A/N: Thank you for the sweet reviews! :) Who says no more sexcapades are coming? If you believe that, then you don't know my writing at all! ;-)…Patience, friends. Enjoy the easy-paced lulls as well as the sharp turns & plummets. A roller coaster would be no fun without the stretches of calm in between before the next seemingly bottomless dive …and now….
L
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"Christine, I'm not sure this is wise…"
Arabella's words tumbled uselessly away, bouncing off her impulsive friend's back as Christine hurried ahead on the forest path leading to the cave with the hidden door.
"It will be fine," Christine threw over her shoulder. "You'll see. Is it over this rise?"
"Yes – that is, if memory serves me correctly. It's been two weeks, Christine. I could be wrong. It was sunny, with no snow on the ground. The area looks somewhat different than I remember, and when I left his caverns it was near twilight…" She might as well talk to the tree squirrels for as much attention as she was given.
She only hoped they were not well and truly lost.
They walked amid a thicket of dense hardwoods, scattered with firs, the sky overcast but the weather clear. The piercing cold served to bring clarity of mind and sharpen senses, impelling the need for swift movement, but Arabella would much rather be sitting by a crackling fire in a cozy room with a thick-pile rug to cushion her stocking toes. Not trudging through slushy, snow-laden leaves on a reckless quest to find an elusive, antagonistic Ghost.
Yet she felt she had no choice.
Arabella had not observed such fire and spirit in Christine since before Erik's alleged death. Ever since she visited her in the pink dressing room laden with roses and angels she noticed the change and commented on it, though Christine had misunderstood and thought Arabella observed only the negative aspects of her character – the confused hurt and bitter anger – and there was that.
But there was also a contagious vibrancy, that same breathlessness that enlivened to be in proximity to the spark and energy that once composed and again revisited her friend. Throughout four years Arabella had weekly lit a candle at chapel and prayed to see this day. The dead had come back to life – in both Erik and Christine – and it was because of that she reluctantly agreed to this plan of reckless pursuit, though the Phantom had warned her never to come near his territory again.
To see the vivid hope shine from Christine's eyes the entire time they traversed the city and now to see that hope burn brighter the closer they drew to the secluded entrance was worth any icy threat Arabella defied.
Once she tied another long snippet of red cloth to a low branch, thankful she'd thought of the idea to help mark their way in the wintry landscape, she caught up to Christine, who had begun to move more slowly.
"I never realized his home underground was so huge that it spread into the outskirts of the city." She reached for and clutched Arabella's arm.
Arabella looked her way. "Christine – why are your eyes closed?"
"I'm trying to imagine the network of passages beneath and the trek we took twice – but on second thought, I suppose it's silly to try and compare where we would be underneath, as I don't know what direction we were walking then, since I was blindfolded." She let out a breathless laugh. "But with the smoke from the fires for the baths rising from the hole in the ceiling, we couldn't have been inside the city for fear someone might see…"
"Wait –" Arabella turned, Christine's hand falling from her arm. "You were blindfolded?"
"Yes…no, don't look at me like that. It's not as bad as it sounds. I agreed to it."
Arabella shook her head apprehensively, curious into what sort of madness she was taking Christine back to. Fires? Baths? A home underground? Not to mention the deadly trap near the entrance…
"I don't like the idea of you going inside alone. I told you, he had his hand around my throat – this could be dangerous."
Christine smiled to reassure. "That's exactly why it's best I go alone. He would never physically harm me, but gets upset at the idea of strangers who trespass and really doesn't know you at all. You saw him once and briefly in England. When I fell from the tree, and you said he was very bitter toward all of you. And this second time he threatened you if you should return."
Not the second, the third, Arabella corrected silently.
Two weeks ago had been her third time to confront Erik.
A twinge of guilt haunted Arabella that she'd never told her friend of his breaking into the bedchamber to carry a feverish Christine away, or of the afternoon, shortly after, when Erik visited The Grange while Christine convalesced from the hound's bite, even boldly coming to the front door to see her. The hood of the cloak he'd worn had hidden his makeshift black mask, but to no avail. The butler ordered him to leave, closing the door in his face, but Erik's boot had lodged between lentil and door to stop it from being shut. That was when Raoul appeared, Arabella with him. Her cousin had succinctly and haughtily told Erik to leave, stating that Christine was well but the doctor prohibited outside visitors. Erik had not believed him, and Raoul threatened that if he did not return to The Heights at once, he would throw him off the land and see to it that Henri prevented his presence at The Grange again. Once Erik stormed away while issuing a curse upon their household, Raoul cautioned Arabella that they shouldn't tell Christine of the visit so as not to unduly upset her and hamper her recovery. Having seen the wild temper of the gypsy servant, Arabella agreed, and when Christine later asked if she received visitors, Arabella went along with Raoul's plan for silence. A plan she dearly came to regret. She soon understood how close the two from The Heights truly were, and especially after Erik's supposed death which led to Christine's demise from reality, she felt horrid about keeping the truth – and keeping Erik – from her ill friend.
"Christine…" Arabella kept her focus directly on the path ahead. "There's something I must tell you, something that happened in England. It's been preying on my conscience for some time…"
Once again Christine clutched her arm. "Is that it?"
Arabella looked to where Christine pointed. Among the thick cover of trees a gray mound of rock stood as tall and wide as a carriage house and was covered by tangled shrubbery and a thick patchwork of vines. Thankfully, they had only strayed off course a short distance, since the cave was now to the right and not the left.
"Yes, that's it."
"See? We weren't lost at all! You're a wonderful guide." Christine's dark eyes sparkled and she clapped her gloved hands together in excitement. "I want to hear what you have to say, of course, but can it wait? I can think of nothing else right now but getting inside and finding Erik."
Arabella nodded, a resigned calm settling over her. "Of course."
Somberly she watched as her animated friend again hurried ahead, almost at a run. There would be time for delayed confessions later. Right now she must do what she could to help mend the present separation. No matter that she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about Christine's relationship with Erik or if it was truly safe, she owed Christine that much. Had they not forbidden Erik entrance to The Grange four years ago, there might have been no misunderstanding between the tragic pair, (as Christine sadly told her had occurred during her recounting of Erik that long ago night on their return from France). Likewise, the succession of tragedies that followed might never have happened. If Raoul and Arabella had just opened the door to Erik that day – or at least been honest with Christine – they might not be here now, trudging through icy slush and dim forest. And Christine might not be struggling with every ounce of strength within her frightfully slim form to return to her beloved gypsy-turned-ghost.
Arabella sighed. The entire situation with the Phantom of the Opera really was the most unimaginable state of affairs, his plots and ploys far exceeding any amount of mischief she produced at the ladies academy.
But – oh, what a horrid nest of quandaries one well-intentioned omission could create!
"You said the lever to disable the trap is fifteen paces inside – oh, I think I see the door!"
Christine's excited words filled the brisk air as she impatiently pushed aside vines to expose the rusted keyhole and lock.
"Yes – but remember he told me he might put another trap in place, one more sinister," Arabella reminded her headstrong friend, to no avail. "Those were his words."
"Yes, but given how busy we were in the days that followed your visit I doubt he's had time to craft it – it would be quite elaborate. I should think one would take weeks to build…Now, the key is buried beneath a rock? This one?" Christine looked up for affirmation. At Arabella's resigned nod, she grabbed the rock, tossing it aside. Dirt soiled her beige leather gloves as she dug a shallow niche into snowy mud and retrieved the iron key. Her smile rivaled the brightness of the clear gray sky. "Fate is finally smiling my way! Oh Arabella, to think I shall soon be with him again. I only need to avoid any corridors that aren't lit," she said to herself as she stood to fit the key in the lock. "But that shouldn't be a problem…"
Suddenly she froze.
"What is it?" Arabella asked suspiciously.
"Nothing…it's nothing."
Christine hesitated, a forgotten incident falling into her jumbled mind. He had told her no other intruder would ever get inside. When she asked if he laid another trap, he had smiled wickedly, confirming Arabella's warning. But he had been with her most of the week that followed, training her for the opera, and there must be some safely lit passage for Jolene to use in order to go to market three times a week; and today was a market day.
Yet even if he had made the way unsafe – even if Christine must stand on the outskirts of a dark corridor and call out to him – she would do it.
Arabella heard her sing when she stood in the cavern and told her it was part of what persuaded her that Christine was faring well and to forfeit the search. If sound carried that great a distance within the hollow cave walls – and she remembered his seductive voice following her when she fled from him – the Phantom would surely hear her call out no matter where he was in his hidden tomb. If he thought her life in danger, based on previous experience, he would drop everything and hurry to help her. Oh, he would be livid by her ruse, but in that matter they would be on equal footing…
…since she was just as angry by his.
"There are other traps inside, aren't there?" Arabella asked, her tone insistent. "Raoul returned to the hotel one day, his clothes drenched. He said he fell into a pit of water while searching for you, but he was evasive and didn't wish to talk about it. I thought it was just a case of injured pride – but it was a trap, wasn't it? The Phantom's trap?"
Christine remained silent.
"Christine – listen to me. There has to be another way to reach him other than by putting yourself in certain peril!"
"The lit corridors are safe. They have no traps. I know my way around."
A half truth. She knew the areas where she'd been, but his home beneath the earth appeared to be as large as an entire city! The lord of the underworld's own hidden kingdom…with a wry half smile she recalled the gothic tales of her youth and recreating them with Erik, now wondering if his choice of surroundings was deliberate to imitate that. He called himself an ogre, had always thought himself a beast – oh, why had she not been firm with him in her heart's knowledge that she'd found her lost love –
Devil that he was...
"Christine…" She heard the slush of Arabella's footsteps draw nearer. "Don't do this. I should not have given into your plea. We can find another way, I assure you –"
"There is no other way."
Christine turned the key in the lock before her friend could prevent her taking action. With her heart beating fast she pulled the latch, swinging the door outward, the shield of vines that hung low to obscure the weathered planks hampering quick movement…
…and stared in wounded defeat as her world came crashing down around her once more.
"No," she whispered, then more loudly, "NO!"
Moving forward, she slapped the newly made wall of gray brick and mortar hard with both palms, then fisted her hands and struck again.
"Damn you, Erik! You can't do this to me! You can't…"
Helpless tears of loss streamed down her face as she battered the impenetrable stone with the edges of both her fists. Despite the leather covering them, they burned from her futile exertions. She leaned her cheek and shoulders wearily against the barricade that kept her from her despicable Angel and Phantom and struck once more.
Arabella's arms wound around her middle, pulling her away. Christine fought to return to the blocked entrance, ready to scratch at the freshly-laid mortar with her nails to dig a way through if she must.
"A pickaxe!" she said urgently, her voice wavering. "Surely somewhere in the props of past operas I can find a pickaxe -"
"CHRISTINE!" Arabella cried in distress, "STOP IT - I cannot bear to see you like this!"
"Tell me then," she broke free from her hold and swung away, the flow of her tears unceasing, "How am I supposed to be?! Please, TELL ME, Arabella. Because I long to know!"
Her friend shook her head sadly as if she had no answer.
Christine took in a shuddering breath, grabbing handfuls of her hair at the temples.
"I feel as if I am slowly losing my mind. In one breath, I burn with so much love for him it makes my heart physically ache to beat; in the next breath, I hate him so much I want to rake my nails down his face. And the memories…" She shook her head sadly. "They come to torment me, one by one, often when I least expect it – memories of a man I thought only an indifferent stranger and I now realize was Erik – Erik! And that makes all of what happened in those wonderful, horrible moments so much more poignant and twice as difficult to bear. Don't you see? I have to find a way to tear down that wall and reach him! The memories never stop, and neither will I!"
Suddenly her eyes went wide in stunned horror. Feeling faint, she crumpled to her knees in the shallow snow, wrapping her arms tightly around her sides.
"Oh God!" she rasped, barely able to draw the next breath.
Speaking aloud of sharp tools to destroy brought a frightful incident to mind –
…involving a beautiful curved dagger that glistened with the Phantom's blood.
Arabella grabbed her shoulders from behind. "Christine, what's wrong? Are you ill? Did you hurt yourself?"
She had almost killed her soulmate by her own hand! Had wanted to bury the lethal weapon deep into his black heart to escape him! Had witnessed his total desolation in the hopelessness of his beautiful golden eyes shimmering with tears, and had watched in panicked terror as he helped her along, his hand clutching hers, until the point of the blade pierced his skin.
"I'm going to be sick."
Christine leaned over to retch but only coughed and heaved air in uncontrollable spasms until her throat burned and her chest ached dreadfully. There was no food in her stomach, she'd had no interest in breaking the fast and had felt this same horrid queasiness the first time the Phantom used whatever evil potion he created to drug her.
- Dear God, she had almost killed him! Killed Erik!
"It's alright," Arabella soothed, though Christine hysterically knew her condition was far removed from such a tame, gentle word. "Nothing cannot be undone. Do not lose all hope."
She could not seem to breathe right, her breaths coming in and out in short gulps and rasping sobs.
"Christine, you mustn't take on so - it's nerves, I think, due to the strain of all this. Something similar happened to me when I was trapped after midnight on a third-story roof outside a locked turret window at the academy and almost fell. I panicked, but when I closed my eyes and took slow, deep breaths, I was able to regain calm and find my way out of my predicament."
Being held in her friend's lavender scented arms and hearing her quiet reassurances did help to ease her distress after a time - Erik was still alive - and reminded of that, and how she had at least then begged him not to carry out his horrific plan, Christine began to breathe more naturally. The horror of her own actions not entirely gone, but diminished, and after a short while elapsed she felt steady enough to offer a quiet reply.
"You were quite the mischief-maker. Perhaps also a bit reckless when you wanted something badly enough?" She wiped the tears from her face and managed a faint smile. "Perhaps you still are, in coming to the cave alone and searching for me?"
Arabella laughed shortly. "Yes, alright. You win. I'm not one to be casting stones at your impulsive nature. Perhaps we both, the pot and the kettle, shall never be more than black, but there's nothing more to be done here. And the time for your rehearsal is soon at hand."
Christine wanted to protest but Arabella was right about the need to return. However, once she again stood to her feet, she slowly walked back to the blocked entrance as if drawn there by a force she couldn't control.
"Christine…" Arabella softly cautioned.
Grimly she nodded. "I know."
Again her thoughts took her to that day with Erik and she wondered why he never revealed his identity, even then, especially then, ready to let her sink that awful dagger into his flesh and surrender this world for a shroud of death. My God, what had happened to him? His behavior was in complete opposition to the boy she once knew, who struggled and fought for every scrap of his life and threatened all who endangered that. She thought she'd known him, thought she'd known herself…
Did she really know anything at all?
"Do you think I'm going mad again?" she asked, almost in a whisper.
"I never thought you were mad before."
"Come now," Christine shook her head and let out a dismal chuckle, looking askance at her friend. "We both know differently. I sat in a chair and stared into a black void of nothingness for a year. It was the only world my mind inhabited. Everyone at The Grange thought me mad. I heard the servants whisper it… and your friends…they all thought me mad and told you to commit me to Bedlam."
"You heard that?" Arabella asked in shock. "You never told me!"
"There were snippets of conversations that entered my mind at times, though I was always in that void." Christine managed another shaky smile and looked back at the wall of brick. "I remember you and Raoul arguing over who would stay with me in the garden to read to me. You both wanted to, though for the life of me, I cannot understand why."
"Exactly that. For the life of you. You are more than a friend, you are like a sister to me, and Raoul still cares about you a great deal."
That was exactly what Christine feared.
"He was livid with worry when he discovered you went missing, and left England straightaway," Arabella continued when Christine remained silent. "We never thought you mad. Neither Raoul, nor I. You were in mourning, still incredibly weak from your illness, barely recovered from the last high fever and that awful cur's bite. Your condition was understandable."
Christine absently rubbed her sleeve where it hid the scar. "Sometimes, when the darkness closes in, I fear it could happen all over again and how easy it would be to slip back into that void…"
At her distant words, Arabella grabbed her by the arms, whirling her around and shaking her, much to Christine's surprise. Arabella's gray eyes were full of determination fired by fear.
"Stop this talk at once! Erik is alive, Christine. Alive…There is always a chance of reconciliation, missing before, when you thought him dead. And you have your music, a dream you both shared that is now being realized. I know things seem bleak, but not even a day has elapsed since he left, and returning you to the opera house was his idea all along. He said that when you were ready, you would rejoin us. I'm sure you'll see him again. You only need to be patient."
Encouraging words, and Christine might believe them. Except that Erik told her on the evening life again changed, before he rid himself of her, that she was not yet ready to go above.
"You sound as if you're in favor of us being together. Earlier, you didn't sound so certain."
A flush of guilty red colored Arabella's face, making Christine curious.
"I might not fully understand why you want to go back to him, given all he's done, and I cannot tell you that I'm totally won over to your way of thinking, but I see that being with him is what brings you happiness. I want that for you. And your safety."
Christine intently looked at her. "He's my husband. More than that, he's my life. It has always been that way, even when I thought him dead. But Arabella, even in his cruel ruse, he has always protected me. He would never willfully harm me. Of that I'm certain."
Arabella distantly nodded, and Christine wished to know what her friend was thinking.
"When we first arrived you had something you wanted to tell me. About England."
"It can wait." Arabella brushed the dusting of snow from her velvet skirts. "Our return to the opera house cannot. The temperature feels as if it's dipped ten degrees! At least I marked the way with those fragments of red cloth so there's no chance we can get lost going back."
Christine did not persuade her to speak, her current dilemma enough of a strain. She wasn't certain she could bear more taxing news at present, and Arabella's tone had been hollow when she first spoke of whatever troubled her, as if what she had to say would only bring further misery.
With one last frustrated look of despair toward the blocked entrance, Christine closed and locked the door, slipping the key into her glove.
Every plan of escape failed her when she was trapped within his underground world. Now it seemed that every struggle to find her way back inside his hidden caverns was doomed to failure as well. But Erik was alive and close – Christine could not quit trying to find a way back to him, anymore than she could cease to breathe.
And she had no intention of implementing the required ladylike patience to wait for Erik to let go of his wretched vendetta and seek her out, something that may never happen.
x
No one confronted Christine or Arabella on their return to the opera house and thankfully they reached the dressing room in peace.
Christine removed her cloak and gloves, secreting the key within one of them. For what purpose she kept it she didn't really know, except that she wanted it. She took a seat before the trio of mirrors in preparation of readying herself for the dreaded rehearsal. Not as elaborate or beautiful as the carved dressing table that awaited her underground, and made of a paler wood, it nonetheless served her nicely. She glanced at Arabella's image in the center oval.
"I cannot begin to thank you for all you've done. Today would have been much more difficult had I suffered through it alone."
"I'm always here – as confidante or ally – and I'm truly sorry things didn't go as you wished." Arabella withdrew something from her reticule hanging over her wrist. "Perhaps this might help cheer you." She unfolded a square of white linen and held it out.
Christine gasped to see her treasured locket gleam in the soft cloth. She blinked a film of tears from her eyes.
"I went to The Heights when Joseph wasn't there," Arabella explained before Christine could ask how. "I found it in your room and recalled how special it was to you."
Christine remembered removing the silver locket, along with her dress and petticoats, in lieu of her bath that horrible afternoon. Not wanting to recall what followed she instead recounted her memories of the gift. "Papa had it hidden away for my twelfth birthday. Berta found it and gave it to me after he died, but it shall always serve to remind me of Erik."
She smiled in bittersweet memory. "The clasp was weak, or perhaps I was too rowdy in my play. I cannot count the number of times he would mend it after it broke. Or he would find it after I lost it, usually in the hayloft where I often visited and we would talk and stare up at the stars. As my love for Erik grew, I would look at the heart on the chain and think of him."
Looking at the simple locket now, she swept her finger over its cold, smooth surface then impatiently brushed away a tear before it could run down her cheek. At this rate, her eyes would be as red as blood for her upcoming rehearsal – she simply must cease with all this crying! The pitiless fiend certainly didn't deserve her tears.
She tested the clasp to be assured of its strength then laying it in her lap, she put her hands behind her neck to unknot the strip of velvet and pull it from inside her dress.
Arabella gasped when she caught sight of the ring. "It's lovely! Perfect for you."
"Yes…" Christine ran her thumb over the unpretentious gathering of small diamonds, recalling how stunned she was at the Phantom's selection, thinking it ideal. But then, Erik had always known that she preferred simple elegance to the bulky and ostentatious.
Slipping his ring over her finger that silently told the world she was a bride, and her bruised heart that she was his bride, she admired how well it suited her hand. With a sigh of frustration, she slid the band off then over the chain, letting it fall to clink against the silver heart.
"I wish I could wear it as it's meant to be worn, but of course that's impossible and would only invite a host of meddlesome questions I have no idea how to answer. So I wear it where no one can see." She held the chain out to Arabella with both hands. "Do you mind?"
Arabella took the locket and stood behind Christine to slip it over her head and around her neck. As the chill metal trickled against her skin, another memory took her unaware – this one from her past – of Erik in Arabella's place, dropping the locket around her neck on the last occasion when he had again mended and returned it to her…
"Try not to lose it this time," he whispered the gentle scolding in her ear, sending a warm surge of tingles beneath her skin.
"Don't be daft, Erik. It isn't that I try. Can I help it if your blacksmithing skills aren't up to par?"
"Is that all the thanks I get for squeezing that fool chain together again?" he complained, even while his long, slender fingers playfully tightened around her neck for the mock insult and he lightly shook her, acting as if he choked her. "I'll have you know I created a better fastener to exchange for that pathetic excuse of a clasp."
She giggled, bringing her hands up over his and keeping them there. "You know I'm grateful – and fine, you're a wonderful blacksmith, even if you really aren't one. Though you'd be as good with that as you are anything else you put your hands and mind to. You like to invent – consider the continual mending of my chain good practice." He slowly shook her by the neck again, making her smile. "I know! You can be a blacksmith composer, who makes musical instruments of the purest silver that carry the richest, clearest tone over the whole of the moors…" Carried away with the idea that came out of nowhere, she giggled again – then squealed when he snapped his teeth near her ear as if he might bite her.
"A blacksmith composer?" he scoffed. "As if such a trade exists!"
"So, make it a trade." She shrugged. "And anyway, I don't know or care to know all the trades and skills out there or what they do. Only those most important."
"Right." His tone had been amused. "Singing and dancing. Just so you know it, a blacksmith creates iron shoes for horses…"
"Well, I do know THAT much!"
"…Since I consistently mend that chain of yours, perhaps I should consider you a pony to be shod?"
She spun around at his teasing words and took an irate step back.
"Tell me you are NOT calling me a horse!"
"God knows you don't run like one. But perhaps I WILL make an instrument of silver, to help increase the speed of the slothful and the weak of limb – "
"Oh!" She rushed a step toward him but he just as swiftly backed up, evading her furious punch to his chest. "I can run fast, maybe not as fast as you. But my legs are strong and as long as yours now – well, not really, but they're not supposed to be, are they? Since I'm a girl and you're a boy – A VERY RUDE, MEAN-SPIRITED, IRRITATING BOY!"
His continual wicked chuckling as she spoke only agitated her ire further and she lunged again, barely catching him on one of the muscled arms he held over his not so boyish, broad chest.
"WEAK, am I?"
"My dear Little Angel – did I say I meant YOU?"
"As if you did not. I know you better than that, Erik!"
"Consider the running good practice – for your skill in wanting to be a dancer. Though you do have a long, LONG way to go to be fleet of foot!"
Laughing harder, he whirled and ran – a lithe, wild creature born to the moors – with her hurling useless threats of what she would do to him when she caught him.
In a field of wildflowers, he slowed to let her catch him and she grabbed him around the waist. They fell, rolling together in the grass, with him chuckling and grabbing her arms and wrists, evading her slaps and punches, which lessened as she also laughed – until she sat atop his stomach and raised her arms to the cloudless blue sky, loudly declaring herself the victor in their scuffle. That lasted as long as it took for Erik to catch his breath – then in one swift move she was never sure how he executed, Christine lay beneath his hard body, and he was stretched out over her, his forearms planted on either side of her shoulders, his face inches from hers, with bits of wild grass clinging to his hair. Breathless, she waited, hopeful he might kiss her. But after an eternity of seconds of looking into her eyes, he broke the strange tension between them, moving up to tickle her ribs and repeating the scornful words, "Blacksmith composer!" until she begged for his mercy, breathless from the gales of laughter he wrought …
Two months later, she at last received her wish for his kiss in the hayloft, though she'd been the one to instigate the moment … a moment he then prolonged… and one too wretchedly short in the extensive annals of time.
Such memories once brought untold pain, when she thought Erik dead and beyond her grasp.
Now, to know he was alive, that snippet of bygone happiness created a glimmer of hope that she might experience carefree days with him again. And nights of passion, like the one so recently shared.
Christine's eyes fell shut as she struggled to forget the feel of his mouth and hands on her flesh, her needy skin pressed to his, the incredible oneness they had known…
At any time in these past four, eternal, impossible years, did he ever once recall those sweet days and look back on any of those times of their childhood together? Did he ever once think of the many things they were never given a chance to accomplish and feel regretful that he'd made such a foolish decision to walk away and leave England? More recently, did he think of last evening and how wondrous it had felt to be so close, their heartbeats connected, swift, and beating as one?
Instead, he chose to escape, to leave her and haunt the rafters of this Parisian theater, a belligerent and arrogant Phantom spying, unseen, on all that happened within his self-entitled domain.
You may run from me, Erik, but I shall catch you. I shall always catch you. I'm no longer the weak little girl you left behind…and you are neither dead nor a ghost.
Physically, she might not yet be as strong as she wished. But her resolve was iron-clad. And none of his cruel devices or vengeful games would stop her.
An idea surfaced as she stared into the floor-to-ceiling mirror while an unusually quiet Arabella fluffed Christine's ringlets back in place. A slow smile lifted the corners of Christine's mouth, and confident again, she tucked away her treasures that now both dangled from the silver chain to their resting place over her heart. She would need Meg's help, but surely the young dancer, who seemed keyed up for any adventure involving the notorious Phantom of the Opera, would be swift to aid her and keep their actions secret.
A sharp knock at the dressing room door startled her out of hopeful musings.
"Christine?" Raoul's firm voice came from behind the door. "Are you in there?"
She froze then turned quickly on the chair, meeting Arabella's eyes, which were likewise both guilty and anxious.
xXx