𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐰 ❅ 𝐥𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐱 - 𝐢𝐜𝐞

"𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐦𝐞; 𝐢 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐠𝐨 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐒𝐮𝐧. 𝐚𝐧𝐝, 𝐢𝐟 𝐢 𝐚𝐦 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞, 𝐢 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬."

❅

Panting heavily, Belle hikes up her light skirts with one hand as she descends the staircases in front of her in a dazed hurry, occasionally skipping a step or two in her haste.

Thor and Clint, who are sat in an "intense" game of chess, perk their heads up as they hear the growing noise of Belle's rush.

"Lady Belle, what are you doing?" Thor asks loudly, secretly a bit grateful for the interruption of his match.

"Getting out of here," Belle retorts, not breaking her pace as she continues down the seemingly-infinite stairway.

"No, don't go!" Clint shouts desperately, although Belle doesn't have time to analyze his desperation as she nears the large oak doors of the confines of her castle prison.

"Please don't go!" Thor yells as Belle rips her agonizingly light coat off of the small hanger in the entryway.

"It's dangerous!" Mrs. Potts adds, but Belle's mind is made up.

"Please don't go," Thor says again quietly as the doors shut behind Belle. "Please don't leave us here."

❅

The wind whips harshly through Belle's hair as she races through the snowy courtyard of the castle on the back of an all-black stallion that she found wandering the stables. Cold tears leak down her face silently, the girl trying desperately to ignore the ruthless cold.

Terror curses through Belle's veins as she finally crosses the threshold of the castle into the woods, hearing a wolf howling terrifyingly close as if it was signaling her escape from the castle.

She wills the horse to go even faster, praying that she can outrun the wolves although not having a thorough plan. Belle's breath catches in her throat as the stallion hurdles over a fallen tree branch, holding onto the onyx creature for life.

The sound of at least three sets of paws making the jump over the same tree echoes behind Belle almost instantly, and her heart seizes with terror and helplessness. Sparing a glance behind her, Belle immediately wishes she hadn't as she counts five large, sleek gray wolves not even 10 feet behind her.

Belle's eyes bulge as she faces the front once again, seeing a frozen pond in front of her and no other choice but for the horse to cross it.

However, before she can even fathom thinking of an alternate route, one of the stallion's hooves slips slightly on the ice, giving the nearest wolf a window to attack the hind legs of the horse.

Belle tries her best to land as lightly as possible on the thin ice as the horse bucks beneath her, accidentally throwing her off in the process. Her hands scrape against the cold, rough surface of the ice, leaving several thin but long gashes down her palms.

In an immediate act of fight-or-flight, Belle quickly reaches for a nearby stick, swinging it at the closest wolf that was still trying to get near the horse and making contact with the creature with a sickening crack.

All goes silent for a moment, the remaining wolves circling Belle slowly as she brandishes the long log in front of her, although both her and the feral creatures know that she cannot successfully defend herself against all of them at once.

The largest of the pack steps forward tauntingly slow just as another clasps onto the opposite end of Belle's makeshift weapon, tearing it out of her bloodied hands with its strong jaw.