The sound that woke Beauty wasn't her alarm clock, but her own groan of agony as consciousness dragged her from merciful oblivion back into harsh reality. Sunlight streamed through her bedroom curtains like needles piercing her skull, and the taste in her mouth suggested something had crawled in there and died.
She lay motionless for several minutes, afraid that any movement would trigger the nausea already churning in her stomach. Fragments of the previous evening drifted back to her in horrifying waves - the warmth of Murphy's Pub, the taste of too many beers, Agnes dropping her glass, Sandra's stunned expression.
And then the memory that made her want to pull the covers over her head and never emerge: her own voice, slurred with alcohol and emotion, confessing that her incredible one-
