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Shit.
I’m not even thinking of him as “The Beast” anymore.
When did that change?
Despite wracking my brain for the answer, I can’t put my finger on it. Likely because it wasn’t a single moment. Rather, as each day has passed in this house, it shifted slowly.
With the gifts and lavish meals. The kind gestures and the way he takes care of me. Coupled with his cryptic words and actions, he has started to seem less and less like the enemy and more and more like a captive here himself.
Though how that’s possible and why it is that way, I can’t quite reason out. Certainly not without information he isn’t willing to provide.
All I know is that tonight, I won’t be getting any sleep like this. Hours and hours of trying have gotten me nowhere but more frustrated than I ever remember being.
I toss back the comforter and sheet and slide out of bed, finally unable to lie here any longer. Wearing only the shorts and tank top I typically sleep in, I pad barefoot to the door on my finally healed sole.
Removing the stitches this morning felt like ripping out the memory of that night and throwing it away somewhere I can’t dwell on my idiocy anymore. Where I don’t have to second guess what I should have done differently.
So much has changed since then. It’s the last place I want my mind rooted.
Easing open the bedroom door, I listen for sounds of Weston moving around, but the entire house is just as still and silent as it is most nights. I slip into the hallway, which somehow seems longer tonight, like it goes on forever and forever.
Each step I take along the crimson runner toward the staircase makes my heart beat faster, until blood rushes in my ears by the time I reach them. I stand at a literal crossroads, looking down the steps that will lead me to the living room, the fireplace, the kitchen, where I might be able to get a snack and read in front of the glowing embers to try to ease my insomnia.
But my feet don’t lead me that way.
They draw me up toward the third floor, to the library, but not to find a new book. To find the mysterious man who has bent and twisted what I thought I knew about him and his world, to seek what only he can give me.
Simultaneously, two parts of me war—the one hoping I’ll find him and the other praying he won’t be there.
What are you doing, Callista?
I wish I knew.
Maybe if I did, I could stop myself from following through with something I might regret later, but my feet seem to move of their own accord. The ache in the sole of my right one is so dull now that it’s barely noticeable. If it were, it might serve as a warning I’m not entirely sure I’d heed anyway.
Not when I’ve made it this far.
I reach the top landing and pause at the cracked doors, faint light trickling out of them. Since I turned them all off before I left tonight after dinner, that means Weston was here, if he isn’t any longer.
Which do you really want, Callista?
Deep down, I know what I’m attempting is stupid and reckless. It’s the kind of thing I might have indulged in during my youth before I accepted that I was going to lead a relatively boring, normal life.
But that life seems so far away somehow.
Like it isn’t even mine anymore.
Everything under this roof, behind these walls. It all feels real. Feels like it’s mine.
That terrifying thought ripples through my head as I hold my breath and nudge the door open slowly. The hinges creak, giving me away before I can peek inside.
The sound reverberates throughout the vast room, and Weston slowly lifts his head from where it was buried in a book on the table in front of him.
Hard, steely gray eyes meet mine. A muscle in his clenched jaw tics as I slowly enter and approach. His gaze leaves mine to rake over me, his assessment so heated as he takes me in that it feels like I might burst into flames on the spot.
Somehow, I keep my feet moving forward.
The closer I get to him, the higher the tension builds between us, and by the time I reach the table, I’m practically vibrating with anticipation.
