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I looked at Millie, who was staring at the pictures in her sketchbook.

“Sometimes… you have to open the door yourself to get out. Sometimes that’s the only way.”

“There are so many monsters behind the door, Doctor Sharma. Why… why should I open it?” Jimmy whispered, shrinking back into his metal chair. “I’m not alone. I’m not alone.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to fully open the door yet. Just a peek will do, but one day, we have to. That’s the only way to move on. We can’t stay inside, trapped forever.”

I looked at Millie again, and she was scratching in her sketchbook, over and over and over, until Asher placed a hand on her shoulder.

When she looked up, her eyes were wet.

“He won’t let me open… op-open the door. He won’t let me-me. The door will not open.”

“He lies. We will open it together. Maybe another day,” I said.

“No. No… he told me the door will open only when I…”

“Millie. Millie, it’s okay.”

“Millie?” Asher whispered.

“He’ll kill you, kill you.” She was looking straight at me. “If you don’t run… RUN.”

She closed her eyes and when she opened them, there was no life, no memories.

She stared at me.

“He tells me he’s going to kill you. Tick tock. Tick tock.”

When the session was over, I walked out with Asher.

“What was that?” Asher asked once we were alone. “She-she was looking right at you when she…”

I pressed my lips together. “I don’t know. Maybe she dreamed something. She often has very vivid nightmares.”

“She sounded lucid to me.” Asher pulled at the neck of his shirt, his breath shaky, fingers trembling.

“I’m fine, and if he comes for me, I’ll teach him a lesson he won’t forget.”

Layne had made me a cup of chai when I walked in. After we finished, we called Trina.

“Hey.”

“God, I wanted to come, too. I miss you,” she said with a sigh. “Oh—guess what? Sheila and her husband came to the restaurant for dinner. She said she saw Declan at St. Anthony’s yesterday.”

Sheila was a doctor at St. Anthony’s, and a friend.

“So, he’s gone then?”

“For now,” Trina said. “He’ll definitely be back.”

“If, no, when he comes back, I’ll have no qualms about killing that bastard,” Layne shrugged. “You should have let me do that back then. I’d have made his ugly ass into something beautiful. Something precious.”

I glared at her.

“What?” she asked with a frown.

“Do not kill him.”