Author's Note: So this is a bit late... Thank you, thank you so much to everyone who left reviews at the last chapter! I'm touched by the love I keep getting from you guys. Please keep sending your kind words, they keep me going so I can write for this story despite the increasing amount of school work getting dumped on my plate.

TRIGGER WARNING/S: Sexual trauma, sexual assault, physical abuse

Child of Dreams: Imagine if Erik learns that he'll also have to deal with the Vicomte de Chagny in the future. We'd be witnesses to the greatest rage quit in history.

MarieUni: It's wonderful to know that this story serves as a de-stressor for someone, thank you!

( thirty-two )

THE HANGED MAN

The black coach gently rolled to a halt on the cobbled streets before the Opéra Populaire.

Its sole occupant pushed away one of the dark curtains framing the windows and stared out at the grand edifice before him. The opera house stood tall and imposing against the starry tapestry of the night while snow fell to gently coat the steps leading to Paris' most renowned theater. On the day after New Year's Eve, the place was quiet and free of any traces that told of the Populaire's lavish Masquerade last night. The previous evening had indeed been an eventful one, and while gaining the patronage to the opera house was a grand achievement on its own, he didn't consider it to be his greatest one. No, it had to be finding out where his beloved niece had been hiding at all this time. Now that had been the true highlight of the night.

Not a bad start to the new year. Not bad at all.

The door to the coach then swung open, revealing the coachman waiting behind it.

"Vicomte?" he asked with a courteous bow, awaiting orders.

"Ask if Monsieur Lefèvre came in today," Rèmi then instructed the coachman, "I have an urgent matter I need to speak with him about."

When Jovan's back began to ache from her bent-over position on her trunk, she moved to her bed and remained curled up there for the rest of the day.

Morning and noon passed but she refused to move from her bed, even when Christine tried to pull her away for lunch. Jovan drifted between states of sleep and rumination, her arms tightly wrapped a pillow like it was a life line. The rest of her unpacked possessions were long forgotten as they were moved to the foot of her bed, yet to be placed properly in her trunk. The will to move around had seeped out of her bones and was replaced with an exhaustion that sat deep beneath her skin, effectively holding her in place.

Her conversation with Erik earlier in the morning left her weary, making the hollowness she felt in her chest grow twofold. Opening up to him had been a thorny thing since ― even if her scars had begun to heal ― baring her sins for him to see and judge her for was something she had been trying to avoid for the whole time that she'd known him. It wasn't even the fact that she had been raped numerous times by her uncle that she was most ashamed of ― she had long come to terms with that, though that didn't mean that she could forgive Rémi for everything that he had done ― but the fact that she knew that she had acted like a coward for that period of abuse in her life.

When Erik called her a coward, it had hurt more than Laurine's strike. It felt as if the dagger embedded in her chest had been twisted, and by someone she dearly trusted, no less.

Having been unable to fight back during the times that Rémi violated her left her sore in more than one ways. But the fear was just too rooted deeply during those times, and she didn't have the items at her disposal that she needed to hack at the roots. Elea had assured her many times that it wasn't Jovan's fault, and sometimes she believed her but sometimes she didn't.

It certainly didn't help that the first time she tried to fight back, Rémi had only threatened to hurt the only parent she had left, his own brother.

He kept true to his word when Jovan fought back for the first time. Raphael was caught in an accident while riding his carriage one day, one that had twisted the skin on his leg and given him a limp. It was listed off as the foolish mistake of their coachman, but Jovan knew better, especially when Rémi visited her the following night in her room, cooing at her to stay silent unless she wanted her father's other leg to be amputated the next time around.

Jovan never stopped imagining how much better her life could have been if she had tried to fight back, her fears and her own father be damned.

But she wasn't that brave. She wasn't that strong.

At least, that was before.

Now that she thought about it, she had nothing left to lose this time. Well, almost nothing. The only possible leverage that Rémi could hold against her now was the Opéra Populaire and the people who worked in it. But even if Elea was away and safe in England, there were still other people to think about. Mateo. Tess. Christine. Monsieur Lefèvre. The stagehands and the seamstresses, people that she didn't bond with that much but people that had still given her help when she needed it. Everyone who worked at the opera house would be caught in the crossfire and it would be all her fault.

And then there was Erik. Brilliant, beautiful, talented Erik. Volatile, neurotic, dangerous Erik. Her friend and her present bane.

Her heart clenched painfully at the very thought of him, so Jovan pushed him to the back of her mind.

She gave a deep breath. It had to be nightfall by then, and she hadn't had anything to eat yet. Her stomach had been protesting in hunger for hours but Jovan knew that she could take it. After all, it wouldn't be the first time that she'd starve herself. There had been many opportunities to starve herself back home, especially after her father had died.

Jovan's eyes fell shut. She shifted atop the sheets of her bed when her foot hit something. Her eyes lowered until she saw that the object was actually a book, one of four that she had accumulated during her stay at the Opéra Populaire. She remembered that she had yet to finish packing up her belongings and she let out a soft groan at the realization. Even if she finished packing up tonight, she would have still have to leave tomorrow. Going out at night was too much of a risk, especially when she had yet to find a new place to stay at, and she also doubted Madame Giry would let her go at such a late hour.

At least, she thought to console herself, neither Rémi or Laurine arrived at the opera house that day, against all odds and expectations.

It was at that exact moment, when the thought entered her mind, that Madame Giry also burst through the door of the dormitory.

A startled Jovan shot up from her bed as she stared at the ballet headmistress with stunned features. The stern woman was composed as always, but there was a gleam of urgency in her eyes along with a dash of fear. The way Madame Giry instantly rushed to her bed made Jovan stumble to her feet at the intensity of the older woman's stare at her.

"You need to get out of here, Jovan," Madame Giry remarked as she began to hurriedly shove the remainder of Jovan's unpacked things into her trunk.

Jovan's heart raced as her mind pieced together the implication of Madame Giry's words. "Madame, what's happening?" she asked as she assisted the older woman with her possessions.

"Your uncle is here, Jovan. He's talking to Monsieur Lefèvre in the lobby and he knows that you're here."

The words drew all the air out of Jovan's lungs.

She was wrong.

Jovan didn't realize she had frozen until she felt Madame Giry grip her upper arms tightly. "This isn't the time to panic!" the ballet headmistress admonished her, and Jovan could only nod before Madame Giry released her and proceeded to shut her trunk close.

There was ice gathering in Jovan's veins as she stared mutely as the ballet headmistress. "Madame, what would you have me do?" she asked in a whisper as she picked up her cloak from the foot of her bed. Although Jovan knew what she needed to do, she didn't want to do it; she didn't know if she was brave enough. Her heart raged painfully in its cage in her chest as she silently ran through her other options. None of them held appeal.

"Go to Erik and have him help you with your things," Madame Giry then answered, gesturing to Jovan's trunk. The redhead's eyebrows creased when she heard the older woman's words, and they set off a spark of red in her vision. "Stay at his home for the meantime until the coast is clear for you."

"What? No!" The protest fell from Jovan's lips in a furious whisper. She didn't want help from Erik. At least not right now.

Madame Giry sent her a questioning look, a withering look in her eyes. "What do you mean 'no,' you stupid girl?"

"I meant what I said!" Jovan then raised her voice, causing the ballet headmistress to flinch back in surprise. A tiny of stream of regret shot through Jovan but it was easily dismissed with the anger stirring in her veins. No, she was done with this. She wasn't stupid or reckless, she wasn't even a girl anymore. But most of all, she tired of being a coward.

Perhaps she was being rash, her temper getting the better of her. But Jovan already had her mind made up as she moved to secure her cloak around her shoulders. Madame Giry merely stared at her, a silent demand for an explanation in her stern gaze.

"Madame, I will see him," Jovan said resolutely as she crossed over to her nightstand to pick up the lone black ribbon that sat atop it. "I will see my uncle and I will speak to him," she insisted as she tied her red hair back into a low ponytail.

"Have you lost your mind?" Madame Giry replied, aghast. Are you mad? Erik's words rushed back to Jovan, and she shook her head.

"My head's right here, madame. I just grow tired of... this. The hiding, the running. No more."

The ballet headmistress gave a subtle shake of her head, as if she disapproved of what Jovan wanted to do. "Jovan, there is no going back if you're going to do what I think you're about to do."

Jovan squared her shoulders. Her hands were shaking, she was starving, there was pressure building behind her eyes, her chest ached, her heart was beating wildly in her rib cage, she was so, so scared, but she knew what she needed to do.

"Madame, everyday, I am surrounded by singers, dancers, and actors who are defined by their passions, the things they do. If I continue to run and hide away, then what does that make me? If my actions define me, then I refuse to be a coward for any longer."

"Jovan, no one is calling you a coward." Madame Giry's tone grew soft.

Her jaw clenched, a sardonic smirk crossing her lips. "I'm not going to wait until someone starts calling me one."

The sun had yet to set when Jovan exited the doors of the Opéra Populaire.

The hood of her cloak was fully drawn over her head that it shadowed her features and hid the distinct color of her hair. Nausea gnawed at her insides as she heard the grand doors of the opera house fall shut behind her. The steps before her were covered with snow and the streets were too, making the black coach ahead too easy to discern among the sea of white.

For a second, Jovan found herself wanting to run back inside the Populaire, back to safety. But she silenced the rebellious thought and instead drew in a deep breath.

She had to remind herself to breathe as she descended the steps of the opera house.

It was when she was on the last few steps that the door to the black coach opened. A man stepped out, and Jovan felt her stomach drop.

Rémi looked exactly as he did when she ran away three years ago. A mass of curly black hair sat atop his head. His eyes, a shade of blue that Jovan always likened to ice, locked with her green ones the moment he went to stand to the side of the coach's door. As she stared back at him, the monster of her childhood, she realized how it still scared her that he looked so much like her father. It was a fact that only made her ordeals much more horrifying to bear.

When he spoke, it was with a tone of concern that almost made her sick there and then.

"Nathalie," he crooned to her in a low voice. "Is it really you?"

A sharp, scathing retort sat on her tongue, but Jovan could not bring herself to say it. She settled for a simple greeting.

"Hello, uncle."

She could've sworn that the way his lips curved resembled a smirk more than a smile. He held out a leather-gloved hand for her to take as the door to the coach's black interior remained open. The darkness before her looked like it was ready to swallow her, but Jovan held her chin up as she buried her fears as deeply as she could. She went down the last few steps before striding over to the carriage, ignoring Rémi's outstretched hand as she helped herself up into the carriage all by herself.

As she seated herself inside the dark, enclosed space, Jovan refused to let her eyes leave her uncle as he followed her inside, closing the door behind him. He sat opposite her, holding a straight expression as he gave her a once-over. Jovan tried not to fidget under his gaze, but it was hard not to do so when he had done such a simple thing so many times to her in the past with a hungry gaze. The only difference now was that his blue eyes remained chillingly unreadable.

"You have no idea for how long and how far I've searched for you," Rémi then said, softly. "And here I thought that I had looked everywhere in Paris. I should have looked closer."

"No," Jovan answered, keeping her voice firm. "You just always looked in the wrong places."

His lips twitched upwards. "Perhaps. But you were always a clever girl. Even with hiding, you're thinking like your father taught you to."

When he suddenly moved forward, it took all of Jovan's self-control to not scream. But it was just like before, her fear locking her into place, as Rémi reached out to tug the hood of her cloak away from her head. He was dangerously close, his face hovering only mere inches before hers, while his eyes focused on her now-exposed hair. He reached out once more, this time to untie the ribbon holding her red locks in place. Once her hair was unbound, Jovan released a shaky breath just as Rémi's eyes flashed with satisfaction. He dropped her ribbon on his lap.

"There's no need to hide anymore, Nathalie," he whispered, and Jovan wished that he would just drop the act. "They're looking for you, you know. The company. They're wondering where the Comtesse is, they have been ever since you left. I told them that you had left the country to travel, to clear your mind and soothe your grieving soul after your father died. But there will come a time when they'll eventually stop believing the lies. I need you to come home, Nathalie, before that happens."

Something in his words ― no, all of his words ― sparked her dormant rage back to life. As her uncle spoke, he toyed with a lock of her red hair, entwining it in his finger before the soft curl slipped from his grasp. He then moved his fingers to the line of her jaw, but Jovan leaned away from his reach just before he could touch her.

She stared fiercely at him. "Is that the only reason why you want me to come home?" she whispered, venom trickling into her tone.

Rémi feigned surprised at the subtle change in her tone, his brows furrowing. "Of course not, dearest. I missed you too."

Jovan threw her hand back before she whipped it across her uncle's face. Her anger reached a crescendo, and she watched with a vague sense of satisfaction as he reeled back from her slap, one hand reaching to touch the skin where she had hit him. Her palm stung but she barely processed it ― there was only the fire in her veins.

His blue eyes were tainted with horror as he stared at her, and then his eyes darkened. As Jovan heaved with the anger boiling beneath her skin, her fury then slowly morphed back into fear when Rémi took off the black glove off his right hand. Her mind began running to the worst conclusions, and she instinctively backed away as the signet ring on her uncle's finger came to sight. He twisted it before he then lifted his hand and struck her, hard.

A gasp left her. She had not anticipated that, and Jovan's hand flew to the burning skin as a low chuckle escape Rémi's lips. The skin stung brutally, and her horror only grew twofold when she felt something warm on her fingers. Pulling her hand back, the sight of blood on her fingers greeted her. He had cut her.

"Feisty," her uncle then remarked. Gone was the softness in his voice, replaced by subtle malice and chilling coolness, the Rémi she knew. "If only you were as spirited back then."

Jovan's lips pulled back into a sneer as she then lifted her head to glare at him. "Go to hell."

"Ah, I see your time at the Opéra Populaire has indeed left its mark. Such coarse language does not become you, Nathalie." Rémi twisted his ring back into its original position, but not before Jovan saw the speck of blood that now covered the coat of arms carved into the gold, her family's emblem. So he knew, Jovan thought with a shadow of dread, that she worked at the opera house. Laurine had told him of their encounter after all.

"You're not taking me back, Rémi," Jovan declared, keeping her voice from shaking.

"Of course not, darling. You'll be coming with me of your own accord," he answered coolly as he slipped back on his glove.

"What makes you think I'd do that?" The words left her lips in a hiss.

"Because if you don't, the opera house will suffer for it."

There came the words that Jovan had been fearing. The straight expression struggled to stay on her face, marred only by a few lines of anger. Fear began to crawl around her walls once more, and Jovan balled her hands into fists on her lap to keep away the tremors. She was right, Good God, she was right. She was right and she hated it.

"You were away for three years, Nathalie. I reckon you'd have forged a few friendships here and there. Maybe even found yourself a lover," Rémi continued, his blue eyes gleaming with animosity, turning to scathing hate when he mentioned the possibility of a lover. Jovan tried not to wince as his voice turned cruel with unconcealed envy and pain.

His face contorted with anguish for a brief moment. "Tell me, is he any good? Does it feel nice when he's inside you? Does he make you scream his name? You never did with mine, you were always crying."

"No, stop ― just stop. I hate you," Jovan spat at him. "I always did and I still do."

Rémi shook his head ruefully. "Nathalie, don't make this any difficult."

"Difficult? You made me go through hell, damn you." Hot tears began to prick at her eyes, but Jovan refused to let them fall. "Why are you here, Rémi? What do you want with the Opéra Populaire?"

"There's no need to be so suspicious," her uncle sighed. "Is it so horrible of me to want to support the same opera house that my brother used to work at? The same opera house where my niece works?"

"I no longer work here, uncle."

"That won't change a thing, dearest. I truly wanted to offer my help to the Populaire, but seeing as it's where you've been hiding all this time..."

Jovan furiously shook her head as she tried to curb the swell of panic that rose in her. "What kind of patron condemns the very place he wants to help?"

"I'm only a patron, Nathalie. I'm not a saint. Besides, you need to learn your lesson. You could have run far away from here, taken a ship to America or Italy, but no. You had to play it smart and stay close to home, where you knew I wouldn't look. Now that I think of it, maybe it wasn't such a clever move after all. Maybe it's more on the side of foolish, or even cowardly."

"Then punish me. Leave the Populaire out of this. None of them have to suffer for my mistakes!" Jovan whispered in a low, harsh tone, more angry than pleading.

A chuckle rolled off Rémi's tongue. "Punish you? All you had to do was ask―"

Jovan's hand connected with his cheek once more as she damned the consequences. Her green eyes now blazed with the unmistakable flames of fury as she stared down her uncle. When Rémi retaliated by taking her chin in the strong grip of his hand, Jovan didn't let her gaze drop. There was a gleam in her eyes that bordered on murderous, but Rémi appeared to be unfazed by her withering glare.

He lowered his tone into a threatening timbre. "You will listen to me and obey me, dearest. Unless you want the Populaire to pay for your faults, you will board this very same coach tomorrow at nine in the morning. Bring everything you own with you because you will not be coming back to this opera house. Disobey me and ruin will fall upon the Opéra Populaire. Escape as you did three years ago and I will find whoever you've been dallying with and, mark my words, they will suffer. Friend, lover, or mentor, I will find every single person you've come to call an ally and make them pay."

"You're insane," Jovan gasped out as she tugged away Rémi's hand from her chin with all her strength. Horror gripped her insides as, not for the first time, Jovan glimpsed the disturbing extent of his fixation with her. No. Fixation wasn't the word, it didn't do Rémi's actions enough justice. Erik was right ― this was obsession.

"Call me whatever you want. But what I am is a man of my word," Rémi calmly answered, a faint trace of iciness in his tone. "Besides, it's not like I'm not giving you a choice. Go ahead, run. I won't stop you. But then you won't be able to stop me from destroying this place."

"Is that all?" Jovan seethed.

Rémi gave a nod of his head. "Be grateful I'm giving you one more night to say your goodbyes. Use it wisely."

Jovan didn't think that there was more to be said or anything more that could be negotiated, at least not with a man as uncompromising as her uncle. Casting one last scathing glare at him, Jovan began to move to towards the door of the coach when Rémi also moved from his seat and pinned her back against the coach's interior.

A small yelp left her as Jovan immediately placed her arms over her chest as a barrier. Her heart thundered painfully in her chest as she struggled against her uncle. But Rémi was much stronger, and Jovan's fear amplified at how he had trapped her.

"Let me go!"

He shushed her as he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. Jovan flinched and tried her best to stay away from his touch. "Behave, dearest. You don't want me to take you home right now, do you?"

Jovan growled. "You gave me one last night so let me have it! You can have all of me tomorrow."

"I know that," he whispered as he inched his face closer to her ear, his hot breath fanning her ear. Jovan shuddered as she felt her insides coil. She tried to push him off once more, but he only pushed her back harder. She gasped as air escaped her lungs from the impact of her back hitting the cushioned wall. She felt Rémi pull away the fabric of her cloak and the high collar of her blouse to expose the skin of her neck.

"But I just missed you so damn much."

"I'm going to scream," Jovan threatened.

"Go ahead. I just hope you can carry the guilt on your shoulders when the Populaire falls to its ruin."

A silent cry left Jovan's parted lips just as she felt his mouth descend on the crook of her neck. Wet lips eagerly sucked on her skin as Jovan fell limp, the familiar coldness of fear paralyzing her. She was sixteen and back home again, experiencing the horror once more, and she could no longer hold in her tears as Rémi's lips moved on her skin.

When he was done, Jovan could not stop herself from shaking. But then as Rémi began to back away, something in her head dropped a veil of red over her vision and Jovan brought her knee up before he could sit down.

The hit was clumsy and ill-timed, and it didn't hit her uncle where she wanted him to hurt. Rémi merely chuckled at her attempt as he collapsed back into his seat, clutching his knee where Jovan had hit him. Her hand quickly went up to her neck where he had touched her, and disgust shot through her when she touched the surface of her skin, wet with his saliva.

She furiously wiped her trembling hand on her skirt. "Wh―"

"One night. But I don't want anyone touching you," Rémi smugly replied.

Jovan snarled. His envy was horribly misplaced ― damn it, everything was ― because he was being jealous of a non-existent lover; no one was going to see the mark he had left on her.

But Rémi didn't need to know that, and perhaps the idea of her having a lover driving her uncle to jealousy was not such a bad notion to Jovan.

"Tomorrow. Nine in the morning. Until then, Nathalie," he then reminded her one last time.