Beast

Hospital

Chapter Eleven: Hospital

As Belle was hooked up to machine after machine and her heart was beating because of a box lying next to her, Callahan was busy making sure he didn't miss any conference calls with the other leaders. He was in a corner of her hospital room, talking to a man from Asia about a trade deal. Every now and then he would find himself staring at the girl in the large hospital bed, wondering why he had taken her in the first place. But then he remembered who he was. He couldn't have regrets. Especially now when she will be twice as stubborn when she wakes up.

She had been dead for three and a half hours when Callahan got her to the hospital wing. But once she was on a table, the nine doctors Callahan had on staff managed to replace her heart with one better, stronger, and completely perfect in every way. She wouldn't have a problem with it ever again. Her nutritional health worried the doctors though. The malnutrition of her body may cause it to reject the new heart, making her diet their main concern after her surgery. She had tubes feeding her every layer of the food pyramid and another just to get her hydrated again. She was weak, but she was stable for a while.

As she lay silently unconscious in the hospital bed, Callahan sat in the chair beside her. He had issued the doctors out while she was stable. He needed to have some peace and quiet now that she didn't need constant care from a physician; they were too loud for him to be able to translate the Asian's conservation word for word without making mistakes. During a pause in the call, he watched her tight skin reflect the florescent lighting of the hospital room. Her thick hair had lost its red color to it, now it was a dull brown. And her eyes had purple and gray bags under them halfway down her cheeks. She was not the beautiful, vivacious, young girl he found in a secluded city anymore. She was just another girl who laid in a hospital bed now. That's what this mansion did. It broke people down.

Belle stirred beside Callahan, confusion written all over her famished face. Quickly, Callahan rushed an excuse in broken Mandarin and hung up the phone.

"Gaston?" Belle called quietly. She opened her eyes, squinting in the light. "Papa?"

Callahan's eyebrows rose. Who is Gaston? That's not a man, it can't be. It had to be her brother. Why else would she call out for him before her father?

When Belle's eyes landed on Callahan, they grew large and then shrunk into lifelessness. "Oh," she said, "it's you." She turned away from him and stared at the window to her right. He glared at the bratty girl, wondering if she would ever act like the prisoner she was. She had no right to treat him that way.

"Belle," Callahan growled from the chair in the corner. Her eyes shot his ways, full of disgust. "I...I..." His stuttering caused Belle to glare. He couldn't even apologize for what he did? After the month of torture she went through he couldn't say a measly 'sorry'?

Angrily, Belle groaned and turned her head away from him again. She shut her eyes for a moment, waiting for her breathing to become right again. Her chest hurt a lot and she didn't have much energy. Opening her eyes, she reached over and hit the nurse button on the side of her bed. Callahan, ready for an audience of his servants, leaned back nonchalantly in his chair, plastering a grimace on his face. A man with a head full of wild orange curls walked in. He smiled lightly at his only patient and greeted his master, "Good afternoon, Sir. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, she's up. Do what you've got to do and then return her to her room." Callahan stood and left the hospital room, papers and phone in hand. Belle stared after him, angry beyond belief.