Page 25 of The Puppetmaster

There, he said, at the end of the hallway I would find a locked metallic box, which I could open by pressing on a black square above the lock. I was told to open the box, leave my assignment inside it, and fill out a printed form with some private information. That last part, he said, was to prove I trusted him, but I wonder if there’s more to it.

It doesn’t seem fair that he gets to know so much about me and I don’t even know his first name. No one does, at least not at The Velvet Rooms. When I asked Melina, she just shrugged her shoulders and told me that he has always simply been referred to as the Puppetmaster.

I have no idea what to expect because the whole process seems so surreal.

I shake my head, trying to bring my focus back to the task at hand. There’s no need to worry about the mechanics of that weird box inside The Velvet Rooms if I have nothing to put in there, and so far, my paper is still blank. He told me that if I decided to leave him a written note that I was to write it out longhand. I feel like a young schoolgirl who just learned to scribble her first words, completely inept at forming complete sentences, let alone adding some poetic beauty to the whole thing.

“Goddammit,” I hiss, exasperated.

Fifty minutes. I have fifty minutes left to do this, and I’m sitting here like an idiot who has never written a letter before.

Is it a letter, though? Or is it a self-description? A résumé? No, that can’t be right. This is not a job interview.

Who am I? Is that really the question that needs to be answered?

Then it comes to me.

No. The question should be, who do I want to become by being with him?

I look up, dreamily gazing across the street, where the palatial brick building towers like a constant reminder of my unmet desires. There’s something deep within me that I was too afraid to provoke up until now. A menacing chaos—an obscure yearning for the right man’s hand to tame that bizarre little beast hiding in the shadows of my soul.

He could be that man. No, I’msurehe is that man, and I want him so desperately now that the mere thought of never becoming his borders on torture.

If you want something, you need to take it, Alena.

“Write,” I hiss under my breath. “Write it down.”

And suddenly, the pen in my left hand starts flying across the page.

Chapter 16

Raad

Just in time, Alena, just in time.

The timer I set on the lock attached to the box in The Velvet Rooms let me know exactly when Alena pushed the button to open it—and when she closed it once she was done. I’m pretty sure she is the first girl ever who had less than three minutes left on the clock by the time she concluded her task.

I hate the hint of insecurity that this leaves tripping down my spine, running marrow-deep to my core. After all, there was a chance that she would refuse to play along. A chance that she would rather return to her job and forget about the whole thing now that she has gotten a taste of what it would be like to become mine.

I made sure that Mr. Hammond wouldn’t interfere by luring her back to that job. Luckily that man owes me, and it was easy to remind him of our deal when he started to complain that he was losing one of his best employees. He didn’t want to let her go, but he knew he had to if I told him so.

“That girl is a good one. She’s smart, ambitious,” he reminded me. “She brings good ideas to the table and I hate keeping her down like that.”

It’s a complaint I’ve been hearing for months now, and just like every single time before this, I had to remind him of our deal regarding Alena—only made worse by the fact that he still let me down. If he had been a little more careful and just given her a little bit more to hold onto, she would not have quit now and in the fashion she did. She was supposed to be tied to that job for a little longer, until I was ready to take her in.

But now that the damage is done, the least I can expect from him is to support my efforts to adapt the plan. If Alena is free to become mine now, I’m forced to jump at the chance, no matter the cost.

It will be a risk, but a risk I’m willing to take.

She left a handwritten note for me in the metallic box, which surprised me on two accounts. First, I did not think her to be a writer. It is the option chosen by most of the puppet candidates that have come before her, but I thought Alena would be different. I expected that she would be the type to leave me a voice recording, maybe even create a video. She is not a timid girl, not reserved like those who prefer to let the pen speak instead of their tongues.

Yet here I sit at my office desk facing the yard behind my house, the assignments of all three girls laid out on the table in front of me. Two of them are letters. I always have them delivered to me right away, allowing for a swift review after the candidates have completed their task so I can make my final decision.

It’s different this time, of course, because my decision was made the moment I saw Alena’s name on the list, but I don’t let it show in my actions. I’m conducting the hunt in the exact same way I’ve always done it, the only exception being that I put Alena to a more thorough test on the night of the event itself than I usually would.

And with one other major exception… I touched her.

We started our dance prematurely.

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