Hope you are enjoying the story so far! Just to note, most of the quotes at the beginning will be from Kay. If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them. And don't forget to review! They are better than chocolate or sex!

"I had long since learned to love the kindly veil that shielded me from hating eyes."

Lying awake in his cell, Erik recalled the first time he heard Christine. The sweet, lifting voice had imprinted a clawing sensation on his stomach and heart. It had been so beautiful and pure that he'd resisted the urge to cover his ears, certain that someone like him did not deserve to hear such a heavenly voice.

The fair, usually held during the middle of May near the docks, had been crammed with people. It was California, and no one paid much attention to the solitary figure in black, prowling along the edges of a funhouse. Erik had only gone inside for the mirrors, to study them, if not himself, and memorize the angles. There was something he wanted to build, and yet he was unsure of himself. Did he truly want to design something using material that he hated? Would that appease his creative, inquisitive mind, or simply be another device for him to destroy upon completion?

He had almost made up his mind to leave when he heard her...

"No light shall pass, this darkness reigns. Forever love, eternal love..."

The words called to him, but it was the voice that drew him through the crowd. It was the voice which made him want to weep at his own misfortune.

And it was the figure which stilled his breath and caused a sudden rage at being so hideously formed

Damn her, he'd thought almost savagely. Damn her for being there at that moment...for changing his life, for making him want something that he could never, ever have.

"Come, lay your head with mine. Love me, eternal love..."

Christine, although at the time he had not yet learned her name, stood on a platform beneath a spot light. In the evening glow, with her golden hair spilling down her waist, and wide blue eyes lifted to a darkening sky, she was perfect. Something melted the hardness around his heart, tugged at what little innocence that Erik had left.

He listened to her song, and before the night was over had found out where she lived. By the next evening, he had known much, much more. Though he did not quite understand the inexplicable urge to discover everything about this girl, he did not question it. Seldom did he repress an urge when it was this strong, and with Christine Dally, it seemed he had no choice.

Three months later he had badgered his mother into enrolling him in school, much to Ethan's amusement. It was perhaps the one time that Madison gave in to something without bothering to learn the reason why.

And now with this hanging over his head, Erik knew that the very slim chance Christine might have ever had in at least befriending him was gone.

Still, he could not ignore the persistent voice that whispered in his ear, bumping softly against his shattered confidence.

"Why is Gus Dally representing you? And what does she think of it?"

"Look it's her," someone whispered. "The girl whose father is representing that freak."

Christine stiffened in rage, but did not turn around to face the speaker of that vile insult. It was now a month into the trial – well over two months since the death of Phillip Chaney – and it was growing harder to ignore them. Threatening notes had been found in her locker and the police had been called on more than one occasion to disband one group of zealots from their front yard who were intent on having Erik Ramsey punished in the worst possible manner.

The only person who spoke kindly to her anymore was Meg, which was why it surprised Christine as she hurried down the hallway, that Kate Sorelli called after her.

"What do you want?" Christine asked, narrowing her eyes. "I'm late for American History."

"Please," Kate panted, out of breath. "I just need to give you this..."

Kate pressed a slip of paper into her hand, and then rushed away, leaving Christine standing in a crowd of suddenly curious people.

She intentionally shouldered through the thickest of them and walked down the hall to her class. As Mr. Thomas droned on about The New Deal, Christine opened the note and read it quickly.

"Tell your father I am sorry. Everyone has a price. I don't know if you can find it, but there is a videotape of what happened that night. Only a few people know about it, and it is in the hands of the Chaney family, so your father may never be able to use it. Kate."

Christine felt her heart slow. Kate had been paid off? By the Chaney family?

"Poor Erik," she whispered.

"Did you say something, Miss Dally?"

Her head jerked up, and she crumpled the note in her hand. "No, Mr. Thomas."

"Are you passing notes in class?"

Slowly she shook her head even as he came down the aisle towards her.

"May I have that?"

"No."

"Miss Dally, give me the note," Mr. Thomas said, glaring down at her.

Around the classroom she could hear people giggling, but she knew that if word of the tape leaked, then it would never help Erik. Somehow she knew that he had not attacked Phillip from behind. She had been crushed when Kate changed her testimony, knowing the devastation that Erik must feel and her father as well. Her father had changed since the trial, in ways she didn't understand. He was bitter, moody, and in some ways sad.

"It's private," Christine said stiffly.

He stuck out his hand, and she crumpled it even tighter in her fist. "If you do not give it to me, then you can go sit in the principal's office."

"Fine," she snapped, and grabbed her book bag off the floor. "I will."

She stormed down to the office without waiting for a hall pass, then plunked herself in a chair before the prune faced secretary.

"That was fast," Mrs. Richardson said, eyeing her with suspicion.

"What was fast?"

At that moment the principal's office door opened, and the police detective who had questioned her after the party stepped out.

"Miss Dally, I'm afraid you are going to have to come with me to the hospital. Your father asked me to come by and pick you up," Detective Kohn said, his expression somber.

"Has something happened?" she asked in a small voice, her anger vanishing immediately. "To my...f-father...?"

The Detective glanced at the secretary, who was listening avidly. "No, Miss. I'm afraid it was his client."