Page 46 of Bewitched By the Phantom
So, I sing.
“You—both of you—won’t own my name,” I sing into the mic. “I’m not a girl to stake or tame. I’ll write my ending, scream my choice, even if it breaks my voice.”
But they don’t stop. Of course, they don’t stop. We’re not only competing for the label now. We’re competing for our hearts.
Raoul lifts his mic, his eyes pleading as he slowly lifts his hand toward me.
“I knew you before all this noise. Before the lights and shattered toys. I’m not perfect, but I’m real, you see. You can still come back to me.”
Then Erik, smiling like sin beneath the spotlight, holds out his own hand toward me.
“You were never meant to play it safe. You were born to haunt, to love, to crave,” he purrs. “Let them film, let them stare. You’re glorious when you dare.”
I lean into the mic, my voice cracking on the next line. Not from weakness, but from choice.
“You both think you own my soul,” I sing. “Like I’m some dream you can control. But I won’t break, I won’t belong. I’ll write my name in my own song.”
Still, I don’t run from them. I don’t reach out for them either. I stand in the middle, torn. Do I play the game? Is it even a game at this point? Whatever I decide feels like it’s a true decision. Whatever I decide, I’ll break someone’s heart. But they put me in this position. They put me here.
So instead of running, I stand in the center of the stage, my heart pounding, my throat raw.
Raoul stretches his hand out further. “Choose the light,” he says into the mic.
Erik reaches out from the other side, his eyes sparkling beneath the lights, as if heknows. “Chooseme.”
I stare between them. The crowd goes silent as we all hover, waiting for my answer. The cameras push closer. My heart thunders in my chest. But . . . I know my choice. Somehow, I think I’ve always known my choice.
I look over at Raoul, my eyes filled with pain, and he sees my answer before I even speak.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Then slowly, deliberately, I slide my hand into Erik’s.
The crowd erupts. My band behind me falters, the low melody they’d continued faltering and then stopping completely. Erik holds my hand up in the air and the roar of their cheering shakes the floor. He steps up to the mic, his eyes bright with enigmatic seduction.
“Sing with me, angel,” he purrs into the mic. “You know the song.”
I don’t, but somehow, I do. We lean forward, and somehow, the song we start to sing together echoes around us despite never having known it. My chorus threads through the rafters, building between us. Lyrics I don’t remember writing fall from my lips like they’re written beneath my skin.
“I dreamed of you before we met, a shadow’s kiss, a fevered threat. But now you’re real, and so am I, two monsters dancing in the light,” I sing from some forgotten memory.
Erik’s voice curls around mine, velvet-dark and possessive. “Let them see, let them scream. We are the truth inside the dream. Yes, I’m cursed, but you’re the same, and I would burn the world to keep your name.”
He leans in and presses his lips against mine in front of them all, driving the numbers into the stratosphere. His next words are a fervent whisper against my lips.
“I love you, even in the dark.”
But something in my chest demands the truth. I reach up, my hand stroking the mask at the edge of his jaw. I lean back and meet his eyes as my fingers curl.
“Then show me who you really are,” I rasp, and rip his mask off.
The world freezes. The cameras zoom in.
And beneath the spotlight, Erik smiles.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
