Chapter 30
Puppet Master
Master D
The road back to Hillsboro is quiet. I prefer it that way. Noise is for them—patients, subjects, boys who mistake volume for power. Noise disguises fear, dilutes focus, blurs the edges. Silence clarifies, sharpens—reveals.
Logan sits back in the seat. No restraints, no guards, and no theatrics.
Just a girl returning from a task she should’ve never been capable of completing.
That is the point. I do not turn around immediately.
I allow the moment to stretch—to settle.
To let the air between us grow thick with everything she now carries. Memory. Action. Consequences.
The driver knows better than to speak. He knows better than to look in the mirror. He understands the difference between proximity and participation. One keeps you employed, the other gets you repurposed, much like the women—the mothers.
I adjust my white, unstained cuffs. Order was restored externally regardless of what has transpired beyond these windows. “Did you hesitate?” I finally ask. Then her voice comes from the back.
“Yes,” she says quietly.
“And then?”
“I didn’t.”
I nod once, more to myself than to her. There is a particular kind of transformation that occurs when a subject confronts the origin of their fracture.
Most break further. Some deny, but a rare few—integrate.
I glance at her through the mirror. The paint is gone.
The performance stripped. No clown. No Lolli—just Logan…
and something else. Her eyes meet mine—not pleading or even playful, but aware. There it is. The shift.
“Do you feel different?” I ask, and she tilts her head.
“Yes,” she answers.
“Explain.”
A flicker crosses her face, like she’s searching for the answer.
“I don’t… hear him the same,” she says slowly. Jethro. Interesting.
“Gone?” I ask, but her gaze sharpens.
“No!” she snaps. Good. Elimination was never the objective. “I just don’t need him as much,” she says, but I see something. Is that a lie??
Her dependency with him is recalibrating while her internal authority has shifted. Interesting. I can see it happening right before my eyes. Fragment integration is progressing. Precisely as designed. Perfect!
I turn my attention back to the road. She’s succeeded faster than any other of my female subjects.
The women—the mothers. I can’t wait until that bomb explodes.
I can taste it. Soon enough, my son will be entering into the phases.
For years, him and his two friends thought they killed their mothers…
but that was just their phase one, and soon, he will become their handler.
But first, I need to perfect the formula—with the added help of his own, I’ll have the perfect storm, and I can’t wait to test it out.
They always assumed this was about punishment.
Retribution. A grotesque fascination with forcing a girl to return to her trauma.
That is a child’s interpretation of what we are doing here.
This is not about pain. Pain is inefficient—it distracts, much like love does.
Which is the whole reason for all of this.
She knows it. I know it. Now I’ve spent years correcting it.
I’ve failed many times, but I’m close to succeeding.
It just takes time and money. I’m not erasing the past or even trying to numb it.
I just wanted her to see that he wasn’t the one to choose.
I was. Even stealing her daughter didn’t show her…
even kidnapping her other still did nothing.
So she left me with no choice. I may be medicating it into submission, but they always want more.
They choose it. And in that choice—you remove the last illusion of helplessness or you destroy them completely.
Both outcomes are useful. The other two and their friends are useful to me.
The Brimstone house is operating efficiently.
I even gave the boys a little taste, which they passed with flying colors, but a new breed will be born soon.
Another generation is already learning and being tested.
But Logan… She's remarkable. She pushed through all the testing, even if they broke her.
She never let it destroy her, so now, if she can pass phase two, she will become my second ultimate puppet—a killing machine, just like her best friend, Liliana. Both rare, and rarity is value.
"Senator Callaghan…we're here." The driver states as we pass the first perimeter gate and security lets us right through.
Inside, Hillsboro waits. Breathing… listening.
Hungry in its own quiet, institutional way.
The boys are still inside. Contained. Restrained and conditioned by absence.
Their variables have been held at a steady state during her excursion.
Not worsened or improved. Suspension. Expectation is a powerful lever and they will be waiting.
Jagger with his rage, Killian rearranging chaos, Lucifer negotiating with silence. Vincent—he’s the most interesting variable. He believes he made a choice—he did. He also believes the choice was his… that’s less accurate.
I glance in the mirror again and she’s watching the building. She’s not afraid though. I don’t think she ever was.
“Do you understand the rest of the agreement?” I ask, and she nods.
“Words, Logan!” I command.
“I came back,” she says.
“Continue.”
“I keep going,” she says as her jaw tightens.
“Continue.”
“I let you test me,” she says, her eyes flicking to mine again. Yes.
“Continue,” I say once again, and she takes a deep breath.
“I don’t break,” she finalizes, and I smile. Not for her but for the outcome.
“Correct. Such a good Lolli-Doll,” I praise as we climb out of the car and head for the inner entrance.
The doors open automatically, and the staff moves around us.
They know better than to ask questions. The hallway lights hum and the scent of antiseptic clings in the air.
The building recognizes its own. Behind the reinforced door, four boys wait.
Four reactions. Four evolutions. She pauses and, for just a second, I allow it.
Moments like this are instructive. She inhales then exhales and steps forward with no hesitation now. Good.
I put the key in the door and the locks disengage.
Inside room seven—they will see her… alive…
changed… returned. And in that moment—they will understand something they have not yet fully grasped.
She is not simply one of them. She is the axis.
The point around which all of this turns.
And I—I am the one who set it in motion…
To be continued in Killer-Kut: The Beautiful Creatures of Hillsboro Institute Book 2