Beast Part 3: An Erotic Fairy Tale (3 page)

“
Oh.” It’s hard to get the word out, because my throat feels thick. I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe I’m leaving, with no idea what’s going on. I start down the stairs, then turn to her and struggle to think of what to say. “Thanks for talking to me.”

She blows more smoke out. “No problem,
hunny.”

I
step down the first stair. Then I turn back toward her. “I’ve got a question.” She arches a brow, and I let my breath out slowly as I try to wrangle up the nerve to ask it. The nerve to hear her answer to it. “Could you do me a favor?”

“What now?” She looks both annoyed and slightly amused.

“Can you let me know if you hear anything? About him—Beast?”

She throws her head back and laughs. “Honey, you’re dreaming. He’s never
gonna keep in touch with you. You’re just a lay. Even in the pit, he’ll find some pussy. That’s the way things are for a rich movie star like him. You won’t ever hear from him again.”

I nod slowly,
discarding what she’s saying and trying to think of how to endear her to me so she’ll give me an update even if she thinks that I don’t need one. “I know I probably won’t hear from him or anything, but I want to know when he gets out of solitary. And how he’s doing and stuff. Maybe it’s dumb, but I don’t care. If I give you my number, could you call? I could pay you or something…”

She
presses her lips together, like she’s considering the idea. “You got plastic?”

I nod.

She snickers a little, and pulls a phone out of her pocket. “You got it bad, girl. Got it bad for Beast.” She slides her fingertip over the screen and flicks her gaze up to mine. “I make bows.” She rubs her hair. “You know, for little girls? Got a shop on Etsy. Give me your number. Two hundred bucks will help me buy more ribbon. I’ll give you a buzz tomorrow.”

I can feel my shoulders loosen as a little of th
e tension leaves my body. “Tomorrow. Okay, that’s perfect.” I hold up my finger to tell the cabbie to hold on a minute and pull my card out of my pocket.

“Ready?” I look up at her.

She nods, and I rattle off my card number. My head throbs as she punches it in.

She turns the phone around to face me, revealing a nifty little screen with a line for my signature. “Use your finger,” she says.

I rub the tip of my pointer finger over her screen, and am relieved when she shows it to me again.

PAYMENT ACCEPTED.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I really mean it.”

She chuckles
. “Welcome, hun. Now get going.”

I get into the van, clutching my phone like it’s a bar of gold
.

CHAPTER 3

Beast

Nightmares are nothing new for me, but this one is fucked up.

I
’m stuck in dreamland, and I keep blinking, because I’m looking at Guy in a body bag and I’d give anything to have my gaze somewhere else. The sides of the rubbery, black bag are zipped around all of him but his face.

And his face…

Unlike other nightmares, blinking doesn’t send me to a different room in the house of horrors. I remain right here in this miserable dimension, where I can’t look away from all the blood caked on him. It’s black, crusted and dried onto his blow-white skin. Except his skin’s not really white; it’s slightly blue. And his lips are black; black like a bruise. His handsome face is sunken in some places and bloated in others, and I’m starting to feel sick as shit.

I don’t want to see this.

I finally get my head to move so I can look the other way, but then there’s Uma. And yeah, I’m in a different place now for fucking sure, because unlike very dead Guy, dead Uma’s only a little dead. She’s still in the road. She’s sprawled out on her side, and her body is… Jesus. It’s fucking twisted—like a pretzel.

I try to look away, but a sick sort of curiosity compels me. It’
s been a while since I had a dream this vivid. Years since I was confronted in the courtroom with the damage I did that night. So I blink and look at Uma’s broken body. At her pretty face, which I can’t see. Her head is blood. Nothing but fucking blood and gore.

I look the other way, and
I wish I could get up and run from this nightmare I’m having, because I’ve got a decent guess what’s next.

“Oh God…”

Royce. I try to open my eyes but it doesn’t go away. I see Royce a hundred times. Like somebody took a bunch of Polaroids of his dead ass and taped them on a big, white wall.

It’s a…fucking…I don’t know. A fucking progression
of death.

Royce is on the road and his skull is cracked open like a…

“Fuck.”

I try to cover my mouth but my ha
nds won’t move. I can feel the vomit moving up my throat. Then I’m turning my head and it’s going everywhere, and someone is laughing.

I should try to see who it is. I should try to
get up. But I’m too fucking tired. I lie there panting, looking out or up or somewhere at Brody. Brody Royce. The inside of his bleeding head is white like bone or brains or both.

I clamp my jaw down, hissing breaths out of my nose, and I remember Brody’s blunt
that night. He wanted to smoke a blunt and I did this to him.

“Jesus,” I gasp.

I don’t want to see this!

I scrub my hands over my face, and I
can feel the wetness on the heels of my palms. And I can feel the sticky cool blood on my face.

I’m dreaming I’m dead, too. That one’s normal enough. Except in this dream, it hurts. My right cheek hurts like a fucking bitch, and
that’s how I realize: I’m awake.

*

Annabelle

In the middle of my sophomore year of college, I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer.
Mis
diagnosed.

Of course, I didn’t know at first.

When the doctor at our campus clinic told me what she thought, I felt like I’d been punched in the face. The few days after that, I held onto my awful secret with both hands and learned what it was like to live in a state of perpetual terror. Inescapable dread.

Wanting to do something. Unable to do anything, because my campus doctor was contacting a specialist in Atlanta—but until that
happened, I was just in limbo.

The few da
ys after I leave La Rosa are just like that.

I want to know what’s
going on with Beast, but there’s no one I can ask. Holt is still away. I’ve called his house and talked to his new wife, Bea, who tells me he is, indeed, in Honduras on a “business” trip.

“He’s visiting a prison there,” she says, almost defensively.

“When will he be back?”

“I’m not for sure. At least another week
.”

“Can you have him call me?”

“I can ask.”

But she doesn’t, or if
she does, he decides he doesn’t want to. Maybe he knows I’m wanting information about Beast. Maybe he knows nothing. That would make sense, if they’re replacing him as warden.

Days roll
by. Stifling days where I fake my smiles for Ad and sit in the bathtub every night until the water turns cold.

Days—and my friend
Maura, the junior guard who stole my money, never calls.

The news
networks report the same story over and over: Cal Hammond killed an Aryan gang leader. It’s the first time he’s been in the news in years, it seems, and “average Americans” are shocked at his violent deed.

“I think he’s just playing a role,” says a w
oman interviewed in New York City on a late night show.

I hear
a National Public Radio analysis of “Cal” and his career as I drive Ad and I home from Wal-Mart the next afternoon. Some stupid expert says the same thing. Just a role.
Right
. Because eight years in prison is nothing but a feigned tough guy mentality. Because he goes home every night to his Hollywood castle and only wears a jumpsuit in the day. Because murdering someone is just part of his effing role.

Why is it so h
ard to accept that sometimes people change? Not for the better. For the worse. That night, my Mom slips into a coma, and I cry into my pillow—because sometimes people change.
Always
, people change. And so much of the time, it’s for the worse.

When I fall into my tear-soaked dreams, I feel
his mouth. His hands. His blood.

Exactly a week after the last time I visited the priso
n, they send a new hospice nurse to the apartment. She tells me, “We don’t think your mother will wake up again.”

I
cry into my hands while Adrian eats a bowl of cereal behind me, peacefully oblivious, at least for now, and after that, we go for long rides in the “country.” There, I roll the passenger’s window down and let her lean out just a little. As her hair flaps around her rosy cheeks, we pass the spot where the wreck happened.

When we get home,
Ad and I draw on the sidewalk outside our apartment door with colored chalk. The next day, when Mom’s blood pressure goes lower than it’s ever gone before, I teach Ad to ride the “Tangled” bike I bought her with Beast’s money.

The
day after that, I break down and call the prison, pretending to be a relative of Clinton’s. I ask the operator for his phone number. The man on the other end of the line tells me he’s gone.

“Gone?”
I say.

“He doesn’t work here
anymore.”

I call
two days later, at a different time of day, hoping for a different staffer on a different shift. I get a female this time, and ask if women can sign a waiting list for conjugal visits with Cal Hammond. She laughs. “Don’t you watch the news, honey? He’s not taking any visitors.”

Ten days drag by
, and still no return call from Holt. Still no update from the guard I paid.

On the
twelfth day, after hours hanging around Mom’s bedside, waiting for it to be time to get Ad and Holly so we can say goodbye, something shifts inside me, and I just can’t do it anymore. We haven’t left the house in days, but I don’t give a shit. I’m not standing here any longer, waiting for my mom to die.

I
load Ad into the car and drive to Dad’s house.

I
’m surprised when, on the third ring of the doorbell, Holt appears, wearing jeans and a “Mrs. Doubtfire” apron and holding tongs.

“Honey,” he says.

“Dad.” I tighten my grip on Adrian’s hand. “Why the heck haven’t you returned my calls?”

“I jus
t got home last night,” he says, wide-eyed and innocent.

He smiles down at Ad.

My heart beats too fast. “Why did you never call me back?” I say. “I want to know what’s going on with Beast.”

“Who’s Beast?” Ad looks up at me.

“I don’t know,” Dad says over her head. “I’m only in charge of managerial oversight now. Prisoner relations is being done by someone put in place by the DA.”

“
Is that even legal, that he can just come in and clean house this way? Is it the grudge he has over his granddaughter? Is that why he went after you and Beast?”

Dad wav
es us inside without looking me in the eye, then drops down and takes Ad’s chin in his fingers. “How are you, sweetie? You look pretty in your pink shirt.”

“Thank you, Holt.” She beams, and I simmer as we follow Dad
down the hardwood hall, into his large kitchen.

Bea, Holt’s new wife, is t
here—of course. She’s sitting on a bar stool, playing on her iPad. When she sees Adrian and me, her eyes go slightly wide, and her thin lips make a little ‘o’.

I ignore her as I lift Ad up onto another of the stools, and Dad slides an oyster-shell-shaped plate of chips and dip across the granite counter to her.

“Have some, guys.” He looks at Bea. “Bea, why don’t you get Luke downstairs?”

I shake my head. “We won’t be here for long. I just came here to ask about Beast.” I huff and decide, why be fake about it? “I’ve tried to reach you for weeks now, Holt. You never even bothered t
o call me back.” I glare at Bea. “Did she get calls from Honduras? I bet she did.” I glance at Ad and swallow the rest of my anger. “I only want to know what’s going on with Beast, and then I’ll leave you to your life.”

Now it’s Holt’s turn to go all wide-eyed.

“What? It’s not like it’s not true,” I snap. “I’m not a priority for you. Financially, maybe, but that’s all. I’m an obligation.”

Holt
glances at Adrian, as if to be sure my outburst of truth hasn’t harmed her in some way.

“How is your mother?” he asks slowly
. His gaze shifts from Adrian to me.

“That’s not what this is about,” I
say. At the exact same time, Ad wails, “She’s going to be dead
tomorrow
!”

“What?” I whirl around to her.

“Lucy said so. On the phone,” Ad says in a tiny voice. Her eyes fill up with tears, and she bites down on her lip to keep them from falling.

“Oh baby.” I scoop her off the stool and walk into Holt’s den
. I sit her down on his big, suede couch and put my arms around her. A few seconds later, I hear his footsteps and feel him kneel beside me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he
murmurs.

“I tried,” I say
out of the side of my mouth. Holt needs to leave me alone right now. Give me some space to straighten this out with Adrian. I ignore him and rub Ad’s hair back from her forehead.

“Baby, that’s not true. Lucy was just talking. The truth is, nobody knows when Mama might go to heaven. And if somebody did know,
it would be me and you, not a nurse. Lucy shouldn’t have said that. Even though she is a nurse who takes good care of Mama, I don’t think she’s very smart.”

Adrian clamps her teeth down on her lower lip and nods, then slides her eyes to Holt, who’s
still crouched down in front of the couch beside me.

“Hey, Holt.” She smiles
a little. “Did you know I can spell triskaidekaphobia?”

He
grins back at her. “No way. I’d like to hear that.”

Holt and I spend the next half hour lavishing Adrian with attention. Then we return to the kitchen,
where Bea’s son, Luke, is asking if he can use “the Benz” to take his girlfriend out to get a milkshake.

The Benz.

Dear God.

I make a show of looking at my phone. “We should be going. Things to do at home,” I tell Holt with my eyebr
ows raised. “Can you walk us to the car?”

He nods.

I buckle Ad into her booster seat, shut her door, and stand outside the driver’s side with my hands on my hips.

“I know you’ve been avoiding me
, Holt. So let me tell you this. It’s true what Beast—Ricardo—told you. We did meet one time way back, and while you were gone and I was starting to help with the library? We got to be friends again. I like him, Dad. I want to know what’s going on with him. Did he kill that guy like everyone says he did? Is he still in solitary? Because I was actually there when all this craziness went down, and the DA acted like he really had it in for Beast.”

Holt looks into my eyes and nods. My stomach lurches.

“So he’s still in solitary?”

Holt
shakes his head and looks down at his feet. He shifts his weight a little while I hold my breath. Finally, he looks back up at me. “Honey, I’m sorry but…I lied to you. I wasn’t demoted. I was fired. I don’t know what’s going on at La Rosa. I miss it like hell and it’s killing me to be away. I made that place what it is.”