Page 41 of Bewitched By the Phantom
Twenty-Two
It’s only later that I realize the true predicament I have on my hands. Two men are asking me to love them, and because I’m insane, I can’t help comparing the two.
Raoul. Sweet, golden Raoul. My childhood friend and a major pain in my ass. He’s trying to protect me, trying to show me that he’s the safer option between the two. Years ago, I would have jumped at the chance to be with him, but he’s never made a move and went off to college, leaving me behind. He shows back up for this competition expecting things to go back to how they were, but while he may be the same man, I’m no longer that girl he knew. I’ve changed. I’ve suffered traumas since then, homelessness, poverty, depression. And he wasn’t there when I needed him.
But Erik? Erik showed up in my life when I needed him most. As my Phantom, he saved me from spiraling, kept me from getting rid of my guitar when it felt like I was going nowhere. It was him that helped me see in the darkness, that allowed me the freedom to live there. He made me a better singer even before we met here. And now that I know him in person, he seems to only care about my wellbeing. Sure, he has an ego to match Raoul’s, his confidence that I’ll choose him making me want to prove himwrong out of spite, but he’s not wrong. Erik and I? We click. Darkness playing with darkness. With Raoul, I feel out of place now. With Erik, it’s like coming home.
So, I find myself in the position between my past and the future. One man who was a large part of my childhood, and another that became the center of my adulthood. Raoul would be safe, but do I care about safe? It kind of feels like I wouldn’t be in a rock band if I wanted to play it safe.
Erik is the wild card. Not human apparently, and while I’d done my own research on ghouls to keep myself from spiraling, I don’t really know what all that entails. What is he feeding on? And will he end up killing me? Do I care when our connection is as strong as it is?
Also, I’m insane. I should be freaking out that things like ghouls exist. Instead, I’m debating how datable he is. Clearly, he’s super fuckable. I’ve lost my ever-loving mind.
The sound comes from the shadows and I don’t immediately see him. When he starts to sing, the words feels as if they’re whispered against the nape of my neck, seduction in every note as they trickle from the darkness.
“You wear the daylight like a chain, but I’ve seen you bloom in the moonlight’s name,” he sings. “He offers safety, soft and sweet, but that sugar fades when the fire eats.”
“Did you come here to sing to me from the darkness?” I grumble, my eyes searching for him. When I see a flash of his eyes there, I cross my arms and stare at where I think he is.
“He’d give you silence, give you sleep. I’ll give you secrets you’ll want to keep. He’d build you fences, clean and wide, but I could worship every side.”
“Are you saying I’m as big as a fence?” I ask, watching him slither from the shadows with smooth movements.
His lips kick up at my question. “So stay in the shadows, let them know your skin. Let the hunger in my voice draw youdeeper in,” he croons. “You could run to the past, you could beg the dawn, but you were always mine when the lights are gone.”
His words slam into me and the amusement suddenly fades into anxiety.
“Stop it,” I whisper to the dark shape of him, as if the tremble in my chest hasn’t already betrayed my feelings. “You don’t get to sing me into submission.” My pulse doesn’t listen, and neither does Erik as he stalks me from the shadows.
The taste of him still lingers on my tongue from the night before. Heat, hunger, and his hands like songs I never want to end, and now?—
“So, stay with the shadows, let them know your skin,” he repeats, his voice smooth and silky.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “You’re not playing fair.”
I press my fist against my lips, willing the ache away. Raoul was the boy who kept me grounded. The one who remembers me before this spotlight, before the chaos. He sees me. But Erik? Erik knows me. The pieces I don’t show to anyone. The sharp edges. The shadows in my heart.
His voice pours over me like velvet in a confession booth. Every note hooks into my chest and tugs, gentle, relentless. A shiver dances down my spine and heats my blood.
“I don’t even know what you are,” I murmur, my eyes on his shape, my heart already betraying its answer. “Not really.” The shadows hold no reply, just that voice, that presence.
And the part of me that wants to believe love can sound like this—dark, addictive, unapologetically dangerous.
“I’d write you lullabies in blood and ink, taste your fears before you think,” he sings, slowly stalking from the shadows, revealing himself in all his glory. “You don’t need saving, never did, but I could show you where your wild heart hid.”
My breath catches as he appears from the shadows like a whispered prayer. The air has thickened, perfumed with thescent of ozone and smoke. It’s a scent that feels like the darkness he carries around his shoulders. He’s not just singing to me. He feels as if he’s inside the walls, inside the wires, the very bones of the abandoned power plant. I feel him like a vibration in my ribs.
“How do you do that?” I whisper. The shadows seem to morph around him, as if he can travel through them. I pause, and then take a step toward him.
“So stay with the shadows, don’t chase the day,” he rasps. “It’ll never love you quite this way. You burn so bright, but stars still fall, and in the dark, I see it all.”
My chest aches as he strolls in front of me, prowling, stalking me. His music wraps around my heart and sends it even more into turmoil.
“You were never meant for white-picket grace. You’re carved from fire, stitched from bass. So if he wants soft, let him run. But I’ll be waiting when the song is done.”
The final note lingers like a kiss pressed just beneath my ear. It’s warm, wanting, almost cruel in its gentleness. I take a step toward him again, then stop.
“No,” I breathe, more to myself than him. “You don’t get to do this.”
