Chapter One
Seven was singing. But not just any old song. He crooned an annoying rendition of We’re Off to See the Wizard, using warrior in place of wizard, and 105 instead of Oz .
“Knock it off,” I said.
“I’m just having a little fun.”
“You’re getting on my nerves.” We’d been walking for what seemed like hours, and his stupid song wasn’t helping pass the time.
He shrugged and started in again. “…Because of the wonderful things he does. We’re off to see the warrior…”
I could have strangled him . “Really. Seriously. Shut the hell up.”
He remained unfazed by my anxious behavior . “I warned you that this place was a freak show.”
And he was right, considering that I was trudging along in a vividly colored desert with a wickedly handsome musician who was a figment of my sister’s schizophrenic imagination.
No, that wasn’t true . Seven wasn’t her creation, at least not technically. He was mine. Because the truth of the matter was, my sister wasn’t real, either.
I was the schizophrenic .
Me: Vanessa Winston.
I’d created Abby when I was a kid, soon after my parents had died in a devastating car crash. And a while after that, Abby started seeing people, and Seven was one of them.
As for me, I’d never met him until today. In my mixed-up mind, Abby used to be the only person who’d been able to communicate with him, and even then I knew he wasn’t real.
I still knew it, for all the good it did.
He started singing again, and I winced as I walked. My feet were killing me. I’d showed up to this outing without shoes. Currently, I had two squares of black fabric wrapped around my feet, courtesy of Seven. Earlier, he’d removed his tank top and torn it in half, making cotton footsies for me, binding them with strips of leather from his necklaces.
We were in a meta-universe called Room 105, a strangely magical world, divided into past, present, and future realms. According to Abby, 105 had been created by people like her, from the use of their imaginations.
But once again, that was a twisted tale . In actuality, it was me who’d dreamed up Room 105 and everything in it. Only I couldn’t begin to know what to expect while I was here. My mental illness didn’t afford me that kind of awareness.
Seven, on the other hand , was supposed to have psychic abilities, with a smile that enhanced his powers. His full name was Smiling Seven. I used to worry that he was a bad influence on Abby. Not only was he an up-and-coming rock star who tapped into people’s emotions, he was rough and wild, with messy brown hair, a pierced tongue, and full-sleeve tattoos.
He was also madly in love with my sister.
That alone should’ve stopped me from worrying. I thought love was beautiful. But only in cases where the couples were going to end up together.
I had no idea if Seven and Abby were destined for happily-ever-after . They were part of the reason I’d come to Room 105. Them and the warrior.
The warrior.
He was the man I loved. In the real world, his name was Duncan Lock, and he was an artist who lived in a downtown L.A. loft that he’d decorated with eclectic furnishings and graffiti scrawled on the wall above his bed. Here in Room 105, he was a ruggedly dangerous warrior who wasn’t going to recognize me.
In this schizophrenic land, we were strangers.
At the moment, Seven and I were en route to see the warrior and engage his help. He was the only person who could save Seven from being attacked by the monsters who patrolled the 105 borders. Seven had gotten stuck in 105 and was unable to return to Abby, who was in a private psychiatric facility back on earth.
Or that was the story I’d conjured in my mind . I’d been told that I was a patient there once and had done quite well in treatment. But it never seemed to last. I slipped in and out of recovery. Obviously, I was in a state of relapse now.
But in spite of the fragility of my mind, I’d come to accept,
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