Page 73 of The Puppeteer and the Poisoned Pawn

“You have come a long way from that scared, overly sensitive conformist you once were, haven’t you?” Meridei struggles to stand up straighter. “I am going to relish in the challenge to break you. Because, though you may have been too stubborn to cry here, I hear a scalding bath is an absolute cruelty to someone who has just been whipped.”

I wouldn’t hold your breath. I am already broken.

“I look forward to it.” Though I sound perfectly calm, these are the only words I can muster through the searing pain gnawing on my flesh and bone from head to toe.

She grimaces at me before heading toward the door.

“Oh, and Meridei?” I call out, waiting for her to stop and turn. “When you go home tonight, don’t forget to tell your family that you love them.”

At first, I’m sure my words rendered her speechless. But then she laughs. Loudly. Like a crow in heat. It’s off-putting and unnatural.

The guards even make faces as they enter the room to take me down from my chains. And with that sight of her black bob haircut bouncing down the hallway, I think…Mercy.

That was me giving her mercy.

The porcelain bathtub steams excessively. In fact, the entire room is foggy from it. The slightest bit of heat singes my blisters and welts.

I don’t know how I’ll get through the scalding bath from hell.

But I do. It’s brutal and closely compared to being thrown into a volcano. And that night, I hardly got any sleep. Just lying on the burned, blistering areas was another form of torture. Each time I turned, I’d wake in a screaming fit. The sheets were like knives slowly carving up my flesh. And though the room was cold, it felt like I was still sitting in that bath. Still burning alone.

I wished that Dessin was there to make me laugh or threaten to burn the place down. I wished to smell his skin again, to feel the softness of his lips, or to see that look he got when he was preparing to outsmart someone in a fight.

Each day, Meridei finds new ways to hurt me. Whether it’s eating in front of me without keeping me fed, hosing me down with cold water at first light, or keeping me tied to a chair for hours on end.

But this morning, she has grown decidedly impatient.

I hiss as the orderlies shove me out of bed and drag me to my least favorite treatment.

The simulated drowning.

My eyes are barely open, my mouth dry and cottony. It’s difficult to process how fast things have escalated when my head is locked in the metal clamps and my hands are bound behind my back.

Meridei is grinning to herself.

“Good morning,” she purrs, beaming at the tub of cold water.

I grimace, not in the mood to play with her today. My knees burn against the tiled floor, sore and quivering under my weight. I decide immediately that I’ll have to escape to Ambrose Oasis right away. I’ve always feared this treatment more than the others. Maybe watching Chekiss go through this my first day was scarring long term. Either way, this week has left me brittle with thinning patience that might give out at any moment.

I take in a deep breath, waiting for Meridei to begin. But a beat of silence makes me look up, meeting her beady eyes.

“I never asked where the real Patient Thirteen is,” Meridei says coolly. “Did he—get bored with you?”

My teeth scrape against each other. I say nothing.

“Hmm, I thought so.” She fiddles with the handle on the control panel. “Did I ever tell you about the time we initiated your raggedy twin sister?”

The thought wisps through my mind quickly. The isolation tank. The way they forced me to endure a treatment. Had they done that to Scarlett too?

“She was like you in the way—she didn’t care for closed spaces. We didn’t have the isolation tank at the time. But we did have this tub.” The wicked intent in her tone is laid on thick. It’s that curve of her voice, the taunting pitch that crawls under my skin, making me itch to wrap my hands around her throat.

“She had an interesting trauma response. At first, it was like she had dissociated from it entirely. She let us lock her in the contraption without fighting back.” Meridei laughs quietly to herself. “But then when we started, it was like she reverted back to her childlike mindset. She begged and cried like a five-year-old.”

The muscles in my chest and back vibrate with lethal, blinding fury.How fucking dare they.These monstrous, insensitive human beings have never experienced half of the horror at such a young age that Scarlett went through. To put her through that after all she endured is nothing short of evil.

And it’s there again. That primal, paranormal urge to slip past her mental defenses and—corrupt her mind. I just don’t know how to do it.

The image of Scarlett in my place flashes through me, frigid and nauseating. Then, it’s as if the floor materializes from under my legs, my body turning to vapor, and I’m there. In that hallway with Scarlett and her tormentors.

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