Page 68 of Castle of the Cursed
“I’m not playing with you.”
“Are you sure?” Teo brandishes a blade from within his coat, and I barely have time to leap back when he lunges.
I shriek, darting away—and too late, I realize he’s not chasing me.
Teo crouches on the ground, next to Felipe’s inert body, holding the blade to his throat.
“What are you doing?” I cry out, running back.
“Playing. So what’s it going to be: Truth or dare?”
“I’m not playing—”
A droplet of blood trickles down Felipe’s throat, and I shout, “Truth!”
My uncle smirks, and unlike the solar power unleashed in Sebastián’s smile, Teo’s grin is a starless night. “Is it true that you will do what I ask to save your friend’s life?”
My heart is racing so fast that I can’t believe only a week ago I couldn’t hear its beat. “Yes.”
“Then remove your coat and lie back on that bench.” He points to the stone slab.
“I’ll freeze—”
“There’s a fire.”
“I didn’t choose dare. And besides, it’s your turn—”
“Pity,” he says, yanking back on Felipe’s hair to better expose his throat. “I thought you wanted to save his life.”
I pull off my coat.
The rocky bench looks like a sacrificial altar, and as I approach, I see that there is an identical clay bowl on the other side.
“Sit down and lie back,” commands Teo, and I repeat to myself: The black smoke will protect me. Even though I know it’s not true. If the smoke were on my side, why would it have led me here?
“Roll up your sleeves.”
I roll up my left sleeve and ask, “Did you kill my parents with a spell?”
“You flatter me,” he says, gripping my wrist. “But I lack the power to—”
I swing my neck up to headbutt him—but Teo leaps back before I make contact, and he knocks me down with an elbow to the chest.
My skull thuds against the stone bench, and I squeeze my eyes shut as pain shoots through me, followed by dizziness and nausea.
“Seems like you don’t care much for your friend’s life,” he says, grabbing my left arm and positioning it so my forearm hangs off the stone and over the clay bowl.
“What… do you want?” I ask, fighting down my dinner of cold croquetas.
I feel a pinch and cry out, my arm burning. Teo inserted a needle with a plastic tube attachment.
“Stop!” I want it to be a shout, but it’s barely more than a whimper. He twists my elbow, and as the tubing fills with my blood, it snakes down and drips into the clay bowl.
“Hold still, or your friend dies,” he reminds me.
Even if I wanted to fight, my bones feel too heavy to lift. Sebastián was right that I’m not eating enough. I’ve lost most of my strength. He was also right that I was being selfish. Now I’m going to die, and he doesn’t even get a meal out of me. What a waste of my blood.
Pain rips through me again as Teo bleeds my other arm. He sorely lacks his twin’s finesse inserting the needle.
