Page 74 of The Puppetmaster

He’s a murderer—or will be, thanks to me.

I wasn’t the first puppet whose name he used to buy shares of that particular pharmaceutical company. In fact, it looks like he’s done this with every single puppet, always retaining a proxy on their accounts and their shares. I figured this out by going through the paperwork that was spread out in the open on his desk. That’s not what shocked me, though. To be honest, I didn’t even understand what I was looking at because I had no idea why anyone would want to do this.

Why buy so many shares of one company using different accounts under different names—if he effectively ends up gaining control over them? Why didn’t he just buy all those shares under his own name?

That part I still haven’t quite figured out, but I think I do understand why he needed the shares in the first place. I couldn’t get into his computer because it was password-protected, but his tablet was not. I looked up the company name whose shares he bought using our accounts and came across a bunch of very disturbing articles.

There was one in particular that destroyed me. An article that was only printed a day ago. It revealed the true intentions behind Raad’s greed for profit, and the fact that he would stop at nothing for his own benefit.

Not even if it meant that people would die because ofhim.

I’m wailing and crying for help, torn apart by the horrible truth I learned about the man who has been my entire world for the past month, the mysterious master I’d dreamed about for years—the man I hoped would break me free.

It was all a lie. He used me, just like he used all his other puppets.

It all makes sense now. It all makes horrible sense.

“Let me go!” I yell out, a new crest of panic rising deep within my chest when we reach the bedroom upstairs.

He doesn’t respond verbally, but yanks the door open with one pull, storming inside and throwing me on the soft mattress of the canopy bed that’s been my place of solace and our playground for the past few weeks.

“No!” I bellow again, as I see him marching back to the door in a rage.

Struggling to get back into a seated position without the help of my arms, I drag myself across the bed, almost falling as I roll myself down over the edge before I chase after him. I reach the door just after he has slammed it shut. I sink down on my knees and burst out into a desperate cry when I hear the heavy lock turned from the outside.

He has locked me in. Just like I feared he would.

Raad tied me up and locked me inside my bedroom without giving even a hint of an explanation to what I just saw. He didn’t even try. He didn’t even have an elaborate lie ready to tell me, to defend his honor.

His entire behavior is nothing but a loud admission of guilt—and it breaks my heart into pieces.

Because I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to hear that it was all a misunderstanding.

I wanted him to deny it. I wanted him to tell me that, no, he didn’t buy all those shares so he would own more than fifty percent of that company’s shares.

And no, it wasn’t because he wanted to stop that company from obtaining a patent for a drug that could save thousands of lives.

No, it wasn’t because he wanted to profit from this and secure the patent for that drug with his own company—thus gaining control over the price at which that drug would be sold on the public market.

No, it wasn’t because he wanted a monopoly on that drug and sell it for an outrageous price, which would make him a hundred times richer than he already is—and possibly prevent thousands of people from ever receiving this lifesaving medication because they can’t afford it.

No. It can’t be true.

But that’s what the article stated. That’s the conclusion that could be drawn from the Puppetmaster’s inscrutable behavior of the past few years.

Years he spent making his puppets dance for him so they would turn a blind eye to what he did using their names.

Years he spent hiding in the dark, taking on the role of the mysterious and irresistible Puppetmaster, whose strings we all so desperately wanted to hang from.

He made a fool out of all of us. He made us fall for him, only to cast us out into the world as clueless accomplices, leaving us dumb and dizzy with adoration for him, while he hid the monster he truly is.

It all makes sense now. It all makes terrible sense.

But the truth is so excruciatingly painful that I don’t know how I will ever survive this. It feels as if my heart has been ripped out of my chest and sliced into pieces.

I collapse in front of the locked door, choking on my own cries as tears forge a river down my face, not soothing the ache that rips me apart in the slightest.

How will I ever live with this? How will I ever be able to forgive him—or myself?

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