The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

The remaining piles of ash skitter over my boots.

I stand before what’s left of Scarlett’s house. A giant charcoal shadow stains the grass in front of me, marking the earth with her tragic death.

I never thought I’d come back here. But there’s one thing I have to see for myself. One last memory I need the details to.

The burns on Kane’s back. He said he was here that day.

Panic and feverish nausea brew in my core. Sweat drips down the length of my spine, dampening my hands and slithering around the follicles of my hair.

I need this to be quick. In and out. No breakdowns. No lingering on the images I’ve tried desperately to forget. I will only gaze upon what I don’t remember.

Kneeling on the grass, my knuckles graze the last bits of ash sprinkled around the area. I wait for the pulse, the shift in reality. But it doesn’t happen as quickly as before. It lingers in the back of my mind, tickling my subconscious. The anxiety of it all builds in my lungs, strangling my windpipes.

Scarlett, please forgive me for digging up this last memory.

It’s blocked for a reason. I don’t even like thinking about this day, much less relieving it in a vivid hallucination.

Come on. I grip the ash tighter, willing myself to fall back into that moment. Doing my best to relax. To not be afraid of what I might see.

“Wait here. I’ll get the blueberries.” I hear my own voice whispering in the wind. Words I spoke moments before she ended it all.

“I’ll be right back. It’ll be fine. We’ll be okay.”

My stomach lurches with hot bile. I clench the ash harder, digging my nails into my palms.

Get this over with, dammit!

I take a deep breath, giving in to the voices, to the pain that is inevitable. And it’s like stepping into a warm bathtub. I look up to see Scarlett’s old house swallowed in a mountain of flames. Orange and yellows blazing with a dark cloud of smoke curling toward the sky.

Just as I take a step toward the permeating heat, loud footsteps thump behind me, snagging my attention from the fire.

“No!” A voice. Loud. Booming. A feeling like coming home after a long journey. His voice.

Kane races like a bolt of lightning toward me, eyes transfixed on the horror house coming to an explosive end.

I turn to the side, watching him run into the house that is moments from burning to the ground. And even though I’m not certain if these memories can hurt me or not, I run in after him.

The smoke envelops me, filling my lungs but not doing any harm. I breathe in hesitantly as I watch him cough and heave, jumping over shreds of burning carpet, dodging wooden beams falling from the ceiling. And it’s how I would imagine stepping foot into hell. The flames rage on, flailing around the room without purpose or direction. The singeing heat licks my skin without leaving marks. It’s an oven trying to roast him alive.

Kane calls for me. For her.

“Skylenna!” He searches each room like a madman. “Oh, god. Oh my god!”

And with the orange light radiating through the house, I see the tears streaking down his face, dripping from his chin to his neck.

I want to reach for him, tell him it’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. But we look down at the same time, right in front of the closet door; my younger body is moments away from being eaten by the angry fire. And—

“Oh my god,” I shriek, throwing my hand over my mouth, turning away from the image I’ve tried so hard to forget.

The noose.

Scarlett.

My hand wrapped around hers.

Kane falls to his knees, suddenly unconcerned with the fire ripping through the house. His face is twisted in the most excruciating despair I’ve ever seen on him.

“No,” he utters with a quivering voice. “Scarlett.”

He checks her pulse with a shaking hand, then quickly pulls it away with wide eyes filling with more tears.

I lower myself next to him, unable to put a perimeter around this kind of pain. Watching him witness one of the worst days of my life. It’s unimaginable.

Kane hesitates before he touches Scarlett’s hand, joined loosely with young Skylenna’s. It cripples him to slowly part their fingers, pulling one deceased twin from the living one. He chokes on a sob, using his other hand to press over his lips. Containing the cry that wants to explode from his chest. He separates them. Separates us.

As the house rumbles and groans, Kane scoops up Skylenna, lifting her from the bedroom floor, taking off in a fierce run away from the heat. I take off with them, watching him mumble something over and over again, jumping through the fire with her in his arms until we’re all outside, greeted by the cool breeze of winter. He sets her on the grass, hovering over her as he holds her hands.

“I’m so sorry. Oh, god, honey, I’m so fucking sorry.” He repeats this over and over before he’s up again, sprinting in the house for Scarlett’s body.

I look down at Skylenna, sleeping, completely unaware that her childhood best friend had saved her life. The man that would cross oceans, run through fire, take a sickle in the chest for her. She coughs, ridding her lungs of the smoke.

The bellows of a grown man jolt me upright. I twist my body toward the house, remembering what he said happened when he went back in for Scarlett’s body. Terror pools in my stomach, adrenaline pulsing through my veins, and I’m fumbling back into the house. Even though I know he survives it, I can’t let him go in alone.

I’m reminded of Niles. The way he threw himself in the flames to release DaiSzek because I left him there. I abandoned my own mission.

I won’t let Kane burn alone.

Tears spring to my eyes as I stare down at him, crushed and struggling under the beams of the collapsed ceiling. He thrashes and howls in agony as it eats through his skin.

I drop to my knees next to his face, waiting for him to rise from the debris. But—he doesn’t. He gasps in pain and exhaustion, unable to stand up. I wince, eyes painfully wide, while I watch him suffer.

He’s going to die. Why isn’t he pulling himself out?

It’s a blow to my lungs, a whip of terror slicing through my soul.

“Kane,” I utter in disbelief. “You and your alters are the strongest men I have ever met. You have faced greater obstacles than this. You can do anything you set your mind to. So, get up and fight!”

The fear fuels every muscle, every pump of blood, and I release a hidden urge of power trapped in my chest.

I scream at the top of my lungs.

It feels like an animal’s roar has climbed out of my body, sending a shock wave through the heated air, cutting into the devouring flames.

And Kane looks up at me, an instant locking of eyes. A gaze that sinks to the bottom of my stomach, nearly choking the oxygen from my lungs.

But he quickly looks away, growling as he lifts himself out of the flaming beams. One foot in front of the other, and he’s barreling out of the house with me, coughing hysterically, grunting, dodging the collapsing ceiling. The moment we reach the open grass and trees, I can hear the house crumble to the ground. A puff of smoke and soot and ash are flying freely around us. And Kane falls next to young Skylenna’s sleeping body, groaning in horrendous amounts of searing pain from his burned back.

He reaches for her limp hand and gasps for breath.

“It’s my fault,” he rasps. “I’ll never fucking forgive myself. It’s my fault. I should have left the asylum sooner to check on you. Oh, god, not Scarlett. It’s my fucking fault!” he roars in agony, filling the smoky skies with his regret and guilt.

At this angle in the winter sun, I notice that his hair has been dripping with water. Not just from sweat, but his eyes are bloodshot, and his skin has lost its bronze glow.

He came from the simulated drowning treatment.

I force the bile back down my throat and try not to wretch. Not only was he torturing himself for what happened here, but he ran all this way after enduring hell in the asylum.

His words trigger something Dessin once said to me. After he tried to teach me how to give a good right hook outside of the asylum, I told him a theory. Something that made us more alike than I thought.

“I can’t talk about Scarlett… about what happened to her, because I can’t face what I have done. Speaking about the day she died would be like holding up a mirror and seeing myself for the villain I truly am. I cannot forgive myself, and that guilt is burning me from the inside out. I know I recognize that feeling in you. The guilt of something you’ve done or someone you’ve hurt. I can see it when I look into your eyes, just as you can see it when you look into mine.”

It was his answer that unlocks what I’m seeing now.

“There is much irony in your words. One day, you’ll understand.”

This is the guilt Dessin and Kane have spoken about. Something he couldn’t forgive himself for. Not being here for me, for Scarlett when we needed him most. He carried that responsibility and beat himself up when he failed or thought he did.

I sink to the grass with my hands clutching my chest.

“This wasn’t your fault,” I croak. “Scarlett made this choice. You shouldn’t have had to carry this guilt to your—grave.”

My hands shake, and a cold vehemence unravels within me. An awakening. I’m suddenly desperate to hurt all who’ve harmed this man in any way. Urgent to fulfill the promises and threats he was never able to exact.

The shadows of my weak, kind conscience break away in shards that could severely wound. My gentle hand fizzling into a ghost of a memory. My urge to always be compassionate, even to those who don’t deserve it, simply shrivels up and dies.

And I become something else entirely.

It only takes a brief moment to shift focus and narrow in on the only place I’d like to start exacting Dessin’s threats.

Only one place I’d find great pleasure in unleashing this broken, twisted, unmistakably vicious new wrath of mine.

The Emerald Lake Asylum.