A/N: I managed to find some time to write! I have more time than I expected but now I am scared! I have put so much of my energy into this that as it draws to a close I have no idea what I will do!

I think, after this chapter, there will only be 5 or so more.

Thank you, as always for your wonderful reviews. They really make me smile!

However long the night, the dawn will break. – African Proverb.

Chapter 35- Dungeon

The floor was cold and damp, things were no different here than they were to the last place they had stopped. The vomit in his throat was nothing but acid and stomach lining, he couldn't remember when he had last easting anything worth bringing back up. He was sure they would have killed him by now, he was shocked that they had not. Secretly, he wished they would just get it over with, end his life and let it be done.

Raoul lay on his back in the corner of the room, in this place the bars were to his side and around him were three stone walls. There was no way out of here and even if he escaped, where would he go? He didn't know where Pierre had brought him to all he knew was that he was no longer in London.

The fear had all but gone from him now, the last recesses had clung on because of what he had witnessed maybe a couple of nights earlier. He didn't mind dying now, dying was fine to him. Dying would probably be heaven at this point, with his aching limbs, torn muscles and countless broken bones. It wasn't the dying that bothered him at all but it was the manner he would die in which frightened him so much.

He had seen that man beaten to death in front of his eyes. They had made him watch as they punched him and kicked him until he could no longer stand, until his body slumped into a heap at their feet. At this point he was still breathing but he was bloody and battered and Raoul found himself praying for his soul.

Not content with that the two men had continued their assault on the poor man as hr lay on the floor. In fact, they punched him and kicked him until died. Raoul had never before seen anything so barbaric, so horrific. Not even in his vivid nightmares had he seen so much pain in one mans face.

He had leapt up at one point and ran at one of the men, who simply batted him off like a fly. He was weak now, weak from no food, weak from no water and weak from his beatings. Finally, they had walked from the room laughing and yelling triumphantly, as if the man they had just killed was the devil himself. They had left the poor man's lifeless body on the hard stone floor to begin to rot. It had been around a day before they had moved him.

Raoul had not seen Pierre since he had been down in this pit, the last he had seen of him was in the carriage on the way over when he had spat in his face. Raoul knew that the way he had behaved was wrong, he knew from the bottom of his heart that it was. He had flirted with Pierre's wife, tried to woo her to bed like to pathetic school boy with his first crush. Raoul gagged at the thought of his betrayal of Christine.

Oh, Christine. What have they done to you? His mind reeled as she once again entered his thoughts, she had occupied them for most of the time he had been there. As she had since the say he met her.

He did not know quite how long he had been in the cage, the dungeon. It could be days, 3 or 5 or perhaps it was weeks. The days seemed to blend together when he lost himself in his memories of Christine. She had saved his sanity while he had been here but he was sure that she was dead. And now he wanted to die. How could he ever live knowing that he had been the reason that she was dead, that she was killed? He could never live with that thought.

One day the devil will come to me, he thought as he closed his eyes, picturing Lucifer in his vilest form. He prayed for that day to be now.