Okay people, so you don't freak out, here's chapter twenty-seven. My story has two more chapters. Okay, so here we go chapter twenty-seven.
Getting Awaypreviously: from The Choice
She pointed to the stream ahead. "There's a mob coming for him! They're going to kill him!"
"Christine," Raoul told her. "Stop it. Let's go, the man wants to be left alone."
Christine broke free of his grasp. "No, Raoul. I can't."
Raoul seemed to pale. "What do you mean you can't?"
Christine shook her head. "I can't leave him. Not like this. They're going to kill him and we're just going to lead them to him. We can't leave him to die!"
"Damn it, Christine," Raoul told her. "We have to go now. What if he changed his mind?"
Christine shook her head again and took a step back. "We have to help him."
"No," Raoul said forcefully. "No, Christine. I won't help him, not after everything he's done-"
"For me!" Christine told him. "Everything he has done is for me! Please, Raoul. Everything I am I owe it to him. I have to help him."
Raoul looked at her unconvinced.
"Raoul, please do this for me," Christine told him. "If you love me, you'll do it."
Raoul looked at her for almost a full minute undecided.
"We have to find him. Get revenge for what he has done!" The voices seemed to grow louder as if there were more people.
"Just distract them for, like, two minutes," Christine pleaded. "Please!"
Raoul sighed. "Fine, I'll do my best."
Christine left his side and ran up as fast as she could, with the train of the wedding dress in her arms. She ran up past the curtains, and past the doll. Passing the candles, she stumbled onto the room she had changed in, knowing that it was the only place he could have gone.
She slowly opened the door and found him with his back to her.
He was sitting on the swan bed with something in his hands.
She personally liked the room. It was richly decorated. It had even more maroon drapes all over the walls, so it would hide the dull brick walls. But Christine ignored all that and approached Erik with caution.
"Erik," she said speaking quickly. "There's a mob waiting for you. They're hunting you down, they're going to kill you if they find you. You need to get out of here."
He made no indication he was listening to her.
"Erik," Christine pleaded, knowing there wasn't much time. "Are you listening?" Then softly she said, "Angel? Please, listen."
He spoke so softly that she had to approach him to make certain that she was listening to everything he said. "The best thing about a mask," he said quietly, "is that no one can judge you. You can hide yourself so the world will never find you. I don't have that luxury anymore."
Christine approached him even further. She stood in front of him and yet he would not look up from the rose he had in his hands.
"Erik, did you hear me?" Christine tried again. "There's a mob coming after you. You have to go away. Far away where they won't find you."
He finally looked at her and she saw tears in his blue eyes. She had never seen him cry. He was crying because he knew that he could never give her what she deserved. She knew that now.
"Christine," he whispered. "I love you. Why can't you see that?"
She looked at him with tender eyes. God, how could I do this to him? She tried to hide her tears. "Erik, listen to me. I don't want this mob to kill you. I don't want you to die. I want you to go, make a life with someone. I don't want you stay here the rest of your life. Go Erik, I can buy you time so you can get away."
Erik looked down once again with no answer.
She placed her hand on his wet right cheek and made him look at her. "Erik, promise me you'll live your life? Please?"
After a couple of moments, he said, "There's nothing you can ask that I could refuse."
Christine smiled meekly then looked at the hand which she was using to touch his cheek. It was her left, and on her finger, she had her ring.
She took it off and placed it in his hands, not knowing what to say to him. She closed his fist over it like he had done to her earlier and began to leave.
Raoul was gone now, most likely telling the mob to –hopefully- fuck off. She didn't want anyone to harm her Angel of Music.
She made her way into the murky water and turned when she heard her Angel's voice again. "You alone could make my song take flight, give my heart wings. It's over now the music of the night."
She tried to smile at him but found that it was too late, he was already leaving, presumably to start his new life. She watched him leave through the door that they had come in earlier. The hidden door.
He glanced at her before he closed it.
Christine watched as a mirror hid the door and another curtain hid the door.
Christine smiled at his brilliance. "Genius," she said quietly.
She continued through the stream, the wedding dress making her walk slower than she would have liked.
She saw light up ahead and Meg's familiar voice.
"Where the hell is she?" After a second she yelled, "WHAT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU JUST LEFT HER? YOU LEFT HER WITH THE PHANTOM OF THE AUDITORIUM, ALONE!"
Christine saw the stairs from the first night she was her Angel. There, on the stairs, was Raoul, Madame Giry, Meg, the school's football team, some parents and some people Christine had seen around school.
"She just needed a few minutes," Raoul insisted.
Meg began to hit him a couple of times, reminding Christine of the time when Raoul had almost made them think her first review had been bad.
"Ow, Meg, stop it!" He hollered. "Damn it, woman! I said stop it!"
"There she is!"
Christine saw Margaret pointing at her. She was still in her black dress, her red hair in curls looked like a halo around her face.
Raoul jumped once again into the gloomy water and pulled her into his arms in a powerful hug.
"Is he gone?" Raoul whispered in her ear.
She nodded. "Yes."
"Oh, God," Meg told her. "Christine, get out of there! Well, guys, hello?" she said referring to the football team. "Are you going to help them or not?"
The football team helped both soaking Raoul and Christine out of the water.
Meg hugged Christine fiercely. "Christine what happened? Raoul doesn't want to give any details. He won't tell us anything! What happened?"
Christine looked at her friend fondly. "The Phantom is dead."
She saw Madame Giry put her hands to her mouth, gasping. "Mon Dieu."
"Raoul killed him. He's dead, he won't bother us ever again."
"What?" The group behind Meg asked astonished.
Christine bit her bottom lip, knowing that she was getting Raoul in trouble. "He was going to kill me, the Phantom that is, and Raoul got to him instead."
Raoul placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her support.
"So it was self-defense?" someone in the mob said.
Christine nodded. "It was."
"Wait," someone said. Christine noticed him as Johnny, captain of the football team. "You mean to tell me that, Chagny, killed that guy you were practically making out with on stage earlier?"
Christine's eyebrow went way up and she began to blush. But she didn't get a chance to answer because Johnny made a whooping noise and put an arm around Raoul's shoulders. "Way to go, Chagny!"
The football team patted him on the back and Christine let out a sigh of relief glad that the topic of Erik was gone.
The mob began to recede, led by the football team. They all praised Raoul on a job well done. They all began to leave and left Christine alone on the stone banks of the stream.
She smiled to the darkness and whispered, "Good-bye Erik."
"Christine!"
Christine looked up and saw that Meg was waiting for her.
Meg beckoned of her with a wave of her hand. "Come on."
Christine went up the stairs and looped her arm around her best friend's.
"So, this summer, Raoul has a pool, and you know I'll be over there almost everyday. We have to go shopping for a bathing suit-"
"Yeah, I know," Christine said to her, trying to shift everything back to normal. Well, as normal as things could get after everything that happened. "We should go to GAP or something-"
Meg stopped. "Wait, before we plan anything I have to know something."
Christine smiled. "Sure."
"Why the hell are you wearing a wedding dress?"
Christine laughed and hugged her best friend. She knew that things weren't going to be as normal as they were before. But for that moment, it almost was.
Okay, the twist I was talking about comes up in two chapters. Oh, and the little thing I said in the chapter before? It's called misdirection. :o) Got ya! Okay, I'm not that clever but whatever.
Coming up: Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Toast.
