Free Pentimento: a dystopian Beauty and the Beast by Cameron Jace

for whoever sent this beautiful rose for the Wilsons, but couldn't see them.
    "Look down at the snow," Iris whispered. "Please."
    The woman finally caught the words engraved in the snow. Her hands shivered reading the words, the rose sliding through her hands, its petals scattering on the snow. The woman fell on her knees and started crying to the words Iris carved in the snow:
    Elia Robert Wilson. You will always be remembered .

13
    It wasn't easy for Colton to ask Eva's parents’ permission to enter her room. They had only been together three months, and it wasn't like Eva had been his soul mate or anything. Both of them were lost souls in a high school that secretly demanded you acted like society expected you to. As son and daughter of elders who were part of the elite Council, Eva and Colton played their parts right, wishing it was only until they went to college. Then they'd get to be whoever they wanted to be, without all that pressure--at least Colton thought so. He wasn't sure about Eva, and it was one of the things that always threatened their relationship.
    Eva's father permitted Colton the entry, although he demanded it to be quick. Colton said he only wanted to gather a present he had given her, so he could honor her memory. Remembering a Bride, although against the Law of the Beast, was a very intimate and special matter, practiced secretly among some citizens. It wasn't like the Beasts didn't know about it. They probably did. But the Beasts never showed their true evil nature, Colton was beginning to think. They were hiding somewhere up there in the sky, guarded by the lighting of their protective ships, playing The Second like marionettes. All under the name of democracy and the Law of the Beast. A few families secretly remembering the lost ones wasn't a big deal.
    Colton entered Eva's room and locked the door behind him, leaving her mother crying somewhere in the kitchen. She didn't look like she could pretend her daughter didn't exist yet. After all, it had been more than a week and no one had emptied the room.
    Eva's room was classy. Everything in it was too expensive and glaringly girly. Colton didn't know what to look for. After he had parted with Iris, he'd been wandering the streets like a lost beggar trying to find a place he could call home. Everything around him felt so fake after he'd been exposed to the Ruins and the idea of Pentimento. He'd started to question everything around him. And all of this was because of this unusual girl named Iris. Her name brought a smile to his face. He wasn't supposed to feel this way about anyone but Eva at the time. But he couldn't help it. He'd never missed a girl so fast. Hell, he'd only gotten to know her a little bit today, and they weren't even friends.
    But Iris was irresistible. And the best part was she didn't know it. Colton thought he'd never really met a girl like her before. He thought Iris was average in the looks department. A face like so many other girls. A body that was okay. Nothing special about her in the shallow way men were expected to seek in girls in The Second. But her spirit was so sexy in the most unexplainable way.
    Colton shook his head and sat on Eva's bed. This wasn't right. He'd never been interested in Eva the way he was in Iris, but Eva was still his ex, and no new girl was going to take her place unless he felt he did all he could to honor her somehow. Only, he didn't know how.
    Why was he really in this room? Was he expecting to discover something? Eva was an open book. She wasn't interested in the unknown. She'd even said she approved of the Beasts' laws. Somehow, she was confident she'd never be chosen as a Bride because she was a Council member’s daughter.
    "You were so wrong, Eva," Colton buried his head in his hands. "If even the Council's daughters aren't immune, then who is? Do the Beasts have some criteria in choosing the girls? If so, why did they choose you, Eva?"
    Colton inhaled all the air he could before his