Page 79 of The Puppeteer and the Poisoned Pawn

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—“beenfollowingme?”

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—soclose 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 tono.

“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.

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