Chapter 11 Together and mysterious boxes
A/N: So here's the next chapter. As I promised it didn't take me so much time this time. Thanks to everyone who reviewed... I love you guys If you like this chapter please review!
Rick wandered up and down restlessly. From time to time, he sighed deeply or mumbled inaudible words. Evy watched this silently. She knew that he had to think, that he needed to get all of this in his head, that he needed to come up with a great idea. She was not able to do that or help him. Somehow, this was something Rick had to handle. Joe had left them a few hours ago, promising to try to find out where David was hiding.
"The streets do have ears, Rick. You know that. And the streets are my best friends. So if David Luis made a mistake, and I'm sure he'll make one if he hasn't already, I will know. You're my buddy, Rick. You can count on me," Joe had said before leaving. Somehow, knowing that they weren't all alone had calmed Evy.
They had the police, who were still desperately trying to find Alex and Sarah. But, even so, Evy knew that the police were powerless. She sighed deeply and closed her eyes, praying to God in her mind.
"Please dear God... Let them be alive. Let them be okay. I need them so much..." She opened her eyes and looked at Rick, whose face showed more fear and despair than she had ever seen from him. "We need them so much," she corrected herself.
God, how much she had missed this man. It was awful that they needed such a terrible incident for her to realize how much she loved him and how much he needed her and her support, which she hadn't given him when he needed it most. She tiredly rubbed her eyes. When was the last time she'd really slept? It felt like years.
"I... I don't know what to do," she suddenly heard and looked up to see that Rick had stopped wandering around. "I tried so hard to... to find a way... to find David and our kids but... but I couldn't... I wasn't able," he choked out.
She stood up and wrapped her arms around him. It was the first time she had shown support for him since Alex and Sarah had disappeared. "It's okay. You know, having the brilliant ideas has always been my job and not yours. You're the brave gunfighter who makes my ideas work," she said softly and had to smile slightly by the thought of the adventures they had already experienced.
"But this time it's different. This time we're not fighting against Mummies or dead Pharaohs. This time we're in my personal nightmare. There is no curse you could fight against. We have to fight against life itself this time," he answered and looked at her.
"Right. This is a fight that none of us have fought before. So it's okay that you don't have an answer to our problems. But we'll find it together. We'll find a way to get them back, Rick, but this time together, without a certain apportionment of jobs. We're in this together," she replied.
He smiled slightly. "I wanted to show you that I'm back, that I'm my old self. The one that can handle everything," he said.
"You are back, Rick. And I'm sure that even in this 'adventure', there'll be gunfights and battles you can win for me," she stated and sighed deeply. Of course, she hoped that life would spare her this, but it obviously made him feel better.
The door was abruptly burst open and Joe stormed in. "Guys, you're gonna love me!" he yelled.
Rick grabbed his collar. "What? Did you find them?"
Joe released himself and reddened. "Well, no. But I found someone who may know," he said and smiled proudly.
"Who? Who is it and where is he?" Evy asked, her eyes glittering with hope.
"His name is Ardeth Bay and he's in the hospital right now."
"Ardeth? Rick, did you hear that? It's Ardeth!" Evy looked at her husband in awe.
"But, why is he in the hospital?" Rick asked.
"David Luis wanted to kill him."
Meanwhile in Cairo, some hidden place
David Luis stood in front of a huge and impressive bundling. He was very satisfied. This was the right place for hiding the kids. A place he visited very often; where everyone respected and liked him as Professor David Cane, as he named himself.
"Where are we?" Alex, whose eyes were bound with a piece of cloth, tried desperately to get free. But he was being held very tightly by an unknown someone. His sister, Sarah, was also being held. She, however, stood still, not daring to rebel against this treatment.
"That, my dear Alex, I will not tell you. But I can tell you something about this place. It's perfect. No one will ever look for you here. There are almost hundreds of places that are connected with me and my name and the police will search for you at those places first. The police are stupid, as is your father," he said and grinned.
"Shut up! My father is not stupid! Don't you dare to say something like that about my Dad, ever again!" Alex yelled angrily.
David groaned. "Zack, bring them in," he told one of his men. And then he stepped up to the wall and slightly touched it. A piece of the wall moved aside and made space for a dark and narrow gangway.
"No one will see you. Get them into the room. You know which one. And then you need to make sure that they stay quiet and out of trouble, alright?"
Zack nodded and grabbed both kids unmercifully. He pushed them forward. "Get moving," he growled and they did. David watched them disappear into the gangway and once again touched the wall, the open space disappearing immediately. No, no one would find them. But now he would find Rick O'Connell. O'Connell was going to pay.
Alex and Sarah were pushed into a dark room with no windows and a thick door. Alex fell to the ground and yelled out when he hit something hard. Sarah screamed a little when she was thrown in. They lay on the ground and now that they were free again, they quickly ripped away the cloth that bounded their eyes. The last thing they saw was the door closing and the light going out. Sarah gasped. Darkness terrified her.
Alex took her hand. "Don't be scared. We'll find a way out of here", he said, standing. "Stay here. I have to find out what kind of room this is."
"How? It's so dark," Sarah whispered.
"I still have my hands and my ears and my nose, little one. Dad always said that losing one sense is not that bad as long as you have still your others. And he told me that if you lose one of them the others will replace it and will work even better," he told her.
Then he spread out his hands and began to touch the walls. They were cold and a little wet. "Cellar," he muttered.
"What?" Sarah asked and stood up too. It frightened her that she could hear but not see her brother.
"I think this room is in the cellar of some building. The walls are cold and wet, just like the walls in our house. Don't you remember?" Alex asked.
"I do remember," Sarah said and then she decided she would help him and tried to find out what she was touching. Her hands touched a big and hard thing. She let them travel further and realized that it was some kind of a box or case.
"Alex! There's something that feels like a box," she quickly said, proud that she had found something important.
"Yes, and here's another one and... here too. Sarah, the whole room is full of these boxes," he stated, his heart beating faster. He had to find out what was in these boxes.
His hands were searching for some kind of a lid. "I... I can't open it," he said.
But his sister was luckier. She found the lid quickly and she used all of her strength to open it. "Open," she yelled gladly.
Alex followed her voice and was soon by her side. He put his whole arm in the box and grabbed something. It was heavy and he needed both of his hands to pull it out. "What is it?" his sister asked curiously.
He stroked the object and suddenly found that he could open it. He felt paper surrounded by hard carton. All of sudden he knew what it was. "A book," he said. "It's a book."
Soon they found out that every box was filled with a heavy book. Sarah sneezed from the dust and Alex realized that these books had been in here a long time. The pages were made of thin paper that he could feel when he let his finger travel trough them, and it dawned on him that they were ancient. He wished he had light so that he could at last read as long as he was in here. He loved to read. Especially ancient books about Egypt.
"So we're in a room full of books. But how will this help us to get out?" Alex asked himself. He still couldn't figure out what kind of building they were hidden in. There were probably a lot of buildings in Cairo that yielded old books in their cellars.
Sarah sighed. "We can't get out of here. I just tried to open the door but there's no handle. There's no way to get out here," She sounded afraid.
Alex nodded while an idea began to form in his mind. "Well," he said, "we can't get out alone. But what if Zack would open the door? Then we could somehow bring him down and then we could flee."
"But why should Zack open the door?" Sarah asked.
A broad smile spread over Alex's face. "I've got an idea."
A/N: I know it's short and I promise the next one will be longer, I just don't seem to be able to write longer chapters ;-) Please review.