Finding Beauty

Chapter 4

I look around, trying to take in the area. I'm on a couch with a blanket over me. I lean on my elbows to get a better look at the room.

The room is unlike any other room I've ever been in. There's a fireplace in front of me and a rug beneath me on top of clean wooden floors. It's filled with vases and little decorations like something out of a home decor magazine. I can see a window at the end of a hallway to my right. It's night time. But if I can get to it, I can see where I am or more importantly, where I've been taken.

"You know why you took her here? Because you're selfish! You don't care how she feels or what you took her away from!" The voices are coming from a room in between me and window. I'll have to sneak past them. "All you had in mind was your happiness and happiness is never obtained by selfish actions!"

I slowly slide the blanket off of me, my heartbeat going 100 miles an hour. I carefully lift my feet off the couch and onto the floor. I stand up. The floor creaks.

"Shut up, Carina! You just don't want to see me happy! No matter what I do I'm never happy!" The sound of shattering glass follows a shout and I use the noise to scurry all the way to the hallway safely passing what looked like the kitchen.

I let out a breath of relief and rest my palms on the window sill. I'm two stories high and the stars shine bright and beautifully in the night sky giving a calming feeling which is inappropriate for the scenario.

Wait. Stars? You can't see stars in the city . . .

Below the stars are hundreds and hundreds of pointy, green, nightmares. I'm not in the city. I'm in the middle of a forest.

A cry escapes my lips as my hand touches the glass. How long was I out? Who knows how far I am from Brooklyn now? How far I am from Grayson and my mother?

"Stop being so loud! You'll wake her!"

"I'm loud? You're the one- Oh." I spin around facing a woman with messy, dirty blonde hair with so many grays they seem like highlights. She wears it in a bun with pj's covered by a robe. She looks like a normal person but she isn't. She's involved with a murderer.

She slowly tries to make her way closer to me, her hand out in front of her as if to calm me. Like I'm some caged animal! Like I'm the dangerous one!

"Stay away from me you freaks!" The Beast isn't even looking at me. He has his head down like something interesting is happening on the floor beneath him. The woman seems to notice and swipes her hand, dismissing him. The Beast towers over her so much, I'm surprised she even dared speaking to him with such force in the kitchen.

"Nevermind him, sweetie. I'm Carina."

"I don't care! I wanna go home. Take me back home!" I wait for the woman to respond but she just looks at The Beast and he doesn't respond. She stares at her shoes after that.

"What are you going to do with me?" I half sob. I hate how weak I sound. Every time I read a book, I picture myself as the brave heroine, not the one crying in front of the enemy.

"I don't know," she admits.

The word surfaces again. Hopeless.

And like that, my fate was thrown into The Beast hands.

~The Hunter~ (Grayson)

I replay the scene over and over in my head. Belle letting me call the police, snatching the diary and taking off, then screaming for me over the phone while The Beast took her away. . . What could I have done to save her?

I ponder this as I stand by the apartment on Castle Street, watching police officers run around like working bee's. They set up yellow tape, talk into their radios, and order each other around. I don't understand the point. They were too late.

I arrived on the scene around the same time the police did. By that time, Belle's mother was fleeing the building saying The Beast has Belle and won't let her go, saying that if the police try anything he'll kill her. The police came up with a plan. They pretended to accept and back away while a squad came in through the back. All they found was an empty apartment.

Who knows where she is? Who knows if she's alive? Who knows how she's feeling? Who knows what she's going through? Who knows what will happen to her? What fate awaits her?

I failed her. I shouldn't have let this happen to her. I've been there for her her whole life and the day it really counts I'm not. I hate myself for it.

There's a tight feeling in my chest as the reality of it all slowly sinks in.

Belle was kidnapped.

Belle is at the mercy of a killer.

When I look up at her mother now, crying her eyes out with a blanket around her shoulders getting questioned by a police officer, all I feel is anger. It should have been her. Belle is worth way more than her. Besides, it sounds funny to me that Belle's mother, the one who is at fault here, made it out but Belle didn't.

Belle is kind, hardworking, intelligent, selfless, everything her mother isn't. If only Belle knew that.

The police say they'll do everything they can to get to Belle and I know they will because where Belle is, is where the most wanted murderer in NYC is.

I mean, maybe The Beast won't kill her. He's only been known for killing criminals and Belle certainly isn't one.

I can only hope.

Belle-wherever you are- stay alive for me.

Author's Note- I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Feel free to vote and comment letting me know what you think!