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Now that I'm finally paying attention to it, I realize why I thought it belonged to an emergency vehicle at first. There's an urgency to the chime, and the composition of it reminds me of an alarm.
The door to the basement swings open.
My eyes flick to it just as someone appears in the doorframe.
Laurent.
He slams the door shut but doesn't bolt it, and descends the stairs. Time must have sobered him up, because he doesn't seem as sluggish as before. He's taking the steps quickly, and he rushes over to the screens to rip the sheets away.
"Do you hear the alarm going off? We have company," he says to me with a smile that chills my blood. Is he back to acting as if we're friends? Does he not see how badly he's hurt me? "I wonder who it is."
Laurent starts flicking through the camera feeds, and I allow myself a wild thought. Clearly, he doesn't know who it is yet. With this many cameras, if the person managed to avoid them, they must be skilled.
I already know that my father won't show.
So who else would break into Laurent's house?
Alexander.
My heart swells. He's found me.
Laurent is still preoccupied with finding the right feed. The door is unlocked, but my hands are tied. I need to find a way to get out of these restraints so I can help Alex. As I'm writhing my hands behind my back to test the give of the rope, the lights go out and we're coated in pitch black darkness.
My heart's about to beat straight out of my mouth.
Laurent curses and mutters something about a generator. Ten, maybe fifteen seconds later, there's a steady hum coming through the walls, and the lights come back on.
But the screens don't.
"We've been found, Alize," Laurent says, pulling the pistol from his waistband. The sight of it is a reminder of how close I came to my own freedom. If I had tried to take it from him instead of reasoning with him, would things have turned out different? Yet there's still hope. "Just a few seconds more."
Laurent moves my chair to the center of the room and makes me face the door. He brings the chair from behind the desk over, and places it right behind me. He takes a seat behind me, then I feel the cool metal of the pistol as he presses it against my head.
"Let's put on a show for them, shall we?" His breath against my cheek makes my skin crawl. "Show them what a good hostage you've been."
Heavy footsteps sound above us.
I'm frozen, too scared to even breathe.
What will Alexander think when he sees what Laurent has done to me? He'll be upset, I'm sure, but I don't want him to make any stupid choices. I don't think Laurent is expecting him, which could prove to be helpful.
I will help him in any way I can.
The heavy metal door at the top of the stairs creaks open.
It's Michel Moreau standing in the door frame.
* * *
I can't believe it.
My father showed.
The tiny flicker of hope I was holding on to withers at the sight of him. He takes one, two steps down the stairs. It's the first time I'm seeing him in over a year, and my stomach twists as the light catches him.
The harsh planes of his face, the twisted frown, the shaggy hair falling over his shoulders, the tattoos wrapping around his forearms. He looks much like what I remember, but everything I don't.
His dark eyes burn a hole into me.
