Scars To Your Beautiful : A Modern Beauty and the Beast retelling ✔

48. Keeping you away

"You drugged Larkin, didn't you?" Callie fumed, her voice stitching pitches higher and bouncing echoes around the walls of the quiet manor. "Of all the messed up, crazy things that you've ever done, this one takes the cake." Her gaze swerved between Maxime and Leona who were talking when she came in, before landing heatedly on Maxime's amused face.

The smirking culprit.

"What are you getting upset over? You should be thanking me." A bored look stretched out on Maxime's face. With his arms folded, he added. "I know it's messed up but it's what he needed."

Callie scoffed. Her fists clenched in frustration. "Ever heard of the word 'consent'. Because I'm sure he didn't want it."

Leona looked stunned. The dark skinned girl stared at both of them, draping a stricken look at their heated exchange of words. "What's going on? What did Max do this time?"

"I spiked his coffee packs. Big deal." He shrugged. "The guy needed to live a little and it's depressing to watch how wound up he is."

When Larkin mentioned that he was drugged yesterday, Callie wasn't sure if Maxime really did it but a small part of her suspected him. Fortunately, it turned out she was right after all.

Leona made a small choking sound. Shock speared through her face. "What did you put inside?"

"My anxiety pills. The TCAs. They work like magic." His eyes twinkled at the last part.

"They've been giving him side effects, you ass. He's already on enough pills. Mixing all of those together just added to his freaking issues." Callie bit back her anger. The things he was saying made her feel so damn frustrated.

But she wasn't just upset that Larkin had been taking the spiked coffee. The damn pills made her do things too when she took it just once. Callie wanted to scream out her annoyance. That was also the day she had fun with Larkin on his bed. No wonder she didn't feel like herself that day. She was under influence and his meds made her go overboard.

Embarrassment ripped through her at the thoughts of everything that happened that night. Larkin's odd behaviors this past week finally made sense. From the kiss to his flirting, it wasn't really Larkin doing it. It was the damn drugs.

All these while she thought it was something he wanted but Larkin wasn't even in control throughout the time. Callie felt sick to her stomach at the thought.

"Can we just talk about this in calm indoor voices?" Leona tried to say in a hushed tone.

Callie almost scoffed. There was no one around to overhear them. Reneé had taken the day off and even Larkin was on the patio talking to the detectives that took their statements yesterday.

Maxime shrugged again, in a quick gesture. "I don't know why you guys are exaggerating about this. It's just some pills. I bet he got high all the time in college."

Leona groaned. "Of course you'd say that. Classic Maxime. Never taking things seriously. That was so irresponsible of you. What if he did something dangerous or stupid?" Suddenly, she paused to look at Callie. "Did he do something dangerous and stupid?"

"Oh yeah. Plenty stuff," Callie ticked out her fingers, hastily rambling her words through everything she could think of. "Larkin Hammell actually smiled. He started joking around too. I swear I thought I was in a parallel universe. He only left this house because of the drugs you put inside. He got beat up because of it too. And we........" Her words trailed off when she realized what she was about to admit. The memories of his passionate kiss still burned at the back of her head. She could still feel the effect of his warm touch on her body.