"Jezebelle! Why? Why can't you leave me alone and let me live my life?" Christian spat, angry in a flash.

"Christian, I have told you many times that I love you!" she yelled, her voice raspy, "do you not understand that? I've promised myself that I would marry you and-!"

"That was years ago, Jezebelle! Things have changed! Why do you not understand that? Why must you stalk me so?"

"You hear that, mademoiselle de joie?" taunted Erik, "would he have proposed already had he been interested? I think so. Now if you loved him true, then you would let him be!"

Jezebelle gazed at her past flame in longing. "Christian, you said that you loved me! I expected you to marry me, for I loved you also-!"

"There are many forms of love, Jezebelle! I never said that you were my true love!" Christian's blue eyes blazed with frustration and disgust at her stubbornness.

"You left me dangling for so long, I assumed that-! Where are you going?"

"We're leaving, Jezebelle!"

"You would leave the Opera Populaire?" She looked at him incredulously, "You're mad! How would you survive? Would you leave Madame Giry? Your precious little friend, Meg?"

Christian winced. He hadn't thought about that. He would be leaving so much.

"We'll have to leave them, Christian. We don't have much of a choice." Erik held his love's hands. He knew how difficult it would be for them. They had to flee, though they didn't know where to.

"So what then?" Jezebelle smiled, seeing that Christian was torn. "Christian, before you leave, would you let me say goodbye? ...A kiss, perhaps?"

"Never!" The answer was blunt.

Angered, Jezebelle's frustration wore off and she turned to go, announcing "Very well, then I shall guide them here!"

"No, don't!" Christian cried out. He scowled, feeling that he had to do it. "Very well. Raise the portcullis, Erik."

His eyes glimmered with disgust as he heard the gate rising. "I know that I will regret this!" he thought. He'd decided to say goodbye to Jezebelle, or, rather, let her kiss him.

She walked up to him gleefully. Pulling him into an embrace, she locked her lips with his.

"Finally, I shall cure my beloved of this illness!" she thought, bursting with joy.

Christian grimaced, feeling nauseated at the sensation of her lips. They would taste of honey to another man, but to Christian, they tasted of bile. Erik, angered and fed up with the nymphomaniacal young vicomtess, crept up on them, brandishing a candle-holder.

Without warning, she whipped a gun out of her garter, aiming it at Erik. Christian gasped in horror. "No, Belle, don't hurt Erik-!" "Why did I do this? I'm such a fool to have trusted her!" he cursed himself for letting her in. Now fear swept through his body as he saw a gun trained on Erik, his own, he who he could not imagine living without.

"Now, I've had enough of this game!" she growled, "Christian, I want you to spend your whole life with me! I love you! Don't you understand tha-?"

"JEZEBELLE!" Christian snapped, "I hate the ground that you walk on! I have told you many times that I'm not interested and you've followed me as though I've said nothing! I'm in love with Erik. What part of that do you not understand? I love him!"

"Beware of what you say, Christian... otherwise, your beloved Phantom will bleed to death."

Christian's anger turned back to fear. "Christian, don't listen to her," Erik tried to reassure, though his voice trembled. "What will happen to him if I die?" he thought. He tried not to look at the tears in Christians eyes. "Please, Belle, I beseech you! Don't hurt Erik! Please!" Christian's voice was choked and frightened.

Jezebelle smirked as she turned to face Christian, whose anger flitted back to his face "Well, do you choose me, or this monster-?"

"That does it!" Christian thought in fury. He spat in her eye, a sneer fixed to his lips. She flinched, wiping the saliva away.

"So, then your lover will die." she said, her finger tightening on the trigger.

Christian's cry was drowned out from the sound of the gunshot.