Christine saw nothing but black, yet she felt the cold surround her like an uncomforting blanket. She tried to move, yet was stopped by a stabbing pain through her leg. She whimpered in pain, and lay still, panicking. The darkness felt strangely familiar, and for a moment, she was greeted by a memory of the smell of water, the unmistakable smell of a large lake, and the noise of a boat, moving gracefully, obeying to its master's directions. She felt a sense of loss. Loss that this memory would never be reality again and she sobbed. She stopped suddenly.

"Christine………Christine….."

What was that? She strained in the darkness to hear it again.

"Christine…."

Her name called softly, and she felt an urge to follow. The urge she knew so well from her time at the Opera. A time when a voice would call to her from the darkness and lead her to heaven, were her Angel lay waiting. She followed ever more, till the voice calling her name was as clear as if it where next to her.

Christine fluttered her eyes open. It was day, yet a very grey day. The wind was chilling, and she shuddered as reality came back to her. She had not died; the pain in her leg mocked that. She cried in pain as she tried to sit up on the dewy grass. Her vision was still blurry, yet she turned her head to see the driver sitting beside her, leaning against the tree she lay under. She looked down again to twist herself on her side, and the driver leaned over to help her. She finally lay in an uncomfortable position, propped sideways against the tree as not to lay on her leg. She frowned at the driver, who was surprisingly smirking.

"Glad to see you're awake." He casually pulled a cigarette and lighter from his large waistcoat, and lit it, taking long drag back. "And I'm glad one of us got some sleep."

Christine ignored him, and tried to ignore the growl in her stomach, moaning for breakfast. She carried on frowning at the driver. He was a middle aged man, with very dark, almost black, slicked back hair, now in disarray from last nights actions. He had quite a tanned complexion, yet sported blue eyes, framed with heavy eyebrows, contrasting with his darker features. Christine supposed he had Italian blood in him. His face seemed weathered from more woeful times, times that Christine caught a glimpse of last night, making her a little frightened of the man. After all, she had no idea who he really was, yet he had saved her more than twice. He looked at her, catching her stare. She turned away, angrily embarrassed with herself. He smiled as she busied herself with looking at her leg, which had been tightly bound by a white cloth, recognising the hem that lined it as one from a shirt. The driver must have ripped some of his shirt off to bind it.

"I took the bullet out when you were out." He chatted. "I had no bandages; you'll have to make do with that." Nodding his head towards the torn cloth.

"Thank you," She croaked. Her voice had gone dry and cracked from all her screaming from the past day. She pulled herself up slightly to a more sitting position, gritting her teeth at the pain that shot upwards.

"We will have to move out of here soon." He muttered, more quietly. He glanced around slightly, aware that they still were not safe in the woods. "We have to keep going. They won't stop searching. I only took out a few of them last night, they'll be back. We have to make our way to Marseille, then we…"

"STOP!" Christine shouted as loud as she could manage, sounding more like a forced bark. "Stop, please! I don't know what you are talking about! You talk about these men, who are trying to hunt us down? I've seen 2 people killed already, and my…my Raoul…."

Her voice broke into a fresh wave of sobs. The driver made to speak, yet she interrupted him, bring new confidence, as she had learnt to do before, when accepting the loss of another man... "I have lost my fiancée. Now I lie…lie in some wood with a stranger, with a bullet wound to my leg." Her voice was coming towards hysterics. "And now, you talk of Marseille! First, you tell me NOW. What the hell is going on?" She spoke the last threat through gritted teeth. Her past politeness and manners and drained to nothing. She didn't care now how she spoke to anyone, or how they spoke. She just needed to know, from anyone with the truth, the justification for Raoul's death.

The driver took another drag of his cigarette, never taking his eyes off her. He knelt beside her.

"My name is Nasih. I have been watching you for quite a while now, watching for your safety. I have promised to protect you, Mademoiselle, no matter what happens."

Christine's head was swimming.

"Protect me from what?" She whispered. She was now frightened of the man that loomed over her. He was a strong man as she knew, and she was in a week position. He talked of watching over her, yet how could she trust him. Had he been spying on her?

"Protect you," He muttered into his cigarette "From these people who want to kill you."

She let fat tears roll down her cheeks as he said this, and she longed for a familiar presence.

"Who would want me killed?" She said through tears. He frowned.

"Ma'am, we really must move…"

She reached up and grabbed his arm tightly and looked darkly at him.

"WHO wants me killed?"

He sighed as he pulled at the arm Christine held his with, pulling her upright. She whimpered in shock of the pain that went torturing up her leg as she put pressure on the floor. He supported her with an arm with ease, respecting her dignity of not wanting to be carried. She still held a questioning glare at him as he began to walk with her slowly.

"Come, Ill tell you on the way."

---

As Christine and the driver, now Nasih, moved through the forest, he told her what she wanted, and all that he could.

"Mademoiselle, your father was Swedish born man, Monsieur Daae, was he not?" Christine nodded, a pain not from her wound appeared in her heart, remembering her father. How she would do anything for him to be here now. She hung her head.

"I doubt you are aware, but your father holds a large fortune. A very large fortune, a famous one at that. A fortune that would attract the attention of a lot of greedy bystanders."

Christine looked confused at him.

"But my father left nothing, he gave it away. I left for the ballet corps in Paris with Madame Giry. My father left me nothing."

"Ah, but he did, or so I've been told." He panted still half carrying Christine's form as she limped. "He left you a fortune big enough to rival that of a lord or baron." Her eyes widened, but still not convinced by the stranger. She went to reply, but he carried on. "The money was not meant for you to have till you were 19, when you would be old enough to deal with the money yourself. At the moment it lays in a dormant bank account in Paris, awaiting your 19th birthday, or your records, even your death records." Christine's blood turned cold and her heart to ice. A terrible fear now grabbed her, a fear for her life. Now she understood why people were after her. If she was proclaimed dead, then…

"No, that can't be right." She said her voice unnaturally high. "They would need more than… records to enter a bank account. They would need…"

"Account numbers, right. Or documents that you said you were handing over the money." He replied.

"Then that's what Ill do!" She cried. "They can have their money, I don't want it!"

"Its not that simple," He shook his head gravely. "You need to actually own the account, and that wont happen till it passes to you on your 19th birthday, so you cant give the money to no one, unless you are proclaimed dead, and then the money will pass to those who hold your documents, birth, death, any identity documents, and the account numbers. Or it will pass to the next person your father left it to in his will."

Christine had stumbled more than once during this explanation, and cried in pain several times. Yet she listened transfixed to the story. It seemed unreal, why would her father just leave this bank account open to anyone who could get her documents, and leave her in such danger? And how did this man know so much, know things about her family that she didn't? It angered her slightly, and she frowned as he carried on speaking.

"These people were not trying to kill you last night." He sighed. "They would have taken you and found out were your documents were first."

"But I don't know!" She cried.

"But they don't know that, and probably think you were lying anyway. They killed Raoul because in marriage, the fortune would pass to him directly. To get you is their next challenge."

"So what are we going to do?" She said despairingly. She wanted to just die anyway, and be away from this pain and suffering. Nothing seemed worth this.

"We are going to a man I think could help you." He looked at her through the corner of his eyes. "The man who ordered me to watch over you."

Christine now jerked her head to look at him, and her heart skipped dangerously.

"Who?" She whispered.

"I don't know his real name." The driver said, shifting her weight slightly. "But he's known to few as 'Hatef'. In Persian, it means voice from heaven, or Angel."