Finding Beauty

Chapter 51

~The Hunter~

I let the match fall from my fingertips and onto the wooden floor boards. My world feels like it's playing slow motion. My brain feels cloudy. My heartbeat thunders.

It lands and the flame starts to multiply. It licks the wooden floors and fiercely dances about. Soon, this whole building will go up in flames. It'll be one massive fireball. It'll look like my heart.

I back up as the fire spreads. Wouldn't want to get burned. Then who would look after Belle?

I'm angry. That's why I'm doing this. The Beast took Belle away from me for so long and when I finally got her back she was brainwashed into thinking that he's capable of being loved! It's unbelievable. From the moment Belle rejected me, I knew this is what I had to do. I need her back. I've been fighting for her for months. . . I can't be left with nothing now.

Belle and my family. . . they must think that I'm crazy. I don't understand why. I've had everything I've ever loved slowly ripped away from me. Why is it such a crime that I want to get it back? Why is it such a crime that I want to be happy again? I've been broken for long enough.

The plan has to work. This fire is bait for The Beast to follow. I knew he would respond to the crime of arson because he did with Ryan Daniels. I want him to come here and try to stop me. Then, I'll kill him. He will pay for everything he has destroyed.

"It's the only way," I say to myself. "It's for the good of many people." I repeat these sentences over and over as the fire latches onto the walls and the ceiling. I slowly back away and towards the rusty door still whispering the phrase.

I've said it so many times that it becomes the only thing I know to be true.

Everything else in my life has failed me. Belle, my parents, my friends, school, my mental health. Everything has slipped away. When you have nothing what do you hold onto?

I don't know.

Therefore, I'm going to hold onto this. The possibility that getting rid of The Beast will make things go back to normal. It'll give me the life I use to have. The one that was simple. The one that was stable. The one filled with love and not burning anger.

I never would have thought I'd end up here. Surrounded by flames, clutching a gun, ready to kill a beast.

~The Beast~

Drops of water trickle down my hideous face. I stare at my reflection in the mirror. It's cloudy with condensation. Making a move to wipe it away, halfway through, my hand sort of drops, just giving up. My fingers trail down the mirror, leaving a scary imprint.

I close my eyes for a moment and just listen. The silence is louder than anticipated. So loud, it feel like my ears are bleeding and my heart is being squeezed to the point of suffocation.

I don't hear Carina's sweet humming or the clatter of the pots and pans. I don't hear Belle's light footsteps moving around the house. I don't hear the quiet whisper of a book's pages being turned. I hear silence. And it is unbearable.

Where is she now? How is she? Does she miss me at all?

I don't think I want to know the answers. It would only hurt me more.

My eyes snap open and I drag myself out of the bathroom. My tears blend in with the water droplets left over from the shower. My barefeet scrape against the wooden floor. It hurts and I'll probably get bruised but it doesn't really matter. It'll heal. The curse ensures that. But soon, any moment now, it won't.

The image of the crumpled rose hovering limply over the table flashes in my mind. Almost all of its petals lay scattered around the room leaving one clinging onto the bud.