The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

I curl up in a tight ball next to my fireplace.

I can’t sleep in our bed. Not without him. Not without the strong arms that circle my waist. Not without his voice in my ear. Not without the constant feeling of security.

DaiSzek is curled around me, his thick coat of fur keeping me from shivering. And my attention is lost in the flames, so I don’t notice when the door opens until DaiSzek lets out a furious snarl.

“I come in peace.” Aurick keeps his distance. But I’m consumed by my pain, wielding it into a torch that can burn him to ash.

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t let him rip your lungs out,” I say through my teeth.

“I brought you both food.”

“Not good enough.”

DaiSzek growls louder as Aurick sets a tray down on a table.

“I’ll tell you the truth. The other reason I lured you into my home.” His tone is grim, laced with a forbidden knowledge that he knows he shouldn’t voice out loud.

I don’t say anything. But my hand finds DaiSzek’s head, and I run my fingers through his fur, letting him know I’m okay. He can stand down.

The bed shifts and creaks under Aurick’s weight. He’s silent for a few seconds.

“You saw something… when you touched Warrose, didn’t you?” he asks.

My patience is paper thin. “So?”

“Skylenna… there’s a reason we chose”—he clears his throat—“Dessin for this experiment. It wasn’t random. And there’s a reason he didn’t tell you what made him a prime candidate.”

I wait, grinding my teeth in anticipation.

He exhales. “Dessin was a twin.”

My head pops up. What did he just say?

“The experiment only works on twins. His brother died a stillborn. It’s the same reason—my father chose you and Scarlett.”

I’m off the carpet now, sitting upright to gawk at him with sheer horror.

The sound of babies crying fills my ears. And I can tell by the look on his face that I’m the only one that hears it.

“You were a part of the same experiment he is—was. Only… my father couldn’t break you the way he broke Kane. It didn’t matter what he had your father do to you. Nothing worked.” He looks down at his hands with remorse drooping his eyes.

I was an experiment.

“It worked on Scarlett. But suicide is a common side effect in female subjects.”

Female subjects. Scarlett. My sister died for an experiment. I remember the story about Val and Vinaley that Dessin told me one night. How he killed her and himself because that’s all she wanted, to end the pain and go home.

“What are you talking about?”

Aurick rubs a hand over his face. “Someone warned your parents about the experiments. That’s why they split you two up, to hide the fact that you were twins. But Vlademur, my father, found out and would regularly pump your parents full of Mind Phantoms… I believe you’re familiar with the substance.”

Bile creeps up my throat, and I’m sure I’m going to lose it. My parents were—forced to hurt us? For an experiment? Their realities were distorted the way mine was in those four hours I had with Albatross.

“When you were fifteen, my father was furious that you hadn’t made any progress to letting the trauma corrupt your mind and expand its capabilities the way Kane’s had. So, he thought having Jack beat you to near death would make you finally snap. It was like you had a mental block that counteracted the pain, the trauma, the horrifying events he put you through.”

“He used my father—like a puppet,” I say.

My gut is burning with disgust, betrayal, and disbelief.

“He used Violet too. And they tried to fight back. But they were pumped with more Mind Phantoms each time they resisted. One hundred times the amount you were given.” He shakes his head.

“No more, please, no more!” I hear a woman’s voice shriek in my head. But it sounds like it’s coming from this room. What the fuck is happening to me?

I wrap my arms around my waist, unable to breathe normally. Pain is biting at my nerve endings. Our parents didn’t hate us? They didn’t abuse us out of cruelty? Violet… loved Scarlett?

“Why the fuck are you telling me all of this now?” I ask, shuddering like a leaf in the wind. “Does this mean I have a split personality too?”

Aurick shakes his head. “No, the mind of a female subject turns into something else entirely. A unique disorder. The subject has visual and auditory hallucinations. They’re able to use their mind in different ways than Dessin could. For example, I think we had one that could see traumatic memories from people around her. It scared her to death.”

“Vinaley,” I say.

He arches an eyebrow. “How’d you know that?”

“Dessin told me.” His name is a noose around my neck, tightening until I can barely breathe.

Aurick looks down. “That’s why I asked you about what you saw. I think losing him is what finally broke you.”

My eyes snap up. “That’s why you hit me, isn’t it? To see if domestic violence would break me?” I’m moments away from letting DaiSzek devour him.

“Yes,” he says, dropping his head in shame. “I was willing to do anything to end this war. Even recreate your trauma from your father.”

I am an experiment. Scarlett was an experiment. My pain. My heartache. Every moment of abuse was to turn us into something that could be deadly in war. To pair with Dessin’s skills.

“This has to be a joke.”

“The reason I didn’t tell you sooner is because the subject can’t know about the experiment. It’s proven not to work. Which is why I was so surprised that Dessin never told you about it. I figured he’d do everything in his power to corrupt it.”

But I’m broken now. I’m shattered. The strings can finally be cut from the puppet’s limbs. Why wouldn’t Dessin warn me? Tell me everything?

Skylenna, I’ve known you since you were two years old.

Kane’s known me my whole life. Which means he’s always known about the experiment. What was he up to?

“So what now?” I ask, unable to meet his eyes. “You hold me here, train me until I’m cold and capable like Dessin?”

But he was also warm, protective, and kind. No one will ever learn that about him again.

“And I’m supposed to believe he hadn’t already trained you?” Aurick laughs.

He taught me how to give a good right hook at the asylum. But that was mostly just a bonding moment for us. He didn’t actually succeed in teaching me, and I definitely wouldn’t call that training.

Aurick catches my look of confusion. “Huh.” He leans forward in his seat. “Skylenna, when you attacked Dex… you had the form and execution of a trained assassin. There’s no way that happened by accident.”

I think back on it, remembering how the fury darkened the rim around my sight, how I acted out of impulse, nearly blacking out.

“It must have. I’ve never been trained.” Maybe it was the rage or the adrenaline. Maybe it was the many times I’ve witnessed Dessin in a fight.

He thinks about this, examining me as if trying to detect a line.

“I never wanted this,” Aurick says quietly. “You were supposed to be a team. My father never anticipated that he would be your weakness. He was sure it was Jack, then decided it was Scarlett.”

My spine aches. The memory of her hanging body flashes as I blink. I use one finger to lightly draw the strings of the puppet against the carpet.

“Why did it have to be twins?” I ask. But I’m growing tired and don’t plan on speaking to him again if I can help it. So I’ll need to get every question out now.

“I don’t know the exact science behind it. Something to do with the embryo splitting to make twins.” He shrugs, fidgeting with his hands. “My father did experiment only once on a boy that wasn’t a twin. It didn’t have the desired result.”

“Who was the boy?”

Aurick looks up at me, hesitating to answer honestly. “Niles Offborth.”

My blood runs cold.

“His father, Charles, was taken and filled with Mind Phantoms. He was actually the only human I know of that fought the substance. It didn’t matter how much torture he endured, he refused to hurt his son the way my father wanted him to.”

I gasp, digging my fingernails into the carpet. “But Niles remembers a trauma that involves his father…”

Aurick nods. “He resisted until they overdosed him. He died never giving in. And Niles was eventually taken, and with the MF, he was made to believe that trauma actually happened.”

“But it was a lie?” I’m going to be sick. Charles loved Niles. He would never have hurt him after all.

“It never happened. If only we all had a parent like Charles.”

My bottom lip quivers. Vlademur ruined so many lives. Tortured so many people. And he died without ever having to pay for his sins.

My sweet Niles ended up in the asylum for a fucking experiment. He believes his father betrayed him. Ruined him. And all along, Charles had the purest love there is.

My eyes flash darkly to Aurick. “When he heals from this, I’m going to tell him. I’m going to work to repair all of the damage your father has done to my brother.” It’s a promise. I will not let Niles go on believing something so horrible about a parent that died protecting their child.

“One day… I’m going to make you suffer,” I tell him with conviction. “For everything your family has done to mine. For everything your family has done to Niles. For everything they have done to Kane’s. I’ll make sure you pay for his sins, one way or another.”

I spend the next couple of days on the floor.

Chekiss and Ruth come in occasionally to feed DaiSzek or let him outside. But they know trying to feed me is a losing battle. I won’t let them touch me. I won’t answer their questions. I won’t open my eyes long enough to see the sadness and concern stirring on their faces.

I’ve lost so many people. I’ve been given so much heartbreaking information from Aurick. There isn’t room in my mind or my heart to digest it all. So, I stay curled on the floor. And I try not to think about him. About the way Kane would hold me close when I had a nightmare. About the way Dessin made love to me in the thirteenth room. Every memory is a sickle slicing through my chest.

And every time I fall asleep, the moment I wake up is devastating. I remember how he fell to his knees with those babies in his arms. And my pain grows in size, gnawing at my broken heart like a ravenous vulture.

I can’t go on like this.

Cold, dry fingers graze my shoulder. I know it’s either Chekiss or Ruth because DaiSzek doesn’t growl. But I can’t lift my head to look. My bones are brittle, my joints are aching, and the lack of nutrition in my system is making it hard to open my eyes.

“Come here, child. I need you to get up.” Chekiss is caressing my hair, folding his hand over mine.

“No,” I rasp.

Ruth kneels in front of the fireplace, tears drizzling down her soft pink cheeks.

“Please, Skylenna.” Her voice trembles. “They’re burying him today.”

It’s as if she kicked me in the stomach.

I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking her glowing silhouette from my sight. And my body shakes with a reawakened sob and watering eyes. The pain is something close to being hung, drawn, and quartered.

I never thought those four words put together could rip my soul in half. The devastation chokes my heart, pressing down on my lungs until I’m gasping.

Chekiss and Ruth hold on to me as I go up in flames. As Scarlett used to say, they set a perimeter around the pain. Or at least, they try to. This heartbreak is boundless, limitless. There isn’t a force on earth that could suppress it.

Bury him.

“I can’t go,” I blubber into Chekiss’s arm. “I can’t watch them lower him into the ground.”

It’s an image I would never be able to erase from my mind.

“Look at me.” Chekiss raises my chin. Tears drip from my eyes as I look up at him. “Don’t let him go into the darkness alone. Don’t do that. You’re going to be strong for him today, okay?”

Breath whooshes from my chest. He’s right. Dessin and Kane would have never let me be buried alone. No question. And that makes me feel worse. Because I have to go, have to say goodbye, have to watch my life slip through my fingers and into the dirt.

“One day, you’d regret not being there.” He clears his throat, attempting to suppress the cry tickling his chest. “I didn’t get to bury my wife and daughter. I was taken to the asylum immediately, and to this day, I don’t even know where they rest.”

Chekiss ended their lives to keep them from being prisoners of the asylum and enduring the same torture he suffered for many years. I wince at the memory of his story. Of the truth in his heavy words.

They hold me for several long moments, brushing their hands through my hair, caressing my cheekbones, murmuring words of encouragement.

But I can hardly hear them as I pick myself up, let Ruth dress me in a calf-length black dress, and stare blankly as Chekiss struggles to run a brush through my hair. The world around me hums with static and wisps of dark clouds. And as they lead me out of the mountain and into a small black buggy, I feel like my soul is drifting over my lifeless body. I’m a kite attached to a string, hovering in the air as I watch the buggy fill with Chekiss, Ruth, Warrose, and Aurick.

And I’m screaming. No one can hear me. No one can see that I’m trapped and dying. I’m trying to cut the string and float far away.