.” Isaac reached for the handle that should’ve been there but wasn’t. The walls were closing in, the apartment shrinking around him until all that existed was Danny’s voice saying things that carved into every insecurity Isaac had spent years trying to bury.
“You’re not real.” He forced the words out, clinging to logic even as everything else dissolved. “This isn’t real. Danny would never say those things to me.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Danny’s smile was all teeth, nothing warm or familiar in the expression. “Keep believing someone could actually want you. It’s easier than admitting the truth.”
“What truth?” Isaac heard himself ask, even though he didn’t want to know the answer.
“That you’re unlovable. That everyone who’s ever claimed to care about you was lying or using you or waiting for a better option to come along.” He picked up his box again, moving toward a door that hadn’t existed in their real apartment. “Your father knew it. That’s why you killed him. And eventually, Whichello will figure it out too.”
Danny was revealing secrets Isaac had never confessed. He’d never mentioned Whichello or talked about his father.
