Katja stared at Erik, demanding answers. The day she met Nadir, Erik had admitted to doing awful things, enough for the Persian man to want to keep constant watch over him. Erik avoided telling her anything at the time and she had allowed the issue to drop, but now Katja needed to know.

"What did you do?" she asked again. "Tell me!" Erik remained silent; he wouldn't even look at her. She could feel tears forming in her eyes as a realization hit her. "Oh my God, the fire upstairs…that was you wasn't it? You said it was an accident! You lied to me!"

"No," Erik whispered. His voice grew louder as he started to lose control of his temper. "I never lied to you. I never once said that it was an accident! You jumped to that conclusion yourself!"

"So you did do it," she gasped, her hand going to her mouth in shock. Katja couldn't help but hope he would deny it.

"I told you that I had done terrible things," he snapped, confirming her worst fears. "Don't act so surprised."

"Oh God, why? Why would you do that? And who's Buquet? Piangi? De Chagny? What did you do to them?" Tears slid down her cheeks. "Did you kill them?"

Erik motioned for her to sit down. She refused to give in. "Katja," he said softly. "Let me explain." She watched him cautiously for a moment before slowly obeying and taking a seat. He sat in the chair across from her and reached out to take her hand but she pulled away. Erik sighed before he began to tell her more about his past.

"I never once lied to you. I…just never told you everything," Erik started. "I had been hiding down here, under the opera house ever since I escaped the gypsies and had always just taken what I needed from upstairs. The entire building is laced with secret passages that only I knew how to navigate, so I could come and go as I pleased, totally unseen. Whenever anyone lost something, or heard inexplicable footsteps they blamed it on a ghost, which they nicknamed the Phantom of the Opera."

"After a while, I used that title to begin leaving notes to the managers. I was the unseen ghost that influenced shows. If something wasn't right, I brought it to their attention. If they didn't obey then there were small accidents. A costume would get torn, a piece of scenery would be ruined, or props would disappear, sometimes repeatedly until the situation was corrected. If someone wasn't worthy of performing, they didn't keep their job long."

"When I returned from Persia, a little orphan girl had just arrived to live in the ballet dormitories. One night I heard her crying in the chapel. Her recently deceased father had promised her an Angel of Music would come to her to teach her to become a singer. She was alone and friendless so I became her angel. I hid in the passages and taught her to sing. At first all I wanted to do was help someone. As she grew up, I tried to help her career flourish and needed a creative way to make it happen."

Katja remained silent, wondering where all this was going as Erik continued his story. "The lead soprano at the time, La Carlotta, was one who fell under the category of someone who didn't deserve her position. She couldn't sing to save her life. I asked repeatedly to have her removed but she was the only issue on which I received any opposition from the manager. There just wasn't anyone to replace her at the time."

"As time went on though, the girl I was training blossomed into someone worthy to be Prima Donna. I decided that she would take over and La Carlotta would finally leave. Unfortunately the manager also chose this time to announce his retirement, and he left my opera house in the hands of two incompetent idiots who knew nothing about music and refused to believe in the Opera Ghost. I chose this time to act, and dropped a piece of scenery on La Carlotta and sent her packing."

"Out of options, the new managers were forced into allowing the girl I was training to take her place. She exceeded expectations, including my own. She was born to perform. Unfortunately for me, I had two new problems. La Carlotta returned, demanding her position back. Also the new patron, the Vicomte de Chagny, was an old childhood sweetheart of the girl I was training and he wanted her back." Erik let out a heavy sigh. "But I didn't want to let her go. I had fallen in love with her."

"I was going to fight for her heart, no matter the cost. But when I finally revealed myself to her, she pulled of my mask and was terrified by my face. To make matters worse, the managers had reinstated Carlotta as the lead, undermining everything I had worked for. At the first performance I laced Carlotta's throat spray with a concoction that would temporarily ruin her voice. A stagehand, Joseph Buquet, was trying to find me and finish off the Opera Ghost. He had been after me for a while, and had molested several ballerinas and I had had enough. I put a stop to it that night." Katja watched him with wide eyes. Erik just admitted to killing a man, but if this Buquet had really hurt other girls, than she couldn't blame Erik for what he did.

"The girl I was training thought it was my way of punishing her for rejecting me. She went running back to de Chagny and told him what a monster I was. I couldn't take the pain anymore and holed up in here to lick my wounds. Music helped, and I composed my opera, Don Juan Triumphant, to help cope. By the New Year, I had an idea. Don Juan was finished so I would have the managers perform it. I myself would take the lead and prove my love to her onstage."

"It was a simple enough plan but everything went all wrong. She pulled off my mask in front of all of Paris; she revealed my face. The entire police force was there, they were going to kill me. I needed a way out and fast. I panicked. The rope that supported the chandelier right there, so I cut it to cause a distraction so I could escape. I was desperate so I grabbed her and leaped through a trapdoor in the stage."

"I didn't find out until later that the lead tenor, Piangi, whom I had tied up and left in a closet so he wouldn't interrupt, had a heart condition and died. I hadn't planned on hurting him. I just needed him out of the way for a little bit. I didn't mean for him to die. I truly am sorry for his death and for those of anyone who had the misfortune to be under the chandelier when it fell."

She pressed her hands to her mouth and stared at Erik, unable to speak. "It was stupid, I know. But I didn't know what else to do. I brought her down here to try to make her see how badly I needed her. I needed her to see how much I loved her. But her fiancé, the Vicomte, followed us down. I couldn't lose her and threatened to kill him if that's what it took for us to be together. She agreed to stay with me to spare his life, but I knew she didn't love me. She never had and never would. I finally gave up and allowed them to leave. I couldn't hurt her anymore."

Katja had tears running down her cheeks. "Why?" she demanded. What could drive a man to such extremes as to kill for a woman he couldn't have.

Erik locked eyes with her for the first time since he started telling the story. She could see tears in his eyes as well. "I was desperate Katja. All my life I had been alone. No one wanted anything to do with the freak cursed with a monster's face. Even the woman who gave birth to me refused to allow me to call her mother. She said she had done nothing to deserve to be plagued by a demon. Was it so wrong to wants someone to love me?"

"Why was she so special?" Katja asked, her voice hollow.

"Because I had been her angel from the moment she arrived. She had trusted me so willingly with everything. I alone had been her friend and confidant. Only I knew her deepest secrets. I thought perhaps if she was so trusting of an angel, she could learn to love Erik. But I was wrong. Even she only saw the freak of nature that I am."

"What was her name?"

"It doesn't matter now."

"Tell me her name!" she screamed, bitter tears falling. "Who was the girl that was special enough that you were willing to kill for her?!"

He bowed his head. "Christine," he whispered. "Christine Daae."

"I can't believe you!" Katja cried. "I trusted you!"

"All I wanted was a normal life!" Erik shouted. "Is that so wrong? Every other man in this world has his chance to have a wife, someone who loves him and cares for him. Why couldn't I?" By now they were both crying tears of pain and anger. "I didn't choose this life. I didn't pick my face. If I had do you really think I would have chosen this hell?!"'

Katja stared at him for a moment more before running into her bedroom. She needed to be able to process everything. Burying her face in her pillow, she began to sob. Why did this hurt so much? Erik had told her a long time ago that he had an unforgivable past. Could it possibly be the fact that he loved another that was upsetting her so much?