Chapter 7: A Beast at Bay
Rescuing Arthur would be next to impossible. Adam was dragged kicking and screaming down the hall by two orderlies. No one believed his rants that Arthur was in danger. They wouldn't allow him to call Arthur because of the restraining order. They wouldn't even allow him to call the police.
Having been once diagnosed as paranoid and delusional meant that Adam had zero credibility; even though, he was taking his medication faithfully and had not presented with such symptoms in a very long time.
As a psychiatric patient, Adam was not allowed to have a cellphone. Every call was placed through the phone at the front desk. Even then, the nurse was required to key in the number for him, and all calls were screened. There was just no way to get an unapproved message past them.
Adam beat on the door of the padded room they threw him in. Screaming for the nurses to hear him out. After all he put Arthur through he had to save him. He owed Arthur that much; he owed the man his life.
The requirements of Arthur's new job were intense, especially with the added pressures of culinary school, but he balanced his obligations well. In addition to cooking, he had to oversee the payroll, the budget, the imports, repairs, deal with the health department, higher new employees, and mediate disputes between servers and chefs.
There was the drama brought on by chefs that had worked there much longer than Arthur and coveted his position. Arthur hadn't even graduated from culinary school. It seemed unfair that he got to take over the restaurant. Initially they assumed that Arthur had no true talent and it was Adam's guilt that forced him to sign over the business. This couldn't have been further from the truth. Adam had wanted his dad's restaurant in, not just good hands, but the absolute best. Adam picked Arthur for this reason. The beast might not have been a world class chef, like his father, but he could certainly recognize one.
After Arthur was allowed to bring his ideas to the table, profits skyrocketed. His chefs realized that the right man was running the place. They grew to respect and admire him. Arthur informed them that if ever they yearned to branch out on their own they would have his full support. He would assist in any manner he could.
Running the restaurant was very hard but rewarding work. It was a much needed distraction from all the chaos that had occurred with Gwen. There were times when he still felt like his heart was dying.
The dessert that brought them together was now on the menu, named after her. It brought a smile to his face every time he saw a happy couple sharing it. The dessert was given freely with a complimentary bottle of champagne to any couple who got engaged there or used the restaurant for their wedding rehearsal dinner.
Even after all Arthur had been through he refused to stop believing in happy endings. To stop believing would be allowing the beast to destroy the last piece of his heart, the piece where Gwen still dwelled. Arthur had vowed to never let that happen.
Arthur rode up to the pump at the gas station. He probably had enough gas to make it home, but he didn't want to risk it. He knew that if stranded, pretty girls were picked up by passing vehicles, but not always guys, especially fellows with tattoos and piercings.
Arthur plugged his credit card into the machine, unlatched the pump, and filled the tank of his bike. He turned his back to the breeze as it blew gasoline fumes in his direction. Arthur was just hanging up the pump when a panel van rode up alongside him. Three musclebound brutes snatched Arthur into the van while the fourth sped away with him…
Adam anxiously paced the floor of his padded cell. He searched the recesses of his mind for a way to save a man he had tried to kill just a year before, a man whose life he had destroyed. The beast could not deny the irony of his situation.
Adam pushed the call button on the wall. When the nurse answered, he told her, "I'm very anxious. Is there anything you can give me?"
"How about some Xanax?" she replied.
"I need something stronger," he insisted. "I'm trying to sleep and my thoughts are racing."
"I'll send someone down," she assured him.
A male orderly strolled in twenty minutes later, with a syringe full of sedative. "Just relax, Adam. You'll feel much better in a moment."
Adam grabbed the orderly by the arm, flipped the man over his back, and stuck him with the syringe. His growing ability to feel emotions flooded him with guilt and shame for assaulting the guy, but this was the lesser of two evils. This man was going to live while Arthur might suffer an excruciating death. Adam stole the orderly's uniform, badge, and keycard. Then he escaped the hospital.
Arthur regained consciousness in what looked like a torture chamber or a medieval dungeon. It smelled musty and the stone walls were glistening with dew. His wrists were zip tied to the arms of a chair. His ankles were duct taped to the legs of it. There was a sturdy rope that bound his torso to the chair back. He could barely move, let alone escape.
This was the Wolves' Lair, a place that served as Adam's childhood prison, as well as that of his brethren. Flickering torches sent dancing shadows over the pack of wolves that surrounded Arthur.
"Why have you taken me?!" Arthur demanded.
"Nothing personal," said Casanova. "We just needed a particularly juicy worm to hook our traitorous brother."
"Fishing never works out well for the bait," Arthur snapped. "So, forgive me if I take this personally. Who the hell is your brother? How does he know me?"
Romeo answered, "we couldn't risk our freedom by trying to break into a psych ward and kill him. So we decided to force Adam to break out."
"Adam?" Arthur laughed without humor. "If you believe a sociopath like Adam is going to condemn himself to life in prison just to rescue me, then you're even crazier than he is."
"We will have our vengeance!" shouted Lancelot.
"You're never going to get revenge on this wanker because you've abducted the wrong guy," Arthur insisted. "We're not exactly mates, and by that I mean we literally tried to kill each other. I still have fantasies of him being poisoned or hit by a bus. So, name your price so I can pay the damn ransom, and let me go. It's the only card you have to play."
"That's where you're wrong," said Tristan. "My pussy of a brother has more sentiment than you know. He will show up if only to whimper over your cold, rotting, corpse."
Arthur struggled ferociously as the vicious animals restrained him and duct taped a plastic bag over his head. The callous wolves snuffed out Arthur's oxygen. The crinkling bag deflated and expanded as Arthur gasped for air.
He could see through the clear bag that they were venturing upstairs, leaving him to die. The steam from Arthur's breath fogged the bag and soon he could see nothing. He struggled so hard to free himself that the chair he was bound to flipped backwards. He slammed the floor hard but was no less trapped. His desperate gasps were for nothing. Each breath poisoned him with his own carbon dioxide. Arthur's limbs grew heavy as he began to fade like the flame of a covered candle.
In Arthur's delirium, he could see Gwen. He could hear her begging him to fight, to hang on for just a bit longer. Her pleas brought him back to life and gave him something to hold onto.
A sudden burst of air invaded his lungs and a feeling of euphoria swept over him. The brown of Gwen's eyes transformed to blue. Her hair lightened to blonde and her voice became masculine. As Arthur regained his senses he saw that it had not been Gwen but Adam begging him to hang in there while he cut the bag. Arthur reeled away in terror and grabbed the nearest brick to bash him with.
Adam urged him to calm down. "You don't like me and I'm not your biggest fan, but we must work together, or they will kill us."
This was the last person on earth Arthur wanted to trust but he had no choice. "How do we get out of here?"
"Follow me."
Adam trudged through the dungeon with Arthur at his heels. The fact that the beast knew exactly where he was going, made Arthur trust him even less. Was Adam one of them? Was he part of this? Arthur had no way of knowing, so he held onto the brick in case he had to use it.
They entered a cell that was once a child's bedroom. There were dust covered toys on the floor, and children's books on a shelf. Arthur cringed at the revelation that some unfortunate little girl or boy had been imprisoned here. Adam moved the bookcase aside to reveal an escape route to a garden.
"Come on." Adam beckoned him.
Arthur backed away slowly, fully prepared to use his brick. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'll find my own way out."
"We don't have time for this."
"You found this place too easily," Arthur said with an accusing glare and an iron grip on the brick. "Who were you keeping here, Adam? Are you some sort of deranged child killer?!"
"I know about this cell because it was mine," Adam confessed with a queasy feeling in his stomach. Choppy memories of being starved and beaten flooded back to him as he tried to talk Arthur out of bashing his skull, "and I know about this hole because it took five years for me to dig it! I know you have no reason to trust me, but I really need you to."
Arthur followed him through the dank earthy tunnel. Snakes slithered past them. Squeaking rats scurried from their path. They emerged in a garden that was so neglected it looked haunted. Thorny branches snagged their clothing as they fled for their lives.
Arthur could hear the vroom of all-terrain vehicles as he and Adam fled into the woods behind the castle. The wolves were hunting them down, howling at the moon just to taunt and intimidate their prey. Arthur and Adam were running so hard that pain stabbed at their sides. Out of breath, muscles cramping, they forged on.
Their legs soon proved no match for motorized vehicles. Adam whipped around in all directions. There was nowhere to run. He was a beast at bay. They were surrounded by armed men on four wheelers, the lights of which were blinding.
Tristan dismounted his ATV and pulled out a giant knife with a serrated blade. He snarled at Adam, "I am going to filet you like a fish."
"You'll have to do that after I beat the shit out of him," said Lancet as he reached for his baseball bat.
Romeo pulled out surgical tools as he told Adam, "I am going to start cutting off things, and I promise they will be things you'll miss."
Casanova spoke with his signature smoothness, "now settle down bros. We'll all get our pound of flesh, even if we must keep him alive by blood transfusion for a month. He will know pain." Casanova turned to Arthur and assured him, "your death will be quick and painless. Like I said, it's nothing personal."
Adam did something extremely strange for a man who was doomed to suffer an excruciating demise; he began to laugh hysterically. The wolves looked at him like he was crazy. Arthur thought he was going insane.
Adam just shook his head at the four of them. "You're all pathetic. Angelica was killed in prison a decade ago and she still has you wrapped around her finger!"
"She was our wife!" yelled Romeo. "She was your wife!"
"She was a monster!" Adam yelled back. "A pedophile and a MURDERER!"
Tristan shouted in her defense, "she gave us everything! And you betrayed her!"
"You betrayed the pack!" screamed Lancelot.
Arthur was utterly confused. He felt as if he'd fallen down the rabbit hole, like he was Alice trapped in a wonderland that made no sense.
Casanova pictured all the ways he would inflict suffering on Adam. "Did it ever occur to you that the rest of us would be too old to be adopted by an eccentric millionaire? You were free to live happily ever after with your new daddy. The rest of us were adults in the eyes of the law. We were out on our asses with no formal education, no work history, and no money."
"Did it ever occur to you that I saved all of your lives?!" Adam swore. "Angelica was a black widow! A wanton predator who killed every husband she had once he turned twenty. She only liked teenagers. Lance, you would have had two years to live. Rome and Tris, you would have had just a year. Cas, you were a dead man walking. Doomed in six months!"
Arthur was aghast at what he was hearing. How could such depravity exist in the world?
"She wouldn't have done that to us," Romeo insisted. "We were special."
"I'm sure she told all of those poor murdered bastards that they were special too," said Adam. "I'm sure she made our mothers feel special before she cut their throats."
Tristan growled, "we are truly going to enjoy killing you. Angelica was right. You are a traitorous beast."
"We're all beasts," Adam snapped. "I'm just the only one sane enough to realize it, and honest enough to admit it."
A fury unlike any Arthur had ever witnessed bounced from one face to the next like a wave. Crazy people really hate being called crazy. The wolves abandoned their ATVs. They would return for them later. Right now, they had killing to do. They aimed guns at Arthur and Adam, forcing them to return to the lair.
Casanova couldn't resist taking one last jab at Adam before he killed him, "you had to have known you would never escape us, but you came for him anyway."
Adam smiled, "I never needed to escape. I just needed to stall you."
The wolves looked puzzled as Adam lifted his pantleg to reveal an electronic ankle monitor. This was a GPS locator he was forced to wear for the first year of his treatment. The sudden roar of police sirens echoed through the forest. The darkness erupted with flashing lights.
A voice sounded through a bullhorn, "you are surrounded. Lower your weapons and put your hands up."
Relief swept through Arthur as his abductors were handcuffed and loaded in the back of police cruisers. But something was off. Adam was being arrested too.
"Twenty-five years seems a steep price to pay for a parole violation. He saved my life," Arthur explained, amazed that he would ever take up for Adam.
"Twenty-five years?" Detective Aredian laughed, "Adam violated a restraining order, broke the terms of his parole, assaulted a nurse to escape from a psychiatric facility, and with the Wolfpack in agreement that he was in on the whole thing, he'll be charged as an accessory to kidnapping and attempted murder as well. He'll never see the light of day."
Arthur was stunned. He just stood there with a slack jawed look as they loaded Adam in the back of the police car.
"Smile kid," Detective Aredian assured him, "we finally got the bastard."
Arthur was no fan of Adam, but his Christian parents had raised him to tell the truth, and it was Gwen who taught him that justice and vengeance were not one and the same. Gwen felt that hurting someone in self-defense couldn't always be avoided, but hurting someone to get even was just plain wrong.
Arthur begrudgingly confessed, "those guys who took me are lying. They're trying to screw Adam by any means."
"It doesn't matter if they're lying," the detective smiled. "All that matters is what the jury believes."
Arthur had envisioned this moment and much worse for a long time. He had pictured himself popping a bottle of champagne and rejoicing in Adam's demise. Now that the moment was finally upon him, Arthur wasn't sure how he felt about it. He'd never been so conflicted.
Arthur jogged over to the police car. He asked for the uniformed officer to crack the back window, so he could talk to a man he no longer considered a beast.
Adam assured him, "it's alright, Arthur, I knew I would be locked away forever the moment I decided to escape. My life began in a cell, seems fitting for it to end in one."
"But they're filthy liars."
"Doesn't matter. Of the five of us I was the only one with motive to harm you. They're already spinning a tale that I was so delusional I planned your abduction just to live out some fantasy of being a hero."
"It's bullshit," Arthur snapped.
Though Adam knew his words might not make a difference, he could not be hauled off to prison without telling Arthur, "I was not myself when I took your Gwen. If I could take it back, please know that I would."
"There must be something I can do," Arthur insisted.
"There is. At the hospital there's a Dr. Belleza, a real do-gooder type that will take my imprisonment as a personal failure on her part. Please tell her this wasn't her fault. She taught me to be a man, and as such I could not turn my back on you."
"I will explain what truly happened here," Arthur promised.
"And Arthur…" the beast hesitated as tears filled his eyes. "please tell her… I love her."
The prosecution was flabbergasted when Arthur took the stand for the defense. His testimony completely contradicted the lies of the Wolfpack. As a result, Adam was returned to the hospital and his beloved Beauty.
Within a year Arthur had flipped the profits of that restaurant into a second enterprise. There was a star studded grand opening for his second restaurant. Even his family flew in for the celebration.
Arthur was standing in an Armani suit with a glass of expensive champagne. This was the big time. He had made it, and his success meant nothing without her. Arthur had imagined this moment a hundred times in a hundred different ways, but the one aspect that remained constant was Gwen.
His older brother, Percival, approached and reminded him, "Gwen would want you to have a good time. She would want you to enjoy your life."
"I am," Arthur said.
"Can you tell that to your face," Percival joked.
Arthur's pocket began to vibrate, and he pulled out his phone. "I'm sorry, I have to take this."
Arthur listened for less than a minute before running out the door. Curious heads spun around to look at him and he didn't care. He jumped on his Ducati and raced down the street. Arthur weaved in and out of traffic until finding his destination.
He ran up the stairs, taking two at a time, then raced down the florescent halls. He slid to a stop and entered the room unable to believe Gwen was awake. After two years in a coma she'd opened her beautiful brown eyes.
"Arthur." She reached out to him, and he wrapped her in an embrace.
He clutched her as if she would disappear if he loosened his grip for even a second, and he realized that he had to marry her because he could never let her go again. Arthur kissed Gwen in the intensive care unit, surrounded by nurses and beeping machines. This was a miracle and Arthur had never been one to throw away a miracle…
Epilogue: A Tale as Old as Time
Five years later…
Outstanding and phenomenal were just two of the compliments Adam had received on his autobiography, entitled A Tale as Old as Time. It was number one on seven bestseller's lists. He was worth millions by the time he was released from the hospital. A man who was once considered a beast had fans on every continent. Adam would have never guessed that so many people would be invested in a true-life tale of Beauty and the Beast. His book signings drew crowds the size of rock concerts. His life story would be a major motion picture in the spring.
Adam and Dr. Belleza remained very close throughout the years and this platonic relationship blossomed into something more. They planned their wedding the moment he was released. The sands of time had changed many things. The man who swore to never forgive Adam, agreed to be his best man and stand by his side at the ceremony.
Adam booked an American R&B group called Dru Hill. They sang their song Beauty as the bride made her way down the aisle. The ridiculous grin on Adam's face reminded Arthur of his own wedding to Gwen. This was a lovely ceremony that was bringing forth wonderful memories, and the reception was even grander.
Everyone showed up with a plus one, except for Gaston who showed up with a plus three: Tess, Jess, and Bess. Gwen was shocked to see Gaston's trio of blondes enter the reception in clunky snow boots.
Tess huffed impatiently, "why must we wear these hideous snow boots?"
Jess and Bess stared him down with their arms crossed in protest, demanding to know the answer as well.
"You are wearing snow boots because it is snowing," Gaston answered. "There was a guy I knew, who grew up poor. When sports provided an escape from a life of poverty he seized the opportunity. Even after attaining wealth beyond his wildest dreams he was not satisfied. He had to show the world what he had and how far he'd come. He became vain and selfish. He lost the woman he loved because he was more concerned with her appearance than her safety. He was foolish and I yearn not to repeat his mistakes."
The ladies swooned. They were putty in his hands.
Gaston told Tess, "if my girlfriend asks me to try a desert I will do it. If she drags me to a wedding I will go. And if she asks me to move in her two best friends so she's not lonely while I'm away I will reserve a moving truck."
Gwen smiled thoughtfully as she watched Gaston walk away with his own cheerleading squad. Gaston had proposed to Gwen in the past, but she turned him down. She couldn't fathom a lasting relationship with any man who obsessed over her appearance. She was elated to see that Gaston had learned from his mistakes and found happiness. It was a time for second chances, and Gwen was proud of him.
The aromas of exquisite cuisine and expensive perfume reminded Gwen of her own wedding with Arthur. She caught herself smiling at recollections of their magical evening, the way they professed their love and danced beneath the stars.
The ballroom floor cleared as the former beast and his beauty ventured out for their first dance as man and wife. The bride had always been an academic, with her nose stuck in a book from the moment she learned to read. Everything had taken a backseat to her studies and research. Things like dancing were foreign to the hardworking doctor, and now she had to dance in front of everyone.
The groom circled her slowly. The heat that trailed him wrapped around her like ribbons, as did the spicy scent of his cologne. His blazing blue eyes anchored her spirit to his and her body followed along. As long as she looked into his eyes she knew exactly where his next step would take her. The women swooned and teared up as they watched him twirl her around under a dazzling chandelier. Their waltz ended to a roar of applause and everyone joined them on the dancefloor.
Gwen and Arthur had come here for closure, a chance to put the past behind them. They never expected to have this much fun. A blush of embarrassment swept over Gwen's face when she heard her name announced by the DJ. Arthur had dedicated a song to her called 24/7 by Kevon Edmonds because it described the way he felt since the day he met her.
It was a tale as old as time: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy reunites with girl in epic fashion.
Gwen met him on the dancefloor, and as always, she felt like heaven in his arms. A party whirled around them but as Arthur gazed into her eyes the rest of the world disappeared. Guinevere was his heart's one true desire and his destiny. She was his queen and he would love her for the rest of his life.
-The End-
I hope you enjoyed A Tale as Old as Time. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! :^)
-Embrasia
