“U-uncle Alejandro?” I stammered. “I-I’d like to go back now.”
“There’s no going back. You need to become a true Nymph. You need to let her influence in, then maybe you’ll become someone this family can be proud of.”
I fell quiet, thinking on that. I did want my family to be proud of me. I always seemed to disappoint Mamá and Alejandro didn’t like me much at all. Mi padre never really paid me any attention, but maybe he would if I could make him proud.
The car bumped along the track and the darkness thickened around us, blocking out nearly all of the daylight as we headed in the direction of Alejandro’s work shed. I wasn’t allowed out here, but I’d come and had a look one time. Just once. Because I’d heard a scratching, clinking sound I didn’t like coming from his shed and I’d run away and never, ever come into the forest again.
Now we were heading toward it once more, I remembered those sounds and terror twisted up my insides. I didn’t want to go to his work shed. I didn’t want to see what was in there.
The track soon started climbing the hill that led to the shed and the trees thinned out towards the top of it, revealing a wide open space where the wooden structure stood, just a shadow under the dying sun. The door handle was made of bone, a skull etched into it with two hollow eyes that whispered of the monsters which lurked beyond that door.
Alejandro stepped out of the car, yanking the door open beside me, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I was frozen and scared and I just wanted to go home to the arms of mi abuela.
“Out,” Alejandro barked, but I shook my head in a fierce refusal.
He reached into the car, fisting his hand in my shirt and dragging me out of the car, giving me no choice as he hauled me along toward the shed.
“Please,” I tried, my voice so small it barely carried anywhere at all. “I don’t want to go in there.”
The rattle of chains sounded from within it and a groan carried from inside that made a tremor run down my spine.
Alejandro locked a hand over my shoulder, ignoring my pleas as he led me to the door and unlocked it by pressing his palm to the surface. He pushed the door inwards and darkness greeted us along with a sound like a whimper.
I squinted into the dark, my lips parting at seeing a teenage girl there, bound and chained, but then my stomach turned and I tried to run as I saw the two bloody stumps where her hands should have been.
But my uncle kept a tight hold of me, shoving me into the shed and making me stumble to my knees in front of her. She was gagged, her eyes fearful and large, and blonde hair was matted around her shoulders.
I scrambled backwards to escape, hitting Alejandro’s legs as he swung the door shut behind us and switched on the light. The single bulb above us cast her face in harsh shadows, but I could see her green eyes more clearly now and the panic in them made me want to run and never stop running.
Alejandro stepped past me, walking to the back of the shed where a line of tools were hanging on the wall, and my stomach started to churn as I noticed the countless dried patches of blood across the concrete floor telling me this girl wasn’t the first to have come here.
“I want you to shift your right hand into a probe, Diego,” Alejandro instructed casually, like we weren’t in some horror show murder shed and I managed to get to my feet and make it to the door, jiggling the handle only to find it locked tight.
I turned, my back flush to the wood as I stared down at the girl on the floor as she begged for mercy against her gag. I wanted to find the key that would free her, let her out of this shed. But mostly I just wanted to run and run and run until my feet were bleeding and I couldn’t get any more distance between me and my terrifying uncle.
“Do as I say, Diego,” he snapped and I did, looking down at my right hand as it shook and shifting it into the long, wood-like probes of my kind. I’d been able to shift since I was five, and I knew what my probes were for. Mamá had told me that one day, if I didn’t use them, I’d start to get sick. So sick, that eventually I’d die. Though sometimes it seemed like she wanted that to happen.
“You don’t want to be Fae, sobrino,” Alejandro said in a dark tone. “You want their power though, like all our kind do. And it is yours to take. We are their hunters, we are higher on the food chain, and we’ll rise again one day and take our rightful place in this world as their rulers, you mark my words. The Shadow Princess will ensure it is so.”
“I don’t want to hurt anybody,” I forced out around my heavy tongue as the girl on the floor started to thrash like an animal in a trap. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like any of it. I just wanted to go home and never come back.