Author's Note: Boy, there's a lot going on on this particular New Year's Eve. Also, I decided to include the years during which this story is set for my own ease and that of my readers. I placed years during after every New Year that is celebrated within the narrative (the chapters included are 1, 14, 24, and this one). And this chapter came out earlier than scheduled because I managed to make a few more in advance so hooray! It was an absolute delight to read the reviews for the last chapter ― thank you so much, guys! (and I have zero regrets with that small cliffhanger) ― so can you guys pretty please leave some for this one too? Also, again and not for the last time, this is a chapter that contains a heavy subject matter. Please read at your own caution.

TRIGGER WARNING/S: Sexual trauma

Playlist:
06. The Other Side by Ruelle
07. I'll Be Good by Jaymes Young

( thirty )

UNHOLY GHOSTS

This was not good.

While Erik did not recognize the blonde woman, Jovan obviously had, and her reaction had been a bad one.

Once all the candles in the corridor were out, Erik dropped his cloak before rushing away from his hiding place and to Jovan. Before he had plunged the hallway into darkness, he recalled the look on Jovan's face, and he feared, for a moment, that she would have a fainting spell. But when he came up to her in the dark, Erik was relieved to see that she had not. However, Jovan had remained frozen to her spot, and she flinched violently in surprise when Erik curled his fingers around her upper arms.

"Jovan, it's me," he whispered. "It's Erik."

"Erik?" Her voice shuddered when she spoke, and she sounded like a lost child. Erik felt his heart twinge.

"Breathe, Jovan," he reminded her as he gently pulled her away from the middle of the corridor and to one of his passageways to the side. As Erik secured the concealed entrance, Jovan slid down against the hidden tunnel's walls. Erik hauled her back to her feet before she could touch the ground while his eyes caught the tremors that had taken a hold of her hands. That didn't look good.

"I-I need air," she gasped.

Erik gave a nod. He knew where to take her.

The rooftop was thankfully still empty when they arrived.

Erik immediately lowered Jovan at the feet of the closest statue which was, ironically, an angel with its wings spread wide. The sight of the marble sculpture caused Erik to silently curse as Jovan's story came rushing back to him, her story of him being a fallen angel.

Ridiculous, Erik thought darkly. What kind of angel was he if he couldn't protect Jovan within the halls of his own opera house? He shouldn't have let her go off on her own, especially during New Year's Eve of all nights, knowing that the Opéra Populaire would be sprawling with outsiders. He shouldn't have―

Erik cut his train of thought before it could continue. No, this wasn't about him. Right now, this was about Jovan.

At the statue's feet, Jovan had wrapped her cloak tighter around her form, but her hands were still shaking as her fingers were curled tight around the dark fabric. As gently as he could, Erik pried her fingers off her cloak then held her hands in his own. He went on one knee before her as he searched her eyes for any hint of what could be running through her mind, but he only saw a haze over the green depths of her distant stare. So far, Erik had yet to spot any signs of hysteria which was good, but he could hardly gauge what the extent of Jovan's reaction was if he didn't know who the woman was and what memories her presence had triggered in Jovan's head.

"Jovan, what happened? Who was that woman?" Erik tried, keeping his voice low.

Recognition flashed across her eyes, making the haze vanish. "Laurine," she gasped out, as if she had been holding her breath.

"You're alright, Jovan, you're with me. Who is this Laurine?"

Jovan's fingers tightened around Erik's hands the moment the question slipped from his mouth. She dipped her head and her hair fell to obscure her face, and for a moment, Erik thought that she would burst into tears. But when Jovan lifted her chin, Erik was stunned by the low fire that had began to blaze in her eyes.

"Laurine, she's ― she's my aunt," Jovan visibly struggled with her words. A muscle in her jaw tightened. "She's the wife of―"

She looked like she could throw up. Erik knew whose name Jovan was having a hard time trying to say, and it was the same name that she had seethed at Elea not to say out loud, the very name that Jovan could not bring herself to say. Erik grimaced at the implication of Jovan's reluctance. He needed to do something about that.

"Say his name, Jovan," Erik pressed, freeing his voice of any trace of emotion.

"I can't," Jovan rasped.

"Say his name," Erik insisted, his tone growing assertive.

Jovan released a shuddering breath as she glared defiantly at Erik. "I said, I can't, you wretch."

"Jovan, you cannot allow a simple name to have such power over you," Erik answered coolly.

A chillingly empty smile curled her lips. "Erik, you don't understand."

"I don't have to," he snapped. "Now, say his name. Rémi."

"I can't―"

"Rémi. Say his name."

"You son of a bitch."

Erik was unfazed. "Say his name, Jovan," he demanded.

"You sound just like him," Jovan growled.

"Say his name!"

"Rémi!"

Her hands left Erik's, and they went to cover her face just as tears escaped from her eyes. He let out a quiet sigh of relief as he watched a sob wrack Jovan's body. Though he recognized that his method had been cruel, Erik had only been doing it to help her. But he wasn't about to explain that. He didn't need her understanding now, he needed her to be stable.

He heard Jovan suck in a sharp breath. Her hands left her face, revealing tear-streaked cheeks while her eyes stared ferociously at him. But Erik had a feeling that her anger was no longer directed at him.

When Jovan spoke, the words seemed to slip from her mouth with more ease.

"Laurine... is Rémi's wife," she breathed. Her chest was heaving rapidly as she did her best to prevent herself from hyperventilating.

"They're here tonight, Jovan," Erik answered quietly.

Jovan narrowed her eyes at Erik. "I figured that much," she snapped.

A frown crossed his lips. "What are you going to do?"

Jovan's eyes fell shut, anxiety washing over her. "I don't know," she answered, her voice sounding small.

"Rémi will know you're here, Jovan."

Her eyes blinked open at the sound of her uncle's name, and she felt a stab of nausea for a brief moment before the feeling left her. Jovan merely gave a nod, too tired to even consider what could happen to her once Laurine had told her husband of Jovan's whereabouts at the moment.

"Erik, I already ran away from him once," Jovan whispered, her agitation seeping into her voice. "I don't want to run away again."

"Then don't," Erik replied, and Jovan almost laughed when she heard his response.

Her gaze softened as she met Erik's eyes. "You don't even know why I ran away from Rémi in the first place." Jovan fell silent for a second when she realized how easily her uncle's name had left her lips. Her eyes widened for a second. It was... odd.

Erik's lips tugged into a smirk. Jovan's expression almost mirrored his as she remembered Erik's tendency to eavesdrop. In truth, she highly doubted that Erik was still unknowing of the reason why she was hiding in the Opéra Populaire. After all, she herself had let slip a few clues (along with that damn Vicomte Collet) though much of the picture was still left for Erik to figure out on his own. But now knowing that he didn't mind playing dirty, Jovan was absolutely sure that Erik now had a suspicion as to why she was hiding from Rémi.

"I might have some knowledge," Erik admitted, "but it won't compare to hearing the truth straight from your lips."

Jovan gave a quiet sigh. "It's not that I don't trust you, Erik."

His amber and green eyes were gentle. "Jovan, you asked me earlier if I would judge you by the sins of your past. I said I wouldn't."

She felt tears prick her eyes. "I believe you."

"Don't carry this weight on your own, Jovan. Before, you had Elea as your confidante... You can have me now."

At Erik's words, Jovan's chest was filled with a warm feeling that she could not quite put a name to. But the idea was dangerously seductive, the thought of being able to pour out into voiced words the secrets that had been weighing her down for so long. Jovan ached to release the poison that she was holding in ― the pain, the anger, the horror, the grief, everything ― before it was too late and it succeeded in eating her away beginning from the inside. But she didn't know whether she was brave enough to do that, because to do that would also mean uncovering her shame for Erik to see.

Jovan shivered as an unpleasant chill ran down her spine.

Where did she start?

Where were her words when she needed them?

Her temper flared.

"Rémi was lecherous," Jovan spat, unable to help herself, unable to help the anger simmering in her veins. "He was depraved, filthy. He was a snake, and he took away my childhood ― me, his own niece, the daughter of his own brother, his own blood."

Something inside her snapped. Jovan rose to her feet and walked away from the stature while one of her hands found its way to her hair, her fingers entwining with her locks. She was breathing heavily as unshed tears of anger pricked at her eyes. Behind her, she heard Erik stand, his cloak rustling as he moved.

Her vision was clouded with red. She gave a pained whimper. "God, Erik, I'm just so angry. Not just at him, but also at myself." Jovan turned to look at Erik and she only saw his soft gaze. Her chest tightened. "I didn't try fighting back until it was too late. I just... I kept on letting him get away with it. I was too scared... I was a coward."

The last sentence left her with a sob. Just as she felt her legs beginning to shake, Jovan felt Erik approach her in one long stride. One of his hands held her steady by her upper arm while the other one tried to untangle her fingers from her own hair which she had began to pull.

"Jovan, what did he do to you?" Erik asked quietly.

She let out a shaky exhale as her fingers left her hair and grabbed onto the fabric of Erik's cloak instead. "Rémi was in love with my mother, Erik," she answered, her voice distant as she let herself be swept away in the current of the past. "He was madly in love with her. He was in love with the way she moved, the way she spoke. He was in love with her red hair, her green eyes... all of which I had to be cursed with."

When Jovan lifted her gaze to look at Erik, she saw the recognition that had settled in them. "I was cursed with beauty, Erik. I was cursed with the same face that my uncle had fallen in love with."

"That's not love, Jovan," Erik answered, a small edge to his voice. "That's obsession."

"I know," Jovan bit out, gently tearing herself away from Erik's hold before she backed a step away and turned her back to him. "But Rémi didn't. He wanted to possess me. I suppose if he couldn't have my mother, then he would have me."

"Didn't your parents know?"

"By the time Rémi began to notice me, my mother was long gone. I was nine when she died. I was thirteen when Rémi transferred his attention to me. He was newly married then, but he had also just learned that his wife was barren. Laurine could not bear any children for him, and it created a rift in their marriage. During that time that they were apart, I think... I think that's when he noticed me."

"Thirteen," Erik's voice echoed behind her, cold as ice.

Jovan's heart raced painfully at the next words sitting on her tongue. It burned her with shame just to think of it, the memory of Rémi's hands lingering in unwanted places, her skin being defiled with his lips and his touch. There had even been a time when Jovan wanted to escape her own skin, to find a loose seam that she could tear open and leave through. When she found nothing, she had almost made a cut on her own skin with a blade in her bathroom.

Her hands curled into fists at her sides, her anger raging against her shame. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

"My father... He was always away to take care of the company, and he trusted Rémi to look after me in his absence. It was during those nights, those afternoons ― or simply whenever he wanted― that Rémi took all of me for himself. And it was whenever... I was in his arms, or... or beneath him, that he would tell me how much I looked like my mother. And he would keep asking me to say his name, again and again and again..."

"Why, Jovan? How could your father let this happen? Was he that blind?" Erik didn't even bother to conceal his rising temper.

"No!" Jovan cried out defensively, turning to face Erik. "I told you it was all my fault! Rémi blackmailed me into silence, he frightened me so, so much. I did not only have my reputation to lose, Erik, but the family name was also in danger of being tarnished if anyone found out about what Rémi was doing to me."

She heard Erik sneer in disgust. "And you wonder why I despise society."

Jovan gritted her teeth. "And now you know."

"How long did he go on?"

Jovan stilled. "Long enough," she whispered. "But he did stop ― I can't believe he actually had it himself to stop." A bitter, humorless laugh left her lips. "But only because of Laurine. She had grown depressed after news of her barrenness, and more so when her marriage began to fall apart. It escalated to the point where she almost jumped off a balcony.

"Think what you will of me, but I was so damn grateful that Laurine tried to kill herself," Jovan seethed as she found her own feet driving her back to the statue she had been sitting beneath before. "That made Rémi take action, made him take Laurine with him as they went away to Spain to try and repair their marriage."

A loud, raucous chorus of laughter and screaming cut into Jovan's narration. Below the rooftop, the sounds of celebration resounded within the walls of the opera house and drifted through the foyer and out into the streets. Jovan closed her eyes when the unwanted reminder of the current occasion strayed into her mind. Why did she always have to suffer during the New Year?

"For a while, I was relieved. I was happy. When Rémi left, I thought I actually had a chance to put all of it behind me. I held out hope that I could start anew, that I could still heal from the harm that he had inflicted, that maybe I could even find someone who wouldn't mind the damage that had been done. But then Rémi and Laurine returned when I was sixteen, and though they had mended their relationship, it seemed that it was still not enough for him to forget about me.

"He continued, of course," Jovan scoffed. "Laurine, she... she caught us one afternoon. I thought that maybe she would have been able to help me, but she was so blinded by her love for her wicked husband that it was too futile for me to even attempt to make her see. And then ― and then..."

Erik had neared her again as Jovan trailed off. As he stood a few feet away from her, her hands had began to shake again, and she balled them into fists to try and make the tremors leave. But they wouldn't, and Jovan's temper only spiked at how helpless she felt at the present, as helpless as she had seemed years ago. Dear God, how she hated the feeling with every inch of her being.

She felt scared.

"My father died shortly after I turned seventeen. After that, I just could no longer bear the mere thought of being alone under the same roof as Rémi. But just when I'd began to make plans to leave for good, Rémi found out. And he was so furious―"

The last word slipped from her lips with a sharp exhale. That tremors that refused to leave her hands had spread to her legs, and Jovan returned to her spot at the feet of the statue. She sunk down on the marble as she wrapped her cloak tighter around herself. "He ― he had all the staff return to their homes on an indefinite leave. He told everyone that my grief for my father had made me inconsolable so I had locked myself away in my room. In truth, he was the one who had locked me up. I suffered there for a whole week, but it felt much longer than that. But at the end of the week, I got out. I escaped."

Her voice dropped into a whisper, barely audible that Erik had to inch closer to hear her. Jovan blinked away the remaining moisture in her eyes as she tried to regulate her breathing. As she did, a minute passed before exhaustion washed over her. It numbed her, dispelled the chills beneath her skin, quelled the fire burning in her veins, and she welcomed it. It was just so simple to be unfeeling, but why did she have to be gifted with a violent heart?

"How did you escape?" Erik's words cut into her stream of thought.

Jovan blinked. When she spoke again, her voice was flat, devoid of any emotion. "You might hardly believe how. Even I could not bring myself, at first, to believe what occurred on the night of my escape. It was ― it was Laurine who helped me. But it was for the wrong reasons, of course. When she came into my room, she had looked at me as if she wanted to murder me. Then she told me that she wanted me gone from what was now her husband's home, all because she didn't want a harlot like me near Rémi. All because she didn't want me seducing her husband like the immoral, incestuous whore―"

Without realizing, Jovan was spitting out the words like they were poison on her tongue. She was reciting the words straight from memory, the very same words that Laurine had used on her on the night that she'd let Jovan escape. Somewhere during her raving, Erik had knelt before her again with his hands landing on her shoulders. He gave her a reassuring squeeze in a supposed attempt to calm her, and Jovan quickly fell silent as she bit her lip.

"That's enough, Jovan," Erik remarked.

Her eyes were brimming with stupid tears again. "I'm so tired, Erik," she sighed.

"I know." Erik's hands dropped from her shoulders as they went to claim her hands in a secure grip. Jovan held on as tightly to Erik's own hands, the warmth in them channeling through their shared touch and soothing the suffocating ache in her chest.

Another choir of voices reached their spot on the rooftop, but this time, it was synchronized chanting that she heard. Narrowing her eyes, Jovan strained her sense of hearing until she picked up the words being chorused by the people in the opera house below.

"Twelve! Eleven! Ten! Nine―"

Was it that time already?

She felt Erik's thumbs caress the skin of her hands. "Jovan, how did you survive for so long?"

The countdown continued, but Jovan drowned it out in favor of Erik's voice.

There was a rueful twist to her lips when she answered. "What makes you think I survived?"

And then there was screaming, laughter of joy from the crowd below while greetings were being thrown about. Happy New Year. Overhead, the dark canvas of the sky lit up with a thousand lights, sparks of a hundred colors showering the night.

But Jovan couldn't find it in herself to care.

1878

Her legs felt like lead as she trudged through the passageway. Her fingertips trailed the dust-covered walls of the tunnel while her other hand was firmly grasped in Erik's as he led her through the darkness. Jovan was silent throughout the walk, but her mind was another matter ― her thoughts were tangled in the wake of a storm, the wreckage left behind by the current of the past, an aftermath that left her feeling both hollow and... lighter?

"Erik, take me to the ballroom."

"What?" came Erik's startled response.

"Please," Jovan insisted. "I... I need to see him for myself."

They came to a stop, though Jovan doubted they had reached the dormitories. She heard Erik whirl to face her, his cloak swishing in the dark, then felt his piercing eyes land on her.

"Would that help you?" he asked, doubt tainting his tone.

"I'm not sure," Jovan replied truthfully. "But... I need to know."

Erik seemed to consider her decision for a moment before he turned again. He resumed walking, pulled her back into motion behind him, and Jovan let her feet move.

"Fine. I'll take you somewhere where they won't see you."

Jovan was hardly in a good state to assess anything at all at the present, but she was sure that there was a faint note of acid when Erik had spoken. It did not escape her, nor did the possibility that Erik could be angry after everything that she had revealed to him. But as to whom his ire was directed at, whether it was Rémi, Laurine, the both of them, or, worse, Jovan herself―

She internally slapped herself. Dear God, she desperately hoped that the last one would not be the case. Now that she had bared the pages of her past to Erik, now that she had uncovered herself to have been the plaything of another man, to have been nothing but a coward during her youth, would he still keep his word?

It wasn't long before Erik unsealed an entrance that led to God-knows-where within the opera house. Light weakly entered the passageway before Erik stepped out of the tunnel with Jovan right behind him. While Erik tended to the hidden entrance, Jovan blinked rapidly to let her eyes adjust to her new surroundings, and she saw that they were in the highest ring of the ballroom. She and Erik stood behind a thick column of marble, carved to resembled a Grecian pillar. There were a group of sculpted cherubs atop the balustrade, the statues large enough to conceal Jovan and Erik from the crowd that had gathered below.

Jovan held her breath as her eyes began to streak past the attendees of the Masquerade, taking in the bright hues and the dark shades of their costumes and the masks they wore. She was not looking for Rémi though ― no, the man would most likely be masked ― but she searched for Laurine instead. Though Jovan had failed to recognize her aunt's outfit, she did remember the shade of blue and the silk that she wore.

Air filled her lungs once more when she finally spotted Laurine. She now had her mask on, a playful smile on her painted lips, while her arm was wrapped around that of another. As Jovan felt Erik sidle up to her, her grip on the marble balustrade tightened, her knuckles paling with the strength of her grasp.

It was Rémi, and he was wearing the leather costume of a medieval hunter.

Her chest tightened. How fitting, Jovan thought, since his appetite had always been a ravenous one when it came to the carnal.

"Messieurs, mesdames!" An elated cry then rang out in the ballroom, accompanied by the sound of silver lightly colliding with glass. Jovan's eyes darted to the source of the sound, and she saw none other than the Vicomte Collet with a glass of champagne and a fork in his hands. He was dressed in simple evening attire save for a black mask that now sat atop his head, and he stood in the center of the ballroom, a small circle of empty space around him.

"Ugh, it's him." Beside her, Jovan heard Erik grumble like a petulant child at the sight of the Vicomte, and she would have smiled in amusement if her mood wasn't so grim at the moment.

They watched as their patron gave a toast to the guests, to the opera performers present, to Monsieur Lefèvre, and to the New Year. Jovan's eyes always kept straying back to Rémi, his face covered with a mask, but she recognized him enough by the way he held himself and the way he moved.

"I believe that I promised the lot of you some good news and bad news before the night could end," the Vicomte announced, and Jovan heard Erik sneer in distaste at their patron's now-obvious state of inebriation.

"Almost two years ago, I had the honor of becoming patron to Paris' ― and perhaps France's, too ― most beloved theater, the Opéra Populaire." Cheers rippled across the crowd. "Until last year ― which was just several moments ago―" Laughter. "Last December, actually, I was forced to forfeit my position in light of personal matters that have arisen outside the opera house."

Whispers began to scatter among the crowd, and a moment passed before a hush fell over them. Vicomte Collet waited patiently for them to finish before he continued. "That is my bad news for all you exquisite people. However, I also promised good news! And while it greatly disheartens me to have to retract my funding from the opera house, rest assured that I will be leaving the fine arts in the hands of someone that I believe to be much more capable than I."

The Vicomte's next words struck Jovan like a dagger to her breast.

She watched Vicomte Collet extend an arm to his side, in the same direction where Rémi stood not far from him.

Rémi took off his mask, his lips curved into a smile. Her blood turned to ice.

"Good people, may I present to you the Vicomte Rémi Sauveterre, the Opéra Populaire's newest patron!"