Twisted Every Way(Phantom Of The Opera Fic)

Chapter 75: Looking Back

"Clara how could you even-"

"He's after me!" Clara said firmly, "And he won't cease until he's killed or he's killed me. We'll be parted forever and-"

Eli watched in a confused trance as paranoia spread across Clara's face.

"He's everywhere I go Eli. Every hotel every dining room. Watching, waiting and I didn't know where to go."

"Clara."

"The police say I'm only seeing things but Eli I swear he's after me he's-"

"Clara!"

"Eli I'm frightened. Life has put through this ordeal by fire and I've come out with my nerves far the worse for wear-"

"Clariece!" He exclaimed seizing her shoulders. "Enough."

She bit her lip in quiet submission, her knees trembling.

"I don't want to die," She choked, her lip quivering on the verge of tears.

Eli paced back and forth steadily, his fingers twisting and twisting around the gold watch chain that ran across his waist.

"Why me?" he said suddenly confronting her, "Why not Giry or Gustave?"

"They wouldn't trust me," she sighed. "Was I foolish to think you would?"

"And because for some reason," she thought, "You were the first in my mind."

"I do, believe me, I do just." he outreached a hand to slip into her own but she drew away ever so slightly.

He gave a scoff of exasperation, "You still fear me?"

"I fear you not," She said staring back cooly at not, "I fear the oceans of destruction that lie at bay within you."

He raised a finger telling her she had no need to speak further. "Poetry will not soften a fact."

"Eli." She said firmly with some frustration, "I've nowhere else to go."

In a heated rage, Eli removed his mask. He thrust it out in one hand to her, his eyes burning. "Do you fear this?!"

"Yes!" She exclaimed stumblint backward in horror tears stinging her eyes, "It scares me to death Eli. But watch me stare at it and watch it chill me to the bone."

She stepped closer until she could almost feel his breath on her face.

Her demeanor was calm, frigid and emotionless.

"You watch me stare."

Eli looked down into her two relentless eyes. Her brow was furrowed, teeth clenched tightly against each other. He frowned menacingly as to test her resilience.

Her eyes did not leave him, nor her countenance change in the least.

He was the one to break away, in a disheveled shame, he turned around quickly and placed his mask back on.

Clara closed her eyes and gave a heavy sigh, or relief or of exhaustion she knew neither of which.

Before we go forward I have a question to purpose.

Can a man change?

Change more than his thoughts and actions, can he change what lays in his deepest inner heart, change his workings.

Or is he destined to fall once again into a pit of darkness no man can truly escape?

Or rather can a woman stare in more than fear?

Before we move forward, we must look into Erik's past.

And maybe, we will find some truth in the answers that lay there.