Chapter Six: Get Off-A My Back!

Lisa felt Erik’s mind spasm; it felt as if it were going to short-circuit. This caused her to pull away and look at him questioningly. He said, “I have never felt a kiss before…”

“Oh,” she replied, smiling. “In that case…” She kissed him again, and this time he reciprocated.

That tender moment lasted a good minute, Erik savoring every last second of it. He’d never felt his way about anyone before. It felt good…to have someone who actually cared about him.

Lisa hadn’t planned on having these feelings for him, really. Like so many times in her past, she felt herself falling in love. Some part of her screamed that she wouldn’t be able to stay; that her friend was going to be back to pick her up, but she silenced that part.

She decided that, if she had to leave, she at least had to make sure Erik would be okay when she was gone. That meant getting Lefevre to leave him alone. Also, she had to tell him she couldn’t stay. She owed him that much.

Breaking the embrace, she said, “Erik, my friend will be picking me up to take me back to the future at some point.”

“What?” he said, disappointment and despair coating his words. “No…Lisa, I just…we just…”

“I know,” she replied, running her hand though his hair. “I know, and it’s not fair, I agree. But, don’t worry. I’ll take care of you as long as I have here. The first thing I’ll do is make sure Lefevre won’t bother you again. Can you lift that body?”

Lisa had figured that simply telling Lefevre wouldn’t make him listen, especially since this was 1860 and she looked like a simple young woman. Women in this time were a “seen and not heard” member of the human race. Yet another reason to dislike the era.

Night had fallen and the Opera House was empty when Lisa and Erik emerged from the catacombs, Erik carrying a sheet with the body of the assailant wrapped inside.

True, actions like this were a little against Lisa’s morals, but scaring the living daylights out of someone to make a point appealed to the mischievous side of her brain. After all, there’s no point in being gown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.

Besides, she didn’t have a lot of time, and shock tactics was the only thing she thought would be the fastest.

They made their way to the rafters, where Erik tied the body to the railing, threw it over and left it to dangle where anyone on the stage could see it.

“The cleaning crew will be the first to arrive,” Erik said as they walked away from the dangling corpse. “Very early in the morning. They will raise the alarm when they find the body. They will most likely go below to look for me. They did last time.”

“Last time?” Lisa echoed.

“This is not the first time Lefevre has sent someone to drive me out. The last time, though, he hadn’t brought a gun. I had to fight him, as well.”

“You killed him, didn’t you?”

“In self defense!” Erik insisted. They’d sat down in the theater. He clenched his hands into fists. “I did not…Lisa, I do not want to leave. I have nowhere to go.”

Lisa was silent for a moment. She wanted very much to say, “Would you go with me?”, but something in her mind stopped her. It reasoned that what she was doing before and will be doing again when she leaves would be too much for Erik to handle.

Her twin hearts gave a pang of remorse that she was going to leave him. She vowed that, someday, she and Erik would reunite. She didn’t know how, she didn’t know when, but she’d make sure it happened.

“All right,” she said. “So, we just have to make sure, when they look for you, they don’t find you. Well, I can help with that as long as my invisibility has recharged. If not…I can still shape-shift. I can scare them pretty good. I don’t want to leave here and have something happen to you.”

She really does care… Erik thought, unknowingly projecting.

“Of course I care!” she insisted, standing, her voice echoing through the empty auditorium and bouncing off the golden statues. “Great Orion, Erik, I lov – ” She bit back what she was about to say, then seriously thought about reconsidering that action. Would it be so terrible that she told him she loved him? Would it do more harm than good? Erik’s emotional state was so fragile…she didn’t want to do anything that would hurt him.

Oh, forget the consequences! she finally thought. “Erik,” she said softly, cupping his cheek in her hand, “I love you.”

If there was one thing that happened to Lisa easily, it was falling in love. Erik was so vulnerable and highly misunderstood. She’d always had a soft spot for such traits. Even the way he sat there trembling just attracted her to him more.

“You lo…you love me? And, still, you will leave me?” Erik looked at the floor. “Can you not take me with you?”

She sighed and sat back down. “I wish I could, really, I do. But where I’m going is way too dangerous for you. You’re a man from Paris in the eighteen-hundreds. Taking you with me might give you a future shock so bad you won’t be able to handle it. We’ll meet again, I promise. Come on, let’s get things ready for when all hell breaks loose in the morning.”

End chapter six.

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