Puppet (20 page)

I sit against the wall of my small room, my knees pulled up to my chest, praying that all of it wasn’t true, begging that it was all just a lie.  But I chastise myself for being so silly and instead I beg God to help me stop my aching heart from splintering further into oblivion. 

I think about James and how he told me he believed in magic.  In good things, in love, in God.  I wonder if he was lying.  I could have sworn I saw the truth in his eyes but now I’m beginning to second guess everything.  Jed and James were never what I thought they were.  They lied to me when all I could do was tell the truth.   

I think about all the lies I’ve told and all the ones I would have told if Jed hadn’t taken them away.  I think of the girl I would have been if I had waited through those next seven years, doing what was right and going on to live a somewhat normal life.  I think of my life now and the twisted game I’ve somehow entangled myself in.

I wonder why I agreed with Jed.  Was it worth it?  But then Jed and James’s faces come to mind and I know.  Yes, it was.  Even if it was nothing but pretense, those few months were worth it.  

After awhile, the urge to cry slowly fades away and the ache in my chest diminishes as well.  I sit in silence, wondering how I still feel the beating, the breathing, the hum of my body.  I feel like my heart is made of wood; heavy and empty; hollow.       

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D
ays float by and I find myself with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to.  I’m not going back to Jed’s house.  Administrator Edelin will never let me because of what happened.  And I don’t want to go back anyway.  I don’t want to face James and Jed knowing that all this time they were just a lie.  I’m almost angrier at myself that I never realized their subterfuge.  Jed had always seemed so mendaciously insane and unobservant.  I should have known he was more than that.  James, as well. 

I’ve scratched my name into the padded wall of my cell, using one of the metal scraps.  The guards eye me irritably as if I’m damaging their private property, but they’re too scared to actually come in and tell me to stop.  I’m surprised they haven’t taken the metal shards away from me but they already seem anxious enough guarding the door.  They never step inside. 

A few days later, Duquesne comes to see me, smiling slightly as he walks in.  I don’t smile back; there’s really not much to smile about.  “How are you?” he asks and I just stare at him. 

“Wonderful.” 

Duquesne’s eyebrows crease together at my sarcastic tone.  “I meant your head.  Any headaches or unusual body symptoms?” 

Other than my body being completely overridden and controlled by a psychopath?  “No,” I answer. 

“Good,” Duquesne responds.  He begins to perform a usual checkup routine and I just sit and watch him. 

“You were in on it too,” I state after a few seconds and he looks up.  “The whole thing about Head Devere.”  I shrug.  “I don’t even know what it is.  All I know is that everybody lied to me.” 

Duquesne hesitates and then clears his throat nervously.  “I was, yes.  That’s why Jed was invited to see me...”

“So they weren’t lying the whole time?” I ask desperately, wondering if any scrap of my time there was as it seemed.

Duquesne nods slightly.  “We heard about what he had accomplished and we realized you’re potential.  When Jed was invited to meet me, that’s when he was...informed of our ideas...”

“Did you force him?” I ask incredulously, suddenly thinking about Jed and James wondering what to do about their new living marionette and the demands thrust upon them.

Duquesne shakes his head and I feel my heart sink a little.  “No.  We asked and he eventually agreed.”  His words fade into the stillness of the room around us.  His explanation makes their motives seem a tiny bit better.  But not much. 

I’m silent.  There’s nothing to say.  Duquesne goes on with the examination and eventually pulls out some sort of scanner and runs it along the top of my head, frowning in concentration.  I’m about to ask him what it is, but realize it really doesn’t matter. 

“If we can destroy his hold on you, then he’s out...” Duquesne mutters quietly, almost to himself, and I look up at him.

“What?”

“Administrator Edelin.  His control over you.  He’s crossed so many lines that you are the only thing that’s keeping people following him.  If that’s gone, Devere gets her throne back.  For real, this time.” 

I stare at him, wondering why he’s telling me this now.  It’s not like I can do anything about it.  I’m the one being controlled.  “Tell Jed and James about it,” I snap.  “
They
seem involved.”

Duquesne purses his lips together and frowns; a nervous, despondent frown.  “They’ve been taken into custody,” he says slowly and I jerk around to look at him.

“What?” I ask in shock, surprised at the stab of dismay in my chest.  “What do you mean?” 

He nods.  “Just what I said.  They’re being held just like you are.” 

I think about James and Jed in a cell similar to mine and even though I’m not exactly happy with them at the moment, I still cringe at the thought.  “How?” I ask.  “Why?”

“I heard James was trying to get you out,” Duquesne explains, watching me closely.  “They caught him and to punish him, brought Jed with him.” 

My stomach turns and I’m bombarded with too many emotions to count.  “He what?” I nearly snap I’m so surprised.  Only days before he had been ready to shoot me, kill me.  Or maybe he never really meant to at all.  Maybe he had always known he could never do it.  “They’re here?” I ask hollowly and Duquesne nods sadly.  I barely notice him begin to pack up his things and zip up his bag.  He nods to me in farewell because we both know there’s nothing more that needs to be said.  I want to ask him a dozen questions, get a dozen answers, but I already know them; it’s the lies I want, the ones that will tell me everything is okay. 

Duquesne leaves the room and I’m left alone with my thoughts, once again.  I think about Jed and James, their faces, their smiles and without needing to think it through again, without needing to even have a plan, I know I can never let them stay here.  I can never just let them be taken like I am.  I can do nothing else but free them. 

29

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I
pull a shard out of the wall and go to sit down on the ground beside my bed, leaning against the flimsy, silver legs.  The metal sliver feels cold and sharp in my hands and I close my eyes and wince as I slice it across the skin on my arm, creating a small cut that stings and begins to bleed. 

It’s the middle of the night – I’ve begun to discern patterns in passersby in the corridor and their behaviors linking with time – and the guards outside my door are barely alert, staring off into space, although I know they’d never be brave enough to enter my cell without some extraordinary reason.  I glare at their backs as I smear the blood across my arm and my hands, digging my fingernails into my palms because the cut hurts surprisingly more than I had thought it would.   

I shout at the door, something weird and scream-like, pushing the blade into my pocket.  One of the guards turns around and upon seeing the bloody mess I’ve made, his eyes widen as he cautiously opens the door.  He steps inside and slowly walks closer while I stare up at him from my spot on the floor, cradling my arm against my chest as if its been mutilated. 

“What did you do?” he asks warily, looking around the room and then back at me.  He glances at the shards jutting out of the wall, and at the metal bed.  I don’t care how he thinks I did this, as long as it poses a problem.  “I should get someone,” he says hurriedly, turning to leave, but before he can even take a step, I reach out and yank his ankle backwards.  He falls to the floor, his gun rattling from his hands and I snatch it up.  The guard shouts as the other one runs into the room and upon seeing me, points and fires.  I roll out of the way just in time to hear the bullet whiz by and clunk against the table leg.  Fear sprints across the man’s eyes and before he can think to fire the gun again, I’ve crossed the distance between us and crushed the barrel between my fingertips.  The man backs away from me, as if expecting me to crush him as well, but I only shove past him and lock the door on both of them, racing down the cold, empty hallway. 

The gun is pressed firmly in my hands and only now do I realize that I should have asked Duquesne where Jed and James are being held.  I race down the hallway, throwing open the first doorway I see.  I remember the rooms with cells where Administrator Edelin brought me; they’re sprinkled throughout the corridor.  I don’t see Jed or James in this one – I don’t see anyone – so I close the door and keep running.

The floor and walls around me are concrete and gray; cold and somewhat damp.  The cold seeps through my slipper-like shoes as I sprint down one hallway after another, searching desperately.  It takes me four more doors but I finally throw one open, revealing a room with five cells, Jed and James in two of them. 

“Penelope!” Jed exclaims as I burst into the room and run for their cells.  “What are you doing here?” 

“I’m getting you out,” I answer, twisting the knob on his cell door until it snaps.  Jed walks numbly out into the small corridor while I turn to James’s door.  I don’t look at him as I fiddle with the lock, finally snapping it while his door swings open.  James hurries out, eyeing the gun in my hands and then looking me in the eyes.  I remember what Duquesne had said about James trying to save me, but all I can think about is the image of his gun at my chest.  We stand for a moment, inches away from each other but unable to touch.  I don’t know why, but I can still feel the fear of him, the worry, the hurt.  And I know James can read it in my eyes.

“You’re bleeding,” he says slowly, reaching out as if to touch my arm, but his hand hovers. 

I shake my head.  “I did it...”  Alarm flickers across James’s face but I ignore it.  “You both should leave,” I tell them, using everything inside of me to force myself to turn away from James. 

“Not without you,” I hear him say from behind me.

“They’ll only force me back,” I reply a little too harshly.  “They control me,” I state, cringing as I realize how easily the words slide from my tongue; how true they are. 

Jed and James both hesitate and although I can read the guilt in their eyes about James’s confession, about everything they did, I don’t see the point in apologizing. I already know they’re sorry.  And although I don’t feel as close to them anymore, I do forgive them. 

“Go,” I say again, harder this time, more demanding.  Jed turns for the door, beckoning for James to come along but he doesn’t move.  He stands there, staring into my eyes and I want to look away but I can’t. 

“I’m sorry, Pen,” he says and I can feel the hurt and guilt pouring off of him like waves.  I want to step across the small gap that separates us and pull him into my arms but something still holds me back.  The part that tells me he can never be mine, because
I’m
not even my own anymore. 

“Please go,” I say quietly, looking down at my hands.  James doesn’t move.  “
Please
.” 

But before he can open his mouth and protest with some other excuse, the door behind me opens and it’s too late.  Too late for them to run, too late for me to run.  Administrator Edelin walks in, looking slightly disheveled, like he basically jumped into his clothes in his rush to get here.  But his expression is still smug and his eyes still glint with power. 

“Why, Miss Trump,” he says too cheerily.  “What are you doing here?” 

I stiffen beside James, the gun feeling heavy and hot in my hands.  Edelin seems to notice it the exact moment I realize using it might be a good idea. 

“You can drop that,” he tells me, his expression and voice hardening as he clicks his rectangular remote. 

My fingers unclasp and the gun thuds to the floor with a disturbingly loud clunk.  Edelin stares at me, his smile and smugness gone, replaced by anger and irritation.  I can see guards out in the hallway, the amount getting larger and larger and I realize the two I left in my cell must have set off some kind of alarm.  I want to kick myself for my stupidity.

Edelin watches me for a few moments, his gaze looking me up and down and lingering on my bloody arm.  “Very funny,” he says, pointing to it, but there’s no humor in his voice.  His eyes glance to my clothing and his brows furrow.  “What’s in your pocket?” 

My hands move on their own, pulling out the metal shard I only now remember I have.  I stare at it as it glistens in the dim light, still smeared with my blood. 

“So that’s what you used,” Edelin says indifferently.  “Well...maybe I should have you punish yourself.”  His eyes brighten at the possibility and dread clenches my stomach.  Edelin seems overly pleased with his creativity and his smile stretches wider.  “Teach you to behave.”  My hand curves inward, towards me, the blade inches from my body.  “Not too badly, of course,” he goes on nonchalantly, straightening his jacket.  “You still need to kill Head Devere.”  He says it as someone might check something off their grocery list.  No guilt, no inclination of how enormous the task would be. 

My stomach lurches at the thought and I glare across the room at him, thinking of how easily he made me crush the man’s arm.  How impossible it was for me to resist. 

“But first, you.”     

“No!” I hear James say and he steps in front of me, reaching for the blade clasped between my fingertips as if he has any power to stop it.

Edelin’s eyebrows rise as he looks between me and James and slowly his expression morphs into a contemplative frown.  He drums his fingertips against the metal box and watches us.  “Actually...” he goes on, his eyes turning bright and gleaming with something that frightens me.  “I have a better idea.”  I want to close my eyes but I can’t make myself.  I don’t want to hear his idea.  I don’t.  “Kill him.” 

My breath catches in my throat as his words slam me in the chest.  “What?” I ask, my voice choked and strangled. 

“You heard me,” Edelin snaps.  “Kill him.  I’m guessing that will hurt more than a knife to your stomach.”  He smiles; an eerily wide smile that twists across his face and distorts what should be something joyful into perverted cruelty.  “After killing Devere you’ll be sentenced to death anyway.”  His grin remains unwavering.