Page 166 of Beau and the Beast

He took a long draw from his beer, continuing to weigh things out.

“The only way we’re going to find out if he’s there or not is if one of us goes in,” Noah said. “And I’m in no shape to make it through the rooms of a penthouse quickly.”

“I’ll do it,” Lincoln said without hesitation. “If you can get me in there, I want to go.”

“And what if something happens to you?”

“You’ll know exactly where I am. If they do anything to me, you can send the cops straight to the penthouse. They know that, too—whoever the fuck they are—which makes me think that if I can just get through the door, I’ll be able to find Beau or verify that he’s really not there. They won’t hurt me if they know the cops are going to come sniffing for me.”

“What if you find him and he’s not in danger?”

Lincoln shrugged. “Then we both look like paranoid assholes. If I lay eyes on him, I swear I’ll leave. I’ll come straight back to the NWPD and bail you out.”

“I hate this plan,” Noah admitted after a long pause.

“It’s a pretty shitty plan,” Lincoln agreed, “but at least we’ll bedoingsomething instead of standing around with our dicks in our hands, hoping that everything’s gonna have a happy ending.”

Noah nodded. “If the only things that keep me from rescuing my brother are that I didn’t want to go to jail and I couldn’t come up with a better plan than this, I don’t think I could live with myself.”

Lincoln got the bartender’s attention and ordered two shots of straight tequila. He slid one over to Noah and pressed a lime wedge into his hand. Noah rolled his eyes but followed Lincoln’s lead, pounding the shot and then sucking the lime to cut the taste. He came up sputtering and laughing for the first time all day.

“So when am I going on this kamikaze mission from hell?” Lincoln asked.

“Two days. I just need two days to get everything ready. And I’m tired of waiting.”

“Hell yeah.”

* * *

The daysafter Beau finished his manuscript were spent in a bittersweet limbo.

Violet and Wolfram both insisted that he could go home—that he could take his cash and see his brother. They had the manuscript in hand and there was nothing he could do or possibly accidentally let slip that would jeopardize publishing the book now.

Beau packed a change of clothes that Violet had bought for him during his stay into a small bag that Wolfram lent him, as if he wanted to make a promise to himself that hedidintend to leave.

It was absurd, he realized, because he had all of his old clothes at home. Something had shifted for him, and now the clothes Violet bought him werehis real clothesin his mind. Everything had changed to be centered around the penthouse in his mind—and now he had to leave it.

At the same time, though, something held him back.

If the curse wasn’t actually broken by the book—wasn’tgoingto be broken by it—that meant Wolfram’s days were most definitely numbered. His goddamnedhourswere numbered. And if that was the case, how could Beau possibly live with himself if he missed any time that he could possibly spend with the other man?

When they woke together, two mornings after Beau had finished his manuscript, he found himself abruptly crying. By the time Wolfram woke, he was almost sobbing, fighting the absurd pull to let his body spasm into wails. Wolfram pulled Beau to his chest so tightly that it was almost hard to breathe and waited until Beau had calmed a little before speaking.

“What’s the matter, Beau?”

“Why do you have to die?” he demanded.

“Oh, Beau,” Wolfram said, his voice sad and low. “I’m so sorry. I’ve had much more time to come to terms with it than you have. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“It’s not fair,” Beau said.

And suddenly he was back in his bed two decades ago, between his brother and his father, crying about the minotaur.

The minotaur in the story never asked to be born. He didn’t mean to be a monster. Why did he have to die?

All of the bizarre injustices of the fairy tale world had manifested in his own life and Beau hated it with every cell in his body. Nothing was fair. The world was a rotten place, even if magicdidexist. Why couldn’t anyone play by the rules? Why would a witch punish a man who had grown to become good and kind?

Wolfram held him and let him cry, didn’t tell him to calm down, didn’t try to talk him out of his feelings or reassure him that they were still going to break the curse. Beau let the sadness and anger pour out of himself in the dim room.

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