Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 13

~The Beast~

His eyes darted back and forth between his alarm clock by his bedside and his laptop on his desk. 

2:00 am.

He had been trying to sleep for the last three hours and it wasn't working. He might as well get up and be productive . . . 

But he couldn't do it. He couldn't go out after a criminal so there was no point in doing research. Why couldn't he go out and hunt for criminals? It was because last time it ended with Bethany almost dying. 

He groaned and turned away from the laptop. When that didn't work he brought the blanket over his head. 

"I'm not going to look at the news." 

He cringed. Had he really resorted to talking to himself? If he wanted to look that badly maybe he should. 

He threw the blanket off of him and sat up. "I'll only look." 

Instead of checking the more reliable sources like accredited news outlets, he got on social media and went through various crime related hashtags. He hoped this way he wouldn't find anything of substance but would still satisfy his craving. Scrolling through a few pages posting about recent shootings in the city, he found a more innocent looking post. Innocent - meaning the post had fitted hearts on it. However, at further inspection, he realized that the face that had been surrounded by the hearts was a Columbine shooter. 

He winced, reading the caption that was glorifying the twisted murderer. It seemed the person's account was a fan page dedicated to their likeness. The person was arguing with many people in their comment section who had the sense to call him out for their warped perception on the event. 

After reporting the account, Teigan checked out the person's other linked social media pages. He was appalled to find that the page belonged to a sixteen year old boy. 

The Beast had stumbled upon numerous people who liked what he did and supported him. He felt proud that at least some people had seen the good he was doing as good. He was trying to be a civic defender, not a killer. However, knowing that some of the people who were shouting his praises could be the same depraved people running accounts like the one he'd found made him sick. 

He clicked on the boy's feed and scrolled until his eyes hurt. A lot of it was normal teenager things; opinions on music, emo statements, and dirty jokes. What concerned him was sprinkled in between those things were small rants about how everyone was a hypocrite and untrustworthy or cursing out what he assumed were his teachers and classmates for making school a 'living hell.' 

An hour had passed but he remained on the laptop until he found the boys school. He bookmarked the page just in case. 

Just in case of what? He didn't want to think about it. 

~Beauty~

Beth was watching the family show Teigan had made fun of a couple days ago. She found it entertaining but that might have been because she knew he hated it and wanted to spite him in some complex psychological way. 

The main character, a brown haired girl with light blue eyes in 90's clothes, was about to kiss her ex-sweetheart despite having just gotten engaged. 

"Don't do it! Step away from him! Step away!" She squeezed the couch pillow to her chest and scrunched up her face. "You're better than this!" 

A loud banging sound interrupted the scene. She couldn't hear what they were whispering under their breath.

She threw her hands in the air. "Come on!"

Teigan was dragging something down the stairs at a painfully slow rate.