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

“What the fuck have you done?!” Belinda gawks at the orderlies hanging from the ceiling.

My puppets swing back and forth behind me as I walk toward her slowly, taking my time, playing with my food.

I’m numb all over, lacking that conscience that tells me when to feel remorse and stops me from acting on impulses that would be deemed as morally incorrect. Well, this asylum is morally incorrect. This city is far from moral. And I’ve lost my patience. The only feeling that remains is searing rage and bloodlust.

There is nothing else.

When this is all over, my friends will have to stay far away from me. I don’t want to hurt them—I don’t want them to see me like this. Can I even control it? Do I want to? This primal need to exact revenge. To hurt those who have hurt the ones I love. It’s the closest I have ever felt to Dessin, and I’m not sure I can ever give that feeling up.

Belinda scurries away from me, not waiting for me to explain the newly decorated hallway. But her fleeing the scene is pointless, only delaying the inevitable. I’ve locked them all in. The staff is as trapped as each patient.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!” Belinda shrieks in a blind panic, running into the first stairwell door, slamming her body against it over and over again without any success.

“You used to be Niles’s conformist, right?” I ask casually, walking slowly, without purpose or interest in her hysteria. But the monster growing in my chest pushes me forward, making my fingers itch to dive into that void, search for her consciousness, and take her soul somewhere far away from civilization. It’s on the tip of my tongue. A way to use my abilities for something greater. Something far more powerful than I can fathom.

Belinda looks back at me with wide eyes and a trembling bottom lip. Did she think that would work? Doesn’t she know I’ve been watching her very closely since I was thrown into the thirteenth room? That every time she’s asked for the orderlies to bend the rules for her—leave her with a patient for an hour longer than necessary—she trembles that pathetic bottom lip.

She’s a pretty woman, there’s no arguing that. With her platinum-blonde hair, the color of moonbeams, and those long curly lashes surrounding her doe cerulean eyes.

“What did you do to those orderlies?” Her pixie-like voice shakes. Then, something occurs to her, and she looks around. “Did Patient Thirteen come back?”

Irritation snakes around my spine. “I am Patient Thirteen.”

“Christ,” she breathes. “Meridei’s done a number on you. You’ve really lost it.”

I laugh, although the sound is biting and clipped. My fingernails skim over the shoulder of her navy-blue uniform.

“Meridei was unreasonably hard on me this time around, yes.”

She winces at my closeness, at my thumb caressing the base of her throat. “It’s her you want then! I never put you through any treatments. Meridei was always the one that had it out for you. Not me! I’ve always liked you, Skylenna. I’ve always wanted to be your friend”—she gulps loudly—“we can still be friends.”

“You want to be my friend?”

Belinda nods like her life depends on it. Because it does.

“Of course. We’re the same, you and I. I never liked this place either. I was so happy when you started working here and wanted to change the way we treated patients.” She pants, eyes looking down at my hand resting around her throat. “We can change things around here. Together.”

I look at her for a long few seconds. “Really?”

“Yes! But I need you to get back to your room, and I can talk to the council and get you out. I’ll just need some time.” Her cheeks turn a soft shade of raspberry pink, and those cerulean eyes bounce around as if she’s hoping someone will find us.

I stare so long into her eyes without blinking that mine turn dry and blurry. I’m so close to her shivering frame that the sweet scent of pomegranate and vanilla stains the inside of my nostrils.

“I saw the way you cared for your little sister, Bessie, when she fell ill with pneumonia. It did give me pause.” I watch her for each little reaction to my words. The name of her sister wrinkles her forehead, and the memory widens her eyes to the point of pain. “I thought, maybe we are more alike than I once thought. Maybe—your love for little Bessie is similar to the love I had for my Scarlett.”

I wonder for a brief moment what she’ll assume from my observation. How could I possibly know such intimate details of her life?

The only sounds ringing through the asylum are those of the suffocating orderlies, taking their last strangled breaths.

“Have you”—she sucks in a startled breath—“been following me?”

I smile, though it doesn’t touch my eyes. “No.”

“Then how could you possibly know all of that?”

Ignoring her question, I begin running my fingers through her soft hair, savoring the way her body goes rigid with fear. “It warmed my heart to know I was wrong about you. You do have a soul somewhere deep down, even though you don’t show it in this place. And I was—so close to letting you walk away.” I nod with fake sorrow pursing my lips. “I really was.”

Belinda’s throat bobs, and I can see it before she acts on that decision flashing behind her eyes. As she swings her fist toward my face, I’ve already lifted my hand to snatch her wrist, twisting it just right until I feel the explosive pop under my palm. She screams, dropping to her knees, wailing at the sharp, venomous pain radiating up her arm, I’m sure.

“But then I saw the day you tricked Scarlett into cleaning the hydrotherapy room. She was thrilled about your false promises of friendship, wasn’t she?” I kneel beside her, keeping a firm, brutal hold on her broken wrist. “But that wasn’t enough for you. You had to turn it up a notch. Make her believe you found her desirable. You got her to strip off her clothes. You saw the scars, didn’t you? You saw the way her bones didn’t quite look right. The lasting effects of malnourishment. And you still did what you did, knowing she must have led a traumatic life to bear those marks of abuse.”

I lean my head against Belinda’s as she cries and shakes her head.

“Did you know she was locked in a closet the entirety of her childhood?” My voice booms against the walls around us. “Did you know she was violently abused and ate drywall to stay alive when they starved her?!” The memories filter in my veins like poison, and the tendons in my jaw tighten as I clench my teeth.

Belinda flinches at my raised voice, whimpering as she turns her head from me.

“No, of course not.” Nausea rolls through me, a flood unconfined. “But you blasted her with that hose anyway. You let the other conformists and orderlies in to watch while she got hosed down like an animal. Do you have any idea what that did to her? The trauma response that ensued?”

Scarlett stayed home for a week, sobbing in the washroom as she scrubbed herself raw. Feeling dirty. Feeling exposed. I never knew what caused it.

Until now.

“I think I’d like to show you what that feels like.”

Belinda finds her fight. “Go to hell, you rotten bitch!”

I smile, wide and maniacal, with teeth. “Oh, I am. But I’m taking you with me.”

She opens her mouth to curse at me again, only I’ve had enough of her talking. I’ve grown weary of her lies. Silence is what I need to focus on what’s next. Silence.

My hand yanks open her mouth, and I’m far too fast for her to react. The knife in my right hand slips past her teeth, and with one scooping motion, my blade carves into her wet, meaty tongue. The sight of her bright-crimson excretion spurting outward sends a pleasing chill skittering down my spine.

She chokes and gurgles on saliva and blood, frantically trying to put her tongue back in her mouth. I fling it off to the side, grabbing a fistful of hair to guide her crawling body to the right treatment room.

“Ohhmahhgahhh,” she groans, words garbled without the use of her tongue. I tug on her hair harder, knowing that Meridei will have heard the screams by now. I’m saving her for last.

As we pass each treatment room, I relish the way Belinda stares with pure shock at each council member tied up, tortured, and dying or already dead. Their astonished faces plead through the open door as they endure chair binding, scalding baths, and hanging upside down by their ankles to bleed out.

Suseas. Lyoness. Delilah. Sutton. Judas got my warning and clearly fled.

Belinda screams something that sounds close to no.

“I gave them all chances,” I explain to Belinda, who is making a blood-streaked mess with her gaping mouth. “But the damage to every patient in this asylum is already done.”

She sprays a fine mist of blood as she chokes on a sob.

“You see, my brain works differently now. I hear their screams every second of the day. Do you want to know how many I hear?” I wait for her answer but don’t get one. “Hundreds. I hear every man, woman, and child that has died in this fucking hellhole. I hear the way they pleaded for compassion. I hear the way the children begged for their mothers. I hear how the women pleaded for food only to be starved to death.”

We turn the corner and enter the hydrotherapy room.

“I owe it to them to deliver justice.”

After chaining Belinda to the white-tiled wall, the hose is turned on. And I don’t turn it off until Belinda has asphyxiated.

Meridei

I’m ashamed of how long it takes me to open the study door. But hearing Belinda scream gives me pause. My hand twists the glass doorknob, and I blink quickly, ridding myself of the possibility that Patient Thirteen is back.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s torn the place apart for this fucking woman. When they escaped last time, I was certain he’d come for me. Make good on his threat after I whipped Skylenna in front of him. Belinda said I was being paranoid, but that night at my dining party was excruciating. I stayed up sick all night, as did the rest of my guests. I don’t know how he managed to break into my house and poison an already sealed champagne bottle, but I’ll admit it’s the first time I felt true terror.

I peek out of the cracked door, only for a second. My breath catches, and I shut it before I can blink the images away. “What in the hell?” I whisper to myself.

The orderlies hang from the ceiling, swaying and turning in a half circle before rotating the other way. Their mouths are hanging open, with purplish faces and bloodshot eyes.

Patient Thirteen is back. He must be. For Skylenna.

And I’ll be the person he’ll want to hurt the most. If he was willing to murder these orderlies in such a theatric way, I know I’m on his list to hunt down. I just have to get out of here before he can find me.

I blow out a stressed breath, opening the door so slowly that the creaking is hardly audible. My feet slip out of my heels and delicately step onto the black-and-white-checkered tiles. Sweat slickens my back, and I grimace at how weak my body is for giving in to the fear so easily.

He probably just wants to get Skylenna and get out. He may already be gone.

I walk quickly through the hallway, breathing shallowly, avoiding the orderly’s shoes I have to duck under. The sound of dripping water tugs my attention to the treatment room on my left. I lock eyes with a woman slumped in a tub, panting in a delirious haze.

“Suseas?” I whisper, tiptoeing in the room filled with a thick fog of steam.

Shit. He put her in the scalding bath treatment.

She parts her lips, trying to answer me, but only exhales as her eyes flutter, trying to stay open. I kneel in a warm puddle of water, crouching over her with steam collecting over my brow. My hands hook under her arms so I can lift her out. I hiss at the temperature.

Suseas is naked and covered in blisters. Her skin looks like a pruned tomato, withered around her bony hips.

“I’ll get you out of here,” I say under my breath.

But she shakes her head. “Get—out.”

I roll my eyes and bear down my teeth while I try to hoist her out of the tub. We both suck in a pained breath as the boiling water licks our exposed flesh. There’s a clinking sound against the tub. I look for the source, only to be greeted with a devastating wave of dread.

He shackled her to the pipes. How the hell am I going to get her out without getting his attention?

“Damnit.”

Suseas tries to say something, her cracked lips mouthing words that don’t make a sound. I drop her back into the tub slowly, breathing through the jarring heat.

“I should have drowned that little insect when I had the chance,” I grit out, glaring at the ripples in the water. “Both of them.”

Anger flares through my chest. I use the memories of locking Skylenna in the isolation tank to calm me down so I can focus. She screamed for her deranged sister. Her cries filled the hallways, and I simply leaned against the wall, smiling. Even if Patient Thirteen gets the better of me today, I don’t regret putting Skylenna in her place.

When you’re new to a culture, you should be doing whatever you can to make everyone like you. Accept the hazing given. Do what you’re told. And don’t try to change the good thing we had going. Her sister tried the same thing before she got here, and we made her employment hell. It’s the law of the animal kingdom.

Suseas paws at my hand resting on the edge of the tub. Drool drizzles from the corner of her mouth as she desperately tries to speak.

“What should I do?” I ask her.

Her eyes start to roll back in her head, so I pat her flushed cheeks to get her to focus. I don’t know how much time I have to escape, but if I have to, I’ll leave Suseas for dead. Sure, she’s been an excellent mentor. But if I’m being honest, I am the reason this asylum has thrived. I am the only person that could successfully rebuild this establishment after such a travesty.

“Shh—” Suseas tries to speak again, this time with a determination blazing in her drooping eyes.

My fists clench until my fingernails are cutting into my palms. “What? Spit it out!”

“Shh—shhhe’s—coming back.”

Despite the heat, a painful chill races up my neck and over my scalp.

“She?”

“Yes. She.”

I don’t have to turn around to recognize the annoying softness of Skylenna’s voice. The soothing, syrupy sweet tone that makes me want to retch.

“Suseas has always favored the scalding bath treatment. She theorized that if a patient had to suffer longer from the visible burns and welts, it would be twice as effective as any other treatment.” There’s a pause, a brief moment I can feel her eyes digging in the back of my head. “Do you think this form of treatment will reform her? Curb those psychopathic tendencies to torture defenseless patients?”

She waits for me to answer. But I know this is a losing battle, especially if Patient Thirteen isn’t far behind.

“I saved you for last, Meridei. I thought it would be, in a way, poetic.”

I force out a patronizing laugh. “You mean Patient Thirteen saved me for—”

Turning around to face her, I physically choke on my words. My entire body locks up, mouth hanging open, eyes burning from not blinking.

Skylenna’s five-foot-seven frame blocks the doorway. I don’t know what to look at first—the wet, stringy hair? The darkened, bloodshot eyes? Or maybe it’s the deep, rich-red color staining her hands, splattered across her white gown and calm face.

The room holds its breath, and all I can hear is the light drip, drip, drip from the blood falling to the floor from her fingertips, one drop at a time.

She looks like she’s been thrown around a natural disaster or walked through a butcher house. No, it’s quite more sinister than that. It’s as if she was an unwilling human sacrifice at a witch’s altar, then rose after being possessed.

That’s who I’m looking at right now.

A demon from hell, conquering the body of a once shy girl.

“God help us all,” I mutter, unable to tear my eyes away from the ferocious look in her green eyes.

“He’s forsaken this place,” she says slowly, eyes glazing over in thought. “Why else would He let His people suffer this long?”

I scan the room for anything I can form into a makeshift weapon. But it’s without a single object. Only Suseas and this bathtub bolted to the floor and wall.

“Will you try to run? Or fight?”

I slam my hands against the wet floor. “You’re telling me you did all of this? Hung the orderlies? Tortured the council members?”

A hint of a smile plays on her lips. “So now it’s torture? I thought it was treatment.”

Fury sears the bottom of my stomach.

“Is this your sick effort to win him back?” I taunt. “Become a monster just like him, and maybe he’ll want to be with you again?” I know getting a rise out of her might be insane, but all I can hope is that getting her blind with anger will force her to make a mistake, and I can make a run for the nearest exit.

“He is not coming back.” Her face is unreadable. “Nothing I do can change that.”

I look down, shaking my brain for a way to stall whatever she has planned.

“Maybe you can. He’s the one that wanted to hurt me, right? Wouldn’t you rather please him by leaving me to suffer his wrath?”

She looks at me for a long moment, completely still, except for her thin fingers starting to curl.

“Another move and I will rip that arm off with my teeth.”

My head perks up at her threat. It sounds disturbingly familiar.

“The day you whipped me and made Dessin watch,” Skylenna explains. “That’s what he said when he threatened you, isn’t it?”

I remember. I left them in there overnight to stew in the pain I inflicted. It seemed like an appropriate punishment for how he spoke to me. He should have begged, groveled, even. But instead, that animal threatened to mutilate me.

“Since he’s not here to make good on his promise…” She trails off but keeps her cold, demented eyes plastered to me.

I shake my head. “No.”

“You can scream if you want. But it’s my turn to do my worst.”

Skylenna pummels me to the wet floor like a rabid animal, smashing the back of my head against the tile until we both hear a crack. I can’t tell if the sound came from my skull or the tile. But the impact makes me dizzy, nauseous, and leaks inky spots in my vision.

The moment my hands push toward her body in defense, something clinks shut around my wrists. Something cold and hard, binding my arms together as I writhe under her weight, bucking my hips to get her the hell away from me.

It’s not that she’s stronger than me—it’s the fact that she knows how to use her weight against me, knows just where to place her elbow, the hardest points of her body.

“Your arm is so thin and frail,” she whispers in my ear. “It won’t be hard to—”

My world lights up in explosive pain; from my fingertips to my jaw, every nerve has been obliterated. She uses her foot, pressing down on my bicep, to break my arm the rest of the way. Not a fracture, but a clean, absolute breaking of bone. Snap. I lose all composure and scream like my lungs have been torn to ribbons. Bile bubbles up my throat, and my head instinctually turns to the side so I can projectile vomit without choking.

I can’t think, can’t suck in a normal breath, can’t focus on anything other than the devouring agony that stabs into my bones and bolts me to the floor.

“Another move and I will rip that arm off with my teeth.” Her voice stings my ear as she repeats Patient Thirteen’s threat once more.

And she delivers.

The moment her teeth chew through that first layer of skin, the pain burning through me like hellfire seems to numb my brain. I become dead, in a way, unmoving, unblinking, drool spilling out the side of my mouth. Darkness smears the edges of my vision, and I’ve seen this in my patients. The emotionless look of defeat. Only, I haven’t given up, yet my body is a useless blob of putty at Skylenna’s feet.

I always thought this was a form of defiance in my patients. I thought that by going limp or making their eyes vacantly glaze over, they were standing in a silent form of rebellion.

I never knew it was their mind’s way of protecting them from my—abuse.

It’s clear that I black out her rage and the sound of her ripping pieces of me away because I blink a few times, and we’re in another room. Fuzzy and white, smelling of mildew and rusty pipes. I turn my head to see a bloody stump where my arm used to be, and although I want to bellow, cry for help, and roar in agony, all I can muster is a guttural moan.

“Do you want to know why I left you for last?”

The sound of her asking a question makes me want to hurl. I’m not sure where I am or what she’s doing with my body, but all I can do is hang my head loosely, chin to chest.

“It wasn’t only for the way you treated me; that’s such a small part of it.” She hoists me up, draping the upper half of my body over something cool and unmoving. “No, it was when I saw you go home every day after work, writing in your journal. You know, the one where you relived each treatment? The one where you become aroused by remembering how each patient suffered?”

How in God’s name did she know that? Has she been stalking me?

Skylenna tilts my body, snapping something against my head; I hear blood spill out of my gaping arm, splattering to the floor. And from that sound alone, I puke again. Bile erupting through my nostrils. The smell burning my eyes.

“It was the nail in the coffin when I saw that you wrote of Chekiss—seven hundred and forty-two times. Never missing a single detail about how you’ve made his life a living hell.”

I’ve never told anyone that before. Not even Belinda. I’m aware that it might have been frowned upon to enjoy the treatments as much as I have. To feel ecstasy over the power and control of it all.

After blinking a couple of times, my vision clears enough for me to make out the rippling water below me, the shiny porcelain tub. My jaw hangs open. The simulated drowning treatment.

“Fuck,” I groan.

Skylenna kneels in front of me. Blood cakes her mouth, gushing down her throat and chest. “This control panel has an interval timer. I’m going to leave it on—dunking you in for a certain amount of time and lift you back up to catch your breath for about ten seconds.” She pauses. “Maybe less.”

“Please.” The word comes out of my mouth involuntarily. I cringe inwardly. Begging is not who I am. If I’m going to die, I must do it with dignity.

“Please, what?”

Every ounce of that dignity leaves my body with the blood dripping from my gnarled arm. “Please, don’t—kill me,” I pant, unable to meet her eyes. “You can still—escape. Still—live your life.”

I make the mistake of looking up. Her eyes are savage and drained of all humanity. Yet, for the first time, a flicker of her own suffering saturates her face.

“I have no life to go back to.” Her voice is no longer calm and collected. It rises in volume, rattling my bones and chilling my skin. It’s as if she is letting herself have one last moment to feel the gravity of the situation she’s found herself in.

“I—have lost—everything!” Tears swell in her emerald, red-rimmed eyes as she screams in my face.

There is nothing left to say as she turns the control panel on, lowering me into the cold water as I bleed out. Dark, thick blood gushes around me, a heavy cloud permeating the tub.

An inch before I’m swallowed into my own personal hell, Skylenna turns from the doorway.

“This is for Chekiss.”

And there is nothing worse than waiting to die while, at the same time, fighting to breathe.