The surgeon, Rien, came sauntering over and leaned on the ledge. He didn’t seem at all freaked out by the skull right next to his own head. I wondered if that was because he was a surgeon.
“How long are we waiting for this guy?” he asked.
“As long as it takes,” Jean-Luc said.
“That may be fine for you, Sean, but—”
“Shut up!”
My eyes snapped to Jean-Luc. The man I had known as Jean-Luc.
“Sean?” I asked. His real name was Sean?
He slapped me again across the face. This time the blow wasn’t completely unexpected, but a burst of white stars exploded across my vision.
“I told you to shut up,” he hissed at Rien.
“I don’t know why you’re so wound up about it,” the surgeon said, shrugging nonchalantly. “I thought you were going to tell her, anyway.”
“Stay out of my business! I’ll tell her once I want her to know, and no sooner!”
“Sure,” Rien said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll be over in the next cell, then. Let me know when you need me.”
He disappeared into the shadows. I watched Jean-Luc as he paced back and forth. No, not Jean-Luc. Sean. That was his real name.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said finally to me. “It’ll be over soon, once your boyfriend comes to get you.”
I didn’t know how to feel. I was terrified, but the reason for my terror was not only that I was surrounded by darkness, held captive by these two men.
No. I was terrified because deep down, I wasn’t sure if Jake did care about me that much and I wasn’t sure if he ever would. That, more than anything, was what made me shiver with fear in the deep cold of the catacombs.
It seemed like an hour passed, but it might have been only a few minutes. I stretched my wrists underneath the tightly bound rope. Rien had done a good job. A professional job.
It made my blood run cold to think about what else he could do to me.
There was a ledge all around the cell that Jean-Luc—no, Sean— had brought me to. Up above the ledge there were piles of rocks and whiter things. Skulls, maybe. All of the walls had bones embedded in them and I cringed to think about all of the corpses that they had belonged to. Some of the piles of bones were sorted by type—a hill of bones near me looked like long leg bones, stacked neatly for the centuries.
My phone rang. In the dark, the screen lit up brightly. Sean picked it up and looked at the screen.
“It’s your boyfriend,” Sean said. He stroked the dark stubble of his chin. His eyes flickered over to mine. His irises were completely dark in the catacombs, and he looked like a demon in this underground prison.
“Jake?” My chest swelled with hope.
“Don’t speak.” Sean stood up in front of me. I ached to talk to Jake, but I knew that Sean wasn’t exactly the most stable person, and he had a gun in his pocket.
“Alright,” I whispered. My heart was pounding. Was it Jake?
“Hello,” Sean said, answering the phone. I strained to hear Jake’s reply, but I could only make out the soft murmur of his voice through the phone speaker.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Sean said. “One million in cash. Nine million more transferred via wire once we give you the account transfer number. Go underground at the Arc de Triomphe circle. My man will find you and lead you to where your girl is being held.”
There was another murmur.
“Alone,” Sean said, with a hard emphasis on the word. “A briefcase is fine. No police, or the girl dies. Bring nothing else but the money. Do you understand?”
There was another murmur. Sean looked over to me with a dark expression on his face. Finally he held the phone out to me.
“Tell him you’re alive,” he said.
“Hello? Lacey? Lacey?” It was Jake’s voice on the other end. I had never felt so much relief. It came flooding through my body. Just hearing him say my name made me feel like I was going to be okay. It was all going to be okay.
“I’m here,” I cried out. I choked with emotion on the words. “Jake, I love you. I’m sorry. We’re in—”
Immediately Sean had his gun in my face. The words dropped off of my tongue.
“Lacey? Lacey?”
“I’m fine. Jake, please…” I said. I didn’t know what else to say, what else I could say. All of my muscles were tensed. Sean’s finger lifted off of the hammer of his gun, but he still held it out towards me. He lifted the phone away from me, back to his ear. It was a physical pain that struck me, not being able to
“One hour,” Sean said. “Or she dies.”
“If you… haven’t… be there…” The sounds came from the phone speaker, but I couldn’t understand the sentence Jake was saying. I strained to understand him.