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Prologue

They say that love knows no bounds. But you never really know how true that is until you dance with the devil. Until he envelops your darkness with his own, binding your souls together until the only thing you know is each other.

But the moment you realise there is truly no limit to how far he would go for you, and you would go for him, it’s too late. Your souls are already tied together in a dance of tenderness, devotion, and worship.

And you realise that there isn’t a world where either of you exists without the other.

You sold your soul to him, and he owns you forever.

But another thing that knows no bounds?

Obsession.

Chapter 1

Xander - Aged 7

“Thank you for finding the time to meet with me today, Mr Warren,” Doctor What’s-His-Face says to my dad as they shake hands.

I’ve seen this doctor millions of times this year, but I can never remember his name. Maybe I should ask. Dad says we’ll be seeing him a lot more often now, but I’m not good with remembering people’s names anyway. I only remember my mum and dad’s names: Jenny and Eric. And I’ve recently been getting better at calling Jacques—my new best friend—by his name.

I don’t have many friends at school. People think I’m weird. But since Jacques moved in next door, he wanted to be my friend. I think he’s going to the same school as me this year, which is so cool because I finally get to have a friend. I just hope he doesn’t ditch me when he finds new school friends. I like having him round my house every night for dinner. But I do get jealous sometimes. Mum always hugs him and tells him how handsome he looks. I don’t think she ever says that to me. Jac’s mum is nice. She always plays with me when she comes round, unlike Mum.

I dash into the doctor’s white office, diving onto the blue sofa in the corner and climbing it.

“Alexander, get down from there,” my dad hisses.

The doctor laughs. “That’s quite alright. Please, sit, Mr Warren.” He motions at the chair for my dad, then looks at me and gives me a wide smile. “Hello, Alexander.”

It’s creepy. Like those villains in cartoon films.

I don’t know what to do, so I start bouncing on the sofa, my dark brown hair whipping into my eyes with each spring. My dad pinches the bridge of his nose as he sits down on the blue chair by the desk in the corner of the room, facing me. The doctor sits next to him at the desk with his back to me.

I don’t like listening to adult conversations; they’re boring. But every time we’re here, the doctor and Dad talk about me, so I like to listen to what they’re saying, even though I understand very little of it.

“I don’t want to keep Alexander in here longer than he has to be, so I’ll just cut right to the chase. After going through all of our assessments on him and the information you’ve given us, it does look like your son meets the criteria for ADHD.”

See! What is that word? They say it every time. I need to remember to ask Dad what it means.

Shrugging, I yank my shoes off my feet, throw them across the room, and continue my bouncing. It’s not as soft as the sofa at home, but it does the job of getting me high in the air, and it keeps me occupied as they discuss boring stuff that I don’t understand.

“Alex, sit down. You should be listening to this. It’s for your own benefit,” Dad scolds.

I end my last bounce by throwing myself into a sitting position and huff in frustration. I don’t want to stop bouncing. It’s fun. What else am I going to do in this plain, boring room?

“It’s not anything to fear. You can rest on that thought now…” The doctor’s voice trails off as I search around the room, looking for something else to do.

“As you know, my wife refuses to believe it’s ADHD. She thinks…”

Spotting some pictures on the wall next to the door, I climb off the stiff sofa in my socks and get closer.

Someone drew these. They don’t use as many colours as I do, but they’re not bad. I run my small finger along the lines of various colours, an oily texture coating my skin. They must have used crayons. I notice my fingernails are dirty from playing in the sand with Jacques yesterday. I need to ask Dad to clean them later; I don’t like having dirty nails.

Tracing each shape, I think of ways to make this drawing brighter, but I also notice there’s something off about the drawings…

They’re missing green. My favourite colour. I love it. It makes me happy. Who in the world would draw a picture without the colour green? Green is everywhere.

Coming up with an idea, I put my hands on my hips and look around the room. There’s no clean paper or colouring pencils in sight, which is weird because last time we were here, they had plenty of colours and stuff for me. I spent almost an entire day colouring with every shade of green that I could possibly find.