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

“Oh my, don’t you clean up nicely?”

A stranger’s voice stops my hand at mid-stroke; a fluffy makeup brush with a sprinkle of pink powder hovering over my cheekbone.

But it’s not a stranger—not quite.

Masten.

Ruth snuck back home at sunrise, only achieving an hour of sleep. She didn’t want her parents to wake and find her bed empty. If she were still here, I might not be so afraid.

Masten has planted himself on the edge of my bed, watching me as I carefully apply a subtle amount of shadows and colors at my vanity. In the reflection of my mirror, I see his face over my shoulder. His hair is the same glossy-black shade of Aurick’s, but longer with gentle curls at the ends and tousled in gelled strands for a messy middle part. He wears his long black topcoat and holds that cane with the wolf’s-head handle.

What is he doing in my bedroom?

I don’t dare make another move.

“I brought you a spot of morning tea,” he offers as if it is a white flag. “I was hoping for a quick chat with you.”

I stare at his hand, holding the white cup of tea, and shake my head. I watch him set it down casually. I’ve learned to never accept tea from those who threaten me. Ever.

“Is this quick chat similar to the last one we had?” I ask carefully. Where is Aurick?

He chuckles, raising his eyebrows like we’re sharing an inside joke.

“I hope not. But I was wondering if you’d be so kind to take off work today? Perhaps spend time with me. I do feel as though we have started off on the wrong foot.”

I turn around at this. What is his motive now?

“And why do you think that is?” I ask, squishing my tongue between my teeth to keep from grinding them.

He holds his hands up as if I’m about to strike him. “I know, I know. I was hardly a gentleman. But I’d appreciate the chance to make that up to you.” His sapphire-blue eyes sparkle in the orange morning sun, flaring through the curtains of the window.

His tone is tranquil now, sober, and without hard edges. His pleading gaze makes me want to give in, accept his non-apology and start over. But like the thunder of Dessin’s cautious voice, I have a strong, persistent hand pulling me away from the notion. A thud in my gut begging me to not fall for the chivalrous ocean eyes.

“I’d like to but…”

He’s standing now, a hand like a feather landing on my shoulder. “I think we owe it to Aurick. I am his oldest friend, and you are his newest friend. Don’t you think it wise to be on the same side?”

“Skylenna!” Aurick hollers from his study. “Emerald Lake called for you. They need you in immediately.”

I release a long, shuddering breath. Thank God. Relief loosens the knots building between my shoulder blades.

Masten’s eyes droop, a theatrical frown animating his mouth.

“Another time, then?”

I smile politely but am hesitant to answer. I’d rather not be pressured by him again. I need to remember to keep my door locked at all times.

Once he takes the hint and starts to exit my bedroom, he stops in the doorway, and without looking back at me, he says. “You look nothing like her. In case you were wondering.”

~

Judas waits for me on the front steps of Emerald Lake, watching my buggy pull in across the gravel driveway.

He hurries me inside, doing his best to explain that Dessin had an outburst, something—they’re not sure what—sent him into a ferocious rage. Suseas took the liberty of arranging a treatment she finds to be highly effective on him. Judas warns me that they have only seen him like this on two separate occasions. When he was first admitted four years ago—he burst through the front doors covered in blood, terrorizing the staff until they locked him in a room—completely isolated—for seven days. The second time was only a few months ago; he destroyed his room and ripped out the plumbing in his washroom.

“You have never seen him like this,” Judas says quietly, opening the doors to the intricate section. “I want you to be prepared.”

Like stepping into a war zone, the grunts of a grown man ripple down the hallway, ricocheting off the walls like a blast wave from a bomb. His howls are muffled, enclosed in the thirteenth room. I throw both heels off and sprint to him. Panic ripping into my chest when I recognize the groans to be Dessin’s voice, roaring deep in his chest, like a lion. I see orderlies hovering around his door, I wave them aside, and they thank me with looks of relief. The door clicks, and I shove it open with all my weight.

I choke on a gasp, taking in an image that twists my gut.

Suseas stands to the side of a long table, controlling a machine connected to Dessin’s ears with small black earmuffs. A cream-colored tin box with black knobs that Suseas’s hands shift up and down. Dessin’s ankles, legs, stomach, arms, wrists, and head are strapped down. With a wooden stick between his teeth, he howls again, flexing his entire body under the restraints, causing his muscles to swell around the straps like a large body of water being held back by a dam.

I launch myself forward, climbing on top of Dessin’s writhing body, straddling his hips as I rip off the black ear muffs that seem to be the source of his pain. 

“Stop! What are you doing?!” Suseas shrieks at me.

A force like a speeding train bulldozes me off of the table, throwing me to the floor like a train blasting through a spiderweb. An orderly falls on top of me, his meaty weight pumping the air from my lungs, leaving me breathless and in shock. My eyes shoot open, leaking tears of panic as I struggle to gasp in the oxygen I need to move again. But the orderly holds me down, clamping his sweaty hands down over my forearms. And just over his shoulder, Dessin stares at me, eyes wide, suddenly awake and alert. Much like a grenade before it detonates, there’s a beat of silence, and the dark steam behind his lethal expression sparks into a flame that lights the fuse. Voices murmur in the background as Dessin’s right arm tears through the restraints and he untangles himself to freedom. Two guards barrel into him, holding him against the wall, but his eyes fall back to me, and I bear witness to the emotions shaking from his insides, pressurizing before they burst out of him. A volcano.

The guard holding me down goes to help, only to fall to the ground with his hands making a steeple over his bloodied nose.

Fast and with undeniable precision, Dessin twists an orderly’s arm around his back, and much like the time he snapped my assailant’s neck, another loud crack pops from the orderly. One with a broken nose, and now one with a broken arm. Dessin punches the third one in the jaw, and with a moment’s pause, blood drips from his mouth.

I scream as the air refills my lungs. I jump to my feet, shuffle around the table, and throw myself between Dessin and the orderly. Dessin blinks furiously as I push him against the wall, his eyebrows cocked upward, making no effort to hide his surprise at my intervention. But he doesn’t hurt me. Does not push me out of the way.

His chest is moving wildly under my hands with a loss of breath. I question if it is from the fight, the rage, or my hand touching his chest.

“Please, stop,” I plead. His fiery gaze bounces back and forth between each of my eyes, and his jaw grinds in fury. He’s probably still in some sort of pain from whatever they were doing to him. 

I stare at him another moment and recognize the panic in his eyes. When I was four years old, my father brought me to the red oaks, and we swam in the lagoon below. I wandered off on my own in the water and decided to swim as deep to the bottom as I could. I didn’t get far before I ran out of air, and me being only a little girl, I panicked. Before I could inhale the water, my father pulled me out and threw me onto a rock to make sure I didn’t drown. I spit out the water I’d swallowed and began to cry hysterically. The look I saw in his eyes was the same look I see in Dessin’s.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m not hurt,” I whisper, placing my hand over the side of his face. The sting of hatred is muted for a moment in his glossy-brown eyes, then replaced with pain. His head falls back against the wall in defeat. 

“What happened?” I growl at Suseas. 

“We don’t know. It happened so suddenly. He started throwing things around in here, yelling, and pounding on the walls. When we tried to calm him down, he went ballistic and kept telling us to ‘leave her alone!’” I look back at Dessin, who just stares at me, unyielding in his supreme knowledge. 

“What were you doing to him? Why was he in so much pain?”

“We used a radiation mobilization on him until you came.” 

I step toward her and try to remain calm. “I need you to leave… now.” I enunciate each word, each syllable, carefully, as if I am speaking to a child. But on the inside, I’m unhinged like a wounded animal. Seeing him howling in pain conjured a feeling I’ve never come close to feeling. I wanted to hurt them. To strap them in and watch them suffer. They hurt him. And that struck me like a bat to the cheek.

Suseas leaves with the severely wounded guards—no objections, no farewells. Dessin slides down the wall I pushed him against, adjacent to his bed that is flipped over on its side. Unbolted from the concrete.

He sighs. Eyes closed. I sit down on the floor, trying to pull my uniform down as much as possible. This feels like the time when he took me to the basement when I tried so hard to break through his steel armor. That feels like a lifetime ago.

“Who were you talking about?” I ask.

“Did he hurt you?” He scans my face with his eyes. 

I shake my head. “No, he just knocked the air out of me. I’ll live.” But apparently, I’ve answered his question incorrectly. He just nods and smiles as if I’m living in another world. Like I’m the one institutionalized. 

“Suseas said you were yelling ‘leave her alone.’ Who did you mean?” 

He contemplates lying for a moment—I can tell by the way he lifts a brow a single millimeter in amusement. Then answers vaguely. “I had a visitor.” 

“Impossible,” I say. “You aren’t allowed to have visitors other than me.”

He rolls his eyes at this. “Perhaps you’ve underestimated a higher power.”

“Like Martin?”

Dessin wrinkles his brow and grimaces like what I’ve said has insulted him. “Certainly not. That sweaty bastard would likely piss himself before facing me again.”

I push my fingers against my lips and let out a sound I haven’t heard since I was young and small. It hums pleasantly from my chest, tickling its way up my throat.

Immediately his eyes meet mine, stretching wide, eyebrows arched to the sky. 

And now he is grinning. 

“You laughed,” he says, flustered with levity. 

I look down, smiling. I forgot how good it felt to actually laugh, release the built-up tension from my chest. “Yes, I did.” 

“That was—incredible.” His eyes soften. “You know I haven’t heard that—well, it’s a pleasant change from your constant frowning.”

“Why?” I twist my fingers in a loose strand of hair. “Everyone laughs.”

“Not you,” he argues. “Not genuinely, at least. You force it or don’t have the urge to let it out at all.” I think about this. He’s right. My world has clipped my urge to laugh, darkening my thoughts, dimming that airy tickle that rises like a gentle summer breeze in the back of my throat. Laughing is hard when you’re always fighting the urge to keep from crying.

I look back up at him to find that he’s watching me, dark eyes searing into my soul. My heart takes a tumble in my chest.

“What was wrong with you earlier?” I change the subject.

He bites his bottom lip curiously. “Has Aurick ever heard you laugh?” 

I’m not sure. He may have caught a brief chuckle. But a full-on, belly-deep laugh is hard to come by.

“That’s irrelevant,” I answer.

“It will be when you start to see what I see.” 

“Please answer my question,” I beg. What was his breakdown about? What was the trigger?

“How about we make a little deal?” he suggests, waving his hand in the air. 

“Depends on the deal.”

Dessin moves closer. “Stay here with me. Just for tonight.” 

“Why…?” I ask, leaning back, hesitant to fall into another game, even though it intrigues me, sending every nerve surging through my brain with excitement. He grabs my arms to pull me closer. 

“Skylenna, I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. Please—don’t leave.” I start to shake my head. “At least not until you’re sure Aurick went to bed.”

“I can’t. I’m already in the doghouse from the last two times you had me stay out past dark.”

“He’s getting stricter now?” His eyes narrow, and he has to take a moment to process.

“Yes.” I don’t want to share how Masten was in my bedroom before I left this morning. I still don’t understand his motives.

“Look at me.” He tilts my chin up so that I can see the urgency in his eyes. “Do you trust me?” I don’t have to think about this. I nod with confidence. 

“Then here’s the deal. You stay with me tonight without contacting Aurick. And I’ll tell you something you’ve been dying to know.” One by one, every muscle that holds me up hardens to iron. 

“If I stay with you, you’ll tell me a part of your story that made you who you are today?” I can’t even breathe correctly. I’m stunned, in total disbelief. Whatever happened to him all of those years ago to make him the way he is today, I will know before anyone.

He nods. It’s not something I have to consider. I will face Aurick when this is over and accept the consequences. At the very least, I’ll stand up to him, knowing this was all worth it.

I want to know what’s in Dessin’s soul more than anything. I want to know the previous host. I want to know his name. I want to know the life he had before this Dessin facade came to be.  

“If you tell me a piece of your story, I will tell you a piece of mine.”

I freeze up. “I’ve already told you everything there is to know.”

He shakes his head. “I want you to tell me what you’ve told no one before.” He narrows his focus. “I want you to tell me what happened to you. I want you to tell me about your father. I know there is a far more despairing story for you to share with me. I won’t ask that of you just yet. But I will ask about your father.”

I suck in a weak breath. “Dessin, I don’t…”

He takes my hand in his. “I’ll only tell if you will.” We stare each other down, waiting for the other to yield or merely confirming that neither of us will. I blink first and look away.

“Okay.” An unsteady rush of air fills my chest as quickly as it rushes out. I’ve stored these memories in a prison—they’ve been locked up, restrained from moving, frozen in time and space so they can do little to no damage from where they sit. I meant to keep them there the rest of my life.