Page 136 of Beast

The shattering windscreen. The feeling of falling. The rush of the ocean toward me.

A cold lump forms in my throat. Beast’s father murdered my parents and tried to murder me as well.

It’s a lot to try and make sense of.

Beast points to one of the many newspaper articles pinned to the wall next to the photographs. It’s a news headline, and I lean in to read it.

Family Killed in Tragic Car Accident. Search continues for missing five-year-old daughter whose body the police believe was swept out to sea.

That’s me. I’m the five-year-old daughter who they thought was lost at sea.

How is this even possible?

My stomach churns, and my hands begin to shake.

“How am I still alive?” I don’t understand.

Beast points to another smaller article.Missing child found two days after fatal road wreck.

The cynic in me acknowledges the size of the tragic headline when mentioning the accident and missing child. It was front page news. But the article about finding me was much smaller and squished into the corner of page six.

That’s when I notice the dates. The accident happened on May seventeenth. The article announcing my survival appeared in the paper on May nineteen.

The day in between was May eighteen—the day of the fire that almost burned St. Boniface to the ground.

With all the local devastation to report on, news of finding me clinging to life on the cliff face was relegated deeper into the newspaper.

It’s probably the only thing that saved my life.

Now I’ve gone very still. I’m afraid to move. Frozen to the spot. Because if what Beast says is true, then my nightmare was never a nightmare, it was a memory of my parent’s death.

“This can’t be real,” I whisper.

“It’s the truth, Belle.”

I turn away from him. It’s a lot to take in.

Then it clicks. If what he is saying is true, then none of this was happenstance. This was all orchestrated. The meeting in the street. The size of my uncle’s debt.Oh God, did Beast send Gaston after me so he could play the hero and save me?

I can barely talk around the cold lump in my throat. “This is why you insisted on marrying me. It wasn’t about the money my uncle owed. It was about saving the clubhouse. I’m the rightful heir and you knew it.”

More and more pieces tumble into place.

Oh my God, I feel used.

No, I feel…stupid.

“Belle—”

I cut him off. “Did he find out? Did Dodger ever find out I survived?”

I notice the slight change in Beast’s demeanor.

“Yes.”

A chill runs through me. “What did he do?”

“He instructed me to murder you.”

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