protested.
“You twisted him! You made him do this to Belle! It wasn’t anything I did!”
Meanwhile, the little man had been looking into the mirror with wonder. “If he is doing this to harmless little Belle, and Maurice,” the short man said slowly, “what’s he been doing to everyone else up in there? Like…my great-aunt Foufou? She was just a little crazy….”
“D’Arque took my cousin,” someone said grimly. “Said he was a danger to us.”
People began to growl and mutter, and conversations about what was happening and what was to be done began.
“But what about him?” Gaston demanded, jerking his chin at the Prince. “He’s a…he’s really a beast! We should kill him now, and then figure out everything else later! Come on!”
“He’s demonic! Get him!”
“Wait—why did he come to ask for help, then?”
“Put him in chains, at the very least!”
Everyone began shouting an idea or opinion. Guns were waved around as well as knives and fists.
The Beast thought desperately. What could he do? What could a beastly prince do, who couldn’t order or insist these men, or charm them with wit the way Belle might have?
Suddenly, he knew.
Beg.
Yet another thing he had never done before.
He knelt down on the floor. He looked up at the crowd beseechingly. At Gaston in particular, whose eye color, he realized, was actually not that far off from his own.
“Do whatever you like to me after we rescue Belle. I swear on my honor I will let you. Lock me up, kill me, what have you. I will turn myself in. Please, just help me get her free first.”
Everyone quieted. Gaston was working his jaw, trying to decide what to do.
“Don’t do it,” someone said. “He’s a demon bewitching you with false visions. He’s a liar.”
But the man didn’t sound enthusiastic; he said it tiredly, like someone had to say it.
Everyone else began to murmur assents.
“Gaston,” the short man said, poking at his thigh. “My aunt.”
The hunter looked ready to kill his friend—ready to kill anyone, just to channel the conflicting emotions and hatred that couldn’t find an outlet anywhere else. The Prince almost sympathized for a moment. Not all beasts look like beasts. He wondered what Gaston’s own enchanted portrait would look like.
“We’ll deal with you later,” Gaston finally said, grabbing his gunpowder belt and munitions bag. “But right now, we need to save Belle!”
Belle had never felt so terrible—and alone—in her life.
It wasn’t just the pain.
It was that each of the little pains she felt now, each unusual purple bruise, each scabbing pinprick, each ache from where she had unconsciously strained against the table and the straps, was inflicted on her with purpose. With intent. A man had chosen to cause these myriad pains to her. A man had made her stomach swim and head pound and now the light from the lanterns blazed and flickered such that it sent agony through her eyes and down her spine.
And she had no idea when her tormentor would be back.
What did I, the bookworm and crazy inventor’s daughter, do to deserve any of this? she couldn’t help asking the world.
She had led her quiet life reading—and then tried to rescue her father, and then tried to help the Beast after she messed up everything. She had never done anything purposefully bad to anyone beyond the mild nastinesses of childhood.
And Frédéric D’Arque had been one of her father’s friends! Poor Papa couldn’t even remember that….
The mad “doctor” was also her mother’s kidnapper and betrayer. He was responsible for stealing away one of the most important people in Belle’s life.
“Maman,” she wept quietly, wanting her more than ever before.
Suddenly the air felt loose around her.
Confused, she sat up.
Her restraints had fallen away.
She blinked exactly once. The old Belle would have sat and tried to figure out what had happened—she was certain that when she came to, the straps had been tight around her legs and chest and even across the top of her head.
The new Belle didn’t bother, taking the opportunity to run. Who knew why D’Arque had left her—and how soon he would be back.
There was no one in the prep room. Belle crept past the empty gurneys, trying not to breathe in the antiseptic stink.
The door out was locked, but from her side; why anyone would want to try to break into it was beyond her. Perhaps D’Arque was afraid of someone interrupting his experiments.
She carefully slid the giant bolt and let the door open toward her a crack. Two corridors fed into an open