Page 58 of Angel's Fall
“Shall I tell you how I gave myself to him before you ever returned to my life?” she pushed on, lifted by the freedom of speaking the truth at last and the power of finally hurting the man who shamed her for it. “How I wanted him when he was nothing more than a shadow?”
Raoul stared at her as the wind picked up around them and seemed to carry the sound of triumphant laughter.
“Why would you lie to me then, if you are so happy as his whore?” Raoul seethed in return. “Why string me along?”
“I tried to tell you!” Christine yelled back. “I tried again and again totell youI was not free! And you would not leave me alone! You hunted him and pursued me no matter what I told you!”
“I want to save you from a monster!” Raoul wailed in return.
“I am not his prisoner!” The words rang out through the fading day beneath Apollo’s golden lyre, and Raoul looked at her like she was a madwoman. Maybe she was. Maybe she was Marguerite, reduced to the worst now her innocence was lost. “If you want to save me, you will have to do it by force, because I have chosen him even if it damns me!”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Don’t you see? You were right,” Christine went on as the weight of her terrible love pressed on her heart. “Everything you’ve said has beenright! You were the one who knew before I could even admit it to myself what I felt for him. I return to him because, despite myself, despite everything, I—”
“Don’t say it!” Christine flinched as Raoul seized her once more. “I will not hear it. I will not believe it! He’s controlling you! You’re still lying for him because you’re ashamed of what he’s done and the whore he’s made you!”
“Stop calling me a whore,” Christine growled, as she looked to the ring on her finger, glistening in the setting sun. “I’m his, Raoul, but I have not been taken or bought.”
“I will not allow it. Whether he has stolen you or tricked you into giving your soul, you belong toa murderer!” Raoul railed, his hands a vice on her arms. “He killed Buquet and so many more! The Persian – has he told you what that monster did in his country?”
“Erik told me,” Christine whispered in reply, tears falling freely, finally unable to confess more. She couldn’t tell Raoul she was bound to Erik because her love had made her a killer too. That Buquet’s blood was on her hands. “I know everything.”
“Do you? Did he tell you how he tortured people? How he took delight in driving them mad in his chambers of horrors and strangling them to death?” Raoul pushed back, and it was Christine’s turn to look away. “I’m sure he’s made it sound so tragic! A poor freak driven to kill, but he didn’t just kill Persian – he killed men who mattered too. Good men!”
Christine’s insides froze. “What are you—”
“Men like my father,” Raoul said, incomprehensible words falling like stones and snuffing Christine’s rage.No, the night itself seemed to sigh.
“No...” Christine breathed as well.
“He was hired to entertain at a hunting party for Antoine’s father and caught stealing. They locked him and the gypsy mongrels he was with up in the cellar, but he broke out and set the place on fire. My father was there for the party.” Raoul’s eyes were moist now too. “Your Angel of Music destroyed my family. He left my father to diein agony.”
“He didn’t know—” Christine stammered, the foundation of lies and violence she had built upon for months finally crumbling under her.
“If it wasn’t for that monster, we could have been together when we were young! I could have convinced Father to let me marry you if he had been alive!” Raoul went on. “Your Erik kept me from you then, and he keeps me from you now!”
“Raoul, he didn’t intend—”
“I don’t care, Christine! He is a killer, and I am going to bring him to justice!” Raoul screamed, the words ricocheting off the dome and into the night.Justice, the wind echoed. Gooseflesh rose on Christine’s skin.
“No,” she exhaled as Raoul shook her, forcing her to look into his enraged face.
“Your Erik is a monster, no matter how he’s warped your mind. He kills and destroys everything he touches. He killed my father and he’s destroyed you. You know it,” Raoul entreated, his eyes wide and full of fury even as Christine crumbled. “Look at yourself, Christine, look what he’s done to you. He makes you parade for the crowds, singing your pretty songs, and for what? His glory? Ismusicso precious you’re willing to damn your soul for a hideous creature that’s defiled you? I knew your father, Christine, and this is not the life he would want for you!”
“Raoul stop!” Christine sobbed. “Please stop. Please just go and leave this and—"
“I’m not going north. I never was. I am going to destroy him and save you. Then,we will be together,”he said, as if it wasn’t utter madness. “When he’s gone, you’ll come to your senses. Once you’re free.”
“I am—” She couldn’t say it – the word ‘free.’ She couldn’t lie again.
Fresh tears sprang to Christine’s eyes and she floundered for words. She couldn’t say Raoul was wrong, because she had been broken and lost and Erik had given her all her dreams, and they had turned out to be hollow. Now, the one thing she had was cursed too. The man she loved, who she had given herself to, body and soul, had taken everything from the first boy that had held her heart. Who still somehow wanted her, despite her sins.
“I know what you are, Christine, and I’m still going to have you. I’m going to save you. He cannot stop us being together. When you’re cured of this madness he’s put into you, you’ll be grateful.” Raoul looked so convinced. For a heartbeat, Christine wanted to believe him. But the final rays of the sun faded from the sky and a telltale shiver ran down her spine.
“Raoul, leave now and never speak to me again. If you try to take me, he will kill you,” Christine declared. “If you hurt me or come near me again, he will kill you.”
“I will marry you before the week is out, I swear it,” Raoul argued back, talking to the illusion of the girl he still wanted her to be. To seal the awful promise, he kissed her, hard and cold as Christine tried to writhe away. If the Punjab lasso had flown through the air to kill him that instant, Christine would not have been surprised, but no vengeance came.
