This chapter might not leave you with the best feelings. The story is about to take the final turn. There are still quite a few chapters, but we are heading for the climax. Tension is going to be high, and not all of the chapters are going to be pleasant reads. I hope you'll stay with me all the way through, though. Thank you as always for your words of encouragement.
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They went out together that evening, taking care to make sure that no unwanted eyes were watching them. As always, Erik carried his violin outside. Rather than tuning the instrument, he placed it upon the brick wall and silently sat down, his eyes distant. She sat beside him with her legs dangling over the short wall, still feeling melancholy from that morning. From the distance, she could hear laugher and the steady boom of a stereo. Maybe someone was having a house-warming party; she'd seen some giant moving trucks when she'd peeked out the window that afternoon. They were being invaded.
"Where are we going?" she asked after a moment, her tone steady. She didn't want him to know that she was afraid.
"We will remain in England for now. Perhaps begin moving south. It would not be safe to leave the country, and I do not wish to hide you away on an infested ship."
"When are we leaving?"
"As soon as I am able to make arrangements. I will stay on constant watch. Do not fret."
"I wish everyone would stop chasing us," she murmured, staring at the ground.
"The villagers do not stop their hunt until the monster has been strung up and torched."
"Erik—"
"I wish to give you better," he continued. "You must believe that I will. I will find a place to hide us forever. Sooner or later, the world will deem us dead and forgotten. But we will be alive, my Christine."
"We shouldn't have to hide forever. Erik, I'd love to go with you to the opera someday. Or to the movies. Or anywhere! There has to be a better way than this."
His shoulders tensed. "I will never be allowed into the human race, Christine. They have destroyed me, and Erik has destroyed them in return." He tilted his chin upwards. "I daresay I have done far more than enough to earn my prison sentence." A certain satisfaction was sprinkled in his tone.
She tentatively reached out and took his hand, hoping to take him away from thoughts of destruction. "I understand why you think that. Nadir told me how you tried to negotiate and-"
"Let us not speak of that now."
She gently squeezed his fingers. "All right. But I still think there has to be a way to get people to leave us alone."
"We will find permanent residence," he replied, sitting up straight again. "Perhaps if we could get to Asia. We could hide in a village or city. No one would care, and we would be lost amongst billions of people." His eyes flickered with contentment. "Yes. Perhaps that would do. They will not know of us there."
A lump of uncertainty formed in her stomach. She was going to be taken away from all which was familiar to her, to where she knew no one and couldn't speak a word of the language. Wasn't there another answer somewhere?
Looking down at their entwined hands, she again saw a corner of one of the scars on his arms. With her other hand, she pulled up his sleeve slightly to reveal the rubbery-looking blotches of redness. She brushed her thumb over them, knowing that the cause of it had been excruciating. He jerked his arm away. It was obvious why Erik believed he could never have anything close to a normal life.
She sighed and scooted closer, resting her head on his shoulder as he sang to her, allowing herself to be hypnotized.
She knew that she couldn't always use his divine voice to hide from their problems, but it was too much to think about that night. She leaned her head against the bony chest of her beloved and closed her eyes.
For the first time in weeks, Christine did not absorb his thoughts and dreams. Instead, Raoul was forced to focus on the growing accusations. Horrible articles appeared about him in the newspapers, and police had been up to his office to question him on several occasions. He was bewildered. How could anyone think him guilty of murder?
Leonie assured him that it was nothing, just another smear campaign against the company. She told him what to tell the police and hired a good number of lawyers to take questions from the press. Enough evidence hadn't been gathered for an arrest, but the thought of going to prison made him sick to his stomach. He was innocent, for God's sake! There was only one person in the world that he'd ever even wanted to kill!
With nowhere else to go, Raoul had finally found a legal file and flipped through the stacks of papers. The contents were simultaneously upsetting and relieving. The company was involved in hundreds of lawsuits every year, but they seemed to win most of them. Those that they lost ended in settlements of small sums. The suits involved everything from faulty products to employee injury suits. At first, he reasoned that all gigantic companies had this many legal problems. Still, he wasn't sure.
No matter what the outcome, he couldn't live his life like this. This was his father's life, and his father had been a miserable man in the end. Raoul frantically dug through other files and found nothing of interest. How did he absolve himself of a crime that he knew nothing about? He wished that he had access to his father's file cabinets. Christine had been digging through them.
Don't you ever want to know the reasons for what happened to us?
She had asked him that on the day she broke the engagement. Had she known something?
Sitting at his desk, Raoul placed his face into his hands and took a deep breath. He couldn't leave the country until this scandal was over. The police were now more interested in him than in finding Christine. He at least needed to get out of London for a while. Maybe he would go back to Oliver's house. If no one else was around, he could search the home for information. If he got caught, he could say he left his belongings there. That was partly the truth.
He considered telling Leonie where he was going, but something kept him from calling her. He wanted to get out of there and breathe again, to find some sort of clarity…before he really did have nothing left to lose.
Christine was lying on her stomach atop the white sheets of the cot. The little bed was surprisingly comfortable, and the cotton covers kept her warm. She buried her face into the pillow for a moment, not quite ready to take on the day. She felt helpless. She was going to end up either watching Erik die at the hands of the police or forever retreating into the darkness with him.
As she finally sat up and pushed the covers off of her, she glanced down and spotted her cell phone. Weeks had passed since she'd turned it on. Only one person had her number, and she wondered what Gavin was doing. He was likely married by now. Maybe he didn't even know that she was missing.
Reaching down, she picked the phone up and clicked it on. A message flashed onto the screen and told her that she had one piece of voice mail. Sure enough, it was Gavin's cell number. She swallowed back the lump in her throat and smiled, wishing that she could talk to him and get some advice; Gavin was always fair and unassuming.
Then again, she didn't really know how Gavin could help. And Erik would be infuriated if she ever found a way to call him. Maybe she would at least try to dial her voice mail box someday, after she was sure that no one could trace the location.
Turning off her phone, she slowly climbed out of bed and opened the door to her room. Seeing that the living area was empty, she checked the kitchen and found no one. A shiver traveled up her spine, and she nearly jumped when the back door swung open. Nadir rushed inside with something in his hands.
"Nadir. Where's Erik? What's going on?"
He glanced up. "Oh. Christine. Erik is not back yet, but I would not worry. He said that he may stay out through the daytime and take shelter somewhere else. He is looking for the quickest route out of the city."
"Oh," she murmured. "But he'll be okay?"
"Yes. I think he will be fine." Nadir held up the item in his hands, and she saw that it was a damp newspaper. "I saw this on someone's lawn and thought we could see if there are any new reports. They will not miss it; it is several days old."
"Hmm." She yawned and took a seat at the table. As she looked back up, she noticed that the color had drained from Nadir's face. His jaw was clenched, and his mouth was partially open. "What's wrong?"
He hesitated and looked at her. "Falcon has made the papers."
"What?" She jumped up and walked to stand behind him. "Oh," she sickly whispered as she began to read. "Raoul."
"Do not be mad at Erik," Nadir quickly began. "He only-"
"I'm not," she softly replied. "I know why he didn't tell me." She sighed. "I wish Raoul had never gotten involved. I wish he had gone back home."
"I think he was involved from birth, Christine."
She was silent as she read over the entire article, a growing feeling of dread overtaking her. "Oh…" She groaned into her hands. "He can't go to prison! He's not responsible for killing someone. Raoul wouldn't do something like that! I used to beat him at Candy Land!"
"He was likely set up," Nadir replied. "He was young and naïve, a perfect scapegoat."
Christine shook her head. "It's not fair! He can't go to jail!"
"Maybe he will get out of it," gently stated Nadir. "The company has excellent lawyers. I am sure he will escape conviction. Just as they all do."
"It's not fair, Nadir. We have to keep running from place to place. Raoul's trapped at that horrible company! And they all get away with it."
He turned and placed a warm hand on her shoulder. "I know, Christine. Nothing about this has ever been fair. We have to do the best that we can." He flipped through the paper. "I see nothing about us." Nadir chuckled. "Maybe we have been forgotten now that this other story has come up. That would be a blessing."
She walked back to her chair, wearily falling into the seat. Nadir folded the paper in half. "I had best not let Erik see this," he said. "Not that it was right of him to hide it from you. But…you know Erik."
Christine nodded. "If we're still here, could you try to get the paper for the next few days? I want to know that he's okay."
"I will try," he replied. Nadir studied her. "The young man still means a lot to you?"
She couldn't tell if the question was loaded, but an honest answer seemed best. "Raoul and I were close friends for a while in elementary school. He was nicer than the other kids, and we always had fun together. I liked going to his house because he had all these expensive toys." She laughed in remembrance. "When my father got sick, we managed to run into each other again. I was so depressed at that time, lying in bed for hours and waiting for a miracle. It was great to have him there."
"And the young man was a great comfort?"
"Raoul was always there for me. And I loved him for that. I mean, we were in love. He made me feel safe and happy again, like I had something to hold onto. But I think that we would have gotten frustrated with each other after a while. I would have wanted my music again. And he wanted this ideal life that I'm-I'm not sure I could have given him."
Nadir continued to keep close watch of her face. "Would you still have separated if your lives had not been invaded?"
"I'm sure we would have gotten married and been happy for a while. I don't know how long we would have stayed together, how long we would have wanted the same things." She pursed her lips to the side. "It was kind of…I mean, when you guys came and…"
"Kidnapped and nearly killed you?" he offered.
She softly laughed. "When that happened, I couldn't go to Raoul. He was locked behind a door, more helpless than I was. No matter how terrified I was, I couldn't run behind him and hide from Erik. And so I sang and survived. Afterwards, I couldn't hide anymore. And later I fell in love…" She swallowed. "But what happened between us doesn't matter. Raoul doesn't deserve to have his life destroyed. Just like Erik didn't."
Nadir sighed. "I know. I wish that I had advice for you. I do not."
"I know," she replied. "I still don't know what to do either."
Erik returned late that afternoon during a downpour of frigid rain. Seeing his dripping mask and suit, she immediately brought him a fluffy blue towel and embraced him, grateful to see him unharmed. His eyes shown with love, and she could feel no bitterness over his withholding of information. After wiping the towel over his mask and sleeves, he settled an arm around her shoulders, less hesitant now about touching her.
"Did you find anything of use?" asked Nadir.
"I think it is best to begin slowly heading south," he declared. "The quickest path of escape is through the English Channel and to the continent. A journey over the Atlantic would be nearly impossible at the present time, at least not with Christine." He affectionately brushed a hand through her hair, his voice calm and certain.
Nadir slowly nodded. "Do as you think is best."
The heavy rain continued into the night, and they did not go out with the violin. She quietly sat beside Erik on a two-person folding chair that served as their couch, not ready to lie alone in her bed and listen to the patter of rain hitting the roof. Maybe he noticed her downcast eyes when he glanced up from a map. "What is wrong, Christine?"
"Nothing. Am I distracting you?"
"Not at all." He took her hand. "Do not lie to me. Something troubles you."
"I just want us to be safe," she replied, wishing she wasn't such a terrible liar. God forbid that he find out that Raoul was also occupying a small portion of her thoughts. "That's all."
"We will be safe soon. I swear that to you." He ran his thumb over the ring. "With you, I will be fine anywhere…anyplace. Location has no meaning."
Reaching up, she gently loosened his mask and raised it enough to kiss his yellowed cheek. Her face was warm. He blissfully sighed and held onto her. "I should like to stay here all night," he softly began. "But it is necessary that I go out again."
She nodded and raised her head. "All right. Be careful. I love you." He pressed his masked cheek against her head for a moment longer, before rising and exiting through the back door. Christine briefly sat in the silence and then decided to head to bed. Despite her anxiety, sleep came as soon as she snuggled beneath the covers. A voice awoke her sometime during the night.
"Christine?" Consciousness quickly overtook her, and she sat straight up with wide eyes, her hands clutching the covers. Nadir was standing in her doorway, partially obscured by shadows. "I am sorry to wake you," he stated. "But I retrieved another paper for you."
She blinked and her pulse quickened as she recognized concern in Nadir's tone. "Thank you," she whispered, slowly climbing out of bed. "Is Erik back?"
"No. Not yet. He should not be back for at least several more hours. I wanted you to see this before he returned." He handed the newspaper to her, and she brought it out into the light of the sitting area. With a deep breath, she forced herself to look at the front and immediately felt her stomach clench.
Attempting to Escape? Raoul Chagny Released After One Night in Prison, Ordered to Stay in London
According to the article, Raoul had been heading north. He claimed to be going to Frederick Oliver's house, but the police were skeptical. Leonie was quoted as saying she didn't know what he was thinking but doubted he was trying to escape. She said that she'd keep a close eye on all matters and would privately speak with the young man.
Christine closed her eyes. Raoul knew that something was wrong, but he was trapped now. Even if he wasn't convicted of murder, Leonie would find some way to keep him under her finger. She miserably ran a hand over her face and through her hair. Raoul would likely believe her now if she told him the story, but how could she ever make contact with him? That horrible woman was probably tracing his calls!
Gavin. Could he help? He knew a lot about investigating and digging up facts from strange sources. If she told him the story, maybe he would know where to get evidence. Maybe he would know how to expose the company for what it was.
Was she even making any sense? If she let Raoul go to prison, though, she was no better than all those who had let Erik suffer. And what if she could get Erik's name out of the press? If everyone saw her alive, they would probably give up searching for Erik. It was too wonderful to think about.
But Leonie. Leonie would always be watching. Christine knew that she would have to make sure that woman never saw her.
A hand rested on her upper arm, startling her. "Are you well?" Nadir asked. "I know it is a shock for you."
Her lips slowly parted, and she found that her mouth was dry. "Nadir. I can't let this happen to Raoul."
"What can be done?"
"I know everything now. I have a friend who might be able to help expose the company. And once Raoul sees me alive and knows the story, I think that he would help. He has access to the offices. Maybe there's even a way to get them all to forget about you and Erik." Her voice grew more confident with each word. "Is it impossible?" she asked. "Am I being ridiculous?"
"It is a long shot," he softly replied.
"But is it impossible?"
"Erik escaping from a maximum security prison was impossible."
She nodded in understanding. "How can we keep running from place to place forever? It doesn't make any sense. Erik and you are going to end up dead. And I can't leave my friend like this. Even if I can't get anything else done, I want to get Raoul out of there."
"Christine." He sighed. "I could not encourage or forbid your actions. I would say it was ridiculous-but taking you to Asia or South America and hiding you forever is just as insane. We have limited options."
She forced a smile at the half-hearted encouragement. "I'm really scared, Nadir. But I have to do something. Is there a train or something that goes to London?"
"There is a rail system, I believe. And buses. You would have to disguise yourself, though. It would be difficult for Erik and me to enter the city again…"
Christine shook her head. "I don't want you and Erik to get hurt. You should find someplace safe to stay. And I'll try to find a way to contact you if things get bad. The newspapers will probably say something about my appearance." She took a deep breath. "If I could call Gavin… And if the two of us could get to Raoul…" She glanced up and noticed that Nadir's face was a little pale-and that he was no longer looking at her.
"You cannot leave me!"
The viciously hissed words caused her to jump up from her chair and whirl around with a gasp. "What? Erik! I'm not trying to…" She'd forgotten that his eyes could look like that, a fiery shade of orange-yellow.
"Erik. Calm down," stated Nadir, slowly rising from his seat. "No one is leaving you."
"Then what are you discussing?" he snarled.
She reached out a hand, but he jerked away from her. A moment passed before she could get the words out of her mouth. "I want to make it so we don't have to run away," she began, keeping her voice steady. "And Raoul's going to go to prison, and he hasn't done anything. And…"
You showed her that!" he raged at Nadir, taking a quick step past her as his eyes continued to burn.
She stepped in front of Mr. Khan. "Erik. I asked him to show me the article. But it's not that. We shouldn't have to run forever. Maybe we could be safe if Raoul knows that I'm okay, if the company is brought down."
"So you are going back to him."
She shook her head in frustration. "Just to fix this."
"It is over! It cannot be fixed! And you will not go back there!"
"Erik, you're not being—"
"You will not go back there!" he hissed, his voice easily overpowering her own. "You will come with me and not speak of it again! That boy has dug his own grave, and he can rot in it! We are leaving! You are mine! Mine! No matter how sick it makes you to look at him, you are Erik's!" He loomed over her, and she attempted to keep her feet planted, gambling everything on the idea that he wouldn't hurt her.
"Erik! Stop it!" she heard Nadir shout in uncontained anger. "I bet the boy never treated her as you did. Now, calm down! You are acting horribly!" Erik stalked toward Mr. Khan with his hands in fists. Nadir took a step backwards into the wall but continued to glare. She watched in frozen horror as Erik reached out a bony hand toward Nadir's neck.
"Don't!" she weakly choked out. "I didn't mean it to be like this. Please, Erik. You don't understand. Please listen to me!"
Dropping his hand, Erik turned around to look at her. He stared at her for several seconds, and Christine started to walk toward him with her arms outstretched. If he would let her touch him…Within an unnatural instant, though, Erik disappeared from the room. She felt a cool breeze brush against her face as the back door silently opened and closed. All was quiet, save for her harsh breath and beating heart.
"Nadir," she whispered, falling into a chair and placing her face in her trembling hands. "I didn't mean for it to be like that. What mess."
"Do not blame yourself," Nadir muttered in disgust. "He is acting like a five-year-old." He sighed. "Erik hears what he wants to hear; he does not listen. He hates to be out of control. Probably because he had absolutely no control for ten years."
"I wanted to make things better for us." She miserably shook her head. The last months…the last few years fell heavily upon her shoulders and knocked her down into a heap of tears.
"Christine. I am so sorry," Nadir tiredly murmured, his wrinkles more evident on his aging face. "I am sorry we ever pulled you into this. It was wrong. It would have been better if…"
She shook her head. "But I love him," she choked out. "I do. I wanted us to have a chance at some kind of life together."
"I know, Christine. I just…I am not sure if Erik can even understand what a normal life is."
When she was finally drained of tears and reduced to sniffling, she shakily got up and found a blanket. Then, she climbed back into the chair, draped it over her legs, and waited for him to come back.
