Here we go…

Chapter Eight

SAMANTHA

I followed Jonathan up eleven flights of stairs until we came to what was apparently the right one. Recognizing the layout I realized we were on the same floor I had seen the figure in the window. My stomach coiled in knots and my heartbeat quickened. Farrow moved quickly down the hall and turned left as we came to an intersection. I had to jog a little to catch up with him. I got the feeling he was doing this against his better judgment, and I felt a rush of gratitude that he thought of me well enough to forgo Alexander's wishes and help me instead . I saw up ahead that the hall was a dead end and I began to look at the doors on either side of me and began to wonder which had Alex on the opposite side. I felt like I was in some old game show, pick the door with the prize behind it and win. Finally Jonathan stopped and I slowed my pace there was only one door left in the hallway, the opposite wall had only an alcove with a potted plant in it. I waited for him to step over and open the door but he didn't do anything.

"Mr. Farrow?" I asked, hesitantly.

He looked in my eyes, as if he was trying to discern if I was really worth all the trouble he was going through. "Alexander has said that you are one of his closest friends." Jonathan said suddenly. I thought over this statement, confused. Then why was he was he acting the way he was? I wondered. But despite my recent frustrations I grinned. It should've seemed odd – this was a person whom I'd never met before, if we had passed each other on the street neither of us would've known it. But it wasn't odd; I felt exactly the same way. John wasn't finished though… "He's a good person, Miss Miller. I've known him for quite a long time and I can tell you that with absolute confidence." I nodded my head, his words slightly loosening the knots in my stomach. Suddenly, Mr. Farrow stepped into the alcove we had been conversing next to and took away the leafy plant and the table it had been standing on and set them both down just outside the niche. I stared at him confusedly. "Mr. Thompson is through there." He said, gesturing to the alcove. Okay, this guy was truly nuts whatever he had said before. But I leaned over slightly anyway to look where he was pointing and saw a golden door handle that had, up until now been hidden by the green plant. Before I could say anything Jonathan was moving away, back down the hall towards the staircase. I started to reach out for the door handle. "Samantha." I looked up, surprised when I heard him say my first name. John gave me a small smile and nodded. "Good luck." And with that he descended the stairs and was out of sight.

Good luck? I wondered nervously. I could feel the tempo of my heart quicken once more as I turned to face the door again. I had the sudden urge to turn, go back downstairs and leave like Alex had wanted me to. But I couldn't, I was literally on the threshold of seeing him, I wasn't going to turn tail and run now. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

I walked in and looked around, or tried to anyway. The room was in total darkness, the light from the hallway seemed unable to pass into the room as I had, the door was so heavy that it slowly closed by itself and I was submerged into darkness. As my eyes slowly adjusted I realized the room wasn't completely dark, there were two small lamps in a corner but they seemed to be casting only the barest amount of light they could without actually putting the room into further darkness. From what I could see there were large windows, but large heavy blinds covered them and to my left were armchairs

"What is it Jonathan?" A voice asked from one of the armchairs.

A shiver ran down my back, the voice was completely unlike anything I had ever heard. It sounded hoarse and unused. Harsh and grating.

"A-actually," I stuttered. And I felt, rather than saw, the person in the chair tense. "Jonathan's downstairs."

There was absolute silence then, "You were supposed to leave."

I let out a snort of disbelief, "Did you honestly think I was just going to leave because you told me to? You didn't even give me a reason."

"I shouldn't have to."

"Yes, you should, and if you remember correctly, you wanted to see me not the other way around. If I had known you were such a total and complete jerk in person I wouldn't have agreed to come here in the first place, and you wouldn't had had to bother with me at all. Not that you have." All this came out in a great rush. I could feel my face getting hot, I wasn't one for spouting off and I had just done some major venting.

He let out a deep sigh, "Sam. I'm sorry." He said, and sounded truly apologetic. "You're right, it was wrong to make you come all this was for nothing. But you need to leave." I could feel my whole body slump down in sadness. To read the words on paper was one thing but to have them actually said straight to my face was another, they hit me like a blow and all my anger abandoned me.

My voice came out shaky and filled with unshed tears. "I thought…" I said, then stopped. "I don't know what I thought, that we were friends I guess.

"We are friends." He said emphatically.

"Then why are you sending me away without me even seeing you? I still haven't seen you."

He let out a mirthless bark of laughter. "That's just the thing," he said, quietly. "I don't want you to."

"I don't understand." I said, confused.

"I'm not…" he paused, fumbling for the right word. "like other people."

I was still puzzled "Well everybody's different, I guess. I mean…" He cut me off.

"No, that's not it." He spoke so quietly, I leaned forward to catch his words. "I don't look like other people because I'm not a person."

The question that I didn't want to ask formed on my lips anyway and came out in a whisper. "Then what are you?"

He said it sadly, like he knew it was the truth but still wished it to be otherwise, "I'm a beast."

This was too much, my head screamed at me to leave, told me that this guy was obviously nuts. But I didn't move; I couldn't. I stood there for several moments, completely speechless, until finally he spoke again.

"You don't believe me."

I found my voice, "Of course not! Beasts… don't live in big stone mansions in the country, they can't talk. They eat wild animals in the forest and hibernate during the winter." I thought belatedly of the big forest I had travelled through to get here, but pushed it out of my mind.

He chuckled again, grimly. "Come look at me." he said simply.

Well, this is what you wanted. A smug voice in my head told me. I took a deep breath and started to slowly move forward, my head all the while telling me to stop and go the other way. I didn't look up as I reached the armchair, or as I turned to face the person sitting down in it. Looking at the carpet I noticed the light was a little brighter here, or maybe it was just the fact that I had adjusted my vision enough to see clearly. I kept my eyes trained on the floor until I heard him say, "It's all right, Sam." That suddenly gave me courage and I slowly started to move my gaze upward, and when I did I gasped.

He hadn't been lying. He was a beast. His whole body was covered in brown fur, his arms looked strong enough to lift a truck with ease. His hands were huge, with claws at the end of each fingertip that were so sharp they made shark teeth look like plastic butter knives. Even though he was sitting he was as tall as me, maybe even taller. I probably would have noticed it earlier if it hadn't been for the high backed chair he was sitting in and the fact that there was so little light in the room. Looking into his face was the worst. There were no remotely humanoid expressions there, no way of reading his thoughts or emotions. He kept his eyes down as mine wandered over him, taking in all of it. Suddenly he lifted his eyes to meet mine and I gasped again. They weren't slit like a cat's or yellow like a wolf's but a deep bright green that reminded me of the rolling hills I had passed outside. It was totally unexpected, but at the same time, a comfort. It made me forget for a moment his fur, and his size, and strength and think instead of all the letters and conversations we had shared and how excited I had been to come here and meet him. Then he looked away, and I was reminded once more of everything else he was.

Suddenly conscious of the fact that I was beginning to stare I pulled my gaze down to the floor once more, pretending to be enamored with the texture and color of the carpet. I didn't know what to say and so remained silent. I sensed his gaze shifting towards me and now our situations were reversed; he was the one staring as I pointedly looked away.

"Well…" he said, and seemed just as much at a loss for words as I was.

"I didn't know." I whispered.

"Of course you didn't know, I made it a point for you not to know." He said, and stood up suddenly. I had been right, looking at him out of the corner of my eye I could see that he was easily seven feet tall and I involuntarily shrunk back a step. He didn't seem to notice and passed by me as he walked towards one of the large windows on my left. He stood in front of the curtains as he ran a hand through his disheveled mane.

I spoke up as I absorbed this information. "But, you must have known I'd figure it out sooner or later. Once you invited me here, that is."

He laughed quietly to himself. "Jonathan said just about the same thing."

"Then why did you? Ask me to come here, I mean."

He didn't speak for several moments, but I waited. "Honestly? I don't know. The day I invited you, I didn't think… I didn't want to think of the repercussions of my seeing you-of your seeing me. You were my closest friend."

"My only friend." He said after another pause, and then went on quickly. "Whenever I got letters from you, or chatted with you online it was- great. It made me forget about everything else, and I wanted more.

"More?" I asked nervously.

He swiveled around suddenly and I forced myself to keep my gaze steady, to not look away. "No," he said quickly, fumbling. "I only mean I wanted to talk to you, not just read letters from you or IMs from you but have an actual conversation with you in the same room. Not one from a billion miles away."

"Oh." I said, nodding my head. That's what I had wanted too. But would it be the same now? I had come here expecting to meet a guy; an actual human being. I had never expected this. Would it be the same? I would never say it out loud to him, but I didn't see how it could.

He started talking once more and I pushed myself back into the present. "I knew it wasn't going to work." He said, voicing the same thoughts that had just been running through my head. "I knew it as soon as I asked you here, before you even said yes. I tried to figure out a way to tell you not to come before you arrived. But I could never think of a valid reason. Every excuse I came up with seemed so vapid and flimsy. I knew you'd be able to see right through it." He shrugged his shoulders, and gave me a small half-smile. "I've never been a really terrific liar. I was afraid that if you found out you'd stop writing altogether." I remembered the lie he'd had Jonathan tell me on my first day here: ill with the flu. It had been rather transparent, even at the time. I felt guilty for being so angry with him, the whole time I had thought that he just didn't want to see me. I had never stopped to even consider the idea that maybe he didn't want me to see him. My eyes had returned to the fascinating examination of my tennis shoes and I said to him without looking up.

"So when I got here, what did you do? You must have figured it was too late to send me home."

"That was the problem, I knew all the things I couldn't do but couldn't figure out the one thing to do."
"So you did nothing." My tone was accusing without my meaning it too be.

"I'm sorry."

"No, no. It's not your fault." I said, trying to make him feel better.

"You're not a very good liar either, are you?" he asked and I grinned slightly.

"Guess not."

"Jonathan finally gave me an ultimatum of sorts, meet you or send you home. I couldn't figure out a way to meet you, I didn't want to just pop up at random without giving you any proper warning, so I decided to go the other route. Kinda back fired though, didn't it?"

"I was too mad to leave. I felt like, if I stayed you'd get so annoyed with me you'd finally come out and face me." I explained. My reasoning made him laugh out loud, a sound between a small roar and a loud bark that had me shaking in my skin. A clock suddenly struck the hour somewhere, and I jumped at the sound. My nerves were becoming frayed at the edges. I saw Alex look towards the sound and sigh; turning back to me he caught and held my gaze once more. I couldn't look away and after a few moments he broke eye contact.

"It's getting late, I'll let you go." He said.

I smiled. It was how we usually ended all our nightly conversations, and I thought how odd it was that the person I had spent so many late nights chatting with was the same one standing in front of me, completely unlike anything I had ever imagined him to be. He must have seen my smile fade and he sounded unhappy, "Bye Sam." He said.

"Bye." I answered softly and finally headed my mind's wishes and headed toward the door. I opened it and looked back; he still stood there, watching me. "I'll see you tomorrow." I said, and it came out like a question.

"You will?" He asked, taken aback.

"Well yeah, I mean it's a big house, but we'll probably run into each other sooner or later." I said, mistaking his meaning.

"You're not leaving?" he asked bewildered.

I bit my lip as I leaned against the door. I hadn't even considered it somehow. Making up my mind I shook my head firmly. "No. No I'm not going to leave."

"Alright," he said, still sounding dazed. "I'll see tomorrow then." And with that I walked left the room, shutting the door softly behind me.