"Stop!"
A loud bang surprised me. I stared, unable to believe what just happened.
The door closed. I had overpowered the Beast.
He didn't move. I looked at his back from my seat on the ground, waiting for the yell of anger or the look of surprise.
Nothing came. He didn't move an inch. Not even his extended arm that reached for the door.
My eyes widened. I didn't... I stopped him from moving. I had made him stop.
I overpowered the Beast's magic, and by doing so, I had stopped him.
I got up from the ground carefully. The glass shards beneath my feet crunched as I stepped on them--thankfully, I had enough sense to put on shoes before I had come to the room. A metal object in the corner caught my eye.
His mask.
I walked over to it, still watching the Beast as I did so. He didn't move. I could feel his eyes following me as I bend to retrieve the mask. I held the cool surface in my hands, feeling the intricate designs embedded in the mask.
I was faced with three choices. I could either have gone up to him facing him and hand him the mask, but if I did that, I would see him--something he had made clear that I wasn't supposed to do. The second choice would be to discard the mask altogether, which would still have allowed me to see him. The third choice, which was to climb across the bed and fasten the mask to the Beast's face, would have been the most respectful of my choices.
I swallowed, my mind made up. I crawled across the ripped bed, mask in hand, being careful not to touch anything. My heart felt like it was going to fly out of my throat. My feet hit the ground and I stood, no more than three feet away from the Beast. I could see his trembling, whether it was in fear or anger, I didn't know. I stepped up to him, my eyes coming to the middle of his shoulder blades.
I held out the mask, reaching underneath his outstretched arm. "Here," I whispered. "You can have it."
As if on cue, he stopped shaking. He breathed in deeply. Very slowly, as if he were afraid he would spook me, he grabbed the mask from my outstretched hand and moved it up towards his face. The black clasps dangled at his ears, giving the illusion of dreadlocks.
"Could you fasten it?" His voice was incredibly quiet.
I almost refused, but I looked down and say his other hand, hung limply at his side. Blood was dripping off of it and starting to form a small puddle below him. Without saying anything, I stood on my tiptoes and reached up, grabbing the clasps.
I swallowed, holding each strap in my hands uncomfortably. I had no idea how to fasten his mask. "Just tie them, or..."
"There's a clip on each one. Just hook them together." His voice was gentle. I could literally feel the banging of his heart as I pressed myself close to him, trying to clip the clasps together. I was sure that my heartbeat was no different.
A small clip told me that I hooked it right. "There you go," I said, back away.
As soon as I had stepped backward, a shudder ran through the Beast. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground, putting his good arm out to catch himself. I looked at the door and considered leaving for less than a second, then turned back to where I was needed.
"Here." I tried to smile a little as I draped the Beast's good arm around my shoulders and helped him hoist himself off the ground. My mind wandered over to the bed for a second, but I quickly dismissed the thought.
"Can you make it downstairs?" I asked.
He nodded his head. "Yeah," he whispered. "I know a place we could go."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I flopped onto the ground. Water splashed from the bucket I held and spread across the flood like a bloodstain. I carelessly tossed a cloth into the liquid, which set more droplets free.
"Let me see your left arm," I demanded. The stain of blood was evident in his clothes, which told me that whatever he had done to it was nothing that could be fixed easily.
The Beast shook his head. "I'm fine," he claimed firmly.
I rolled my eyes. "Look," I started, exasperated. "if you don't let me see your left hand willingly, I can make it hurt worse."
The skin around his eyes crinkled, the only evidence of what might be a smile. He lifted his arm slowly and, inch by inch, edged it over to where I could reach it.
My stomach clenched when the light hit it. His hand, which was normally long and thin, had swollen up to twice it's normal size. His knuckles looked like they had been sandwiched together to form a round ball, and on the top of the ball, he was bleeding profusely from exactly where he had punched the wall. Deep purple, blue, and a yellowish-green splotched his whole hand, and in the middle of the bruise, there was a small, white circle. I didn't notice it at first, but the longer I looked, the more I realized that the white circle wasn't skin. It was bone.
I could feel my face drain of all color it had. I had never been good with injuries, especially injuries to this extent. I turned away from his hand and tried to distract myself with something else.
It didn't work.
Quietly, I dipped the cloth in the water, then twirled the ends in opposite directions to wring it out.
I steeled myself. I was going to have to look back at his mangled hand if I wanted to clean it, which meant that I'd have to see it again.
Count to three, Zara.
I almost rolled my eyes at myself. I just needed to suck it up and get over it. Armed with my newfound steel-stomach, I turned to look at his hand and quickly dabbed the towel at it.
"Ow!" The Beast shouted and, with his other hand, pushed me away from him. "That hurt!"
I started up at him in disbelief. His shoulders had tensed up, almost touching his ears. His back was pressed up against the back of the couch, as if he were trying to blend in with the dark red color.
He looked like a toddler.
I sucked in my breath patiently. "Yes, it's going to hurt. That's normally what happens when you have a bone sticking out of your hand." I got back up onto my knees and started to dab at his hand again.
He kept squirming. I would get close to his hand with the towel and he would move, just the slightest movement, away from me. And this was only when I tried to touch his hand with the towel.
My patience had finally dwindled down to nothing. I threw my arms into the air, flinging water from the towel I held as I did so. "Will you say still?" I asked, annoyed.
"It stings!" he answered back with the same tone of voice that I had.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. "If you wouldn't move around so much, it wouldn't sting so much."
"Well, if you would be gentler, then I wouldn't move around."
My mouth dropped open. "If you hadn't slammed your hand into a brick wall then I wouldn't have to do this in the first place."
His eyes glinted dangerously. "If you hadn't come into my room, then I never would have done that."
"I came in to apologize! Besides, if you hadn't banned me from outside and thrown my necklace through the window, then I never would have screamed." My voice had risen quickly. I didn't like where he was taking the conversation.
He was silent for a minute, thinking of a retort. "If you hadn't disobeyed the orders I gave, then I wouldn't have banned you."
My eyes narrowed and I didn't miss a beat. "If you had been more specific and said why I wasn't allowed outside past a certain time, then I certainly would have followed your precious orders."
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, trying to think of an answer. I grabbed the cloth and started back on his hand again, this time more forcefully than I had been.
We couldn't have cut through the silence in the room with an ax.
It what felt like the longest time, I managed to get his hand clean enough that I felt comfortable trying to bandage it. I grabbed the roll from the couch and tried to peel the fabric away from itself, which failed miserably.
If hands fail, use teeth.
I found the little flap at the corner of the roll and grabbed it with my teeth. That time, it worked. Carefully, I began to wrap the bandage around the Beast's hand.
"You can't keep me from outside, you know. I'll just go back out there anyway." I didn't look up from rolling the cloth around his hand, but I could feel him sigh.
"I could board you into your room."
I glanced at him, and although he had said that with a serious tone, his eyes were laughing.
"Haha, very funny," I said as I ripped the bandage. Quickly, I tied the two ends together.
"Next arm." I held my hand out.
He brought his right arm closer to me. This one wasn't broken like his left, but tiny little glass pieces were stuck in his hand and lower forearm. I looked around the dimly lit room, trying to find something to help me get them out. A pair of tweezers sitting on a shelf placed against the wall caught my eye.
Kinisi. I just thought the word, and the tweezers flew across the room and landed onto my outstretched hand.
"You've gotten better." the Beast sounded surprised.
I smiled a little before I started to pull the glass out. "I've been practicing."
"I can tell."
Each glass piece I pulled out, I placed on the arm of the couch. I was almost done when the idea hit me.
"Teach me how to fight." I looked up at the Beast and bit my lip.
"Why?" he asked wonderingly. "So that you can try to stab me again?"
I laughed. "Because that worked so well last time." My smile faded as I thought of the men in the black masks. "I just-- the men in the forest," I mumbled.
"Who were they?" he asked.
I swallowed and looked away, not wanting to answer his question. "People from my past."
Thankfully, he didn't ask anything else at that moment.
I pushed myself onto the couch, relieving my knees from the uncomfortable position I had been sitting in. I heard him suck in his breath.
"Your face..." he whispered.
I brought my hand up to my cheek quickly, feeling the three deep cuts that his claws had scraped on me earlier. To touch them burned.
I shook my head, mimicking the Beasts actions from earlier. "It's nothing."
He looked hurt. Pain etched in every detail of his face that I could see. Very slowly, he raised his right hand-- the hand that wasn't bandaged and broken-- and moved it toward my cheek.
My heart raced and I stared straight at one of the shelves. What is he doing?
The small instinct in the back of my mind told me not to move. I stayed as still as I could be, even trying to not breathe. Cool fingertips brushed up against my cheek, sending shivers down my spine. The coldness of the fingertips turned to a warm sting as three of his fingers stretched out and covered my scratches. The stinging gradually went away, leaving a warm feeling in my cheek. He slowly slid his fingers away from me.
I looked away from my staring spot and gently touched my face. It was smooth-- like there had never been any cuts there.
"What did you do?" I asked, finally bringing myself to look at him.
His eyes were impassive. "I healed you."
"Oh."
We were silent for a few minutes. I kept feeling the urge inside me grow every second, the urge of wanting to ask something else.
The Beast broke the silence first. "In answer to your earlier question, I'll teach you how to fight."
My jaw opened just enough for a small breath of air to come out. "What?" Did I hear him right?
"But, I'll only teach you if the times we go outside for the lesson are the only times you go outside alone. One step out of line and all your 'outside' goes bye-bye."
My heart leaped in joy. A smile so big it hurt my mouth escaped me.
Calm down, Zara.
"Why do you want to learn so badly?"
With that one sentence, my joy drained away. I sighed. "I already told you. There are people from my past that aren't very nice people."
I didn't tell him that the same people I saw in the forest were the same people who had killed my mother--because that would be impossible. All but one of them died that night.
"Who are they?"
Boy, he's inquisitive tonight.
I slammed my hands onto my knees, frustrated. "I'll tell you that when you tell me your name. Like, your actual name."
He turned his head to the side. "I'll tell you my name when you tell me who those people were." A hint of triumph rang in the Beast's voice.
I smiled sarcastically and sprung up from the couch. "Then it seems that we have reached a stalemate, Kvir."
His head whipped around so fast hair smacked his face. With surprise not-so-subtle in his tone, he held up a hand. "What did you call me?"
Oh, he didn't like it. Even better.
"Kvir," I replied. "Your new name."
"I don't like it."
With a fake bow, I left the room. "You are Kvir to me until I am Zara to you. Besides, I hate the name 'beast.'"
"But--"
The door slammed shut behind me.
But, before it was fully shut, I could've sworn I heard a small voice whisper from inside the room.
"Thank you, Zara."
_______________________________________
Hello peoples!
So, how'd you like the chapter?
This was the first time that Zara actually spoke to the Beast--I mean Kvir. Like, actually spoke, not yelled. And he spoke back! So, did I do a good job?
Please don't be a ninja-reader! Fill up that little star on the bottom! Comment! Tell me what you like/dislike.
Noa