Puffing with exertion and release, Philippe lifted his head and looked at her. "Now," he told her, "that we have that out of the way… let us move on to something more interesting. I've a mind to hear you beg." He released her, stepping away to refasten his breeches, his eyes watching placidly as she rolled from her position and staggered from the bed.
He allowed her to reach the door again before his fingers closed over her shoulder and he pulled her back. Roughly, he dragged her across the room and shoved her into the narrow vee of the elongated X-shaped bed. She stumbled backward, and before she could catch her balance he was upon her, thrusting her onto the structure so hard her teeth snapped together. Firm hands closed around an ankle, and suddenly it was clamped into place down one of the legs of the X.
Screaming and kicking anew, Christine struggled harder, but he was too strong. Her second ankle was locked in place and then she had only her hands and nails to claw and strike with.
But Philippe stepped away, around to the top of the X, and grabbed her hair from behind as she bent forward, trying to free her legs. He yanked, and she fell back, her head slamming into the hard surface beneath. Stunned, she could only blink and fight feebly as he locked her left wrist into place, far from her head and other arm, in a terrible echo of Erik's own position five stories below.
He left one arm free, and came to stand between her wide legs. She tried to twist and roll her hips, tried to close her legs, but of course she could not. He watched her for a moment, a delighted grin stretching his lips. "I do love to watch a woman struggle. It's not so unlike watching one find pleasure: the same writhing motions, the same groans, the same expressions."
She tried to stop, tried to still her body, but she couldn't cease fighting. She couldn't succumb.
At last, reaching behind him, he produced a long blade and said, "Now, then, let us see exactly what you've been hiding."
Starting with her left foot, he delicately cut away the flimsy slipper. With a long, straight slice from her foot, under the imprisoning cuff, up along her calf, over the bump of her knee, to the top of her inner thigh beneath the crumpled and stained chemise, he slit her stocking. It fell away, leaving her leg bare and chill, and with nary a scratch.
One hand closed around her leg and slid all the way from ankle to thigh in a possessive caress as Christine lay sobbing quietly, no longer struggling. Her free hand was useless; a tease. She could do nothing but flail with it, wipe her tears, clutch it over her chest, try to bat him away from between her legs.
He unclothed her other leg in the same manner, then stood again between her legs, this time with the knife in hand. Her breath caught as he bent to her chest, and she felt the insistent tugs as he skimmed the blade under the ties of her corset, slicing through them like a cobweb. The corset loosened and fell away in two clam-like halves, and now there was nothing left but her chemise.
The blade was cool and sharp against her skin, and he drew it slowly, so slowly she thought she would scream… but she dared not move, dared hardly to breathe… as he drew it slowly down between her breasts, down, down past her ribs and over the slight swell of her belly, nicking the edge of her navel, down, down to the rise of her mound and the fluff of sensitive hair that grew there… down and around, dipping between her legs, so close there to her most sensitive part, just a breath away, and then, a sudden fast, sharp rending as he sliced from there to the hem.
She heard him drop the knife, felt the parting of the chemise as it fell away, leaving her naked, bare, spread, with only one useless limb to cover herself.
His hands were on her then, everywhere. Shoulder to arm, down over the rise of her breasts, along her ribs and waist, cupping her buttocks, lifting her hips, they swarmed everywhere as she tried to cover herself, to push them away, to scratch and hit and punch. He remained always just out of reach, his hands heavy and hot, damp and groping, grasping, grabbing, probing, pinching.
At last he lifted them, grasped her free wrist, and snapped it into its place beyond her head. And now she had nothing with which to cover herself.
Nothing.
Down, down… the steps were agonizing to Carlotta's injured legs and sprained wrist. She wasn't certain how far beneath the ground the prisoner was kept, but she knew to keep going until there were no more stairs. There were spiders and cobwebs, rat turds, and, more than once, the skitter of tiny feet on the stone, the quick dart of little shadows at her feet. Carlotta gritted her teeth and kept going. It had been a long time since she'd been so low that she must make her way through such filth, but she'd not come so far that she'd forgotten it.
At last she came to the bottom of the steps and turned to follow a crude passageway. Just around the first corner she was startled by a figure crumpled on the floor, too small to be Erik, but she paused to look anyway.
The ballet mistress! So that was what happened to her. She appeared to be unconscious, but was breathing steadily, and would be of no assistance to Carlotta, so she hurried past.
When she came around the next corner, she knew she'd found her quarry.
He sagged between two iron rings set in the wall above his head, which was bowed in abject defeat. His knees buckled, his clothes filthy, torn, and streaked with blood. He didn't move when she approached; perhaps he was unconscious too. But then—it must have been when her feet came into the view of his bowed head—he raised his face.
Her breath caught at the sight of his mangled flesh, but she did not hesitate. She had seen worse. Carlotta met his eyes, dark ones, weary but still filled with challenge, and held up the key.
"Where did you get that?" the man called Erik breathed, his eyes widening as she stepped toward him.
"Before he did this to me," she gestured toward her arm, "I saw where he kept the key ring. In a place separate from his private chambers, in a room he used to spy on others like the Daaé girl." Her voice came out warped, raspy, ruined, and devastating to her ears. It was the first time she'd spoken aloud to someone. Her hand went to her throat, and for a moment, she saw pity and then understanding flare in his eyes.
"Thank you."
But when she reached up, she realized she would never reach his manacled wrists, and in that moment, she remembered the Giry woman.
Without explanation to Erik, she hurried back to where she was crumpled on the floor. "You! Wake up!" Her voice came out again, rougher than the pebble-strewn floor on which she knelt. She crouched next to the bag of bones, shaking it until it stirred.
With a groan, the woman opened her eyes. Carlotta had to give the woman credit: She recognized her right away and as soon as Carlotta figured out how to unlock her, she staggered to her feet.
Swaying, she grabbed the wall. "Erik?" she managed to say. "Christine?"
"Come," Carlotta rasped.
Erik was watching as they came around the corner, and hope lit his face as they rushed toward him. Giry took the keys from Carlotta after watching her fumble with the fingers of her useless arm and had his ankles unlocked in a trice. But now they had to reach his wrists, high above their heads.
Carlotta fell to her hands and knees, propped up on her good arm, and leaned against the wall next to his leg for support, making of herself a stool on which Giry could stand. The other woman did not need to be told; she was smaller and slighter than Carlotta.
Erik groaned in pain and relief when his first wrist was released, and Carlotta crawled to the other side, sweat beading her forehead, pain screaming throughout her body as she steadied herself, ready for Giry to climb on her again. This one seemed to take longer; it was agony for all of them… but at last, she heard the clink of freedom, and felt the sudden lurch of Erik's body next to hers.