THE BEAST ─ five hargreeves

[ 007 ] klaus slaps his daughter and her gay best friend

VII.

k l a u s   s l a p s   h i s  
d a u g h t e r   a n d   h e r
  g a y   b e s t   f r i e n d

—"WHAT ARE YOU doing?"

Zara kept her eyes straight ahead at the painting of the boy who was currently standing behind her, an accusatory frown on his rather pretty face. "Looking."

"You know," said Five, "I was hoping for more than a one word answer for why you've been staring at a portrait of myself for the past—" he pulled out a pocket watch, "—four minutes and twenty-seven seconds."

"Over five minutes actually," Zara ran a hand across the bronzed frame, dust collecting on her fingertips. "I've been here half a minute longer than you've been watching me. Stalker, much?"

"Just being cautious. You still haven't told me anything about yourself."

"Why don't we skip the getting to know each other part 'til we've . . . uh, stopped the apocalypse? Didn't you say you wanted me to meet your family?"

Five grunted, not sure whether to accept her dodgy responses to all his questions thus far. They had arrived at the Academy a short while ago and Zara immediately wandered off while Five was making a sandwich.

He had found her here, in the main foyer, curiously inspecting the picture of himself that hung so obnoxiously over the mantelpiece. Kiki had followed him into the kitchen, and by the sound of it she was having a fiesta with Reginald's prized collection of Ye Olde English Jams & Preserves.

Now, Zara was scratching at the paint on the canvas with her thumbnail. Her fingers trailed up the side of the portrait, and she tensed at the feeling of cool metal against her skin.

She was vaguely aware of Five's eyes on her, filled with suspicion at this strange girl who risked her life for him and showed such a morbid fascination with what he could only presume was his face.

Five couldn't decide whether he ought to be flattered or self conscious. Maybe both?

Zara was far too engrossed in her own thoughts to consider how peculiar she seemed at that very moment.

It was as if her normal, antsy self had shut down for a few minutes, and she entered that comfortingly familiar state of mind she dubbed, The Zone, the very thing that had gotten her a wicked reputation around the Commission for being the best in the Analysis Department.

Her mind raced, thoughts colliding into each other like bumper cars at one of those carnivals The Handler would take her and Lila to on Mother's Day.

She turned around to face Five. "When was the funeral?"

"What?"

"I mean, I'm guessing Hargreeves died recently. Probably under suspicious circumstances, too. Was he hated around here? Rough childhood? Daddy issues?"

"How—how did you know . . . any of that?"

"Wasn't it obvious? The painting is very old, which is made clear by the dust collecting on the frame. Yet, the colours have not faded at all. High quality oil paint is very expensive, and this isn't the acrylic stuff because that garbage chips easily. So, clearly the owner of the house is a very rich man, but he also must be dead, seeing as his adult children—who all live far away—are here at the same time and he is absent. A funeral service, maybe? And, since they are all here at the same time but none are together, I presume they resent each other. They probably wanted to cut ties with this hellhole."