The two-faced entity starts laughing maniacally, then, with inhuman speed, also lunges toward me.
I shriek, scramble to my feet, and flee up the pitch-black stairs.
The sound of straining chains, savage snarls, and hellish screaming follows behind me.
All I can think is,oh God, oh God, oh God!
There was no time to secure the door.
My torch has gone out completely, and I’m running blind up an endless spiral staircase while nightmare sounds echo below me. My bare feet slip on stone worn smooth by centuries, and every step threatens to send me tumbling back into that horror.
Whatis Beast? Questions hammer through my brain as I flee upward, my lungs burning from the climb and terror.
What does this make me?
I thought I was falling for someone dangerous but ultimately good. Someone who could be gentle despite his monstrous appearance.
But if he’s keeping...those things... chained in his dungeon...
If he’s the one who put them there...
What kind of monster am I sharing a bed with?
My legs shake as I finally reach the main floor, gasping and sobbing. The warm air feels like paradise after that frozen hell below.
But nothing feels safe anymore.
Nothing feels real.
Everything I thought I knew about him, about us, about what we’ve been building together...
How can someone who touches me so tenderly, who seems to care about my comfort, who’s learning to have conversations...
How can that same person be responsible for whatever nightmare I just witnessed?
Unless...
Unless I don’t know him at all.
Unless everything between us has been a lie.
The sounds from below have faded, but they echo in my memory with crystalline clarity. Those eyes. That laughter. The chains.
So much for trusting him with my heart.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware that I’m nearly naked, covered in dungeon filth, and completely alone in a castle with someone who might be far more dangerous than I ever imagined.
The question now isn’t whether I should escape.
It’s whether I’ll live long enough to try.
TWENTY-FOUR
HANNAH
I runand run and run.
Not back up the stairs to our chambers; I can’t face that space right now.
