Summary: There is a fine line between attraction and obsession.

.Beauty and the Beast.

2

"You look rather beautiful with such a petrified face." He chuckled.

And she knew she was trapped with a lunatic. A mad man.

God save her.

He advanced forward, gradually standing in the frame of the bathroom door. For a while he seemed to be contended just standing there … watching. His smile did not carry a charm, it carried peril. His hair heavily fell before his face which was covered by a glass mask. His injured arm hung limply by his side, bandaged and bloodied.

He took one step forward and officially entered her bathroom. She took one step back and hit the sink, all her movements immensely restricted. Her eyes kept trailing to the blood that was oozing out of his bandage and dripping to the floor in intervals. It was torture. On the tiled floor of the bathroom, in the death silence of the moment she could hear every drop hit the floor when her own rapid breathing did not cover it. The coppery smell she had just cleared and replaced a while ago with detergents was returning with a vengeance. Her weak insides started churning again.

"By Satan…" he murmured under his breath. "How different you look up close!" He exclaimed with immense pleasure. "Or it could just be that you're feeling unwell." She was right. The male was a lunatic. His smile diminished in just an instant. "It is quite antagonizing for me when I praise you and you degrade me, pretty little goddess." The word rolled off his tongue like a tease.

The frightened girl slapped a hand over her face, covering her nose and mouth to the keep the scent of blood from making her further sick. Her brain was going haywire trying to identify the intruder. She was certain she had never come across him in her life before. She just never knew anyone who talked in such a slow, threatening and disturbing manner.

It felt like someone had suddenly crashed a heavy weight against her skull. 'He's a criminal … I'm going to die.'

He tilted his head. The smile continued to be absent. He was disappointed. They had met, not a few hours ago and she had forgotten him. He had felt alive again. He had felt thrilled and excited, he just knew he was immensely going to enjoy her … but she didn't even respond to him. Fear was the normal response to him. Yes, she answered to his actions with fear but he didn't come for that. He could eat that feeling from anyone walking the side path. He wanted something new, he wanted that emotion, that expression which had made him insane for that brief moment she had met him. For that brief moment she had made him believe … he wanted more of it.

His steps were loud in the small bathroom as he moved closer to her. He did everything so suddenly it gave her minimum time to react.

One moment Alice was watching him get nearer, in the next his hands were clamped around her jaws and he pulled her face forward and upward to meet his height. She was kept balancing on her tiptoes. Alice was leveled with his face but could only see her terrified expression crying back at her.

'Crying?'

When did the tears start falling? She was unaware. The only thing she could feel was how his tightly his hands were pressing against her face. If he only applied a bit more force in the upward direction she was sure her head would detach from her spine and rest in his hands like a trophy. The corner of his lips twitched upward.

"Tell me why I shouldn't execute you right now." He whispered but he could be screaming inside her head for all she cared because that is exactly how she heard him. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. Her lower lips trembled. She didn't know what to say to get him off her. "Do you want to live?" She wanted to nod 'yes' but his hands would not let her. Instead he shook her head from side to side. "No?" He said it so mockingly she was certain she didn't have many more minutes to count. Her tears came out more heavily and a whimper escaped her. "Its fine, I will still give you a chance." He was playing God with her. "Sing one beautiful word to me and everything will conclude itself."

He was so certain of himself. He inched his face closer to hers to press her lips to his ear. "Mhm? I'm waiting." He chirped. She didn't answer. "Take your time to think, I have plenty myself." He was going through her head. It was so easy to read he felt like he was running through an open field. It was so hard to repress his laughter. He could never keep himself from laughing during such situations. But he had to this time, he wanted to. He wanted this time to be different, to feel different. So he was going to do something different to, hopefully, evoke a different response. He had a feeling she was different. But if she bored him she would, unfortunately, meet the fate of her predecessors and he would take his reaction as a onetime thing, and a mistake from his part. After all, small things from the ordinary caught his attention easily because most of his life in that white hell had been monotonously white and boring.

He did not expect his for his breath to be clogged in his throat. He did not expect his fingers to loosen around her face. He did not expect his smile to drop at all. He was stunned.

"What?" He recovered himself and pulled her face away. She did not repeat it but he had heard it clearly the first time. He did not need her to repeat it. Her mouth opened and closed. She looked lost. It looked more like her heart was failing. She wasn't looking at him anymore, she was gazing at the ceiling. When her eyes did revert back to him, his mouth had adjusted into his crude smile again. He pressed his lips to her ear and she felt every motion with every word of his. "Did you say fire?"

Fire. The word that drew her to him in the first place. That was what he had felt surging through him when she made her impression. That was what he wanted to move through him again.

"Please …" The words barely reached him, he was so absorbed in his own world. He did not notice her tiny hands that had started to push against his chest. "… No …" She breathed and her hands applied more pressure. He was so lost in own head he barely felt her kick him. He did not even feel her fits as she started struggling against him. "… Stop!" Her scream tore through his train of thoughts. He finally noticed her feeble attempts at escape.

When he had secured her against himself, he wasn't aware. When had his hand snuck under her top, he wasn't aware. When had she started struggling, he wasn't aware.

He just knew he felt warm flesh under his palm. He only knew that the curve of her back fitted perfectly and comfortably against his palm. He just knew he had lost himself in her presence.

"How soft and inviting." He mumbled and retreated his hand so to hold her against him more tightly. "But how frail and vulnerable." Tragic it was. How many other men had she lured towards herself? How many others could come and do as they please without poor little Alice having a choice in it? He didn't really care what anyone did to anyone. All that mattered to him were himself and his interests. For the last time that night, he leaned down and whispered to her. "Do you know my name?"

Alice had stopped protesting the moment his arms had engulfed her, but her tense muscles and her vexed mind said otherwise. His eyes were closed and he didn't really need them to feel her head shaking against his chest.

"Masquerade." He said. "Memorize it." It was an order.

Though his tone had been commanding, somehow his words didn't seem as intimidating anymore. That didn't put him in her good books so soon. She was still scared as hell. His arms around her had been unbearably cold, so had been his fingers on her face and his breath against her ear. His air was still menacing. She had a feeling that one wrong move could relocate her to her grave.

"Do you know my name?" He repeated his previous question. This time there was no physical response from her.

"Masquerade." Alice replied. She was breathless. The name was obviously a fake. It made no sense to her. But one thing kept gnawing at her and it didn't help her relax at her. The thought that she could get raped in her own house, in her own room never left her. She wasn't unaware of criminal psychology. She knew how serial criminals left signatures to show their presence, to mark their work. She didn't want to be a victim. Not at this stage, not when life had barely opened up to her.

"Say it again." He said.

"Masquerade." Her tears rolled down freshly. She knew it was coming. She felt it.

"Good work, my goddess." He pulled away from her. Her shoulders were shaking and her tears dropped off her face onto her feet. She could stop gasping and whimpering no matter how hard she tried. She just didn't know how to deal with this type of fear. "You've gone unnaturally pale, and so cold too." Masquerade cupped her cheeks, and this time his hands were a bit warmer. He wiped away her tears with his thumb but others replaced them. "Go to bed." He retracted his hands and went back into his position at the door frame. "Good night, Alice." It still wasn't a comforting smile.

She watched him. The street light pouring in from her window flickered. In one instant he was there, and when he tilted his head, tilted his smile, the light went and came to show him gone.

The girl knew she would be having nightmares for the rest of her life.

That experience shook the foundation of everything Alice believed in. God, religion, the supernatural, nothing was a part of her life, nothing took any part in the smallest sense of her being. She made tiny references about one thing or another not because she believed in their existence, but because she had grown accustomed to their use around her. But everything changed that night. It felt like the ground had been pulled from beneath her feet. And not walking on something solid did not feel good at all.

She stood in her bathroom for what felt like ages. She was afraid if she moved out he would reappear. The street light was flooding her room like normal. There was no trace of him in sight and she couldn't feel his ominous presence either. The only thing it did was stop her tears, not her rapid beating heart.

Alice turned around and saw her reflection in the mirror. One side of her face was patched with blood. Dark red blood. It almost appeared black. She didn't want to touch it. She didn't want to scrub it off herself. It felt like a disease on her. Strands of her hair had been dyed red. She also felt dried blood on her back. She felt ill. But she didn't throw up. How much she wanted to, she didn't.

Her entrance in to her room took place with extreme caution. She just knew he would spring out from behind the door, or behind the curtain .. maybe even from under the bed. But the window was locked and the door of her closets shut tight.

Still, she couldn't bring herself to lie down on her bed. She simply sat beside, watching it, expecting the … creature … to appear on it. She didn't fall asleep for most of the night. Alice was unaware that sunlight was cascading through her curtains when her eyes finally dropped of exhaustion. Contrary to her belief, her dreams were blank.

.End.

After the long wait, chapter 2! Thank you for the reviews and the support, I hope you guys tag along till the end!

P.S. What are your thoughts regarding Masquerade? :D