Bo and the Beast (Book #1) (Completed)

12. A Shrine To Beauty

            The door slid open and Bo was greeted by a fairly large dressing room, with gowns and fresh clothing hanging along the walls. Bo's mouth went dry at the sight of such luxury, but she quickly stepped inside when she felt the robots coming up behind her.

As she looked around, it became clear this had been some sort of dumping ground. There was no particular theme to the clothes, with both men and women's stuffed on hangers across the rods. Dress shoes and sneakers stuffed up the racks on the floor, and jewelry and ties tangled around hooks. She hadn't seen this many clothes in such good repair, and it felt a bit like stepping into a treasure trove. Back home, this would have been nearly as valuable as food or water. Though the dresses and suit jackets smelled heavily of chemicals to keep bugs away, and were of decades past, they were clean and sturdy. But they were also the Beast's, and Bo wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of wanting things he gave her.

Stripping her still-damp shirt, jacket, and pants off, Bo slid the gown over her hips and held it against her chest to struggle with the zipper on the side. When it finally closed, she released her hands and wondered how in creation the top staid in place without sliding down and revealing everything. She felt afraid to breathe.

A long mirror sat on the back of the door, and Bo scowled at her image. She'd do what she could to circle around the Beast's orders. He'd given her the dress, but he didn't say anything about what else she had to wear. She kept her heavy and scuffed boots on, and scraped her hair into a sloppy ponytail that she tied in place with a ratty length of string she fished from her jacket pocket. Looking satisfyingly rebellious, she pulled open the door and looked down her nose at the robots.

"Happy?"

"That is adequate," Madame replied, her light turning green as the problem resolved itself. "Let us go down to the Master."

Madame didn't seem to think it necessary to clamp Bo's wrists (no doubt because if she tried to run in such a volume of skirts, she'd end up with another busted knee), and only hovered by her side as she walked down the grand suitcase and into the entrance hall. When they reached the bottom, Bo turned to see that underneath the overhanging upstairs gallery was a hallway that led in two opposite directions to the rest of the house. To the right, she saw only a table with an empty jug in a room that looked vaguely kitchen-like, and to the left she saw a few more doors in a cul-de-sac.

As Bo took this in, Madame and Chan split off and floated down the right hallway, while Fil and Dent indicated Bo should follow them down the left. They walked into the cul-de-sac, to where two sliding doors ran nearly from floor to ceiling. They were open enough for Bo to slip through, the robots just ahead of her, and into a room darkened except for the flickering orange light from a fireplace.

Her eyes took a few moments to adjust, but by the time Bo was in the middle of the room, she had discovered it was filled with a massive amount of random stuff; marble statues stood amongst swells of paintings from the Old Days, ivory chess pieces sat with china tea cups, furniture upholstered in bright silks and embroidered with delicate flowers, and curving bodies of ancient radios sitting on tables with intricate legs. Her eyes flickered from thing to thing, and wherever she looked there were more items hidden in crooks and corners. She couldn't even pick out all the things that were piled in the room, each competing with its neighbors to be the one thing that could catch the attention from whoever walked into the room. Bo felt overwhelmed by the sheer mass of it, but, even though her steps grew hesitant, she forced herself to follow the robots to end of the room.

The fireplace washed her in orange light, sending a pang of homesickness through her stomach before something stirred on the long sofa to her right. Bo immediately dropped into her fighting stance, her knees bent, fists up, before she realized how ridiculous this looked in the yellow gown. Straightening up with a flushed face, she tossed her head and pretended that she hadn't just been startled by the Beast for what felt like the millionth time.

His skin clashed with the orange of the flames, coming off as sickly and pale. His brown eyes reflected the flames, sending a shiver down Bo's spine. He held a glass sculpture of an animal Bo didn't recognize. Most likely it was one of the many creatures that went extinct during the war. It looked like a horse, only its neck was insanely long. But Bo didn't let her eyes linger on it for too long. She was far too busy making sure that the Beast wasn't going to suddenly change the menu for the day to charbroiled girl with a side of yellow gown.

"Finally," the Beast said, placing the glass animal gently on one of the cushions and then pushing himself to his full height. "I thought you'd never come down."

Bo shrugged and crossed her arms over her daring neckline. She didn't like the idea that from his height he had a very different view of her dress than she did.

"I will let you have free time before the midday meal," he said. "But first, I want you to do something."

Bo bristled, her mind rushing to imagine everything a depraved alien might want.

"I don't want to do anything," she replied, tightening her arms around herself.

The Beast gave her a stern look. "Must I remind you that you serve me?"

Bo's lips flattened, but she didn't argue with him. He took her elbow, leading her to the other side of the fireplace where a strange, shrine-like area had been set up. It was the same sort of things that filled the rest of the room, only organized with a theme in mind. Dried roses, paintings of roses, and even a ghostly statue of a tragic women holding the flower in one drooping hand. Bo felt uneasy looking at the collection.

The Beast positioned her in the middle, where a semi-circle had been cleared for seemingly this purpose. Bo waited for his instructions, unable to think what he could possibly want her to do. Clean the stuff out? Swap the roses for some new theme? She stood uncertainly, her hands gradually falling to her sides as the Beast stepped back. He dug for something in his pocket, and came up with a piece of paper. He held it up, looking from it to Bo. After a moment, he came close and reached behind her head. She could feel the warmth of his arm as it came millimeters from her cheek. His fingers brushed through her hair, dislodging the ratty tie in her hair. Her hair fell, still half damp, on her shoulders, and the Beast arranged it in soft waves.

The smallest of smiles crept onto his features, and somehow this felt more terrifying to Bo than his typical scowl. He stared at her as if she were some breeze from the mountains or a deep blue lake in the dust fields. He drank her in.

Bo shivered, her arms coming back up to cover her chest. The Beast placed the piece of paper on the mantel to her right, just on the edge of the shrine. Bo glanced up at it, and with a shock saw her own face yet again. It was the picture he had been looking at in the prison, where she was wearing the blue dress. With a rush of cold that set the hairs on the back of her neck upright, she remembered her father's words from back in the cells. She hadn't understood him then, but now she thought she was beginning to.

Darling, Bo. You shouldn't have let him see your face.

"You're the one who activated my father's signal," she whispered, and it wasn't a question.

The Beast just stared at her, his brown eyes unmoving from hers. She swallowed, feeling the terror that many must have felt when facing him on the battlefield.

"You may do what you want until midday," he said, turning in an arc as he headed back for his couch. He sat, his eyes reflecting the fire. Bo breathed fast and shallow, glancing once again at her smiling face in the photo. He had known her. He had known she would come for her father if she knew where he was. This shrine had been prepared in advance.

Bo gathered her skirts in her hand and rushed toward the door, giving the Beast and his seat as wide a berth as she could. She didn't stop until she was in the entrance hall, her chest heaving as she replayed her father's desperation to get her to leave. He had known what the Beast had planned. She wished she had listened to him and run when she still could. But she could do nothing about it anymore.