~Beauty~

Beth's mind was whirling almost as much as her stomach.

Some of the buildings they were jumping onto had reasonably sized gaps in between them, gaps that Beth's logical mind could see being possible for an athletic and trained human to jump - maybe even with another human on their back! But the majority of the buildings they were hopping over to, had chasms of space between them. Beth could imagine that if she were brave enough to take a peek at what was below them, she'd see an entire garden or a cluster of dumpsters.

Nevermind the utterly chaotic state her mind was in, her body wanted to fold in on itself. She never got the chance to visit many amusement parks but this experience was very much like how the Slingshot Ride on Coney Island made her feel the one time she had made the mistake of getting on it - except maybe worse.

The Beast took far too long to stop and when he did, Beth collapsed in a heap of limbs at his feet.

I'm not going to barf, I'm not going to barf, I'm not going to barf.

Her positive chain of thoughts were interrupted by her capture's pull. He dragged her off the roof and down all the flights of stairs without a single glance back to see if the police were on their tail. But then again, how would they be? Unless they also had lemur jumping abilities as well.

The Beast's piercing blue eyes burrowed into Beth's face. "We are going to go outside now. Do not run and I will let you go."

More empty promises, Beth thought.

She could remember viewing a safety film her mother had bought her when she was younger and her father was still alive. It explained that when someone was kidnapping you, you wanted to avoid letting them take you outside of a public area because once they got you where they wanted you - you were done. Of course, the movie hadn't worded it like that but it was the just of the message. Beth hardly paid attention to it, believing that her father would always be there to protect her from the creeps who claimed they lost their puppy.

But here she was.

As the Beast's gloved hand gripped her own and led her down a desolate street, she wrestled with herself.

To fight or not to fight.

Would her best option be to scream and thrash around hoping someone would hear? Should she try one of the self-defense moves she saw in a pamphlet? Or would it actually be safer to comply with what he wanted and hope he actually meant it when he said he would let her go?

Beth didn't know and soon her head was pounding to the rhythm of a ticking clock, mocking her and taunting her with her possible impending death. It was paralyzing.

His grip loosened on her hand, causing her heart to swell. He was about to let her go.

Then those pesky cops showed up.

For the love of . . .

The Beast cursed under his breath as a police vehicle swerved to a stop a few feet ahead of them. They were already yelling at him to freeze and release Beth. Instead, he held her in front of him as a shield, walking backwards into an alleyway.

The police were calling for backup but were as frozen as Beth when it came to taking action. They couldn't shoot or approach the Beast without risking her life. The night had gotten awfully repetitive in her opinion and she wished it would just end or take a break to let her catch her breath.

Everything was happening so quickly but at the same time it was as if the tortuous fear was never ending.

They backed away until the police were out of view.

Beth was shouting hysterically. "Let me go! You said you would let me go!"

"I'm trying to!" He forced her into a car that was previously cloaked by the darkness. They sped off, the police radio's growing distant and muffled.

What could she do to help herself? Her only option was to try and hijack the steering wheel and that could hurt them both. The final straw snapped in Beth's mind. Her body trembled and she couldn't muster up the energy to yell at the criminal for going back on his word. He was a criminal. Why did Beth expect anything more than that?

Why had she expected more than that from her own mother?

The color drained from her brown skin as she acknowledged that she had let him get her where he wanted her. According to the tacky safety film, that meant she was done.

Her world darkened around the edges.

She was done.

The first thing she noticed was that she was warm. It wasn't the sweaty kind but the cozy kind that made you want to snuggle your blanket closer and sleep some more. Beth did just that. She snuggled the blanket closer and nuzzled her nose into the pillow.

The sound of glass shattering echoed throughout the room and into her mind.

She jolted upright. The last time she had heard glass shattering was when the fragments belonged to her windshield and the culprit was a murderer. She was horrified to find that the blanket was not her blanket and the pillow was not her pillow. Nothing around her was hers or even faintly familiar.

She had been sprawled out on a clean black sectional, a gray ottoman resting to her side. It was slightly tilted and dragged a part of the rug underneath it as if someone had been sitting on it beside Beth. Beyond that was another seat next to an electric fireplace with the digital flames going.

The only other light in the room came from the outside, as the room had three windows that took up the majority of the left wall. The sky was a royal shade of blue that blended into black, dotted with shiny diamond like stars. It would be a beautiful sight if it wasn't for the fact that stars weren't visible in the city. The pine trees lining the house's perimeter were pointy green nightmares to her.

She gasped and heard it echo in the high ceilings. No, it hadn't echoed. Two more people had gasped.

Behind the couch was a kitchen where two figures stood. A crystal vase was shattered across the marble island.

The first figure was a woman who appeared to be in her mid-fifties. She had raven black hair highlighted with grays and a short, plump figure. She smiled apologetically at Beth, two creases forming around her eyes. The other figure was the Beast himself, still in his hoodie and sweats. He turned his back to her and to the counter before she could see his face.

"Where am I?" She kicked off the blanket like it was a spiderweb and jumped to her feet.

She was more so talking to the woman. She frowned at her, eyes flickering back and forth from Beth to the Beast. With a bite of her lip, she decided something and stepped around the island. Beth took a tentative step back.

"My name is Carina," she said, her voice soft and soothing. She couldn't help but feel like a spooked cat or a toddler.

"Don't tell her your name!" The shout came with a slam of his fists on the counter. The Beast sighed. "You are going to make this harder than it needs to be!"

The woman - or Carina - rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Beth took note that she didn't say we.

"I don't care what your name is! I want to go home! I'm leaving!" She glanced at the door that was passed the kitchen and through a hallway. She would have to get through the both of them to reach it. She didn't make a move and with their lack of reaction, they called her bluff.

"I had every intention of letting you go." He was more gentle this time though it could have been the effect of him speaking in the opposite direction of her. "But the police kept following us and you were my only leverage."

"You are blaming this on the police?!" Beth wished he would face her. She wanted to scream at him, not his back.

He ignored her. "I still have every intention of letting you go. You have no use to me. But things are complicated now."

She understood what that meant. Wherever she was being kept now was where he lived. She was where the Beast, a wanted killer lived. She had information he couldn't afford to get out. The easiest way to be rid of this issue was to kill her but he had just said he still intended to let her go. Her head was swimming again. He could be lying.

Without thinking, she ran.

She charged towards the doorway, not knowing what she would do once she was outside. It seemed like a heavily wooded area and she'd probably need a car. What were the chances he left his keys in the car?

He caught her arm and she latched onto the door frame with a shout.

"Please stop!" Carina begged, pulling at her grays.

Beth's hand slipped from the door frame and she fell into the Beast. She stumbled back and he caught her, causing his hood to fall back and reveal his face.

His mask was gone.

Great, another reason why he won't ever let me go: I've seen his face.

But that thought quickly escaped her mind once she got around to actually looking at his features.

It was only a shadow of a human's face. His eyes were the most human part, emotion raging behind them, enveloped by intelligence that no animal or creature of the night could mirror. His hair was ordinary - long and dark blonde, falling to the side of his forehead. That was where the humane comparisons stopped. His nose was upturned like a pig's snout, maybe it was a pig's snout. Fangs longer than a vampire's gave him a nasty overbite and his skin was shriveled and wrinkled like leather. Beth was almost compelled to touch it, wondering if it could be another mask.

An emotion entered his eyes and left as quick as it appeared. He cleared his throat and then repositioned her away from the door. He shook out his hands as if he was the one that had been touched by something gross.

"You will not leave until I say you can." When Beth failed to react he repeated it louder. It was astonishing to see the words leave his mouth. There was no way it was a mask.

"What do you want me to do? Vow my obedience to you?"

He huffed and then turned to Carina. "Put her in the guest room."

"Excuse me?"

Again, he did not address Beth.

"Or I will."

The middle aged woman signed and then rubbed her hands against her fuzzy robe. It was certain that she was less intimidating than the Beast. She much rather deal with her than him.

"Follow me, please." Despite the politeness, Beth didn't feel very free to decline her offer. She hesitated, her eyes burning into the Beast. He turned his back to her. "Come on, dear."

The two walked away from the hall leading to what Beth assumed was the front door. She told herself she'd find a way back to it later. Crossing the living room, they were met with a giant staircase going to the second level. Under the staircase was a door that Carina held open for her. It wasn't a storage space like Beth thought it would be. Instead, it was what would be a charming little bedroom if it weren't for the circumstances. Fitted with a dresser and twin sized bed, it was better than what most of the kidnapped people probably got. She couldn't bring herself to feel grateful.

Carina began to close the door on her and the panic set in once more.

"Please don't. Please help me! Please!" Beth was choking back a sob. The woman's expression was full of pity.

"I'm sorry," she said as she took out a key, locking her in.

"No! You can't do this!" Her balled fists slammed against the door. "They'll find me! They're going to find me!" She kept at her pounding until her fists were bruised. Then she let herself sink to the ground, exhausted.

Would anyone find her? None of the Beast's victims were ever found.

Beth spent the night sobbing until her chest ached and it was hard to breathe. She cried for her safety, for her small apartment, for Grayson who she stupidly left behind, for her mother who said she was glad, even for the pile of unread books in her bedroom.

She cried and prayed that the Beast wasn't lying this time when he said he didn't intend to kill her.

~The Beast~

The young man covered his ears with the pillow trying to drown out the ruckus going on in the guest bedroom. He could hear her incessant blubbering all the way upstairs. It was so obnoxious he had to take a Tylenol for his headache.

If only she understood that he was just as eager to release her as she was to be released.

He flipped onto his back.

Why is she crying so much?

He really couldn't comprehend it. He had told her he wasn't going to kill her. He was even going to let her go!

How was he going to let her go?

He had brought her home.

He hadn't meant to. After the girl fainted - which nearly gave him a heart attack because she slept like a dead person - the police chased him for a whole half hour. It took him an eternity to get them off his tail and the only place it made sense to go was home. He couldn't risk stopping to drop the girl off. Besides, she was unconscious. What would have happened to her if he had left her in the street? Someone who actually did want to hurt her might have stumbled upon her.

She was lucky. She was lucky and ungrateful.

He was the one that should be wallowing in self pity. His whole apartment in the city, his hideout of a sorts, was gone. The police already knew of its location and had probably flipped it upside down looking for things to help them in their search for him. He wasn't really worried about the apartment itself. He left nothing he valued there. It was his rose garden he would miss.

His rose.

He propped himself up and stared at his favorite one, the only one he had left. He placed it in a vase on his bedside table first thing when he got home. Well, second to dropping the girl onto the couch.

It was the deepest shade of red he had ever seen and the moment he laid eyes on it he knew it would become his favorite color. He could stand the loss of the rest of his roses as long as he had this one.

As the girl's cries grew softer, another thing had come to haunt him and keep him from sleep.

The way she reacted to seeing him - seeing his ugliness - was bizarre. He had expected her to start running or pass out again. Sometimes he wanted to when he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror. She didn't even have anything to say about it. Not even a cry of disgust! Or a dramatic 'What are you?'

He shook the thoughts out of his head. It didn't matter how she felt about his face anyhow. She was the first person to see him in a long time and that threw him off a bit. That was all.

He didn't anticipate this would impact the process of letting her go. He could see the police sketch artist scratching his head as the girl described a monster. It would be labeled as some form of trauma and dismissed.

What was really holding him back from releasing her was having no place to go. This was his home and she would soon know its location. She could see the mailbox from the window if she looked. He would have to relocate and as of then, he had no idea where he would go. Until he figured it out, she would have to stay with him.

His alarm clock read 3:33 am.

An hour had passed since her crying had stopped.

There wasn't anything in the guest bedroom she could use to hurt herself, was there?

The last thing he wanted was a dead girl hanging from his ceiling when she truly wasn't at any risk of harm.

He quietly crept down the stairs and pressed his ear to the door of the guest bedroom. He could hear her even, slow breaths against the door.

Letting out his own breath, he trudged back up the steps and fell into a deep sleep.

~The Hunter~

Grayson was sitting at the Chief of police's desk when the radio brought back the news.

"We've lost him."

That didn't stop the adrenaline from coursing through his veins. The officers chasing the Beast had lost eyes on him multiple times throughout the car chase but managed to find him again. Grayson wasn't ready to give up yet. However, after a few minutes passed by and nothing changed, his shoulders began to droop.

Beth's mother finally joined him around the radio when it was all over. Her frail fingers were locked around a cup of coffee, arms locked around her chest. "Any news?"

He glared at her. "They lost them."

She pressed her lips together, eyes watering. "Oh."

Grayson almost dared her to start crying. Everything in him wanted to punch a wall or knock something over, anything to get the rage bubbling up inside him out. It was festering in his stomach and gnawing at his insides, threatening to tear him up inside out. He was primarily angry at the Beast, he could acknowledge that. He was the one who had stolen Beth away. And for what? Beth was no criminal. Beth wasn't deserving of any of this.

Then he was angry at himself. He should have stopped her from going out by herself. If only he had stayed with her when she got the unknown call. If only he had caught up to her before she closed the door in his face. He had worked to protect her for the better part of his life and this time - when it mattered the most - he failed.

And finally, right there in front of him, he was angry at Mrs.Rodriguez. The woman who couldn't step up to the plate and be a mom. The woman who couldn't do the bare minimum of not putting her own daughter at risk by being so reckless! The woman who left her own flesh and blood with a serial killer because he said he would let her go!

"This is your fault," he mumbled. He couldn't bite his tongue.

She gasped and then batted her eyes, taking a long moment before responding. "I haven't always been the best mother, Grayson. I know that. You may find it hard to believe but I love her just as much as you do."

He flinched because her attempt at an honest and fair answer was wrong. She shouldn't love Beth as much as he did. She should love her more. Her mother had gotten the whole thing backwards.

Grayson could see his own parents entering the station, worried eyes scanning the busy area for him.

"Well, you always did have a funny way of showing it."

He went over to his parents, letting them engulf him in a tight hug and kiss his sun bleached hair, grateful that they loved him more than anyone else ever could.