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

Skylenna

After being in Jack’s house for less than an hour, here’s what I learned about the day he died.

That morning, Kane and I met at sunrise; he told me he found out Scarlett was being targeted—Vlademur knew about Violet and her the entire time. He missed it. He blamed himself. After explaining what she was going through, I forced him to get rid of Scarlett’s perpetrators, and scare Violet away from her house, even though we both knew something big was coming for me. They were drugging Jack with far more Mind Phantoms than he could take. And it was all going to implode on us.

I reluctantly touch the ottoman near the front door, running my fingers over the jagged wood that he accidentally hit with the club. The same weapon that was aimed at my head.

And with a heavy wave of darkness, I slip into that void, free-falling until I’m standing over a fifteen-year-old Skylenna, covered in her own blood, while Jack kicks her in the ribs.

“Please,” Skylenna coughs out, protecting her vital organs in a feeble attempt to stay alive.

I look up at Jack, dripping in sweat and crying hysterically. “Where is he?” he shouts.

She continues to gasp.

Normally, I would be wincing at this sight, holding in my cries as I watch one of the worst days of my life. But, currently, my skin is dry and flaky from the blood of my enemies. I’m sore from head to toe, yet desensitized from violence entirely. There is nothing in this moment that could shock me.

Before Jack can land the last fatal blow to my head, I blink, and a force like a hurricane tackles my father to the ground. The impact is so damning, so incredible, that their bodies slide across the floor until they hit the wall. Paintings are knocked from above their heads, glass cabinets rattle, and the ground vibrates under my feet.

I step closer, looking at the man that saved my life.

Kane wrestles the club from my father’s hands, throwing it into the hallway. He shouts at him to stop, to find the will, to realize what he’s done.

“Get her out of here,” Jack wails, pointing at me. “I’m so sorry! Oh god, I’m so sorry!”

Kane kneels at Skylenna’s side, forehead wrinkled, eyes wide with shock. Slowly, he lifts her from the ground, gently cradling her to his muscular chest.

“I knew you would come for me.” She smiles up at him despite the condition of her face and body.

I’m so focused on her blood saturating through his gray shirt that I’m caught off guard when Kane yells, “Jack, no!”

My eyes dart to Jack, slicing a knife through his own throat.

I turn away woodenly. Kane was right. Jack did take his own life. I suddenly want to escape this memory. Why would I want to watch it happen after being haunted by it for so many years?

Kane is momentarily torn by whether he should try to save Jack or rush Skylenna to get medical attention. He looks back and forth before his tormented eyes land on Skylenna, blinking up at him through blood and tears.

He begins running. I follow.

“What’s happening?” Skylenna asks him in a daze.

“Hold on,” his voice breaks, sounding like he’s about to lose it. Cry out in pain or yell in anger. “I’m so sorry, Skylenna.”

I pick up my pace, forcing my tired legs to catch up with him and hear what other words transpire between the two.

“No,” Skylenna croaks. “I’m the one that’s sorry.”

Kane slows to a fast jog, looking down at her as she opens her clenched fist. Two red petals and the roots from a flower. I nearly trip as Kane comes to a halting stop.

“No.” His voice comes close to Dessin’s terrifying tone. “No!” He comes close to dropping her as pure shock overtakes him.

“I don’t have long now. Maybe an hour. If I—die, it won’t matter anyway.” She pants, eyelids fluttering closed from exhaustion.

Kane’s mouth falls open. “What have you done? How the fuck am I supposed to live knowing that I’ll be the only one to remember? To look at you and know that you’ll never see me again? Every memory of me—gone.”

I chose to lose my memories?

“It’s—the—only way. I can’t let them—hurt you or DaiSzek—to break me.”

Hurt him or DaiSzek? She thinks Demechnef would have used them to break her in the experiment?

“We don’t even know how the Phoenix stem works! It could erase your mind completely; everything that you are will just be gone!”

Skylenna coughs. “It’s a good thing you know me better—than anyone in the world. You always said I was your master puppeteer. Stick to the plan I made in the tree house, Kane. When it’s all over, I’ll remember you.”

Kane breaks out into a sprint, filled to the brim with raging emotions that are about to split him apart. When we finally get to the infirmary, Skylenna grips Kane before he sets her on a gurney outside. “Promise me—you won’t let me fall in love with you. I don’t want it to hurt more than it already will.”

He stares at her with anger, the urge to cry hardening his face. “I promise, Skylittle.”

It’s after she’s wheeled inside that Kane goes around back, and I listen to him roar to the cloudy sky, punching holes in the brick of the infirmary until his fists are swollen and gushing blood.

I stand on the edge of the tree house, knowing that this will show me the last piece of the puzzle. The weight of this memory is so profound that I double over as it takes me.

They sit together, looking down at DaiSzek while they eat fruit and watch the sunrise.

“If I’m like you, we can fight together, and you won’t have this weight on your shoulders.” Skylenna tosses a piece of fruit down to DaiSzek.

“We don’t know that. The only female subjects I’ve seen are either suicidal or catatonic—or both,” Kane replies.

Skylenna’s silent for a long moment.

“Whatever is cooking in there—I don’t want to know.” Annoyance flashes through his tone.

“Okay, hear me out.” She turns to face him, adjusting her sundress. “The only reason the female subjects turn out that way is because they can’t cope with the trauma that made their brains different, right? Well, what if we can control that outcome? What if there’s a loophole?”

Kane sighs. “What if nothing. I’ll find a way to get us out of here. If they can’t find us, they can’t use us.”

“They’ll follow us wherever we go! Our only way out is in.”

His eyes close momentarily. “Go on, then. What’s your master plan?”

“Using my father against me isn’t going to work, but they don’t know that. He has distanced himself enough, and you have sheltered me from the abuse that was thought to have been my ruin. But if that’s the case, they’ll eventually figure that out and dig until they discover that you and DaiSzek are my weaknesses.” Her sparkling eyes go dark. “And—we don’t know what they would do to you to get me to break. I can’t risk anything bad happening to either of you for this experiment.”

“I’m following.” Kane nods.

“We also know that Vlademur’s son will eventually come for me, try to break me himself, trick me into falling in love with him. You said it yourself; it’s the plan B they’ve cooked up. Aurick Demechnef will lure me in and use domestic violence to break me. If that happens, I won’t be able to hide the fact that I know about the experiment, I know about Aurick, I know what they’re trying to do.”

I stare at her with a half-open mouth. So, I’ve really known everything this entire time? The times I would get frustrated with Dessin or Kane for keeping secrets, he kept it to himself that I was in on those secrets at one point in my life.

“But I won’t let on that I’m compromised if I don’t remember you or the experiment,” Skylenna finishes with great caution.

Kane’s eyebrows rise. “Not happening.”

“But I’m not done!”

“No.”

“At least let me get out the rest of the master plan,” she argues.

He nods with annoyance for her to continue.

“Think about it. It’s said that the Phoenix stem only targets the memories you choose to let go of. All I’d have to do is focus on you! We can be ten steps ahead of them if we’re controlling the outcome of this experiment. Knowing Aurick, he’ll probably use me to get to you. See if he can kill two birds with one stone. At that point, you can get close to me again. Be my friend. It’ll be easy since you already know me better than anyone, right?”

Kane’s expression is unreadable.

“If you become my anchor again, my best friend, my protector—then teach me to be strong, to fight back, be mentally prepared for what comes next. Maybe as an adult, without these memories, I can be different. I can be like you…” Skylenna takes a deep breath, looking up at Kane with a heavy expression. “You can fake your death. Control the outcome so they won’t have a chance to hurt either of you.”

My vision turns dark and spotty, and I come down on my knees—hard. Did she just say fake? Fake his death? Are you fucking kidding me?

“And I will think it’s real, so in theory, I will become like you. And once my mind works differently, I’ll be able to look back at my own missing memories, won’t I?”

“In theory, Skylittle. Keyword. We don’t know what you’ll be capable of. You may never remember me this way again!”

“Still not done.” She holds a hand up. “You’d have to keep up the ruse until then. We don’t know how the Phoenix stem works. Certain information may trigger a memory, and if that happens, it’s all over. You have to keep me in the dark. That means, let me believe Aurick is a friend. Let me believe you’re a secretive prick for all I care. Because if this fails, those memories of us will be gone forever.”

I’m still stuck on his death. I hold myself up with liquid arms and buttery legs. “Did you fake your death?” I scream at them. “Was this all a trick?!”

“It’s a good plan.” He rubs his hands together, thinking. “But I’d never put you in the lion’s den like that. I’d never lie to you, never use you like a pawn, never risk your memories of me because, honey, our childhood together is part of who you are. Who would you become if we took those away, huh? The next time we’d meet, I wouldn’t know you, and you wouldn’t know me.”

Skylenna considers this, chewing on her lip. “What if that’s the time I’d meet another alter? That might be easier on you, and it would be like a fresh start.”

But Kane has made up his mind, putting the conversation to bed. And I suppose that’s why younger Skylenna took it upon herself to eat the Phoenix stem when Jack attacked. She took it upon herself to enact this plan.

I’m hyperventilating, being consumed with a tornado of emotions. Relief. Hope. Confusion. Fury. Happiness. Anguish. It falls over me until I drop to the wooden floor of the tree house and lose consciousness.