I've been so bored today *ugh*... I couldn't help it but update again, I feel addicted to this story that I simply must go on and on...
Read and Review and all that jazz that you usually do. I can't say thanks enough, for all it does is persuade me to keep writing, and I just love seeing that people are actually reading *squeal*
~The Phantom's Flutist~
Chapter 5:
Fear
"Excuse me, Raoul... for a second." I reached into my purse to grab my phone which had an unknown number on the screen once more. With a shaking hand, I pressed the phone to my ear.
"Hello?" My voice was barely a whisper, it was more like a cry.
"Step away from him now." A demanding and cold voice said into the phone, and I almost dropped the phone, looking out the window fearfully that he might just pop up there like in horror movies. I looked to Raoul and mouthed "Excuse me" and backed away from the table, going through the columns of tables, in my peripheral vision, glimpses of curious eyes watching me as I went to the waiting area with the benches.
"Who is this?" I asked slowly, trying not to break down in front of the waiters in fear they might begin to ask questions and I wouldn't have a very great time explaining... It would be like explaining a tantrum in the middle of the apartment store at 4-years-old.
"You know who this is, Christine. You've disobeyed me and I warned you strictly you could not see him. Now, retrieve your purse and step outside."
"Erik, you're taking this too far, I beg of you..." I murmured into the phone, trying not to cry.
"You have done enough! Do as I say or I fear for your little sweetheart."
"Don't you even think about harming him!" I hissed into the phone, "You sent those nasty text messages to him beforehand which was uncalled for and horrible of you... why are you doing this to me?" I rasped into the phone, holding my chest for support.
"Christine!" I heard a more kinder voice say, and I looked up to find Raoul coming toward me. I put the phone against my chest and tried hard not to cry as I looked into his eyes.
"Raoul, I have to go. I'll try to see you again, okay? Can you... can you fetch my purse, please?" I sobbed a little, rubbing my eyes. He stood there, dumbfounded.
"Christine-"
"Please..." I begged, "please..."
He nodded and walked off back to the table that I saw already had our food prepared and sent to it. Walking back awkwardly, he handed me my purse, and grabbed my arm and helped me from the chair. He shrank helped me shrink out of the window and I found myself sitting on the bench again, the phone falling to the ground.
He held my chin up to him, letting me have one glimpse of his perfection, "Try as much as I'll try, Christine. I love you so much," He whispered, and clutched my chin firmer, leaning forth, and he pressed his lips upon mine, and I was floating for the slightest second. It wasn't awkward, it wasn't silly, and we weren't on a dance floor. He was kissing me as maturely and as passionately as anyone else, and I could be frozen there for ages and never want to be grabbed out of it. But it ended, and I was awakened back to the bleak pace of time like a slap of cold water upon my face.
At that moment, I was crying because he seemed to break my walls down simply to reach me... he broke them down more gently, and he clutched my arm with urgency. I shut it on Erik, and put it into my purse, feeling a little relieved now that the trivial conversation was through with. I hid my mouth in my hand, letting the tears fall over it.
"I'm scared, Raoul..." I whispered, slowly rising from my seat, and I turned from him, opened the cafe doors and walked outside, feeling stripped away and exposed just at the breakaway from his protective arms.
I didn't see the black car waiting for me, and long arms seemed to reach out, taking me by my hand and pulling me painfully into the car, and before I even had time to blink, the car was moving. But it was so dark... it was such a blur through my tears.
"Why do you do this?" I asked, already knowing it was Erik with the sudden chill that went through my bones adding onto the recent slap in the face of reality making myself very uncomfortable.
"You disobeyed me, and went against my wishes for you not to see him."
"Why could I not see him? Are you jealous of him?"
"He doesn't deserve you, Christine." His words seemed to hammer me down in disbelief. I didn't actually think he was jealous, I was simply putting it rhetorically. That it wasn't extreme parental behavior I was facing from someone who I barely knew and hides his face behind a mask.
"...What?" I asked, though it hardly sounded like a word.
"Put your seatbelt on." He demanded from beside me, as lights began to pass by like a slur of color and darkness mixed together like the art of a Picasso painting. I obeyed, seeing that we were on some sort of highway that was unfamiliar... I didn't want him killing me or something.
There was something in my ear that was soft, something beautiful and melodic, it seemed to pass toward my ear like a cloud of sound, or a gentle wave. I couldn't tell what it was, but it was so soothing that I suddenly felt drowsy, as if it were trying to lull me into falling asleep. I tried hard to beat the sudden phase that swept over me, but it was difficult, it was like trying to crack open an iron wall that fell before me.
I shut my eyes, after a few groans of unconscious rebellion, I fell into the deepest sort of sleep I've ever known.
I awoke laying on my bed in the home, still feeling still a bit drowsy and utterly confused. It seemed all I could remember was kissing Raoul and being pulled into a dark abyss... Which somehow didn't make any sense now that I was awake and pondering about it. I was back in my prison and I had to be dragged by my hands and ankles back to Hades' layer.
I searched the room, suddenly aware that I was still laying in the bed with my dress on and shoes off which were lying by the door when I turned my head. I blinked a few times, finding that it was early morning and I had no idea how long I slept.
I looked around the room once more, finding my purse taken from me, and the sudden fear swept over me. He took it back, of course. Well, dammit. I was defeated once more at my unconscious lagging. My eyes went about the room and stopped at he chair near the door where Erik was sitting, his chin in his hands, as if looking somewhat bored and he was staring right at me. I wanted to shrivel away and curl into the covers, hiding my head, and go back to the dream world I was just recently in, but it was too real. The light from the sun was drained onto his usual black attire, looking like something of a ghost with such a confused existence.
"Leave me alone," I whimpered, sounding like a hurt puppy, turning away and biting into my pillow, squinting my eyes hard as if the ghost might just go poof in thin air. No such thing was going to happen, Christine, get out of it!"I didn't think you'd actually leave, you know." Erik's voice was deeply thoughtful, as if restating some sort of story in his own opinion. "Just maybe you'd have the right amount of logic that you'd already know that you can't escape me." He said just as thoughtful as before, but now with a mocking edge to it, making me want to throw my pillows at him and scream at him with all the abuse I'd ever have, with the knowledge I had, I was sure I didn't want to.
"Did you drug me or something?" I asked quietly.
"No," he mused.
"Then... why did everything I remember have some sort of hole there? I fell asleep, but how?"
"You're very curious, aren't you? I sang to you thus you fell asleep." He said, explaining it as if he were speaking to a five-year-old.
I rose from my face plastered on the pillow to face him dead-on, his eyes speculating my every move, and it began to bother me.
"I want to leave. I want to call Mrs. Giry and have her take me to that damned foster home. Please, I just want some dignity..." I was somehow now begging him with thoughts I didn't want him to hear.
"I'm afraid you can't do that." He directly said.
"Why not?" I asked, my voice rising as I glared at him.
"You've just began to know what I can do for you, Christine. You can't leave me yet." He sounded... in a way, childish suddenly. Not even Raoul would have sounded like that. That only made me more angry.
"All you've done is have me fear... I've never been so scared in my life." And why did I just say that? Why am I telling him that I fear him? I'm not sure but that seems just wrong.
"I don't want you to fear me, Christine. I care for you very much, and I would never, ever harm you." It seemed like he was begging me not to feel as I do.
"You've failed." I commented dryly, glowering, "You've harmed me in the most unimaginable way that I never knew I could feel..." I muttered thoughtfully, looking up, "And, you know what else? I don't think I've ever hated a person more than I've hated you." I never knew my tone could be so cold.
"Oh, Christine..." It sounded like someone besides Erik said these words, for it broke up into little shards of glass on the floor before my feet and he was fetching me to step onto them, and wrong move and I could bleed and shatter them further... his voice was that delicate, he hunched over just as broken as his voice was. "Christine, no, no... I've never wanted for you to be that way. I'm so sorry... so sorry..." He was coming closer to me now, his hand outstretched, to press against my cheek as he would to calm me before now, but I only grabbed it before it reached my face and stared at it as if it could jump out and devour my face whole. "I would give you anything for you to forgive me. Anything..."
"Are you serious?" I asked, raising my brows and stiffening, still holding his hand as he gripped my own hand tighter. I was honestly waiting for him to say "no" in my face and then burst out in laughter, but it took him a while... I think I saw something like a tear drip down the side of his mask.
"I have my restrictions," He whispered so quietly and I glared even more, trying to get my hand out of his, but failed once more.
"Like what?" I raised my voice just a little, seeing I already broke something. I wasn't winning at this game...
"Name what you desire to know, and I shall let you know," He said so quietly I barely heard him.
"I want answers." I said briskly, "I want answers and I'd like them honestly and with the entire truth. If this whole thing is built up of lies, I'd like to know before it shatters."
It took him an awful long time to respond, for it was all silent and it began to make me wonder what all he was thinking.
"It depends, I won't answer all of them." He answered slowly.
"Let me see your face." I said almost instantly, looking at his mask idly.
"That asks too much, Christine. I'll answer every other question, but not that one, that's not even a question."I believe that was the most insecure answer I've ever heard.
I grimaced, and finally got my hand out of his. I thought for a second and then opened my mouth to say something, but then shut it, still glaring.
"Why do you have my things?" I asked softly.
"You weren't supposed to see that." He answered dully, looking away in worry.
"You hid most of the house from me and I live here now, as you say..."
"I told you to stay away, now your curiosity leads you to this point!"
"I want to know why, not be lectured for the thousandth time." I hissed, coldly and shook my head, massaging my temples, "I just want answers, Erik, that's all I ask of you now."
He looked at me as if trying to study something, but then lightened his eyes in such a way that is bewildered me. Only Raoul ever looked at me like that, his eyes squinting, almost, and it was like it was out of adoration.
"He doesn't deserve you, Christine," were his exact words to me last night, and that should have gave me the first clue that he doesn't just care for me a little too much.
He sighed, seeing I saw what he meant without even a bit of a direct answer. "I love you, Christine," he sounded childish once more, as if admitting he stole something to his mother. Raoul never sounded like that, either, his words had me aghast and in almost immediate disbelief, but the sincerity that he had when he said those words, it wasn't like he's never said them before.
It was a good long time when I was simply staring at him, watching him watching me about my reaction.
"And..." He began again, in my mind I wanted him to not say anything more... I do not want to hear whatever he had to say now. I wanted to cover my ears, "I hope that... just one day you may come to love me back, whatever that may take. Just... one day..."
I didn't think I could say anything more, and I was staring. I don't believe I felt the same. Not after all he's done to me, taken away society, and caused me to fear.
"How long have you been watching me?" I asked, trying to break the awkward moment with another burning question. He was now sitting at the edge of my bed.
"A month before your father died." He answered honestly and my heart began to thud.
"How did you find me?" I pressed, trying not to linger on his strange answer.
"I search for promising talent, you see, and you were in that musical with the community theater, and I saw you there with your voice... I longed to help you, but I couldn't seem to reach you. When your father died, you disappeared from my sight, and I couldn't find you until I found you were looking for a new home, I was more than happy to take you in." I tried to remember all of it, when I was in a production of Annie as one of the older orphans with a cast of younger kids because that was as high as I could manage. I wasn't tall, or mature-looking quite yet, so despite the director's wishes of age, I was cast a year older than the requested age, and evidently, I astounded... My eyes were probably the size of a quarter, wide and speculating, but he was telling the truth, I think...
"Okay," I nodded thoughtfully. I really didn't want to know more, but I knew this all along. "You were stalking me?"
"I wouldn't consider it stalking." He said firmly.
"Then what was it? Casually following?" I faked a laugh, leaning my head into my hands, shaking my head. "Whatever..." I began, speaking into my hands. "If you wanted to help me before, then why didn't you just come out and ask?"
"Did you not see yourself after your father died? I didn't want to harm you or scare you because you were so fragile and easily breakable, it's obvious-"
"No, no, it's not obvious..." I sniffed. "I don't understand..."
"You wouldn't." He answered briskly.
"Then I'm... not going to ask."
"You shouldn't," he sounded as if he was winning something.
"You're weird..." I sighed, wrapping my arms around my folded legs. "Don't blame Anne for last night, it was my idea." I begged.
"I know it was," He nodded, "We've... handled it while you were sleeping."
"Handled it?"
"She didn't drive you..."
"Thomas didn't do anything, either... It's not their fault for anything!"
"We've set rules down, it's all taken care of. You're not to worry for their sake, or for yours, as a matter of fact." He said before I could say anything more, he raised a long, bony finger to silence me from asking another question.
"What kind of rules?"
"Since you didn't take advantage of roaming the ground yesterday, I assume you don't need it. Therefore, you are not to leave the house without my consent and my willingness to let you out."
"That's not fair!"
"You'll learn, if you haven't already, that life isn't fair. Now, I'll let you know the other rules after breakfast. I'm sure you're hungry."
"I don't want to eat with you," I hissed.
He rose up immediately, raising his arm as if he could have backlashed right then, and I looked to him, suddenly consumed in fear he would hit me just because I didn't want to ear with him, and he eased.
"Very well." He answered tensely, and walked out of the room with a burden, slamming the door behind him. I heard the lock click. Panic was urgent, I ran instantly to the door and began to hit the door, slamming my body against it and trying so hard to unlock it no matter how much it wasn't going to go.
"Erik! No! You can't do this! Let me out! Please, just let me out! I don't want to be in here!" I screamed through the door.
"You really should save your voice, darling," he said furtively through the door. "This is your punishment for disobeying me."
"Erik!" I whined one more time, helplessly banging on the door and I slid down it slowly, taking my head into my hands and sobbing.
I remained like that for a while, working my way to my bed, and laying, everything stretched out until there was a sudden knock on the door. I leaped up, looking to the door which revealed Anne carrying a tray with a pitiful look on her face.
"I'm sorry," she said almost immediately.
"It's my fault..."
"I'm the one that convinced you," she admitted dramatically, outstretching her arms to take me in them. I let her embrace me, feeling drained of any emotion that I could harness right now. She placed the tray on a small folding table with a glass of hot tea.
"Anne!" Erik's voice roared from downstairs.
"He knows I'm talking to you," She shook her head, and pouted. "He told me you'll be in here until tomorrow, so I'll deliver your meals, and try to give you company until he lets you out."
"He's treating me like an animal, Anne..."
"He had his reasons, Christine, you'll understand over time. Just... whatever you do to understand him, do not touch his mask. I'm warning you now."
"I don't know what to do, then." I sighed, bringing the dish closer grabbing he fork and taking up the spaghetti, just realizing how starving I was.
"I'll see you in the morning." She waved and left me alone in my room that feels not like a luxurious and brilliant room, it now feels like a chamber with the walls closing on me on all four sides, as I sit here and pity myself... I felt as if I died the world might not just care. I don't think I've ever been lonelier in my life.