Page 99 of Beast: Part Two

Leaning back on my hands, my feet dangle over the edge of the playground equipment. We’re sitting on the very top of the play set.

It took us over a week to set this night up. We needed to make sure Zeke came to this particular park. So, we started subliminal advertising. We paid for billboards and signs to go up all around his home advertising the running trails at this park. Not only did we put up signs, but Lucien was even able to tap into his home camera system. For the last two days, we’ve been playing a repeat of the park’s name through a loop on his speaker system while he slept.

It took a lot to get us here, but we all believed tonight our efforts would finally pay off.

“You’re so cute when you’re focused.”

We look down into the face of Ari. She’s standing on the platform underneath where we’re seated. We get that fluttery feeling in our stomach like we always do. It takes our breath away every time our eyes land on her.

“She shouldn’t be here. It isn’t safe.”We think in my social worker’s British accent.

“Women are at a higher risk for miscarriages in the first trimester,” Our Phyllis voice says.

“She’s smart and well prepared. She will be fine,” Priest says in my head.

“You will stay here and out of sight,” we warn her in our Priest voice.

Climbing down from the roof of the playground, we plant our feet back on the monkey bars. We then swing our body onto the platform she’s standing on. Lying at her feet are Kraken and Hydra. We left Cerberus and Echidna home.

Ari grins. “Don’t worry, Milo. I won’t do anything to endanger the baby. That’s what these two are for.” She points to the dogs before taking a seat in front of the slide as if she’s about to slide down.

We occupy the spot right beside her.

“We know, but we still want you to take it easy.”

“You do know I am not the first agent of D.O.E to take a mission while with child?”

She reminds us of this constantly, but it does nothing to ease our concern. We know what Ari is capable of, we just don’t like the idea of her risking herself. However, it wouldn’t be right to ask her to step down when we are not willing to stop either.

We know Lucien and Hawk are hoping that after we clear our names that we will be able to walk away from the Church. We feel at odds with them on that. We don’t want to stop. Although we don’t have a driving force to kill like our brother Beast, we do enjoy what we do. It is part of who we are.

It gives us a purpose and makes us feel as if we’re protecting those in need. Unlike what we did as kids.

The memory of our mother and sisters pop up in our head. We shut our eyes to fight against the vision. We failed them.

You will fail Ari and this baby too.Our thoughts are loud and hard to ignore. They have been harder to fight since Priest was taken away from us.

“Stop it,” her soft voice pulls us out of our head. We look over at her, her fuchsia tipped hair hangs past her shoulders now. “You’re thinking about failing me again, aren’t you?”

We didn’t answer her. Instead, we push her hair behind her ear to get a better view of her face. People think Ari and I don’t have deep conversations. They think we only talk about movies, anime, and books. But she is our other half. She knows our deepest fears and the thoughts that haunt us.

“You are my world, Ariane.”

“And you are mine, Milo. But don’t change the subject.”

A smile lifts our lips. She never lets things go. “We failed them. My sisters, my mother, Priest. We failed them all.”

She places my face between her hands. Her brown eyes staring into mine. “You were a child when your family was killed. You did what any sensible child would have done.”

We pull our face from between her hands. We have to look away from her.

“She is right. We were too young to fight Papa,”our social worker voice says.

“He outweighed us by nearly a hundred pounds. We would have been defenseless against him,”our Phyllis voice responds.

“We could have outsmarted him. I could have saved Natalia. She was the youngest and easy to carry. We could have gotten her to safety,”Our Priest voice argues.

“We could have saved one of them,” I say in my Priest voice.

---