Read Online Beastly by Alex Flinn - Free Book Online

surgeons. Your dad even called that clinic in Costa Rica where he had his last top-secret procedure. They all told you the same thing – ‘Sorry, kid. Learn to live with it. Get counseling.’”
    “How did you –”
    “I saw you strike out with Sloane too.”
    “I didn’t strike out. I kissed her before she saw me.”
    “She didn’t change you back, did she?”
    I shook my head.
    “I told you, you have to love the person. She has to love you. Do you love Sloane?” I didn’t answer.
    “Didn’t think so. The mirror has magic powers. Look inside, and you can see anyone you want, anywhere in the world. Think of someone’s name, one of your former friends maybe…” In the glass, I could see her sneer when she said former. “Ask, and the mirror will show you that person, wherever they may be.”
    I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do anything she said. But I couldn’t help myself. I thought of Sloane, and just as quick, the picture in the mirror changed to Sloane’s apartment, just the way it had been the day of the dance. Sloane was on the sofa, making out with some guy.
    “Okay, so what?” I yelled, before wondering if Sloane could hear me.
    The face in the mirror changed back to Kendra’s.
    “Can she hear me?” I whispered.
    “No, only me. With everyone else, it’s a one-way thing like a baby monitor. Anyone else you want to see?”
    I started to say no, but again, my subconscious betrayed me. I thought of Trey.
    The mirror returned to Sloane’s apartment. Trey was the one with Sloane.
    After a minute, Kendra said, “What’s next for you? Are you going back to school?”
    “Of course not. I can’t go to school as a freak. I’ve been bonding with Dad.” I looked at the clock.
    After ten, and Dad still wasn’t home. He was avoiding me. The few weeks with the doctors was the most time we’d spent together in… well, ever. But I’d known it wouldn’t last. I was back to my former life of only seeing Dad on television. I hadn’t cared before, when I had a life. But now I had nothing and no one.
    “Have you given any thought to how you’re going to break the spell?” I laughed. “You could change me back.”
    She looked away again. “I can’t.”
    “You won’t.”
    “No, I can’t. The spell, it’s yours to break. The only way to undo it is by its terms – finding true love.”
    “I can’t do that. I’m a freak.”
    She smiled a little. “Yeah, you sort of are, aren’t you?”
    I shook the mirror. “You made me this way.”
    “You were a hateful jerk.” She grimaced. “And stop shaking that mirror!”
    “Does it bother you?” I gave it another shake. “Too bad.”
    “Maybe I wasn’t wrong to transform you. Maybe I was wrong to consider helping you now.”
    “Help? What kind of help can you give that I’d want? I mean, if you can’t change me back.”
    “I can give you advice, and my first is, don’t break the mirror. It might help you out sometime.” And then she disappeared.
    I put the mirror – gently – down on the nightstand.

    5
    Sometimes, when you’re walking in New York – probably anywhere, but especially in New York because it’s so crowded – you see these people, like guys in wheelchairs with stumps of legs just reaching the edge, or people with burns on their faces. Maybe their legs got blown off in a war, or someone threw acid at them. I never really thought about them. If I thought about them at all, what I thought was how to get past without them touching me. They grossed me out. But now I thought about them all the time, how one minute you can be normal – beautiful, even – and then something can happen the next minute that changes it. You can be damaged beyond repair. A freak. I was a freak, and if I had fifty, sixty, seventy years left, I’d spend them as a freak because of that one minute when Kendra put the spell on me after what I did.
    Funny thing about that mirror. Once I looked in it, I got obsessed. First, I looked at each of