The Beast parted ways with her at the front door, saying that he would see her the next day. He left for the study, and Bo found herself wondering what he thought of when he sat amongst the mountains of beautiful human items. She almost wanted to follow him and see, but she knew she couldn't be getting this involved. He may be part human, but he was still the Beast of Lyx. He was still a bloodthirsty alien.

With the volume of poems tucked under one arm, Bo mounted the stairs toward her room. The skirt of her yellow gown swished against the carpeting as she made it to the hallway. The poetry felt somehow heavy and sad in her hand, and she wanted to unload it in her room as soon as possible. Her footsteps hurried down the gallery toward her bedroom, and she was just starting when she heard it. A beeping sound. Her first thought was that a Service-Maton had somehow gotten itself shut up in one of the many mysterious rooms, but the more she listened the less and less it sounded like the robots. It was higher, and there was a strange rhythm to it.

With her head cocked to hear it better, Bo turned to follow the noise to the side of the gallery that she had never been in before. A hallway was filled with doors much like the ones on her side, and she tracked the noise to one in particular. Pressing her ear against the wood, she heard the staccato beat coming from somewhere inside. Something about the sound was so familiar... she racked her brain, trying to force herself to remember. Nothing came to her, so she closed her eyes, letting the strange beeping fill her mind.

Then...

Distress signals! That was what it was! Her eyes flew open. That was the pattern they used in the camp when they needed immediate backup. Her heart sped up as she gripped the handle of the door and twisted it sharply. It didn't budge, and she realized that it was locked. Crouching, she examined the handle and saw with relief that it was an old model. No computers or scanners here, just a lock that she was going to pick.

Getting back to her feet, she spun and raced to her room for supplies. She wasn't about to let a locked door stand in her way. There was something in that room giving off a signal from home, and she needed to see what it was.

After throwing off her yellow gown and pulling back on a white shirt and black pants, she dug through a small box of trinkets in her closet. It was filled with bits and bobs of feminine beauty, like mismatched earrings and a lonely pearl. But it also had exactly what she needed. Hairpins, long and perfectly suited for tripping a lock in an old door. Perfect.

She carried a pin back to the gallery with her and inserted it in the lock. She knew how to pick locks, of course, but it wasn't often that she got to practice the skill. Keys were far out-of-date, and she rarely found a door that needed one to open. So, it took her a few minutes to stumble through the unlocking process, until finally she heard the clunk of the bolt falling out of place.

With triumph, Bo pushed open the door and stepped inside. She quickly closed it behind her, in case any stray Service-Matons might wander by and see something out of place. With that done, she turned to face the room stretching in front of her, dark and dim and filled with the most expensive looking furniture Bo had ever seen. Everything seemed to be made of heavy wood, polished to a dark gleam, with deep purple velvet upholstery and curtains. Iron fixings on the walls held the lights, but Bo left them off. She didn't know if the robots might be able to see any of the light through the window, and she needed to find that beeping noise before she was discovered.

She stepped further into the room, the plush carpet absorbing the sound of her boots. A bed stood directly in front of her, so massively big that probably ten people could pile onto it and still have room to invite more. The pillows had golden thread embroidered into them, ending in tassels, and the blanket looked softer than a cloud. Bo fought the urge to jump on it, and instead knelt at its foot to examine the large trunk that lay there.

As she pushed open the heavy top, the smell of trees filled her nose. She wasn't sure which ones, but it smelled of life and green. She took a deep breath for just a moment, still amazed that she was in a place where trees and wood were so vibrantly alive. But when the moment was over she began to dig through the contents of the trunk.

It was filled with things, but she barely paid any attention to them. It was mostly clothes or blankets, at any rate. She dumped them all on the ground without a glance, coming closer and closer to the noise with each armful. As she lifted a folded sheet, she noticed a heavy metal key tangled around its own string. She wasn't sure what it belonged to, but she pocketed it anyway. As soon as it disappeared from sight, she forgot about it and focused on digging for the distress signal.

It was when she reached the bottom that she spotted it. One of the radios from home. In fact, her own radio that she'd used to find her dad's coordinates all those days ago. The Beast had taken it from her when she had been captured, but here it was in her hands again. She nearly cried at the battered sight of it, and quickly lifted it to her lips to press the switch that let her talk to the other side of the broadcast.

"Hello? Hello!" Bo said, trying to keep her voice down but her nerves making it pitch louder with each word. "Is someone there?"

She let the switch go and the sound of crackling replaced the distress signal. She crackled with nerves, her stomach flopping inside of her. Her knuckles went white as she clutched the radio to her ear.

"B- Bo? Is that you?" The sound was horrible, like talking into a tin can while in a cave, but Bo could tell her sister's voice anywhere.

"Felicia! Oh! Felicia!" she sobbed, clutching the radio as if it were her sister's hands.

"I can't believe we got you!" Felicia said, her voice cutting in and out. "We've been trying for weeks! We thought you were dead."

Bo shifted, getting into a more comfortable position on the floor. "I'm fine, but I haven't had access to my radio in weeks. I had to pick a lock to get at it today."

"No offense, Bo, but I can't listen to your stories right now," Felicia interrupted. "I need to tell you something important."

"Go ahead," Bo said, her hands shaking.

"Dad's really bad. He's just been getting worse since he got back from... wherever it is that you are. He only told us that you were captured, but he wouldn't say by who. Bandits? But, anyway, he's barely conscious. It's all we can do to get him to eat." Felicia's voice paused, and when it returned Bo could hear the tightness of hidden tears. "He's dying, Bo. And the only thing he wants is you."

"What?" Bo said, her face going numb. "Dying? What are you talking about? That's ridiculous. He's Dad. He can't die."

"He's thinks it's his fault that you were captured. He's blaming himself and it's killing him. You need to find a way to come home, right now."

Bo bit her lip, trying to imagine her dad laying somewhere dying. It was impossible. He was the man who led the camp when the war still raged. He had made sure they were all safe. He wasn't someone who just died so senselessly.

"Hold on, Felicia. Wait a minute, I need to see something." She stuffed the radio in her waistband and shot to her feet. She couldn't sit here and just imagine her father in such a condition. She had to see it.

She ripped open the door and ran out into the hallway and down to where she was only allowed on good behavior... and this was certainly not good behavior. By the time she reached the sky room it had been a few minutes and she could only hope Felicia was still on the other end of the radio. She pulled it out of her waistband as she crossed the room and dug out the display screen. She swiped the screen like she'd seen the Beast do a thousand times, and called up the feed of her camp. The stealth robot was stationed in the Dead Woods when she wasn't using it, but she saw only dark blurs as it crossed the short distance to the camp walls. After a minute, the lightbulbs they used to light the paths between tents came into view, and the view hovered to a stop over her tent.

Raising the radio to her lips, she prayed Felicia was still there. "Bring Dad outside. I've got a live-feed of the camp here in front of me."

"How-?" Felicia asked, but then stopped herself. "Never mind. I won't ask. Give us a minute. I'll need to get Aston to help." There was some scuffling and then the radio returned to static. Bo placed it beside her on the table, staring at the empty view of the camp.

It took them a minute and a half to come into view. She saw Aston first, backing out with something in his arms, and then she saw Felicia edge out beside him. She waited for a moment for them to position themselves awkwardly, and then she picked up the radio.

"Is Dad there?" she asked.

Felicia raised her own radio up. "Aston's holding him. Where are you looking from?"

"Directly above." They adjusted so that Bo got a clear view of a withered form in Aston's arms. Her dad looked more like a blanket roll than the man she remembered from even just a few weeks ago in the Beast's dungeon. He looked impossibly old. And he didn't look like he had much time left.

She choked on a sob, tears springing to her eyes. Her hands shook as she held the radio to her mouth, wanting to say something but not knowing what.

"Bo, are you still there?" Felicia asked.

"Yes. I'm here." She stared at her dad's unnervingly still body. "But I'm going to come home, Felicia. I'm going to come home, so don't worry. I'll be-"

But she never got to finish her thought. Before she could tell Felicia anything more, a blue hand ripped the radio from her grasp. Bo whipped around to see the Beast staring down at her and the display screen showing her family staring at something they could not see.