Author's Note: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera.

40

She landed just as the top of the trap creaked shut. Moving to stand closer to the wall, Kayla silently praised her guardian angel for the foresight to abandon her high heels; being barefoot was a much better alternative to broken ankles. Raoul stood in the centre of the room, looking around with wild blue eyes. "Raoul! It's okay, calm down," Kayla hissed. The Vicomte did not seem to hear.

The room was made entirely of mirrors, spinning in an endless, silent dance as they shone pieces of reflective light throughout the chamber. Suddenly, a white skull appeared out of the gloom. Raoul whipped out his rapier and swung it at the sceptre, but he hit nothing. The face appeared to the left and the nobleman struck at it again. The Phantom was playing with Raoul, waiting for him to make a mistake. "Raoul quit it!" Kayla snarled quietly as a coarse rope noose dropped down from the ceiling between the young man and the young woman. Turning to face the ghost again, Raoul swiped his sword haphazardly in the direction of the noose. Raising her arm to try to calm the oblivious nobleman, Kayla took a step forward. As if in slow motion, a flash of white in her peripheral vision informed her that the Phantom's reflection had appeared behind her.

Raoul lunged at the newest distraction, sword outstretched. The metal blade sang as it flew, and the sharp tip cleanly ripped through Kayla's embroidered bodice, slicing the skin under her ribs in one quick stroke. All the breath left Kayla's lungs as she stumbled back and crumpled against the wall. There was a click and a sudden glow of pale light, and Raoul was pulled through the wall perpendicular to Kayla by a pale arm clothed in sparkling black lace. Madame Giry, Kayla recognized blearily. The door shut once more, and everything went black.

The pain from her sliced open abdomen was blinding, flashing in bursts of red and orange behind her eyelids. She clamped her arm as tightly as she could over the wound in a doomed attempt to apply pressure. Warm liquid flowed freely over her silk sleeve and down the taffeta skirt of her dress. Kayla swore quietly. She had a feeling that neither Raoul nor the Phantom had realized she was there, both too focused on the other to pay attention to anything – or anyone – else. Kayla tallied up the possibly fatal accidents that she had subjected herself to. She was stuck in the Phantom's infamous torture chamber, no one knew where she was, she had no idea how to get out, and to cap it all off, she was bleeding out all over the reflective floor. "Damn you, Raoul," she cursed, holding back another cry with clenched teeth as she discovered that it was becoming increasingly more painful to breathe. Dying, she concluded, was imminent.

She did not know how long she spent huddled against the wall before she heard the gentle scrape, an addition to the quiet swivels of the moving mirrors. Struggling to open her eyes, Kayla squinted into the gloom and noticed a tall figure looming out of the darkness on the opposite side of the chamber. White porcelain shone dimly in the flickering light of a torch.

"Sorry," Kayla squeaked, gritting her teeth and scooting into a seated position, half frightened and half embarrassed by the presence of the shadowed menace. "I apologize for all the blood; I swear I'll clean it up…"

The ghost stepped forward. The cut throbbed, and, too overwhelmed by the whole situation to stay awake any longer, Kayla – much to her own dismay – fainted.

After removing his masquerade costume and returning to his normal attire, the Phantom stalked back through his secret passages, listening to the fearful whispers that permeated ever corner of the opera house. He somewhat regretted not being able to kill the fop, as the young fool deserved to suffer for trying to follow him, but at least said fool was truly aware of the Opera Ghost's existence and power.

He chanced upon Christine and little Meg Giry outside of the dancers' dorm, where they were engaged in a furious whispering match with two of the set crew members, Jamie Blanchard and Clemens Dubois. "What do you mean you haven't seen her?" Clemens snarled angrily. "She went to the Masque with you! For heaven's sakes, we weren't even invited! I'm pretty sure it would have been safe to assume she'd be with you!"

"Leonardo and Avère are still searching for her, they won't tell us anything," Jamie interjected.

"I'll have you know that she got ready at La Carlotta's residence, and arrived with the diva and Piangi. I haven't seen her since… the opera ghost arrived," Meg hissed, lowering her voice as she referred to the Phantom. "I thought that she left and went to find you."

"I barely saw her all night," Christine protested. "The last time I saw her was when she was dancing with Leonardo, and that was half an hour before he appeared."

"Perfect! You were too busy with your precious patron to look out for your friends and now we've lost our leader. Félicitations, Daäe," Clemens spat. "I hope you're pleased with yourself."

Christine recoiled as if she had been struck. Though still enraged by the young soprano's betrayal and fear, the Phantom could not help but feel a flare of fury rise in his chest at the ire in the young man's tone.

"I literally could not care less about the Vicomte, where is Kayla?" Jamie interrupted angrily.

The Opera Ghost was seized by an unexpected wave of worry. He tried to convince himself that his concern was impersonal; Ms. Abbots currently had possession of the set book, and the final copy was allegedly only just completed. He could not afford to lose his artist. He had toured the entire opera house in the last fifteen minutes and had not seen Mademoiselle Abbots. There was nowhere else she could possibly be…

…unless she had followed the young fop into the torture chamber.

The Phantom's blood froze in his veins and he rose, sprinting through the hidden passages back to his lair. From there, he slunk through the twisted maze to the room of mirrors. Sliding open a hidden door, the Phantom took a gentle step into the dark, raising a torch. In the light cast by the reflections of the crimson flames, the Phantom noticed the huddled body in the corner. The flame surged brightly, and the Phantom stared in shock.

The young girl was leaning against the wall, seated on the floor in what appeared to be a pool of her own blood. As the light cascaded across her face, the deep blue eyes flickered open. She made a half-hearted attempt to sit up straight, her jaw clenched in pain. "Sorry," she gasped, holding her blood soaked stomach tightly. "I apologize for all the blood; I swear I'll clean it up…"

And then the girl fainted.

Erik did not allow himself to panic. He quickly disposed of the torch, sticking it into an empty iron bracket outside the door. Ignoring the red that immediately seeped onto his jacket, the Phantom scooped her up into his arms. A split second's consideration informed him he could not return her to the dormitory in her condition, and as he, surprisingly, had no knowledge of the location of Madame Giry, he decided there was no choice but to take her back to his lair. He quickly exited the torture chamber, and walked back through the shadows to his home, Mademoiselle Abbots cradled gently in his arms.

The Phantom whisked a protective sheet over his own bed before laying the girl down. Racing through the rooms of his house, he returned to his charge laden with bandages and other medical supplies. Setting his load down on the bedside table, he stared at the young woman blankly, unsure of his next step. Kayla Abbots was still in her costume, the dress he had designed torn and bloodied, the black mask still pristinely covering her pale face. Her streaked blonde hair was hanging around her face in long tendrils, mussed from her jump and subsequent attack. The top hat she had added was askew. Blood still seeped out of her white and black bodice. There was nothing for it; he would have to remove the dress before proceeding.

He peeled the mask off her face and set it aside before flipping her over onto her stomach. The girl made a distressed noise, but was otherwise unresponsive. He began to untie the laces, loosening the ties with fumbling fingers. After a moment, he snatched up a knife from the pile and deftly cut through the back of the dress, peeling it off her hurriedly. The same approach was taken with the laces of the corset she wore underneath. He tore the ruined silk bodice and taffeta skirt away and tossed it to the side. Averting his eyes to attempt to save her decency, the Phantom gingerly rolled onto her back.

Beneath the corset, Ms. Abbots was wearing the strangest shirt he had ever seen, a tight, grey, low cut undershirt, with no sleeves at all. Nothing was showing, but around the waist and ribs the grey was stained with burgundy. She also had on incredibly tight black leggings that only reached her knees, leaving her tanned, toned calves and feet uncovered. Gritting his teeth and silently apologizing to the unconscious girl, Erik took up a pair of scissors and quickly sliced away the fabric covering her lower ribcage and stomach. What he saw made him hiss angrily.

A scarlet line ran smoothly from the left side of her waist to her right, perfectly curved over the contours of her stomach. It was not too deep, but deep enough to require stiches. Blood trickled steadily out of the wound. It was obviously the work of a rapier. She must have followed him and the fop into the trap, and been caught in the fight. The fool's sword may have been thin and girlishly delicate, but it was still capable of a substantial amount of damage. Swiping up a clean cloth, the Phantom began to dab gently at the crimson splotches around the cut, steadily removing the blood from the rest of her abdomen. As he did so, blood began to seep more heavily from the gash. Hoping that his medical expertise would not fail him now, he quickly cleaned the inside of the wound. His patient moaned raggedly, but remained still and comatose. Erik sighed heavily and picked up a sterilized needle. "I am sorry," he whispered, and began to stitch up the wound.

Once the gash was closed, held by tight, neat stiches of medical thread, Erik began to wrap clean, white bandages around Ms. Abbot's torso, from the middle of her ribcage down to the lower section of her stomach. He could not help but notice thin, rosy white lines crossing back and forth over her skin, parallel to the rapier stiches, as well as up her hipbones and her sides. He secured the bandage and stepped back. He had done all that he could.

Gently laying a thin blanket over her exposed torso, Erik dragged over an armchair and sat down, willing to wait as long as it took for his little magician to wake up.

Author's Note: ... Do you guys hate me yet?

I'm very sorry for the short chapter, but school just went nuts, and you remember that Spanish exam? Yeah, I failed. Well, I got a 50. So I kind of passed by not really. My prof tried to excuse it by saying that a couple people got 90's, while 99.9% of the class muttered to each other that they 100% DID NOTget a 90. I literally cannot stand her. And I have a presentation tomorrow for the same class and she's going to fail me, if only because she hates me and the feeling is mutual.

But anyway. Enough ranting. Thank you to all who favourited, followed, and/or reviewed last chapter, and thanks to E-man-dy-S, Guest, and shadow2 for their guest reviews. I'll try to write and post a longer chapter soon, so thank you for your patience.

Love you all! Hugs!

Tierney

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