Big, black Doc Martens. Black leather jacket. Dark waves of hair eddy and swirl around his face like fog circling a lamppost, overlapping a network of scars that mark one side of his face and forehead. Part of his eyebrow is missing. A tiny black cat is tattooed on his hand between his thumb and forefinger.

Carrying a book, he grips the strap of a brain-bucket style motorcycle helmet with the words LUCKY 13 curving around the back in a wicked font. He squints at me through a fan of black lashes—first at the camera case hanging around my neck, then at my face.

He stares at me like I’m the ghost of his dead dog. Like he’s surprised to see me.

Like we’re old friends … or enemies.

I feel as if I’ve just been asked a question in a foreign language, and I’m struggling to pick through a tangle of words, syllable by syllable, searching for meaning. Who are you, and what do you want from me?

A funny feeling sprouts in the pit of my stomach. Suddenly there’s a word puzzle in my head, and the blanks are slowly filling in, and it’s dawning-dawning-dawning on me what the answer to the puzzle could be. Because as much time as I’ve spent away from Beauty, the last five years, I did spend my childhood here. And during that childhood, I had a best friend. But I haven’t seen him since I was twelve, and he was twelve, and …

Oh. My. God.

Lucky Karras.

He grew up. Good. And I do mean good. How did he get so big? He looks intimidating … and sort of angry. Don’t think Hey, old pal o’ mine! How about a hug? is the appropriate response.

He was pretty mad at me when I left town. That was five years ago. And not my fault. Surely, he’s not holding a grudge. I wish I would have had time to brush my hair. I didn’t know I was going to be getting out of a moving truck and seeing … Lucky 2.0.

Mom the Obvious, however, doesn’t notice the electric stare-down that’s happening right in front of her very face. She also doesn’t recognize him and is all jokes and fake chagrin. “Oh, sorry. Not you, though,” she calls out to him lightheartedly. “I’m sure you aren’t a demonic minion.”

“Clearly you don’t know me,” he says in husky voice that sounds like smoke and gravel—one that’s changed along with his body.

“But I’d like to. Winona Saint-Martin.” She sticks out her hand, but he doesn’t take it.

“Know who you are,” he says, switching his cool gaze to her briefly.

And as he walks past me, he slows long enough to murmur, “Hello, Josie. Welcome back to the portal to hell.”