Page 120 of The Puppet Master
A groan rumbles up my throat.
“Come on, beautiful. You gotta get up.”
Beautiful.
All at once, it’s Sawyer’s baritone voice that registers. The scar tissue on his palm presses against the skin of my shoulder. His smell, masculine and woodsy, enters my nose.
My eyes pop open.
I jerk up in bed, hand flinching for Thorne’s knife clipped to my undergarment. But I catch myself before I wield it. My heart skips at the sight of Sawyer.
Danger? Friend? Foe?
“Woah.” Sawyer’s hands raise as he slowly pulls away. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“Wha—” I blink several times. My knees pull up as I tug my black nightgown over the knife. The urge to survey my bedroom hits hard, the photograph of me with Thorne beckoning my eyes to the shelf flooded with books on psychology. Books on manipulation, trauma,acting—a cartoon-villain collection of intent.
I keep my eyes on Sawyer.
“What are you doing here?” My voice is so shaken it doesn’t sound like mine. Buthers. As if she and I have melded together—a victimless victim at the mercy of this man, this manipulator.
Pathetic.
“I need you to listen very carefully.” The bed dips as he sits, shifting the blade at my thigh. His eyes are so serious, I don’t dare look away. “Do you remember where we crossed the river the first time we met? It’s about twenty-two-hundred feet from the Grove. Do you think you could find it?”
My eyelids pinch. All I can do is nod.
“Good. I’m going to give you directions from there that’ll lead you to the fenceline. Try to remember thisexactly, okay?”
The fenceline…
The fenceline where he’s…
My eyes widen as I sit up straight. A chilled draft sweeps up my neck and pulls my attention to the open window—the one he must’ve climbed in. “Wait, what?”
“There’s a spot in the fence where the current is weak. It’s how I’ve been leaving. I can’t take you, but I’ll tell you how to get there. Listen carefully: from the river crossing?—”
“You’ve been climbing the fence?” My stomach sinks low.
A weak spot in the current…
Itcannotbe that simple.
Mouth open, Sawyer blinks to recalibrate. “There’s a hole beneath you can crawl through if you have another person to hold back the chain-link. The current is weaker, but if you get stuck, it’ll still kill you, so you need to get someone’s help. Which means you need to buy yourself some time until they’re no longer watching you closely. Thorne?—”
“Did you dig the hole?” My voice is far too even.Angry. Ashamed. Scared. My chest hardens to rock as I brace myself for the answer.
“It was already there. But listen…”
It was already there.
For an unknown amount of time.
Paving the way for an unknown number of people.
Faces sift through my mind, one after another like flipping through a catalogue—the faces of my people, old and young and knowing. Crimes happening beneath my nose.
“Luna?”
