Page 23 of The Beast

It’s after three, so I know it’s a long shot. Even so, I stare at the screen, waiting for Harper to answer. “Come on, come on.” She’s my person. She’s been my person since we were twelve years old, bonding over our mutual hatred of the ridiculous etiquette classes our parents made us attend. She’s seen me through every crisis, every heartbreak, every moment when I thought I couldn’t go on, and I’ve done the same for her.

She’ll know what to do. She always knows what to do.

If she’d ever freaking answer.

Dammit.

Hello? You there? I hesitate, then send it again, but this time I don’t really expect a response. Her phone must be on silent.

But then the three little dots appear, and if I wasn’t already sitting, I’d have dropped to my knees in relief.

Unfortunately, yes. Weird night. What’s up?

Can you come to my suite? Please. I need you.

On my way. 10 min.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Then I pull myself off the floor, splash some water on my face, and try to make myself look like something other than a complete disaster.

It doesn’t work. The mirror shows me a woman with red-rimmed eyes, mascara smudges, and a look of shell-shocked devastation that no amount of cold water is going to fix.

Whatever. Harper’s seen me worse.

The soft knock comes exactly ten minutes later. I ease open the suite door and usher her in, a finger pressed to my lips as I gesture toward David’s room.

She raises her eyebrows but follows me silently into my bedroom.

The moment the door closes behind us, she takes one look at my face and opens her arms. I fall into them like a drowning woman grabbing a life raft.

“Jesus, Bella.” Her voice is soft against my hair. “What happened?”

I don’t even know where to start. The words tangle in my throat, too big and too impossible to get out.

“Gabriel,” I finally manage. “He’s alive.”

Harper goes completely still. And then her face crumples.

Not the way I expected—not confusion or disbelief. No, Harper’s pale gray eyes fill with tears, and her hand flies to her mouth, and for a moment she looks exactly like I must have looked in the back of that Town Car when Gabriel’s face emerged from the shadows.

“He’s—” Her voice breaks. “Bella, are you sure? How is that possible? The fire. His teeth. His cabin. And the ring—the one you gave him.”

“I know. But it’s true. Somehow, he survived.”

I’d forgotten, somehow, in the chaos of my own grief and shock and confusion, that Harper loved him, too. Not the way I did—but she’d grown up with him, spent summers at the Grimm estate, been part of that strange little trio with him and Elliott. She’d lost her friend. One of her oldest, closest friends.

“Oh my god.” She pulls me back into her arms, and this time she’s shaking too. “Oh my god, oh my god. Gabriel.”

“Leo texted me around midnight,” I say when we finally pull apart. “I was here, and I got a text that just said Gabriel’s alive. So I ran downstairs to get a car to go to Leo’s place⁠—”

“And?”

I hesitate, but tell her everything. The drive there. The Beast and the fights that take place deep in its belly.

“He has an apartment there” I tell her. “And he kissed me. Because that’s what you do to people you think might have killed you.”

Her brows rise. “Wait. What?”

I grimace, then nod, blinking to force back fresh tears. “It’s true. He thinks I was involved. He thinks I killed him. They must have—I don’t know—drugged him or something. He said I shot him.”