Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 24

~The Hunter~

Grayson was sinking in the quicksand that was his life. It was only a matter of time before his head went under and he ran out of oxygen.

Every trip he took out of his room was serenaded by the symphony of arguing his parents composed. It had turned the whole house into a storm cloud - ready to strike down lightning at any moment. His little brother played in the front lawn to avoid it and threw a tantrum when his grandmother ordered him back inside. If it was up to him, he would only return when it got dark out. He had even caught Jason trying to go out in the rain. Grandma Li was the only one who spoke during dinner. His mother and father would only look up from their food to give eachother bitter looks. They had been married for nearly thirty years and their fights had an average time of lasting a few hours. This time, it had been days.

Grayson would have been concerned about his parents if he hadn’t caught some of their arguments. The halls did a great job at carrying sound so he knew they were fighting about him. They were arguing about what to do about him and how to help him. Did they not understand that it was Bethany who needed help, not him?

His family had expected the video chat he received from Beth to help him out. Even Grayson could admit it had done the opposite. He had gone from having every part of his soul yearning for her return to every fiber of his very being needing her home.

School was his escape. Ever since his schoolmates found out about the rescue mission he went on, they treated him like he was the coolest guy on the planet. He found himself with a dozen friends in each class to keep him preoccupied. Grayson had also realized he had a knack for storytelling - he had conjured up at least ten versions of the time he broke into a house to save Beth.

He still attended therapy - for his parents sake. His therapist, Elle, and him sat in silence for the first thirty minutes of each session and she fed him nonsense for the remaining fifteen minutes.

“You have come up with an unhealthy way of coping. It feeds into the stage of grief you're stuck in: denial.”

He had no idea what he was denying. He knew Beth was missing - he wasn’t stupid. He also knew that she was alive and would make it back home. It should be considered denial to think anything else. Screw the moment of doubt he had while in Bethany's apartment. He was drunk.

It was more reasonable to say Detective Brendan was in denial of the case dragging out longer than he hoped it would. He had tried to make the argument that Bethany was no longer with the Beast multiple times since he had given him concrete evidence that she was.

“Not only that but there haven’t been any sightings of the Beast since the Ryan Daniels incident where you and your staff concluded that she was on the scene at some point!”

The detective shook his head. “We have reason to -”

“You don’t!” No one in the station reacted to Grayson’s shouting anymore. They all anticipated it by then. The staff continued to work as if nothing was happening.

“Listen to me and listen to me very closely Grayson Li.” His voice became low and his speech slowed. His words were tigers getting ready to pounce on their prey. “It would be best for you to stay out of this. Drop it. Forget about the girl and go home.”

For a second he thought he was hallucinating.

“What?”

He leaned in closer, a smile plastered on his face despite the gravity of what he was saying. “Leave and don’t come back. The news will forget about her, her mom has already forgotten about her, you will too. No one needs to get hurt.”