Free The Beast by Shantea Gauthier Page B

was always green and sometimes you could find a low hanging orange from one of the tall trees.
    We didn’t get out of the car.
    “I keep seeing these impossible things,” I said, looking straight ahead. I couldn’t bear to look into his eyes while I said it. I could hardly bear to say it.
    “Let’s not do this again,” he said softly.
    For a heartbeat, I thought that I might actually be crazy, that none of it was real. Then, without really thinking about it, I pulled the little vial out of my pocket and opened it. I put my finger over the hole, inverted it, righted it again. I saw his nostrils flare. He shrank back and I knew I had him.
    “You know,” I said quietly. “You know everything.”
    From the corner of my eye, I noticed his hand creeping for the handle. In a move that was part slap, part grab, I hit him in the face with the droplet.
    He screamed as smoke rose and a little line of his skin melted away like I had just hit him with acid.
    I wished I could take it back.
    He turned and let out an inhuman snarl that made me back into the car door. I was an idiot for trying that. I was worse than an idiot. I hurt him, and for what? So he would admit the things I already knew?
    “Fine,” he said, holding up his hands. “I’ll tell you everything, but not here.”
    “No,” I said coldly. All of my remorse for hurting him was gone with the memory of how I had acted out, embarrassing myself, thinking that I was completely insane because he let me think that. “Here. Now.”
    “Fine,” he said again, his gloved hand hovering near his newly burned face. “I’m-.”
    “Go on.” I spoke with a cold confidence, still holding the vial casually in one hand.
    “You’re really going to make me say it?” He looked at me from behind his hand. I looked away. It would only make me feel crazier if I was right about everything.
    “If it was that big a secret you shouldn’t have let me see it.”
    “I saved your life, and I ruined my hands doing it!”
    “So it was you,” I heard myself say wonderingly.
    “I had to,” he said. “A human in trouble, and so close; I had to.”
    "You could have let me die."
    "We can't- I can't do that. If a hu- if a person is going to die I have to do everything I can to protect them."
    "Why?"
    "It's in my blood."
    I looked down at the pale smear of blood on my fingertip and the fresh burn across his face. "The- the man said this was his blood."
    "What man?"
    Something stopped me from saying his name. "There was a man outside the window of my apartment the other night. He left me a present at work. He said that this was his blood. He said that it was magical. He said that if I drank it, it would do stuff."
    "Did you?" He asked, eyes wide with concern.
    "No. What would happen if I did?"
    "Well, you saw what happened to me."
    "That's not what happened to me, though." I lifted my shirt to show him the broken slashes.
    He winced when he saw them and looked mildly disgusted, like he might ask me to put it away.
    "It can heal you on the outside," he said. "But it changes you. It makes you theirs."
    "Whose?" I was dying for him to say it, to say something bluntly. One of us had to be the lunatic to say it out loud- I didn’t want it to be me.
    " Theirs . Can you put that away now?"
    He indicated the vial and I hurried to put the stopper back in and shoved my whole fist into my pocket. I hesitantly withdrew my hand, leaving the vial behind. "Sorry."
    Another long silence. Our relationship was full of silences.
    Our relationship?
    I looked through the window over the sparse trees and the big squat building and saw the moon. It was big and white, already visible in the sky before the sun set.
    "Full moon," I said. "Shouldn't you be baying at it or something?"
    He looked almost hurt until he noticed the smirk on my face. Then he smiled. "Not yet."
    "So what happens when the moon is full?" I reached for his hand, which he gave willingly, and with both of mine I started to pull the glove