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

15. Lunch With The Beast

Lunch with an alien was about as unbearable as Bo thought it would be. After their confrontation in the rose garden, he had turned her around and told her to walk back to the house. She'd gone, if mostly from the shock of the revelation that she'd be spending eternity with the creature. Normally, Bo would rather stab herself in the eye than march to an alien's orders in a revealing yellow dress to a meal set up in a dining room decked out in stolen human furniture and finery... But fear of a mass murdering war-machine did a lot of weird things to one's personality.

The dining room was a narrow place, lit with electric chandeliers and with no windows. It felt like a tomb, with low ceilings and statues staring at her from along the wall. Instead of a long table to match the room, there was a small circular one that looked completely out of place. The dishes on top of it looked more in line with the Beast's apparently luxurious tastes, however. Even the silver platters carrying their food, topped with patterned domes, looked like they were worth a fortune. Bo wondered if she could get away with smashing a few of the things, just to spite the alien now glaring at her from across the table.

"Sit," he ordered, and Bo had no choice but to grit her teeth and flop into her chair. The Beast slowly sat, with more elegance than she'd thought would come from an alien. He didn't say anything as he drew the dome off his food, and so Bo uncovered hers as well.

In a semi-circle, bright pink slices of some vegetable surrounded a salad with dried fruits sprinkled over the top. Bo hadn't seen such vibrant greenery in her life. The kind they grew at the camp were dry and barely serviceable, and what they sometimes bought from the towns was not much better. Here the leaves of lettuce looked nearly bursting with crispness, and the strange pink vegetable dewed with moisture.

Bo leaned in to surreptitiously sniff her meal while the Beast picked up a polished silver fork. The salad smelled like the yard, all green and damp and intoxicating. The pink slices, however, smelled more like citrus mixed with berries. Something about it was familiar. She had smelled it before. But, unfortunately did not remember from where, until it was already too late.

Panic suddenly exploded in her veins in the form of her chest tightening and her vision tunneling. Echoing memories of the feeling of wood splinters pressing into her arms from cage bars, the fluid language of aliens, her mother's calloused hands stuffing a prickly vegetable into Bo's short and chubby hands....

Bo dug her nails into the wrist of her other hand as hard as she could. The sharp pain and the blood beading against her fingertips, drew her out of the hole of memories that she had sworn to never open ever again. Her vision shifted back to the room, where the Beast was eating his salad in oblivion.

"This is alien food, isn't it?" she asked, her voice deceptively steady.

The Beast glanced up and nodded. "It wasn't easy to adapt it to Earth soil, but it eventually took. Your earthly vegetables are more nutritious than ours, one of the many reasons I suppose the Councils wanted to claim this small rock. However, I grow a few plants to remind myself... of a few memories I would like to keep."

Bo pushed her plate sharply away from her, nearly upsetting the water glass. "I'm not eating this," she said.

For the first time, the Beast's stoic mask slipped and she saw annoyance written across his features. He raised a hand to rub his eyes. "In case you've forgotten, you are obligated to obey my orders," he said, his words measured and level.

"Well, I'm not going to." She surged to her feet, wanting to head to the door, but finding her way blocked by Chan and Dent. Their lights flashed yellow, and Chan already had his clamps ready to capture her wrists. She spun on her heel to glare at the Beast, but he was watching her already.