Remorseless

Chapter Thirty Three

(Marty's POV):

I sat there patiently waiting for Henry to start speaking on this touchy subject, as I really had no idea where to begin.

"I mentioned before that you looked like my daughter, and you mentioned her by name. Please tell me...how do you know my Charlie?"

"I'm sorry...I don't know. Her name just popped up in my mind." I explained. "But lately,  I've been having dreams about a girl...I as going to ask if it was Charlie. Do you have a picture of her that I can see?"

"Yes, of course." He stood up and left the room for just a moment, and quickly returned with an album in his arms. He flipped through the plastic pocketed pages just filled with printed pictures from an old flash camera. He turned to some of the very last pics in the book and handed it to me.

"Yes...that's her." I immediately concluded. "If you don't mind my asking, what happened to her?"

"She was taken from me, by William. He had this whole scheme to kill her. I knew he was crazy,  but we were best friends.  Charlie was the first of 6 that were killed by that man."

But...I was the first. I thought. Was there someone else that we didn't know about? I sat there and waited for him to continue.

"I had built this security robot to keep an eye on her,  when I started getting suspicious of Will's behavior. In addition I was always in the room with her. Except for once."

"You left the room?" I asked.

"....yes. I thought it would be okay for just a moment, I had to take a very important call. Charlie was surrounded by kids she loved, and I didn't think she was in any danger.  When I came back, she was gone,  and the kids were laughing. I asked them where she had gone, but no one would say anything. The puppet robot I made had boxes stacked on the giant gift box he was in. So he couldn't track her."

"But she was outside." I added.

"...yes. She was. I hadn't known that at the time though. I went looking for her everywhere and I couldn't find her. Then...I returned to the party room. The door was open, the puppet was missing."

"...he had crawled in the pouring rain to find her. He malfunctioned because he wasn't water proof."

"...That's right.  But you had to have been there to see it."

"I've had dreams, that I was with the girl in these photos alot. There was a...bracelet that I gave her. A different color each day."

"That was the system I designed in his programming.  Whoever wore that color, the puppet would keep an eye on."

"I see.." I didn't know what else to say at the moment. I was getting chills throughout my body.

"I'll get to the point." He took a quick drink of his tea. "Facially, you look just like her. And now that I know that you have dreams based on what happened from the puppet's view...Do you think..."

"In the words of (Y/N)'s Uncle...holy shit.." I put the palm of my hand on my forehead "I'm ....I'm Charlie!!" I stood up, only to pace a little and sit down. "I was the puppet, I didn't have a life until...until I bonded with HER! He life left her body and entered ME!" I freaked out. I started breathing faster and faster.  "Can...I have some water please?"

"Of course!" Henry stood up to get me a glass of water. I pulled out my phone to call (Y/N).