“Sorry,” he says, setting me down quickly. “It’s just that you smelled so good and I… maybe we should just go back and I’ll come here by myself.”

“Laylen, it’s fine.” I find his arm in the dark. Either my night vision stopped working or there’s nothing around us but dark. “I know you won’t hurt me.” Which is true. His bite doesn’t hurt at all.

“Alright.” He pulls his hand out from my touch and looks left then right.

“Can you see?” I ask. “Because I can’t.”

“Barely.” With reluctance, he takes my hand and leads me with him as he descends into a dark tunnel that seems to go on forever. Just when I start to think that there’s no end to it, it opens up to a room. But I instantly want to shrink back into the dark tunnel again at the sight in front of me. A torture chamber with chains and whips and bars. And in the center of it all, fastened to a rack, is a girl.

“What is this place?” I whisper, staring at the girl who appears to either be asleep or unconscious. She has to be only about eighteen or nineteen, younger than me.

Laylen shakes his head, his eyes skimming the chains hanging from the ceiling. “I have no idea… I’ve never been down here before.”

“Should we…” I motion at the girl bound by ropes to the rack. “Should we free her?”

Laylen looks skeptical but slowly makes his way over to her. I follow closely at his heels. The girl looks dead, eyes sealed, her body still.

“Is she… is she alive?” I ask Laylen as examines her.

He assesses the ropes around her wrists and ankles. “Yeah, I can hear her heart beating.”

“Should we…” I move my hand for one of the ropes that’s around her wrist. “Should I untie her?”

Laylen hesitates then nods, extending his hand for the rope around her other wrist. The rack isn’t stretching her limbs to their full capacity, but her skin is pulled tight and shows each one of her bones. Her curly black hair is matted and looks like it hasn’t been washed in ages. Her blue dress is faded and frayed and she isn’t wearing any shoes.

She remains still as Laylen and I untie her wrists and ankles and she doesn’t budge even when she’s free, her eyes staying shut as she breathes in and out softly.

“Maybe she’s—” I start to say, but then the girl’s eyes open.

She looks at us then pulls her arms in and bends her knees as she leaps from the rack and backs herself up into the corner where an array of whips hang from the wall.

“It’s okay,” Laylen says with his hands up in front of him. “We’re not going to—” She lets out a blood curdling scream and Laylen rushes for her. “Son of a…” Laylen grabs her as gently as possible and covers her mouth with his hand. “We’re not going to hurt you, but you have got to stop screaming.”

The girl’s bright yellow, cat-like eyes scan the room, the rack, the stairway that goes to a door, panting profusely, then land on me. She grabs onto Laylen’s arms and draws them down so his hand uncovers her mouth.

“It’s you,” she says in amazement. “I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah, it’s me.” I give Laylen an is-she-crazy look and he shrugs, unsure.

“You think you know her?” he asks her.

She nods, slipping from his arms and taking a step toward me, but Laylen gets nervous and places himself in between us. “She’s the one he talks about all the time. The girl with the violet eyes—the star.”

“Stephan told you about me?” I ask, peering over Laylen’s shoulder at the girl.

She glances apprehensively at the top of the spiral stairs and then nods. “Yes, the man with the scar.”

“Why are you here?” Laylen wonders. “Does he have you trapped?”

She cocks her head to the side, examining me over with her unnatural yellow eyes. “I’m the half faerie, half Keeper he needs for his plan, so he told me I had to live here.” She motions at the torture chamber we’re in. “This is my home—where I was raised.” She turns around in a circle, looking at everything. “But it’s okay…” she says it as if she’s trying to convince herself. “Because I’m his daughter.”

Time freezes. No one moves, talks, breathes. At first I think I’ve heard her wrong, but then I see the shock on Laylen’s face and realize it must be correct, which leaves me wondering if Aislin and Alex know about her.

“No, there’s no way.” Laylen shakes his head in denial. “Aislin and Alex don’t have a sister.”

“I’m only their half-sister.” She talks strangely, as if conversing is foreign to her. “And they don’t know about me. My father keeps me hidden all the time. Down here.” She gestures at the rack. “This is kind of like my bed.” She says it as if she’s oblivious to the fact that it’s so warped and wrong.

“Of course he does,” Laylen mutters, disgusted.

“Why would he keep you hidden?” I ask, moving around to Laylen’s side.

“Keepers aren’t supposed to mix like that with fey,” Laylen explains to me, his attention focused on the girl untrustingly. “There’s something about the blood… too much mythical creature on one side and not enough on the other that creates an imbalance.” He discretely nods his head at the girl and lowers his voice. “It makes things a little off.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” I say, then turn to the girl. “What’s your name?”

She sticks out her hand awkwardly to shake Laylen’s hand. “I’m Aleesa.”

Laylen shakes her hand politely. “Nice to meet you Aleesa.”

I eye over Aleesa’s yellow eyes, dark hair, sharp features and something doesn’t add up. “You don’t look like them. Alex and Aislin, I mean.”

“Oh, I get my looks from my mother. She was fey,” she says, like it explains everything.

“Many of the fey have bright yellow eyes and dark hair like hers,” Laylen adds. “Nicholas was an exception.”

“So Stephan’s your father,” I state still in a state of disbelief.

She nods, tucking one of her tangled curls behind her ear. “I am the half-faerie, half-Keeper sacrifice he needs. I am what will bind the fey to him.”

My eyes widen. “The sacrifice.”

“Yep,” she says simply with her hands behind her back as she rocks forward on her heels.

“How long have you been down here?” I ask.

Her face twists with complexity. “I’m not sure. Forever, I think.”

I shudder, feeling sorry for her. “What about your mom? Where’s she?”

“Oh, she’s gone,” she says with a shrug. “She left me because I’m an abomination.”

I thought my life had been bad, but I think hers tops mine. At least I wasn’t locked up and tortured for god sakes and it proves just how morbid Stephan is; to do this to his own daughter.

“Laylen can I talk to you for just a second?” I back toward the tunnel, motioning him to follow me.

He does, looking confused. “What’s wrong?”

“What are we going to do with her?” I whisper, glancing at Aleesa. “We can’t just leave here.”

He looks back at Aleesa, who’s fiddling with a hole in the hem of her worn-out dress. “I guess take her with us.” He shrugs.

“But is she…I don’t know… She seems a little off. What if she flips out on us or something?” I feel bad for saying it, but it needs to be discussed, if nothing else to prepare ourselves.

“I could flip out on you and yet you’re still with me.”

“Yeah, but you’re you. I trust you more than I trust anyone.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

I sigh and press a kiss to his scruffy cheek. “We’ll take her with us. But just keep an eye on her, okay?” I start to head back for Aleesa, but pause, an emotion arising inside me, one that I think means Laylen and I are becoming good friends and that I truly care about him. “And I’ll always trust you, Laylen. I’ll trust you forever.”

Getting Aleesa to leave with us is a difficult task. She keeps saying over and over again that she isn’t allowed to go anywhere outside of the torture chamber. But after some persuading, she finally agrees.