Chapter 13: Shane
It was supposed to be hell, but purgatory was covered in ice and snow and instead of fire and brimstone. The three beasts we encountered in the castle resembled little more than savages. They used primitive weapons to hunt animals in the snow, always babbling about their rose. It was a while before we saw the conjoined rose that represented our life and felt the pain of trying to leave the castle. Only one of us could walk through the gate at once or the pain was excruciating. If one of us left, it wasn’t as bad as long as we returned quickly. We foraged for what we could, but neither of us could taken down an animal on our own. Especially a wolf—most of the time they traveled in packs. That led to us
eating berries and even tree bark when we were really hungry. We secluded ourselves in the west wing of the castle for a while, but that just led to us practically starving to death.
Eventually we were forced to join the savages and we became a part of their tribe. Five victims of a witch. We shared our stories, and we learned how to hunt. When Randall came, things changed. He was a skilled hunter, and he knew how to grow crops, even in the winter. My brother and I no longer wanted our humanity. We were addicted to the beasts we had become and so we secluded ourselves to the west wing, hunting and roasting our meat like we had done in the past. The one thing we didn’t have was a woman, but like the other things we desired—we planned to take what we wanted.
“Please don’t hurt me!” The young woman on the floor looked up at the two of us with fear in her eyes.
“We don’t have to hurt you.” I leaned down and traced the edge of her red dress. “As long as you do what we want.”
“The same thing you’ve been doing for all of the other cursed beasts in this castle.” Braden narrowed his eyes at her. “We’ve been alone for a very long time.”
“They didn’t force me to do it!” She struggled against the rope on her hands and feet.
“Why would you give yourself to wretched beasts?” Braden tilted his head with curiosity. “A woman as beautiful as you choosing that fate?”
“You must not have been watching very closely then.” She struggled against the ropes again. “I didn’t give myself to beasts, I helped them realize that they were still men.”
“Oh, I see. First they get someone to cook for them and then they think they’re men again. It doesn’t work that way. We are cursed to live as beasts.” I leaned closer to her.
“Is that why you chose to seclude yourself from the others?” She looked at Braden and then to me.
“No.” I shook my head back and forth. “There is a difference between why they are here and why we are here. They were victims of circumstance. We deserve our fate.”
“Why? What did you do that was so terrible?” She looked at me as if she was trying to read my emotions.
“Like I said.” I let out a sigh. “We take what we want, and it just so happened that what we wanted belonged to the witch.”
“You stole from her? That is worth all this?” Her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Not exactly.” Braden shook his head. “We killed the man she loved—but unlike Boone—we did it intentionally because he had something we wanted.”
“So, you probably deserved prison—not an eternity in torment.” She struggled against the ropes and looked into my eyes. “Let me go. You don’t have to be the beasts she cursed you to be.”
“What’s the difference?” I scoffed at her and shook my head. “The punishment is still the same.”
“Let me help you.” I looked to Braden and then to me again. “You were once so offended by the nature of the beasts that you secluded yourself from them. We should be working together. Alexander is dying...”
“He is?” Braden looked towards me. “He taught us how to survive...”
“That right there—that feeling—that’s your humanity. You can have it again, I promise.” She closed her eyes and dropped her head. “The choice is yours. If you just want to destroy me, then do it. If you want a chance at redemption, then you can join the rest of us and we will find a way to escape.”
“Escape? You think we can escape?” My heart thumped faster in my chest. “How?”
“I don’t know yet.” She let out a long sigh. “I was researching that in the library when you took me.”
Braden and I exchanged glances and for the first time in what felt like a million years, I saw my brother instead of the beast he had become. My stomach churned with bile and I couldn’t believe what we had done. We had become monsters—monsters that would take an innocent woman into our lair and think only of our carnal desires. I lifted her up and Braden started removing the rope.
I looked away the minute she was free and felt tears in my eyes. It was my fault that we were there. My brother had a bright future once, but I pulled him into my world. If it wasn’t for me he would have never started dealing drugs and he certainly wouldn’t have considered murdering a drug dealer for money. I wished I could erase the past, but that wasn’t possible. Our fate was sealed, but Anabelle offered a glimmer of hope I hadn’t felt since I first learned about the curse. The three of us left the room and walked back to the main part of the castle. As we approached, I saw Alexander and I instantly knew what she said was true. He was no longer a beast. She had cleaned away the horridness that he become.
“Anabelle!” He started walking towards her. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“No.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and he hugged her tight. “They were just confused, like you were when I first arrived. They’re okay now.”
“She said you’re dying.” Braden was first to speak. “What happened?”
“It’s my fault.” Anabelle turned back towards us, breaking her embrace with Alexander. “They opened the way for my father to come into the castle and he took Alexander’s rose. He didn’t know it would kill him.”