8.
~ Daniel felt a sharp pain in his ankle when he hit the ground. He let out a cry as the throbbing started and, instinctively, he clutched his ankle tightly.
'I want to go home.' he thought bitterly. 'I want mommy, I want papa. I'll never do anything stupid again. I'll never go off on my own again. Their going to be so mad at me now.'
He sobbed slightly at the memory of how his school cost them so much money and how he broke mommy's lamp. How they had to make special arrangements for him because he couldn't see. Why couldn't he just have been born like his brother? They wanted a normal baby, he could tell. He always knew his parents wanted a child who didn't need special schools and teachers. Mommy was always talking about what they would do with him when they got to old to take care of him.
Papa would laugh and say that he could take care of himself, and mommy would get angry. They were always upset about Daniel and the way he was. If he wasn't blind, they would never fight.
He lay there on the cold, wet ground. The smell of rotting garbage was everywhere and he could hear things scurrying about in the nearby trash.
He couldn't lay here feeling sorry for himself forever. As much as he hated the world right now, he had to get up.
He could hear the traffic better and knew it was closer.
'Stop crying and find the cars. Wave a car down and tell them what happened. Tell them you need to go to the police.' he thought to himself.
His ankle was hurting and he didn't want to risk putting too much weight on it. What if it was broken? It hurt a lot, maybe it was broken.
He hobbled and almost lost his balance as he felt his way along the brink wall and his hands caught hold of a dumpster.
He suddenly heard a glass bottle roll on the ground from a few feet away.
"Hello?" he called out hopefully. Please let some cook be there. Let him be taking out the trash and find him here in this smelly ally.
"Hello?" he called again as he tried to stay balanced on one foot and keep his bearings by the dumpster.
"Please, pleas help me. My name is Daniel... I'm lost." he called out to the person making the noise.
He heard another noise, more rustling in the alleyway.
Distinct clicking of paws meeting the ground sounded off.
'Dog.' he thought. Daniel liked dogs and his parents had given thought to getting him a seeing eye dog.
"Hello, doggie." he sighed.
He was grateful for contact with another living being. It had been a comfort to play with the cat, but he was happy to find a nice dog.
"Come here, doggie." he called out hopefully.
He heard more rustling in the garbage and more sounds that dogs make. There wasn't just one dog, but many.
Suddenly, Daniel was frightened. The dogs were keeping their distance from him and he could now hear growling. A low rattle like warning coming from his left side.
"It's okay." he said and tried to back away the way he had come. Away from the sound of the cars that meant salvation.
"It's okay, doggies." he said feeling the urge to cry again.
What a baby he was. Crying because some dogs had scared him. But he was afraid. Afraid when he thought about dogs and their teeth and how they might hurt him.
"I'm leaving." he whimpered when he felt the heavy body of a dog grab hold of his arm and yank him. The dog's jaw very strong and it's teeth bit down harder than he thought possible.
"No!" he cried as the dog shook his arm back and fourth like it was trying pull it off him.
Another dog was on him then. The filthy animals smelling of garbage as they bit and nipped at him. Their teeth latching on to his defenseless body and bitting him where they wanted.
He was too small to fight them off. They were too big and once the first one had his arm, Daniel could do little more than curl into a ball and hope the dogs wouldn't hurt him too much.
He wanted the dog to let him go. Dogs weren't nice at all, they were mean and they were going to eat him.
"Stop it!" he cried pitifully as another dog tried to bite his ears and he curled his head under his free arm like a frightened turtle.
They wouldn't stop. The dogs would stop biting or letting him go. He could feel them bitting his face and ears. Tearing at his clothes. The big dog still held a death lock onto his arm and refused to let him go.
The attack went on and on. His assailants were relentless and teased him like a cat would tease a mouse. They just wouldn't stop.
~ Seth rented a large studio apartment in Paris that he never got around to remodeling like he planned to.
Ariadne's boss was a multi millionaire with his innovative video games, but he still lived like a college student.
Woman like, Ariadne found herself straitening his apartment as he was on the phone with his bank.
He had decorated the place with mismatch furniture that was there for comfort and not style. His loft was trendy, but Seth was getting to old to be a single man living like a teenager.
"Don't do that." he laughed at her when he got off the phone and she was trying to load the dishwasher.
"Seth, is this how you live? Why don't you get a housekeeper?" she asked in disgust. It wasn't filthy, just too much of a man place.
"I had a house keeper, lovely woman who did my laundry, cleaned up, cooked me big dinners and let me call her mommy." Seth joked.
"Funny." Ariadne said bitterly.
"We can go down to my bank right now and get the cash." he said with a serious tone.
"Thank you. I know it was a lot to ask." she said feeling like she was about to cry.
She had gone to her boss, knowing he wasn't the type to spend his money, and explained to him about Daniel.
Seth had asked no questions, just called his bank and told them he had to make a large cash withdrawal.
"It's not too much to ask. Without you, my little start up would have crashed and burned a long time ago." he said.
"I will pay you back." she said hurriedly as he shushed her and escorted them both to the lift.
"Lets get Daniel back first. Then worry about the money later. Money is only money." he said happily.
"Not according to his father." Ariadne huffed. Still angry about what Arthur had said. How he had refused to pay the ransom.
"You two alright?" Seth asked.
"Not really." she admitted.
"When you get your son back, it will be better."
"Maybe." she admitted.
She stole a glance at her boss. The computer wiz had a bland sweater with a purple octopus knitted on it. A simple blaze over that. He was still too hipster for his age.
"If things get too bad with Arthur..." he said at last. "My offer still stands for you and the kids to come stay here for a while."
She closed her eyes and tried not to think about that. How Seth was making things too easy for her lately. She knew he had always been attracted to her. How they were the best of friends at work and how he wanted more. He didn't seem to mind she was a mother of four, or that she was happily married. Seth seemed to want to find cracks in her marriage to Arthur. Wanted to show her how she could be happier with him than the Point Man.
The worst part was, she often thought about a life with Seth. And she was ashamed of herself each time.
"I just want to think about Daniel right now." she said soberly as the lift dinged to the lobby.
"Of course." Seth said reasonably.
~ Arthur thought that his wife had gone to visit Sadie and blow of a little steam. The past few hours had been too stressful for anyone to endure and it had become too much.
"We can stake out the wear house opposite the dumpster." Eames was saying. "We have night vision, and the higher ground. I can mark the kidnappers car with this."
The Forger held up a large high powered riffle.
"Where did you get that?" Cobb asked.
"The less you know." Eames said. "Point is, they won't even know they've been tagged."
"If we find where they are keeping Daniel, how do we extract him safely?" Arthur asked.
"We have to asses the location before we can proceed." Cobb said in that calming way of his. "The mission is doomed to fail if we don't have a way in and out."
"If these people are the kidnappers, and they don't get their money, they might might kill my son before we can get to him." Arthur said.
"We can leave a duffle bag in the dumpster. They won't have time to count it. It will have cash on top and on bottom. Cut out newspaper in the middle. Cops use that trick all the time." Eames explained.
"What if it doesn't work?" Arthur asked.
His son could die because he wasn't willing to pay the ransom. Maybe he should just get the money together and pay it. Maybe Ariadne was right.
As if she could read his mind, the door slammed shut and his wife was home. She was dragging four large black duffle bags on the floor behind her.
"I got the money." she panted and kicked one of the bags to them. Her face full of anger as she refused to look at her husband. "Now, where do we make the exchange?"