Page 60 of Intersect
I open the door and find a foyer that looks like it belongs in a museum. The heavy carvings, gold-leaf sun and rays, suggest the place was built in the 1600s, during the reign of the sun king, Louis XIV—although I’m not sure how I know that. The brass lamps on the walls would be a more recent addition, but even they would have been added in the late 1800s. I take a few careful steps inside, my mind racing. The video sent to me showed a buttressed door, gothic. This place was built several centuries later. Which means Sarah has sent me to the wrong location. I step backward. That’s when I hear the click of a gun, far too close to myear.
“Quinn,” says a voice, so pleasant, so melodic, you’d never dream it could belong to something entirely evil. “I was wondering when you’darrive.”
I allow my head to turn, just an inch, and watch as she moves around to my side of the column, the gun still pointed at my head. She is exactly as I remember—the long pale blond hair, the eyes a blue I’ve never seen on anyone else— an angel come to life. A terrifying angel who might, I now realize, kill Nick just because shecan.
I swallow. “Where ishe?”
“If you haven’t noticed, I’m the one with the gun so I’ll be setting the agenda.” She nods at the door ahead of me. “Godownstairs.”
I’m no ninja. I can’t kick the gun from her hands as if this is a movie. Even if I were to disarm her, it’s not like I could hold her at gunpoint. All she’d need to do is disappear. My only option is to run, which might not succeed, and which might be a death sentence for Nick. I glance from that door to the one behind me anyway, wracking my brain for another solution. “If you run,” she adds, “Nick will be stuck in that basement forever. He’ll die thinking you didn’t care enough to come for him. I’ll makesurethat’s what hebelieves.”
My eyes narrow. “How do I know you’re not going to leave him thereanyway?”
“You have my word,” she says with a saccharine smile. “He’ll be freed the moment you’ve followed myinstructions.”
I’ve hated people before, but never like this. Never enough to kill. I would tear her apart with my bare hands if I could. “Do you actually think your word means anything tome?”
“Ah. I see your point,” she says, tipping her head to the side. “However, you don’t have much of a choice, do you? Follow my instructions and you might save him. Don’t follow them and I assure you, youwon’t.”
I take one last glance out the window. This time, not with any thought of running, but solely because I know I won’t be seeing all these things again—sunlight, grass, flowers, the flash of a car as it drivespast.
“Down the stairs,” she barks, irritation straining her attempt atcivility.
I glare at her as I begin to move. “Why are you doing this? Is this about my…spark, or whatever itis?”
Her eyes narrow. “Someone’s been talking to you, I see.Move.”
I climb down the stairs, rotting boards sagging beneath my feet. It is dimly lit, with only a dirty, cement floor—not a dungeon, but not far enough away from it to be all that comforting. “You see those shackles against the wall?” she asks. “Go lock yourselfup.”
I hesitate once more. The moment those shackles lock around my wrists I’m out of options. But I’ve been out of real options from the moment I heard she had Nick. “Time’s running out, Quinn. If you try my patience I’ll just kill youboth.”
That’s all she needs to say. I go to the wall, grab the first shackle, and attach it to my wrist. “This seems like a lot of effort to go to,” I say, glancing up at her. “Why not just shootme?”
She gives me a bored look and nods at the other shackle. “It’s more complicated than that, obviously, or I’d have done it long ago.” Because she’s going to stab me in the heart. It’s really not how I thought I’d go, and the prospect would terrify me if I wasn’t so scared for Nickinstead.
I’m barely able to get the second shackle onto my wrist, one-handed, but it finally pops into place. “Okay, I did what you wanted. Now let himgo.”
She smiles, unhurried, untroubled. “He’ll break the door down soon enough. He’s very clever, your Nick, isn’the?”
I hang my head. He’ll get back to the hotel soon and when he arrives I’ll be gone, and he’ll have no idea why. “Is he ever going to know what happened to me?” I ask quietly. “Or am I just going todisappear?”
“He’ll know,” she says. She raises her phone and takes a photo ofme.
“Do not send him that,” Ibark.
“Why?” she asks, with the sweetest smile. “You look just as cute as ever. He’s going to loveit.”
I press my forehead to my knees and take short, panicked breaths. He could get over this. He could return to his old apartment, his pretty ex-girlfriend, his old life and Iwanthim to—but a photo like that will haunt him forever. “Please,” I beg, my voice cracking. “I don’t want that to be the last memory he has of me. He’s going to blame himself and just…please. I’ll do whatever youwant.”
She looks up from her phone, all blue-eyed and guileless. “But the photo has already been sent. Besides…how is he going to know he needs to save you if I don’t showhim?”
I strain against the shackles. “You lyingbitch. You said he’d befree.”
She takes a seat on the floor a few feet from me and sets the gun behind her. “As he will be. If he chooses to come here after you, that’s up tohim.”
If I’d just listened to him, if I’d just stayed at the hotel, would none of this have happened? Probably not. Sarah was never going to free Nick. Even if he broke out of the basement, she’d find a way to catchhim.
“Why? Why involve him at all?” I plead. “You’ve got me. Stab me in the heart or whatever it is you’re going to do and leave him out ofit.”