✧ 29 ✧
"Your choice," Beast said, as if the boy had much of a choice.
Ilya scoffed through his fear, then looked down at Beast with the most loathsome stare his tired eyes could muster.
He stared at those yellow eyes void of human compaction and that heinous left scar that split Beast's thick eyebrow in half.
He stared at the towering monster and for a moment felt sorry for him once he saw the number of scars covering every inch of his shirtless chest, but Ilya returned to his senses and raised his head, glaring at Beast.
Whoever he was before all this was long gone.
Beast tightened his grip on Ilya's wrist and growled, "Have it your way, then!"
SNAP!
Beast broke the boy's wrist with ease, like a twig, just as he said he would.
The sound of Ilya's bones splintering as they moved under his skin made his eyes fully open, right before a blood-curdling scream erupted from his throat.
He squirmed and writhed around in agony, but Beast wouldn't let him go.
Beast watched with a sickening grin that kept growing the more the boy gasped and struggled to breathe through the pain, the more his legs shuffled on the floor while choking up with tears, the more his eyes squeezed shut and the tears flowed down his pale face.
Once satisfied, Beast let go.
Ilya took his arm to his chest and opened his eyes.
Once he saw the broken bones peeking through his wrist, he couldn't stop screaming.
His hand was bent upward until it touched his arm, sloping in an unnatural angle.
The pain was unbearable. A strong rhythm reached his ears, the sound of his blood pulsing through his veins matching the speed of his heartbeats.
A distorted monstrous laugh startled him.
Then the world around him pulsed.
Ba-dum.
The floor underneath him went big then small.
Ba-dum. Beast's face came closer then blurred away, like a wave.
Ba-dum, Ba-dum. The walls collapsed around him—Ba—suffocating him, and then—dum—they retreated away from him, giving him space.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
His eyes wandered. Everything pulsed. Then everything disappeared.
His breathing quickened.
With one last breath, and without thinking, Ilya screamed, "Charlie!"
"That British wuss can't save you, kid. Hahahaha..."
The hall turned black.
It could have been minutes or hours, Ilya didn't know. However, there was one thing he was sure of—he was alive but out cold.
Even while passed out, Ilya was in pain. His whimpers never stopped. He heard them, and he felt dizzy as he went in and out of consciousness, catching close-ups of Beast's face. However, the strangest part came after he woke up, freezing in that same dreadful dark hall.
Ilya's bloodshot green eyes slowly opened. He hissed and quickly shut his eyes once he moved. It was his wrist, but it wasn't as painful as before.
He inhaled through his nose and then exhaled in a long relaxing breath. When the pain seemed manageable, Ilya opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was a man lying in front of him, sleeping.
It was Beast in his full human form. He looked smaller and less intimidating like that.
A cold breeze sent chills through Ilya's body. He looked down and found his hoodie was missing. He was completely topless, except for his arm.
What the—
He gazed in shock at his bandaged wrist and the clothes and sticks used to wrap it in place. The mystery of his missing hoodie was solved. It was used as an arm sling for his injured hand.
Ilya shuffled in his place, using his good hand to carefully push himself and lean on the cold wall behind him. He shut his eyes as a little hiss of pain escaped his lips. Then he rested, huffing out a breath of relief.
"Finally, you're awake."
Ilya snapped his eyes open.
Beast was right in front of him with that same sickening grin from before. His chest was puffed up. His eyes were piercing yellow with long vertical pupils. He was watching him with amusement tugging at his lips.
Ilya shrunk in his place, gluing his back to the wall. Cold droplets of sweat coated his sickly pale face. Damp strands of his dark chocolate hair hugged his soft cheeks.
Beast kneeled closer.
"Now, where were we?" He tilted his head and faked a wondering expression. "Ah, yes!" He raised his finger, then pointed at Ilya. "You were going to start running."
Ilya closed his mouth but his shuddering breaths were still heard and made Beast chuckle.
"Am. I. Right?"
Beast poked Ilya's chest after each word.
"I told you," Ilya said through gritted teeth. "I can't."
Ilya's answer wiped the smile off of Beast's face and replaced it with a scowl.
He didn't roar. He didn't growl. He didn't let Ilya's cold stare get to him this time. He just scowled until Ilya averted his gaze.
Still, the boy didn't run.
Beast moved his hand closer to Ilya's other wrist with deliberate slowness. He wanted the boy to watch, to feel scared of his movements. He loved the smell of fear in his victims.
Ilya flinched when that big hand headed to his good hand. Then he squeezed his eyes shut when it touched him, wrapping those sausage fingers around his small wrist.
Ilya was shaking, waiting for his other bones to crack.
Beast came closer to Ilya's ear and said in the slowest most intimidating voice ever, "Then I guess I'll have to break your limbs one by one."
Ilya breathed through his fear and stayed quiet.
His chest was rising and falling quickly.
His body was contracting, his nerves were wrecked, waiting for Beast to snap his other wrist, then his leg, then his other leg, then eat him.
The wait was torturous enough to make his breathing uneven.
His heart felt like it would burst out of his chest.
Beast was still by Ilya's ear. He couldn't move away. There was this smell covering the boy's body. Not fear. No. Something else.
Sniff. Sniff.
A sniff here. A sniff there. It tickled Ilya's neck but also sent chills down his spine. Was this it? He was going to be Beast's dinner. Any second now, Beast would take a bite out of his neck.
Beast released Ilya's wrist and turned to smell Ilya's other side.
Sniff.
"You smell different," Beast finally said, then buried his nose in the boy's hair and sniffed him some more. "Are you sick or something?"