Page 48 of Phantom
“What?” I croak painfully. My hands shield my neck protectively, as if whatever is hurting me stems from the outside. I try to swallow, but the saliva I can manage to muster feels like lava going down my throat.
“Sit on the bed,” he commands with a scowl.
My body obeys before I can stop it and I watch him from my place on the bed as he disappears through an open door on the right side of the room. He doesn’t turn the light on, but water flows on and off from a faucet and he emerges again with a full glass.
“Here, drink this. Dr. Portia said you’d be thirsty today.”
I take the cup with eager hands and bring it to my lips, not caring that I’m slurping the contents down. When I finish, I take a breath like I’ve been underwater for minutes and wince when my throat aches again.
“Throat hurting?”
I nod and he pivots to the bedside table, retrieves two pills from a small bottle, and holds them out to me in his large palm.
“Take these.”
My eyes narrow and dart from the pills to his waiting face. I shake my head slowly.
“You don’t trust me?”
“I don’tknowyou.”
He takes one of my hands and deposits the pills into my palm. I inspect them, sniffing them like an idiot before I swallow down what I’m pretty sure is just run-of-the-mill aspirin with another gulp of water.
He fixes his heated gaze on me. “You know me,ma belle muse. You just don’t want to admit it.”
My heart stutters and my eyes widen again. “W-what did you call me?”
He smirks. “My pretty muse. I would’ve figured you’d know what it means by now.”
“I do…” My pulse races in my veins as my slow brain tries to add it all up. “Youaremy demon of music.”
That smirk widens to a half-cocked smile. The satisfaction there springs a fluttering sensation in my lower belly.
“Very good,ma chérie. I’ve always enjoyed your nickname for me. I find it quite fitting.” He bows low with a flourish. “But from now on, you can just call me Sol.”
“Sol…” I taste his name on my tongue, loving the feeling until I remember what Rand told me. “But you’re also the Phantom of the French Quarter. You… youhurtpeople. Like Monty… and Jacques Baron.”
He frowns and straightens. “Monty was never in any real danger because the chandelier’s chain is too strong and short to break or reach the ground. As for Jacques… he was a disgusting rapist who disrespected women. Anyone who receives my punishment fucking deserves it. Jacques Baron was no different. Surely you understand vigilante justice better than most.”
My heart thunders at his last sentence. I have no idea how Sol so accurately pegged my own moral code, but he’s right. There was also no judgment against me in his statement, just fact, and the rest of his answer satisfies my curiosity. Hearing that Jacques got the end he deserved validates the satisfaction I felt when I first heard he was dead. Sometimes, literally fighting for justice is the only kind we get in this world. But I don’t dare agree with him out loud.
“But… you’re not—you’re not supposed to be real, right? I thought…” My shoulders drop with a confused huff as realization trickles in like water droplets through a hole in a dam.
All the rumors… all my friends who I thought were just superstitious when they rubbed their skull jewelry like a totem and spoke of the phantom like a bogeyman… my own suspicions and what I thought were hallucinations…
They’re all true.
“I’m very real. I’m sorry I ever did anything to make you think I wasn’t. That was never my intention. I figured you were content with keeping me your secret.”
“I was,” I admit as my thoughts run wild. “And if you’re real… that means I wasn’t hallucinating. I was beginning to wonder if I was slowly going insane again and I was just along for the ride. But you’rereal.” That realization should scare me, but I can’t muster anything but relief. A question sparks hope in my chest and my eyes widen. “What about my first manic episode? The past several months I’ve been hearing piano music, but during my first manic episode, it was nonstop jazz playing in my head like a constant radio on low volume. Was that you too?”
He winces and the hope that I was never actually crazy deflates like a balloon. I half expect to hear that squeaky leaking sound.
“Of course, it wasn’t.” I curse on a sigh. “Thatwas only as real as hallucinations get.”
His fingers twitch at his sides, like he’s trying to figure out if he should comfort me, but I bristle, still unsure about who I’m talking to or why I’m here. As if he can already read me like a book, he stuffs his hands into his pockets instead and leans a broad shoulder between two gold frames on the wall. The move makes his biceps look impossibly chiseled and my core heats. I squirm to cross my legs on the bed, but I can’t find it in me to stop staring as he answers me with sad sincerity.
“That wasnotme, I’m sorry to say.”
