Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 19

"We finished fixing the hallway and soon we'll have to fix up the other bedroom. It was cluttered with things that I moved into here this morning." 

Her hip bumped into a table with a wood saw on it and immediately after she stubbed her foot on a stack of boxes with clothing spilling out the top. She recognized one of the sweaters as the one Carina gave her to wear her first day at the house. 

"Bethany." 

She spun around to face him. He pulled out a box from a shelf above them. In it, laid two roses. One was the same sunset red one she first saw on the night Ryan Daniels disappeared. The other one was red with traces of yellow on it's tips. It's bud was more blossomed, it's petals reaching out towards all four corners of the room - as if it wished to grow bigger, make its presence known. The stem was a vivid green and without a single thorn. Unlike the former flower, it brought a smile to her face. She could almost say it was glowing like a flashlight in the darkness. Maybe it was. 

She recognized it as the rose her mother had stolen. She wondered how she wasn't completely hypnotized by it before. 

"How haven't they wilted yet?" The yellow rose was weeks old. She didn't know much about gardening but that had to defy nature's laws. 

He stepped closer to Beth. His beastly features were cloaked in the darkness. All she could make out was his pulsing blue eyes. 

"Remember when I told you the witch made it impossible for me to die?" 

She locked eyes with him, trying to beat him to the punch and piece things together in her mind. 

"Yes. Your injuries heal." 

"Right," he said. "That applies for the criminals too. I can't kill them." 

She took in a breath. "If you could, you wouldn't do what you're doing." 

His mouth fell open. "No . . . No, I wouldn't." 

"Because you're not a murderer." 

His voice was barely above a whisper. "Right." 

"What happens to them then?" Her heart was racing in her chest. He was so close to telling her. Nothing she could come up with made sense. She had the strangest feeling that the true answer wouldn't make sense either. He was cursed by a person with magic, after all. 

He held up the orange rose. It was close enough for her to smell. It wreaked of sweat and ashes. The scent was horribly familiar. 

"The criminals I go after don't die. They live on . . . as roses." 

She let out the breath she had been holding and ran a finger along its petals. "You're saying this is Ryan Daniels?" 

He nodded once. 

"That's crazy but . . . I believe you." She might have even known it to be true herself. When Ryan Daniels disappeared there was only a rose the same shade of his hair left behind. It explained why her mother snatching one of his roses caused such a big ordeal. It was because she didn't take a simple rose - she took a person. 

Bethany said nothing for a while. Flashes of thoughts passed her mind until she could find something to latch onto. 

"Did the witch tell you this would happen? Or did you try to kill someone first?" 

His eyes widened as she continued. Her words were coming out like bullets. 

"Even if it isn't really murder, how can you live with yourself? You turned them into roses! Can they feel? Think? You're making them spend an endless eternity as flowers! You're cursing them just like she cursed you!"