My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 23

Enzo

Nina’s eyes widened when I finally told her the truth.

“No,” she said, pacing back and forth and rubbing her head. “This isn’t real. Werewolves aren’t real. Talking skeletons are not real!”

I sighed and stood, walking over to her.

“Look,” I said, pulling aside the torn fabric of my jeans to show her my wound. It was already healing. The torn flesh from the skeleton’s attack was rejoining without leaving so much as a scar. Even the blood disappeared.

When Nina saw my leg heal, she stumbled backwards into the wall, her chest heaving as she breathed heavily.

“I have to be dreaming,” she said. I watched quietly as she pinched her arm to try and wake herself up.

“This is real, Nina,” I said. “You’re awake.”

“Well then, I must be going insane,” she said as a tear rolled down her cheek.

I walked toward Nina and took her by the shoulders, stooping to look her in the eyes.

“You’re not crazy. Everything you saw is real. Don’t I feel real?” I took her hand and placed it on my chest, right over my heart so she could feel my heartbeat. She let her hand linger there for a few moments, then shuddered and pulled away.

“If you think I’m a monster, so be it,” I said. “But I won’t stop watching you, because someone -- or something -- has sinister plans for you, and no human can protect you.”

I could practically see the gears turning in her head. She shuddered again, but didn’t say anything. Before I had the chance to stop her, she ran out of the room.

“She’s afraid of us,” Fio said.

“I know,” I replied out loud. “She is a human, after all.”

I sighed and turned back to face the skeleton. The incantation I used on him would only last for so long before he reanimated again. Some witch must have put a spell on this skeleton, but for what purpose, I didn’t know. I crossed the room toward the skeleton.

Something crunched under my foot. I looked down and cringed when I saw Nina’s phone on the floor, its screen cracked now. “Shit…” I whispered, stooping to pick it up. I’d have to replace that.

When I looked up from the broken phone, the skeleton was starting to twitch again. I stormed over to it and grabbed it off the stand, pinning it down to one of the tables by its neck.

“Who sent you, and why?” I growled, to which the bewitched skeleton only chuckled.

“No one sent me,” the skeleton said.

“Bullshit,” I replied, tightening my grip around the skeleton’s throat. “What would an undead like yourself want with an ordinary human girl?”

The skeleton didn’t respond, but I had to know the truth. My only option was to force an answer out of it. With my hand still on its neck, I reached over to a table next to me and grabbed the first instrument I could think of: a bone saw.

I brandished the bone saw so the skeleton could see it, then began to lower it.