A/N: This is it, the reaction chapter! And it's not as happy as the first one. Actually, I hated writing this. I probably should mention that while this is Annika's story, and it will include her quite a bit, I will be exploring Meg's character a bit more, as I really, really love Meg to death.
Chapter Four: I Am Dead
Through Annika's Eyes
"Annika." Erik said in a tone just above a whisper. It was not spoken with love, or even hate. It was just said, there was no emotion behind it at all. Erik stood slowly, and it was then I noticed just how much he had aged. He was still beautiful, but there were a few more wrinkles here and there, and his energy seemed sapped out of his body.
I wasn't really surprised. Erik was ten years older; making him nearly, if not already, forty years old. In the normal world, I would've been disturbed by the fourteen year age gap, but I didn't care when it was about us. I couldn't stand the silence anymore, it was eating away at my soul. Without speaking, I walked towards Erik, and carefully, I pulled him into a hug.
He did not hug me back.
"Erik?" I asked as he pushed me away a little.
"Ten years." He mumbled. My brow furrowed. He turned to the Trio of circus performers. "Leave us." He boomed and they did so immediately.
Oh fuck. Sixty thought in my head as Erik looked down at me again.
"Ten years, Annika." He repeated in a much louder voice. His tone was frightening. "Ten years without anything, just silence. Bitter, cold silence. I thought you were dead!" He spat the last word out and it rang around the room, replaying a million times.
"I'm sorry." I managed to whisper. His laughter made me gasp when it filled the room after my reply.
"You are sorry?" He asked. "I found your dress by the lake and it almost killed me. I thought that the mob had... had..." Now he was rambling, working himself up into a rage. He was going to do something stupid soon if I didn't stop him. I grabbed his arm and forced him to look at me.
"I know. I wanted to come back. Being away from you killed me just as much." Tears were burning in my eyes, and they began to fall as Erik flung my arm away.
"Then why did you stay away? Why did you do that to me?" He roared, walking away towards his piano.
"I couldn't find you. I couldn't find my way back. I was lost and trapped in a place where I did not belong." His broken laughter again filled the room.
"I attempted to find you, to track you down, but I never found even as much as a tombstone." I realized just how deep I cut him by leaving.
"Erik..." I said, coming up behind him and placing my hands on his shoulders. He shrugged them away.
"Don't touch me. You are dead to me." The words stung but I still clung on to the hope that they were false.
"Erik, please," I begged quietly. "Don't punish me for sins that are not mine, I wanted to come back, but I couldn't find you, not until now." Erik turned to look at me, eying me sharply.
"If you only knew how much you made me suffer. Every night I would wake screaming as the mob dragged you away from me. And where were you? You allowed me to sink lower and lower. You lied to me." I took a step back.
"How could you say that?" I asked, tears flowing freely down my face. "I thought you loved me." I whispered and I jumped when Erik slammed his fingers down onto the keys.
"I thought I did too, but you cannot love someone that you hate." I put a hand on a nearby table to steady myself, I was going to faint any second.
"You don't mean that." I tired to convince myself.
"I do. Ten years of dying every single day because you ran from me has proved it. You have broken my heart, Annika Walters, and I doubt I can bear to have it broken again with your lies." I took another step back.
"Erik, I would never-" He cut me off.
"Leave." He said in a stony voice and my eyes widened.
"What did you say to me?" I asked and he slammed his fingers down onto the keys again.
"Leave. Now. There is nothing here for you. I cannot love anymore, you have made sure of that." I couldn't take it anymore. I turned and ran down the steps, rushing through floor after floor of amazing things while Erik's angry music chased me away.
I destroyed him. I thought to myself bitterly. I broke him and hurt him. This is all my fault. I flew out of building, my heart in pieces It had started to rain and if I had listened to Goblin talking in my head, I would've noticed just how ironic it was. I collapsed onto the ground, sobbing when I had put enough distance between myself and Erik.
"Annika!" I looked up to see two figures approaching me, but I couldn't see straight. I let out one more gasp and then fainted, dead-away.
Through Gene's Eyes
"If she is where I fear she is, Monsieur, we will have to hurry." Meg said frantically as she ran down the streets of Phantasma, with me panting alongside. I knew all about running from the cops, but it had been awhile sing I had actually done it.
"And where do you fear she is?" I had asked and she just shook her head. "Who were those guys?" I questioned. "Your customers, I mean." Meg spared me a fleeting glance and her pace faltered a little bit.
"They are my regulars, or were my regulars. They are Rastrick's men." She replied and that made zero sense.
"Who is Rastrick?" I asked, vaguely remembering the guy who invited Christine to Coney island to sing in Love Never Dies. Funny, I always thought he was a pseudonym for The Phantom.
"I trust that Annika has tole you of when she came to Paris ten years ago?" Meg asked me and I nodded.
"Yes, she did, but so what?" I asked. Meg looked at me with pain in her eyes but then shook her head.
"Rastrick is Erik's business rival. He owns the park on the other side of Coney Island; Dreamland, about the same size as Phantasma." She began. "He has access to all of Erik's secrets, it seems, and when Erik refused to cease the building of his concert hall, Rastrick revealed Erik to the general public, and now the paparazzi want the reason for why he wears a mask." I was in awe.
"I didn't know Rastrick was real." Me and my big mouth. Meg gave me an odd look, but said nothing.
"Recently, Erik wanted to gain the rights to Rastrick's Manhattan Opera House, but a disagreement led to Rastrick threatening Erik. He said that he had pictures of him without his mask on, and if he attempted to gain the rights, he would release them as well. My work with his henchmen made sure that time never came, and now, Erik is in jeopardy." I felt bad. I really did. But deep down I knew that even if I had known that they were Meg's customers, I still would have stopped them. She didn't deserve to have to do that.
"I'm sorry." I said to her and she stopped entirely. She turned back to me, scanning my face.
"You didn't know. And what you did was very brave." I felt my self esteem growing higher as she turned back to the dimly lit, rain-slick street. It had begun to rain a few minutes ago and I wondered just where in Hell's name Meg learned to sprint down slippery streets in heels and not even falter.
"Still, I'm sorry." I told her and she gave me a smile.
"Apology accepted, but I'll face them later, right now we have to find Annika." I wholeheartedly agreed as we increased our pace, looking left and right for a blonde girl in a black dress. The tourists cleared out when the rain began to fall in heavy sheets, making it easier for us to dodge them, but harder for us to see. Finally, Meg stopped running.
Her eyes widened as she looked up at the giant building. Even from all the way down here, I could hear angry piano music floating down from the highest floor. Much closer, if I strained my ears, I could hear someone crying. I looked around for the source of it and finally saw Annika, lying on the ground, sobbing her heart out.
"Oh mon dieu!" (Oh my God!) Meg said softly. "Annika!" She called, rushing towards her. I followed, anger bubbling up beneath the surface of my skin. I wanted to kill something. I wanted to kill that ugly freak for hurting her! I was ready to burst into that building and hack him to bits, but when Annika suddenly went still, I realized my priorities.
"Oh God, is she okay?" I asked, kneeling down next to Meg. She nodded, and then shook her head.
"She fainted." The little blonde showgirl said in a small voice. I sighed and nodded, remembering doing this about a thousand times when Annie got drunk off her ass. I picked her carefully and placed her over my shoulder. The movement seemed to wave her up a bit and she looked down at me through teary eyes.
"Genie" She said. "This is not how Rhett Butler did it." I couldn't help but smile. I lowered her just enough and put an arm under her knees, scooping her up bridal style. "Holy cats." She said when she saw Meg standing there, wringing her hands. "Meg?" She asked and the little blonde nodded. That was all it took, Annika fainted again and left me to carry her dead weight back to Meg's house as she insisted.
"Come, it's this way." Meg said as she walked off down the street. I followed her out of Phantasma through the pouring rain to a small neighborhood. Meg seemed a bit frightened of her own place of residence, as she kept looking behind her shoulder and increasing her pace. It was a really nice place to live, with clean brick houses and white picket fences. Flowers grew in neat little window boxes and the cheery colors made me feel almost like I was under normal circumstances again.
I couldn't describe it, but I almost felt like I was at home here, despite the fact that I had never really had a home, and I could've easily said right then and there that i would love to live there forever. But still, while the houses and the fences and the flowers might have been beautiful, I found that I couldn't take my eyes off of Meg. She wasn't like the girls in 2012, her beauty was real, and not the trashy, slutty beautiful that dominate most girl's faces now. She glowed under the lamp light and yet, sadness was in her eyes.
I made sure to keep Annie steady as we continued along until finally, Meg hopped up the concrete stairs of a fashionably Gothic two-story house. It's roof was clean, black slate and a spiky chimney stuck up from the top. The outer bricks were a dark, dark red, almost like blood, and a light shone from behind faded curtains. Meg knocked on the heavy wooden door three times and the light in the window shut off. I heard footsteps cautiously approaching the door and it was finally opened by none other than Madam Giry.
Her mouth was set in a thin line that stretched over her chalky-pale face. Her dress was black and it came up to her neck in a choking grip. Her pale hands were clutched around a handgun and I wondered just what the Hell happened in the past to make her so paranoid of answering the door. The hands gripping the gun when slack when she saw me standing behind her daughter holding an unconscious woman that she knew.
"Meg, est que Annika?" (Meg, is that Annika?) Meg nodded and stepped over the threshold into the house and I followed her. Taking one last look at the pretty neighborhood as the door closed behind me.