I am so, so sorry I've been gone so long! I got busy with college and then I got so busy I forgot about all my fanfics, and... I can't even apologize enough!

and, and I still don't own anything to do with Twilight or Phantom of the Opera

68: Hero

Erik heard Sarah's scream for help and was immediately running away for fear of losing one of the few people he cared about. He ran not only for his life, but for hers as well. The smell of blood was powerful, and he surged forwards as fast as his legs could carry him towards her location.

"Not my protégé, you bastard!" he yelled as he rammed Sarah's step-father onto the dirt just before he was about to hurt her again, just barely making it in time as Sean knocked Sarah out to rape her while unconscious.

"What the hell?!" Sean panicked as he saw Erik. "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"I am Erik," he snarled. "Angel of Music, and the person who will be taking you from this life slowly and painfully – for you."

"You think you can take me?" Sean sneered as he got back up.

"Bad choice," Erik said calmly as he lifted Sarah up and then stuck her on a high tree limb before going back down and circling the clearing. "As if you could outrun me!"

Erik stopped at a tree, tore it up from its roots, and broke it clean in half as if it was a pencil over his head.

"As if you could fight me off," he snarled as he threw the two halves of the tree away.

"Angel," she breathed before moving in her sleep and nearly falling from the tree branch.

"Greetings to you as well, my princess," he smirked as he shifted her so that she wouldn't fall from the limb. He took a deep breath through his nose to remind him why he wasn't to spill blood before turning around and facing his opponent that had injured his precious one. "Now for you…"

He put his hand on the man's leg and squeezed until he heard a myriad of sickening cracks and breaks, eliciting a scream of agony from Sean. Erik smiled and left, picking Sarah up bridal-style on his way past and carrying her back to the convention.

He carried her inside, stealing in through the back doors as a few smokers were on their way out. As he went to the elevator, he hid from a security guard passing. He was glaring at anyone and everyone, knowing that he was on a time limit because of the approaching dawn. But as he saw the sun's rays from inside through a window, he ran straight out and quickly to the nearest place he could think of to hide from society – his lair in this area.

"Well, we're here," he sighed as he reached the edge of a moat that would take him to his new home. "I suppose I'll have to give you a tour when I'm done changing clothes."

Sarah was unresponsive aside from sleeping, so he smiled gently and began singing.

On the wind, cross the sea
Hear this song and remember
Soon you'll be Home with me
Once Upon a December
Dancing Bears, Painted Wings
Things I almost remember
And a song, angels sing
Once Upon a December

He sighed as he stopped singing and set her on the bed gently. He went over to his organ and put all of the music he'd composed while thinking of her into a folder, and that into the backpack that she'd packed. Almost all of her previous contents had been lost, but this time he would get his revenge upon Sean full throttle.

He wrote a quick letter to Sarah and put it inside the music, explaining why he'd never shown and why he couldn't show in sunlight, saying that he didn't want to blind her since the sunlight would bounce off his skin. It was true, he conceded, just not in the way she expected. He then wrote a letter to Dan and Jillian, explaining that he was an old friend of hers and had come to her aid as he'd heard her screams for help.

When dusk approached, he picked the backpack up and put it on Sarah, then grabbing her bridal-style and carrying her back to the hotel that her parents were at. He set her down in front of the door gently and knocked loudly before running away and hiding behind the corner. He'd heard the door open, and a startled yelp from Dan before he'd heard Jillian take control.

"Impossible, how could she have gotten here like this?" Jillian asked confused as she picked up her adopted child.

"I don't know," Dan said looking around. "But whoever responsible put himself in a good position in my book."

Erik smiled softly as he withdrew into the shadows and then left to go back and hunt down Sean, knowing that his plan to make it look as though Sarah had been kidnapped when she'd run away had worked.

When Sarah awoke, she found herself in an unfamiliar room in a hotel, on a bed made out of pillows and blankets on the floor. She looked around her confused to find that she was with two new people, and rolled over to face the wall and begin crying silently. She'd run away from home, and here they'd probably never accept her back without a problem, so now that everything was over she felt immensely guilty, only adding to her pile of emotional problems.

"Mmn…" she heard as her mother groggily awoke. Sarah forced herself to let it die down into whimpers and then began to toss and turn as she couldn't keep her grief in, her emotions finally swelling into a volcano's peak.

"Jillian, what's wrong?" she heard Dan say.

"That's not me," the blonde said confused as they jolted up and realized what was going on.

"Sarah!" they remembered in unison as they lunged for their child.

Jillian reached her first and put Sarah's head in her lap and began murmuring gently, trying to ease her child's nonexistent nightmare. Of course it didn't work, but it did help them to realize that there were horrors in Sarah's past that they couldn't even imagine. Dan took over and shook her shoulder, causing her to jolt "awake" and begin sobbing incoherently.

"No! Don't-no-please-I'll-good-promise!" she rasped out in between ragged breaths, not realizing she was back with her adopted parents.

"What?" they asked in unison.

"No, I'll be good, I promise, please don't hit me!" Sarah sobbed and half-wailed, causing Dan to let her curl up next to Jillian for comfort.

"Well, we know her attacker was a male," Jillian said pulling her child up. "I think we'll head on out to the beach, maybe that will clear her head a little bit."

"I'll call the cops and let them know that someone brought her home," Dan sighed wearily.

"T-training," Sarah rasped as she realized that she was back with her adopted parents. "Training, beach…"

Dan and Jillian exchanged worried looks as Sarah stumbled out into the larger section of the hotel suite.

Again, I'm so sorry! I know it's not much, but I'll try to make up for my absence!