Page 82 of The Puppeteer and the Poisoned Pawn

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-twotimes. 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.

---