AN: I am aliveeeeee! And full of remorse for not finishing this story earlier. Forgive me, dear readers. My excuse? I have now completed and am in the process of revising my first novel, and it's difficult to tear myself away from. But I promised that you would have an end to this dark little story, and an end you shall have, though we still have a few chapters to go. Oh, and I am beta-less, so forgive any typos I might have missed.

Enjoy!

Chapter Thirty One: December Fears and Plans

Christine mentioned it casually to Raoul a few weeks later, as if it was an afterthought. "I might be at the park tomorrow afternoon," she said when he called one evening to say hi. "Meg and I. We're going to watch the children skate and drink hot coco. You could stop by, if you are in the area. I know Meg would love to see you."

"Yeah, sure, I'll try," he said, his voice over the phone tinny and enthusiastic. She pushed her hair from her face with a shaking hand, her bare toes curled anxiously on the tiled kitchen floor.

"Ok, cool, well, you know…no big deal," she said, her voice mumbling and awkward. "I guess I'll talk to you later, Raoul."

"Talk to you later, Christine," he said, and the normal, inelegant way that he said her name made her want to break down and weep.

She clicked the phone off and set it gently onto the table, trying to calm her breathing. Raoul would come; she knew he would, and that was the first step. Confident in his upper hand, Erik did not have a problem with her seeing Raoul with a group of friends; in fact, she believed that he almost liked it, knowing that for Raoul, being around Christine without having her must be torture. It made Erik feel like he won.

For the first time, Christine was able to use his false confidence against him.

Over the past weeks she had been passive, agreeable, even affectionate; her eyes downcast, Christine had used her acting skills to gently cultivate the image that she was broken. Docile smiles and vaguely sad tones replaced her previous thrashings, giving her the resigned air of someone who had finally accepted their fate and was trying to deal with it. Erik, so desperate for the fighting to be over, so desperate to have her for his after more than a year of pain and increasingly tightening control, believed her.

He wanted her to be broken so that he could rebuild her: she could see that now. But Christine was building her defiance into a fire, stoking it in her chest even as she smiled sweetly at him and they talked about books and sang in his dead apartment. She soldered her fear and anguish into steely resolve. Every day, she looked at her wan face in the mirror and silently repeated her mantra:

'I am not broken. I am not broken. I am whole.'

The day after the phone call Christine dressed warmly, tucking her jeans into thick boots and wrapping a brightly patterned scarf around her throat. She made sure that each item was one she had purchased herself, and dressed in the bathroom with the door closed, discreetly checking each article of clothing for bugs. She did not carry a purse.

When she opened the downstairs door the blast of frigid air hit her bare head as she pressed her body against the wind. After the long Indian summer, winter had come fast, striking with a vengeance and turning the streets into sheets of ice. The arctic air numbed her nose and brought a bright flush to her pale cheeks; head bowed, Christine moved through the afternoon crowds and pressed numb fingers to her frozen face. I am alive, she thought, giddy with the cold and the Christmas carols that blasted out of nearby shops. 'I'm alive and it's Christmastime and I want to appreciate every single moment because if this fails I may never…'

She didn't finish the thought.

It was one o'clock when Christine reached the park, one o'clock on a bright Saturday in early December with the sun shining through the cold and all the shadows banished from the skeletal, ice-laden trees. Meg was already there, skating; Christine had strongly intimated that she stay on the ice for as long as possible and flirt with as many cute guys as she could. Meg enthusiastically agreed.

Sitting alone by the frozen pond, Christine checked her watch and waited, eyes on the swirling children with their bright-colored scarves and hats. It felt so good just to sit and breathe and watch life tumble all around her.

It was nearly two when a steaming paper cup hovered into view. "God, you look frozen," said a familiar voice. Christine looked up at him, her nose a bright red.

"Only a little," she said, smiling. She reached for the cup and felt it seep warmth into her hands. "Mmm," she said, inhaling deeply. "Hot chocolate?"

"And roasted chestnuts," Raoul said, whipping a paper bag with the greasy treats from under his coat as he sat next to her. "Thought you might be hungry. Where is everyone?"

"Meg's skating," she said, pointing to the dark haired girl trying to chat up a group of hockey players. "So it's just me."

"All alone?" he asked, dipping his hand into the warm chestnut bag. "That's a lonely way to spend your day."

"I'm not alone anymore," she said, taking a chestnut of her own, and with her eyes downcast she felt rather than saw the delighted smile light up his face.

"So what's up?" he asked casually, and Christine felt her heart rate rise. This was the moment she had simultaniously been dreaming of and dreading.

"Raoul, I want you to do something for me," she said, her voice calm and even. He raised an eyebrow.

"Sure," he said, reaching for another hot chestnut. Christine's hands began to shake.

"I am going to tell you something very important, and no matter what I say, I need you to promise me that you are going to keep smiling and eating chestnuts like nothing is wrong. Do not raise your voice or act surprised, and do not draw attention to yourself. No matter what, keep smiling. Will you promise me this?"

He was silent for a moment. "What's going on, Christine?" he asked tentatively, shifting on the hard bench, his knees nearly touching hers. "What's wrong?"

"Promise me!" she hissed, still smiling, a fake, cold smile that didn't reach her eyes. He nodded, slowly.

"Ok, I promise." When she was quiet, he bared his teeth. "Look, I'm smiling."

Something desperate flickered behind her eyes as she stared at him. "Raoul, I'm in a lot of trouble," she said, slowly taking a sip from her steaming cup as her eyes cast about the park, looking for shadows. She didn't hope to keep the meeting from Erik; on the contrary, the more open she was about it the less questions would be asked. Everything was carefully planned; even Meg's presence on the ice was a reassurance to any jealousy that could arise over the meeting. The area that they sat in was bright and sunny, with families lingering nearby but none close enough to hear their whispered conversation. The sunlit open space, the crowds of children and happy families, and the lack of security cameras made this the best possible place for a clandestine conversation. Haltingly, she began to tell him the truth, or as much of the truth as she could.

Smiling fakely, Christine told her childhood friend that there was a very dangerous man who was threatening her life, a man who had immense commercial and political power. She used the word 'threatening' to convey a sense of physical danger without having to mention the specifics: that he loved her, that he kidnapped her, that he taught her how to sing. She stressed the danger, pushing on Raoul the fact that if he helped her and This Man found out, Raoul could die. She did not use specifics, only vague warnings. She did not mention that he wore a mask.

"Is this the man you were with on the hill? Is this Erik?" he asked at one point, eyes serious, and for a split second Christine dropped her fake smile.

"Don't ever say that name!" she exclaimed a little too loudly; a few people turned to glance at her, curious. Forcing her face into a relaxed pose, she took a sip of her coco. "Where did you hear that?"

"We followed you, Meg and I," Raoul said, and to her relief he remembered to keep smiling. "Heard you talking on the phone one night. You said, 'poor Erik.' We saw you on the hill last month, too, and the person who sat by you and said something about 'going home.' What is really going on, Christine? What aren't you telling me?"

"He loves me," she whispered, her voice broken even as her teeth shone pearly white in the sunshine. "He loves me and if he ever finds out that you know his name, that you've seen him, oh God…"

"Go to the police," Raoul said firmly. "Why this act? Why meet here, with me? Just go to the police and…"

"I tried that!" she exclaimed, trying to keep her voice soft. The wind bit at her hands, numbing them, making the delicate skin dry and crack with cold. "Months ago. I tried. The police…" she took a deep breath. "They work for him, Raoul. Everyone does. He has cameras, bugs, wiretaps, and any combination of these could be anywhere at any time. You have no idea how powerful, how dangerous he is. I can't trust anyone except you."

Raoul was silent for a long moment. Christine took another chestnut and slowly put it in her mouth as she observed the way his eyes stared off into the distance, unfocused, their beautiful blue color heightened by the sunshine. His hatless head was a mess of blond hair, strands of which waved in the frigid wind and drifted into his eyes, though he was too lost in thought to push them away. The old familiar wrinkle was once again situated firmly between his eyebrows.

"Why are you telling me this now, Christine?" he finally asked, tearing his gaze from some unknown point to look at her red and frozen face.

"I need your help," she said, and discretely wiped away a warm tear that was leaking out of her eye. She didn't want him to see it, but he noticed anyway and in that moment it seemed to hit him that she was telling the truth, that this nightmare of hers was real and that, finally, she needed him.

"I'd do anything for you, Christine, you know that, but after everything you've told me…" Raoul looked at her, forgetting to smile, his gaze desperate and unhappy. "What can I possibly do?"

"I have a plan," she said. "You're the only one who I trust to help me. I can't let anyone else know, not even Meg. It would put her in too much danger and I can't..." her voice broke as she looked at the swirling figure of her friend on the ice. "I can't do that to her. I can't even believe that I'm going to ask it of you, but..."

He stared at her, waiting for more. She made a frantic motion at her face and he shook his head, smiling in an forced easygoing fashion. Breathing a sigh of relief, she continued.

"A police officer once told me that His power extends only to the borders of this country. That the only way I could every truly escape would be to leave it. I'm going to test his theory. I need someone to get me there." She looked at him seriously, stressing the words. "Just transportation. I'm not asking you to give up your normal life for me. Once I am over the border you will leave me and I will make my way to an airport headed for…somewhere. Then you would have to hide too, go to Europe or something, just for a little while, but if we play our cards right He won't ever know that you helped me."

"Leave the country?" he asked in shock, his jaw hanging open just a little. "For good? Christine, how will you live? How will…"

"I'll find a way," she said firmly. "Will you help me, Raoul? Will you help me regain my life? I can't do it without you." They both knew that in her desperation she was manipulating his emotions, his desire to protect her, but at this point neither one of them cared.

He looked at her blearily. "Canada?"

She shook her head, blond hair obscuring her face. "No, it's too secure, too many cameras." She glanced up at him from behind lowered eyelashes, barely moving her mouth, her voice quiet. "Raoul, I need you to get me to Mexico."

It was at that moment that Meg appeared before them, red faced and smiling. "Hey guys," she said, brushing her black hair out of her eyes, skates dangling from one hand. "What'd I miss?"