The Pawn and The Puppet (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 1)

I try to take shallow breaths because if I don’t breathe as much of the drug in, I can make it out unscathed. But even that logic isn’t solid enough to grasp. I have to breathe.

I start to scream louder, banging my hands against the metal ceiling and gasping on my sobs. “HELP ME!” More saline and bleach–scented air pulses through my throat, snaking into my lungs and staining my insides.

A hand catches my left arm before it strikes the metal again. Above me, a fluorescent light shines on a body hovering above my own, holding my wrist, glaring at me with a thin milky film that glazes over her eyes. Her hair is straight and long, and her face… well, her face is my face.

“Scarlett?”

“Hi, Skylenna.” Blotchy bruises cover the soft pockets under her eyes, and her skin is a corpse shade of gray, nearly translucent like a puff of smoke. “I don’t like it down here.” She frowns, still suspended over me, as if she’s attached to thin strings.

“I—what’s going on? You’re not—alive anymore. How—how are you here?”

“I’m not doing so well,” she says, still squeezing my wrist like a handcuff that was bound too tightly.

“Scarlett… I thought I’d never see you again.” The urge to howl in pain and break into another sobbing attack is pinging at the bottom of my gut.

She shakes her head. I now see the dislocation from her skull to her neck, and her head swivels side to side. “It’s dark down here.”

“Where are we?” I’m stunned. I can’t remember how I got here. The darkness, cold and empty, like sinking to the bottom of the ocean, all while remaining dry.

I focus on her face as it becomes a little clearer. The skin around her lips is a light shade of blue, and some hair is missing on the top of her head, leaving cotton-like clumps. Her thin, white dress is covered in patches of dirt, flowing like gentle ripples in water.

“It’s nice of you to visit me, but you shouldn’t stay long. There are lots of things you’d sooner not experience if you had to choose.”

“Where are we, Scarlett?” I ask again.

“The Bible did say I’d go here. I can’t blame it for that. But sister, I left my favorite books at the cottage, and I don’t get any blueberry pie here. I keep bleeding between my legs, and those men”—her milky eyes grow wide—“they keep coming back.” Her voice quivers, and her bottom lip curls. And like a row of dominoes, her eyes well up with tears glistening around the rim of her red lids. “You see, there’s no one to hold me here when I get scared. I can’t find any water to drink. There’s also no one to talk to. But the nasty things tell me I asked for this! They come around a lot to set me on fire and laugh at me!” Her soft voice that was shaky with fear, is now shouting. “It burns! I beg God to save me, but he won’t come! He doesn’t love me! No one loves me!”

“I love you!” I shout back, tears clouding my vision, adding a quiver to my voice. Her body is now dangling at least ten feet above me when it was only inches away before. “I’ve always loved you! Say the Lord’s Prayer, Scarlett! Say the Lord’s Prayer, and he’ll bring you home!” I can’t move, not even to turn my head. The darkness holds me down with shackles. “Oh God, please take her home!” I scream. In the distance, I see the movement of the nasty things she was talking about, jabbing her in the sides with fire pokers. She yelps and wiggles to get free from them.

“OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN! HALLOWED BE THY NAME! THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN!”

She screams again as a fire poker plunges through her chest from behind her back.

“GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD! AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US!” I scream as loudly as I can, trying to get off the ground to save her. Like hybrid beasts with rotting charred skin and fangs, more nasty things climb on top of her now naked body and rip off her skin in shreds that look like tissue paper.

“LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL—” A blinding white light causes my sister to vanish as quick as the blink of an eye. All of the darkness surrounding me is sucked into a hole that drains the black hell until it’s nothing but a pinhole of a memory.

Something warm grips my hands and yanks me out of the hole I am buried in. God. It’s our Holy God. He saved us. “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory—” The warm hands tighten around the sides of my arms, fingers stern with purpose.

“You’re safe. Come back to me now.” An angel’s voice speaks to me from behind the blinding light.

“Forever and ever—” I say with tears growing colder on my cheeks from the breath of the angel. A thick daze still whirling in my head, spinning around a maniacal carnival. The clean scent is gone, and I blink over and over to clear the white light from my sight.

A figure taller and broader than myself comes into focus. “Squeeze my hands until the fear is gone.” A man’s voice. I do as the angel man says and squeeze his hands as the panic and despair simmer in my gut. “There you go,” he says softly.

“Amen.” I let go of the last of my prayer.

“Tell me you’re safe.”

I know this man.

“I’m safe.”

“You’re safe now. I’m here,” he assures. The man’s eyes come into focus. Those vengeful brown eyes, like bronze lit on fire, dazzling me with anger and concern.

Dessin. It’s Dessin, with his titan-like shoulders, peppered stubble, and a spartan chest. It all comes back to me now. The tank. Meridei. The drugs from Demechnef.

“Oh…” I say, the welling tears threatening to expose me for a coward once more, causing my chin to tremble and tighten upward.

Keeping his eyes locked intently on mine, he says, “You don’t have to hold it in. I’ve got you.”

And as if he had the key to my grief, the cry splinters out of me like a bolt of lightning. I throw myself into his arms, and he doesn’t hesitate this time. Dessin’s hands find my waist, and he burrows his face as close to my neck and shoulder as he can get it.

I’m safe now.

I sob into a space somewhere between his chest and shoulder, and he keeps me grounded with the steady rhythm of his breathing. Warm ripples plow through me. I don’t know what to make of it, so I pull away gently.

“How did you find me?”

He stares into my eyes with an impenetrable sense of purpose. “What did you see in there?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “Just—hallucinations.”

“No. You’re lying to me. Something had you scared.”

I lower my head. If I can’t tell him the truth. I won’t say anything at all. I see his fists clench at his sides. Within the span of a single breath, his features change. Once comforting and gentle, now twisted in a look of silent rage.

“Say your goodbyes,” he says, murder dancing in his chocolate eyes. “I’m going to kill them all.”

“No—please don’t.”

His head snaps up to the door, watching it like a guard dog sensing intrusion.

“What is it?” I follow his concrete stare, but there is nothing but a closed door.

He holds a finger up to his lips, signaling me to stay quiet. He glides across the room, careful to keep his footsteps light, and flattens his back against the wall by the door.

The door unlatches, and Meridei pokes her head in.

“Oh.” She stiffens at the sight of me. “I was going to let you out when the screams stopped…”

“I see that,” I say, hatred welling up inside of me like a cannon of hellfire.

Do you have any idea what I went through in there? Who I saw? Does it mean anything that this will cause me nightmares for years to come?

“My condolences for seeing your departed sister in there. Though it does give me hope for the experiences of our patients. And I hope our little initiation didn’t deter you too much.”

I nod slowly, unsure if I may cry at the fact that she heard me yell out Scarlett’s name or laugh in pure, utter defeat.

“I do hope you’ll join us tonight. My mother and father are lending me their estate to throw a dinner party for the conformists. Isn’t that grand? All of us, together, outside of the asylum?”

It sounds similar to being waterboarded.

“Lovely,” I say.

“So we can expect you? Your presence is truly fantastical for us.” Her sarcasm bleeds through her tight-lipped smile, crinkling the corners of her eyes.

I nod again, drops of sweat spilling down my back.

She offers a syrupy smile before exiting.

The closing door uncloaks Dessin, showing off his cosmic smile.

“I do enjoy a fantastical dining party.” He flashes his teeth.

I wipe the tears from my cheeks with the backs of my hands, rolling my eyes as I sniffle away the aftermath of my blubbering. “If I’m in the mood for food poisoning or the electric chair, I’ll stop by.”

I’ve come to notice that when Dessin’s mind populates a new idea or an ingenious thought, his fingers flex, and his eyes dart around the room as if he’s watching his masterpiece play out in real time.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, I already know where you’re going with this.”

“They’re going to keep terrorizing you,” he warns, gesturing to the isolation tank. “And what if next time, I’m not there to pull you out.”

Oh. That’s the fairest point I’ve ever heard.

“I have one condition.” I decide it would be smart to have a counterthreat to scare the other conformists away. Point a sharp object at them until they back into a corner. Dessin could be that sharp object.

“As do I.”

Wonderful. “No one dies.”

“Fine. But you stay home.”

“What? Why?” He wants me to stay home? I think I more than deserve to watch him avenge me. It won’t erase what they’ve done, but it will help ice my wounds.

“I’d rather keep you out of my line of fire.” His expression is absolute. There will be no negotiating.

“Fine,” I huff. But, I’ll say what I have to. I earned the right to watch whatever he has planned. It’s good for research. It will help me understand the radius to which his mind stretches.

As my fingers graze the handle of the door, I pause, close my eyes, and reflect.

“Thank you for being my guardian angel.”