Puppet

deal

As soon as whoever came into my room left, I was up. I lock the door, just in case I have another surprise visitor, and walk back to the bed. I stand over it, afraid to look underneath at what I did, but, slowly, I get down on my knees and peek under the bed.

Keefe's lying under there, where I had dragged him. His eyes are only half open and he groans a bit.

I curse under my breath and take him by his arms, dragging him out.

"Keefe? Keefe, are you okay? Can you hear me?" I lightly shake his shoulder but it doesn't fully work.

This is the main reason I learned to keep my emotions neutral. Too strong of emotions will trigger my inflicting. One of the very few things Vespra taught me was how to not get lost in my emotions. It was scary, learning how not to feel anything, because it made me feel like her. Like a monster.

In some sick way, it almost felt good feeling and inflicting that anger, like I wasn't capable of being an emotionless monster like Vespra, but at the same time, I was a whole other type of monster for feeling good about inflicting pain on others.

It takes Keefe another minute before he seems to be mostly aware of what's going on and sits up, but he still looks dizzy.

"What the hell did you do to me?" He mumbles, holding his head in his hands.

I reach out my hand to help him but he smacks it away immediately, sliding away from me.

"Don't touch me, you just want to hurt me more." His voice is clearer now and he seems to be getting a clearer understanding of what happened.

I just inflicted a ton of pain on him.

To be fair, he was the one to say those awful things to me that made me have the feelings to inflict.

But to be fair and honest, I was definitely the one who started it.

"No, I don't, I'm trying to help you." I reach out again but he repeats his actions of hitting away my hand and sliding farther away, which I now realize is in the direction of the door.

"You're only trying to help yourself. You just don't want me going downstairs and proving to everyone you're the monster I warned them all about. Trust me, you'll be back in your cell in no time."

No. That can't happen. I won't let it. I can't have screwed up the one chance I have of getting out of here on my first night. I need to find a way out of this.

"Wait, wait, wait. Just hear me out okay? We can talk about this. Plus, you're not looking too good." I'm not even lying about that one. Keefe looks almost green the more he keeps moving.

He stops for a second, breathing heavily. "What is there to talk about? I didn't even know you were an inflictor until you zapped me with... whatever that was. It doesn't matter anyway, you crossed the line. You hurt me and now you're going back to where you belong, in a cell for the rest of your miserable life."

Okay ouch. Someone's clearly not over getting hit with the most pain he's most likely ever felt in his entire life.

He continues to slowly make his way to the door and all I can do is sit on the floor, watching him.

"Please. There has to be something you want. I'll do anything."

He pauses.

"Anything?"

I really really don't like the way he said that, but I force myself to nod anyway because this is my only chance of staying outside of that stupid cell.

He considers his options for a second but then slowly nods his head. "Fine. Help me over to the bed."

I get up and help him to his feet, practically carrying him to the bed, and lay him down on the ridiculously comfortable sheets.

He props himself up after a minute, seeming to feel much better than he did when he was on the floor a few minutes ago.

"Here's the deal, I want two things from you. You don't give them to me and it's right back to being locked up, got it?"

I narrow my eyes, not liking where this is going but also recognizing I wasn't in any place to argue with him.

"First thing I want, is an apology," he said smugly, crossing his arms and holding up his chin.

"Are you serious?" I ask, glaring at him already.

"Oh, I'm very serious. And make sure it's from the heart, because if it's not you're restarting until I can feel some sort of remorse."

"You're an empath?" Now that I'm thinking of it, Gisela mentioned this fact on many occasions, but I suppose I never cared to remember until now.

"Yup, and don't try to change the subject now, get to begging for my forgiveness." I roll my eyes at his joke, but he still has an underlying seriousness that makes me know he's serious about this apology.

"I'm sorry for inflicting more pain than you could handle on you," I say, only really half meaning it.

"Did you think I was kidding about being able to feel if you mean it or not? Because I'm not, and that was a pathetic excuse of an apology. Try it again."

I sigh, already annoyed with his antics. Why does he even care if I'm sorry or not? He's made it very clear he thinks I'm a complete monster who's only interested in hurting people for my own entertainment. Still, I give it another try.

"I'm very sorry for hurting you," I say, much more seriously than the last time, "was that apology up to par?"

"We're getting there, but you need to dig a little deeper. Give me a full apology, tell me why you're sorry."

His smirk and gleaming eyes aren't making me want to feel sorry for him anymore, but I remind myself that it's this or go back to throwing rocks at guards all day and no showers and take a deep, calming breath.

I close my eyes and think back to how angry I was and the image in my head of him withering on the ground in pain and then how he could only mumble his words. I was surprised to feel actual guilt at these memories, I don't usually feel bad for hurting people, especially Black Swan members.

"I'm sorry for inflicting my pain on you, I was angry and lost control of my emotions, and it won't happen again."

I open my eyes and he doesn't look quite as stuck up now. His eyes have slightly softened, but there's still a hint of a smile on his face.

"And?"

"And... I'm sorry for mentioning your parents and threatening your friends, all my threats were empty and I have no plans of hurting any of them...yet," I add. His eyes narrow at the last word but he lets it go and I can see part of the old Keefe I met start to come back.

"Wow, Foster, you do have some decency in you. For a second there I was doubtful, but you're just a big soft teddy bear inside, aren't you?"

"What's the second part of your deal," I growl, the regret gone and my annoyance returned.

"So serious," he mumbles, rolling his icy eyes but then continuing, "Well, you obviously would rather go back to your cell than share information on the Neverseen, so I won't ask you to do that. Instead, I want other information."

I raise an eyebrow. "What type of information?"

"I want to know about you. So, every day, I get to ask you questions about yourself and you have to answer. And remember, I can tell if you're lying," Keefe winks as he says this but it's true, he's a very strong empath and probably could tell if I was lying.

I'm a bit confused about why, out of all things, he'd want to ask questions about me. Maybe he's trying to understand what abilities I have, or what the Black Swan did to me. It doesn't matter though, there's nothing he could learn about the Neverseen from me, so this should be an easy agreement.

Should be.

"Fine, deal."