“Why did you say I was all-or-nothing?” I ask at last, mainly because if I don’t distract myself I’m going to walk down those stairs and search for the key and we do not have time for that.

The pen stops. He looks up. “It’s like you think you have to be either perfectly cured, if that’s even possible, or else completely in the grip of your OCD. There’s no in-between for you. So you throw yourself into proving that you’ve gotten it all under control—even at the expense of knowingly screwing up whatever life-threatening situation you’re facing at the moment.”

I frown and start to snap out a reply but then pause, remembering the Being that attacked us in the garage yesterday. I’d tapped the door frame, and then, because I’d wanted so desperately to prove to myself that I was still stronger than my OCD, I’d turned around to walk through the door again without tapping even though I knew we didn’t have time for it. I’d meant to walk through it three times. Five times, if necessary.

Three and five. My safe numbers. I blink, stunned. I’d tried to use my counting compulsion to prove I wasn’t under the control of my tapping compulsion … but both are my OCD. I’d gone deeper under its influence than I would have if I hadn’t turned around at all.

And if I hadn’t turned around—if I hadn’t been so damned determined to prove I had my compulsions under control—I wouldn’t have seen the mirror. I wouldn’t have brought the Being.

“And your brother,” Elliott continues, looking at the paper rather than me. “You wanted to find him, so what did you do? You started a black-market business. You risked getting other people killed and getting yourself exiled—then you actually got yourself exiled—all because you threw absolutely everything you had after your goal, even when you had to know it wasn’t a good idea.” He lifts the pen and looks at me. “You’re all, or you’re nothing.”

Whatever it takes. The refrain echoes in my mind, but I shake my head, rejecting the notion. Being determined isn’t a bad thing. It’s helping me survive long enough to get back to my brother. It helped me defeat my OCD the first time. It can do it again. In fact, I’m going to take that damned padlock off the door right now and throw it into the cavern, too. And I’m going to ignore the way that urge—the desperate need to prove that I’m not falling under the control of my OCD again—is starting to feel like a compulsion in itself.