Search for the Opera Ghost: Rewrite

X.

He threw her on the bed and watched as she looked up at him in a frightened manner. "What are you going to do to me?"

"I do not know. I am so enraged with you Zuri. You confound me to no ends. I don't understand and I cannot stand to not understand something or someone."

"I have explained to you everything that I know. What more can I do? Why won't you let me leave?"

"I have my reasons!" He snarled at her. He could not figure it out. Why was he attracted to her all the sudden? He shook his head figuring that it was just lust that had attracted him to her all the sudden. He held his head as he wondered why it could not have been Christine in his bed at this moment. Damn Zuri for coming in his life. He had not been perfectly happy, but he was happy enough. Damn her for bringing up the past and supposedly trying to save him.

She glared at him defiantly. He had to admit that she had spunk and a defiance that most women did not have. The only woman he knew to match Zuri's attitude was Antoinette. He wondered if she had purposely spread her legs like that. Erik shook his head again. He couldn't think of her in that way. "Why won't you answer me?"

"Because I don't have to."

"You are being childish."

"I can say the same of you."

She bit the inside of her cheek to stop from saying anything. She watched him as confusion churned in her mind. What was he thinking about? Would he rape her again? Why would he not let her leave? "Please take me back. I told you I would leave."

"I won't until I understand you."

"It is not hard to understand!" She shouted at him as he turned to her suddenly. "For being such a musical genius as I have heard, you sure do not know much about people." Zuri paused then said, "It was idiotic of me to come here and think that I could help you and give you love."

"Give me love?"

"Yes." She replied while cupping her cheeks with her hands. "I hoped to show you that you were important to someone."

Erik looked at her, now even more confused. "Enough Zuri! You confuse me too much. You will stay here until I decide what to do with you. Do not move an inch from this bed or else."

"Or else what?" Zuri ventured, a look of defiance shining in her emerald eyes.

"Or else I will be forced to tie you down to the bed and do very unpleasant things to you. Now shut your mouth and lay down!" He snapped at her then stomped from the room into the main part of his lair.

Zuri wondered to herself, as she lay on the crimson sheets, if she would ever understand him or if she could ever get away from him. Why was he confused? She had told him everything she knew. Maybe he was finally feeling bad about raping her. She sighed softly and drifted asleep slowly.

xxxx

Erik sat in a plush chair wondering to himself why he was keeping Zuri with him. What possible reason was there? He had obviously got his point across and she would leave for him. However, there was something keeping him from getting rid of her altogether. He had realized his mistake in raping her soon after he had done so.

He could still remember coming back and throwing up over the entire incident. He was not that cruel and yet he could not believe he comitted such a horrible crime. A part of him had justified it and yet his conscience had told him that he had done something so horrible to her that a million sorrys' could not make up.

She was a complete mystery to him. Zuri had stood up against him and defied him. She was a conundrum, a puzzle that he could not solve for the life of him. What was wrong with her? Why did she have to pick him to try to investigate He sighed softly as he looked towards the bedroom.

What had she meant by giving him love? She could not be serious to have ever wanted him. Yet, for some crazy reason, she had stayed and been even more defiant. He thought back to earlier. He had kissed her. It had been his second kiss. He had enjoyed kissing her and it had been so passionate, very much unlike his previous kiss.

He decided that he would try to talk to her and figure her intentions and motives. If he could not figure her out he would release her. That was the least he could do.