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This chapter is long. But not SOOO much.
What happened to Ariadne? OMG! Read, and give me your opinions.
Enjoy!
Love,
Isadora
Chapter 5 – Close enough, hurting badly.
The restaurant was calm and smelled deliciously. It was an Italian restaurant, with a lot of projections sitting on their tables and talking. But most important, Cobb and Ariadne weren't being noticed.
Eames – the blondie – was sitting on the opposite table of Jeremy Carey-Lewis. He had a mischievous smile on his face. The mark was nervous, his eyes darting from one projection to another. The forger ordered one drink for the mark, putting his fake number under the liquor glass.
After the drink was delivered, Eames moved and passed slowly next to the Jeremy's side. The Forger knew how to make any man noticed him.
"Hello." his voice was smooth ad velvet, just like a woman's voice would be.
Jeremy cleared his throat, visibly choking on his own words. "Want to sit with me?"
Eames nodded. The mark was fast and liked her, things would have to be done faster. He was expecting things to be a bit more slow, with the flirting part. Anyway, it was their problem. The Englishman bit his low lip, a sign to Cobb start searching through rooms. The Extraction had began now. The clock was ticking, and time was something essential.
Dom grabbed Ariadne's arm gently and pulled her with him. But as soon as they entered the corridor, they noticed that there were a lot more projections then they expected. Someone was throwing a party in the safe's room.
It was a light place, with some paintings and Ariadne thought that nobody would enter there and simply throw a party. But again, the mark's subconscious was trained, and perhaps this was his defence. Cobb sighed heavily. They needed to do this job fast, Arthur was having a hard time on the first layer and Jeremy was faster than expected with the blond bombshell. And then, someone touched Ariadne's hand and whispered in her ears:
"Want to dance with me, beautiful lady?" it was a projection.
"She's with me, sir" Cobb said darkly. This moment every noise stopped and they starred at them. "But I won't mind." he added rapidly, letting her go with one worried look in her eyes.
"Shit!" The Architect thought. This wasn't supposed to happen. Now Cobb would have to do it alone, while she danced with a gruesome projection. She wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she couldn't. So, she kept moving, as the projections continued doing what they were, before being interrupted.
The music was soft, and the new couple started waltzing around. Her partner was gazing at her eyes. He wasn't handsome, but wasn't pretty too. But then, when she payed attention, she noticed that his eyes were the exactly same colour as Arthur's, brownish eyes, always so clear and thoughtful. Her thoughts flowed to him. How he was doing above them? But more important, was he okay?
The Point Man loaded his gun and waited for they to come. He checked his watch, he still had to survive for eight minutes, that were exactly forty minutes on the second layer, thanks to Yusuf, which his new compound made the dream world faster than it already was. And then he heard a bang on the door.
They were trying to knock it down.
He shot blindly through the closed door, hoping that he would kill some projections. Silence. He couldn't do it, but he had to make sure that he had killed every of them, so he opened the door a little. And then, one bullet hit the wall just above his head.
"Crap!" he muttered. He was screwed.
More five men were trying to open the door, while Arthur fought against it. But they were to many and too strong, so the door slammed open and the bullet ballet started. The Point Man, not only had to cover his back, but his asleep friend's as well. This wasn't his first time doing it, but this was his first time when the projections were heavily armed.
The projections were hiding behind the chairs, making his job more difficult. But he could do it. He had too. Arthur shot two projections in their chest, but three were still alive. Somebody shot right into his left arm, and he groaned in pain. With a panic urge, he shot one projection that was just above Ariadne sleep form, with a gun pressed in her temples. He didn't miss. Two lefts and nobody else was coming. He locked the door.
From his peripheral vision, he saw a tiny motion on his left side and he shot without hesitating. The projection dropped dead on the floor. Arthur's arm was bleeding hard, running down through his shirt and making his grip on the gun slippery. Arthur pressed his other hand on his wound – knowing that this was just a distraction for the projection - and then the man fell into the trap.
The Point Man knocked the man out, leaving a pool of blood around him.
He still had five minutes. Arthur looked at his blood-covered shirt, his arm was painful, pounding like another heart. He gasped for air. It wasn't a good idea to look at it after all. He grabbed his load dice, feeling the weird weight, and knowing that this was a dream. That the pain was only in his mind.
A sundelly sound caught his attention, their Architect chocked and opened her mouth to scream. Without thinking, Arthur put his hand in her mouth, preventing her to scream. "Was she awake?"he thought. But he looked at her eyes and they were closed. Her eyelashes were wet, and a fat tear was falling down her cheek. He wiped it and looked around. Nobody else was moving.
Inside his mind a bunch of questions where being asked, but he ignored them. Gingerly, Arthur took his hand from her mouth, making sure that she wasn't going to scream. And then he saw something. A splotched red form. It wasn't paint, it was blood.
The Point Man was sure that he didn't shot her and nobody else did. So what the fuck was that? She couldn't be shot in the second layer and bleed in the first one, he was sure about that. Then, what happened?
Arthur lifted her blouse only a little, to see why she was bleeding. And saw a deep cut in her abdomen, near her navel. He placed her blouse where it was and pressed his hand on her freshly made cut, forgetting his wounded arm. He didn't care, he just wanted to save her.
Cobb was searching through paintings and projections, to find the damn safe. He had to pretend to talk to several projections to not seem suspicious and that had taken a lot of time. Now he was in his third painting and hadn't found a clue to where the safe should be. It had to be inside of one of the paintings. Ariadne had showed to Earnes and him, that it would be inside of one of them, one paint where things would be a little odd.
When he was examining his fourth painting he heard a shriek. A female shriek. He looked around, only to find their Architect curled like a ball and pressing her hand on her abdomen. The projections where starring at him. He run toward her, and lifted her, like a rag doll. Her eyes where shinning with unshed tears.
Right when he was leaving the room, Eames appeared, he wasn't the blondie anymore.
"Why are you here?" Cobb said.
"Jeremy noticed that something was wrong. Not in the restaurant, of course. But the projections." he looked down at Ariadne, her hands were red. "Christ! What happened? No matter. Have you found it yet?"
Dom shook his head. The Architect moaned and put her feet down. The projections were coming closer.
"Let's go, Cobb. We have to find his stupid secret." she gasped. Her words were full of pain.
"No, Ariadne. You stay here." he was severe.
"I'll go. We don't have much time and you need help. From the two of us." she looked at Eames, who had a concerned expression on his face. Cobb didn't argued anymore. He needed help, and there wasn't much time left, everything she said was true. But still...
"I'm fine." she muttered the unasked question. "I can handle this."
The two men nodded and they went searching again. The three of them had a gun loaded and ready to use. And now all of the projections were armed. They stared at them, hatred written on their faces.
Eames shot two of them, while Cobb run with Ariadne to their next painting. The safe wasn't there either. The Architect shot a projection that was dangerously close to Eames. Her body was weak. She could feel the amount of blood that was flowing through whatever-the-hell she had.. She wasn't shot. The awful pain had started before the projections stopped. She tried to think but her mind only had space for the pain.
Cobb was runing to fast, she wasn't able to keep up. She checked her watch, they only had a few more minutes. But the music hasn't started. Why it hasn't started? "Something must have gone wrong." she thought. Was Yusuf having some troubles in the real world? She looked around, the dream was still normal. "How were they going to wake up?" She knew that this Extraction didn't have the risk to go to Limbo, but killing yourself was a terrifying idea.
"Cobb!" she tried to yell, but her voice was weak. "Cobb!"
The Forger, pushed away the projections and ran in her direction. He was close enough to hear her.
"Look at that! This painting wasn't there before!"
Eames looked at the direction that she pointed. The painting was of a man with money falling around him, he also had a tiny paper in his hand.
"Cobb! Look at that painting" his voice was loud and clear. He was staying with Ariadne. There was a pool of blood around her. "Jesus, darling! What the hell happened?"
But before she could answer an angry voice filled the space.
"What are you doing here?" the mark yelled, pointing at Cobb. "Who are you?"
The Extractor didn't even look to see who was that, he knew that that was where the safe was. He put the painting down and looked carefully at it. That tiny paper was something very odd. He pressed his hand on the painting's surface and he felt his fingers touching the smooth paper. That was the secret.
Cobb took the paper and felt a chilling metal pressed against his skull.
Jeremy had a gun right in the center of Cobb's head. The Extractor saw, from his peripheral vision, that Ariadne and Eames were also in the same position that he was.
"Drop the gun and give it to me." the mark ordered. "Or I will kill you."
There wasn't any music, but he knew that their time was almost over. Cobb nodded and while he was turning around to face Jeremy he saw the word that he needed. Extortion. He spinned and shot the mark's chest. Everything trembled.
The dream was collapsing.
Before he could get out of there, he looked down at his paper and quickly read some words. 15,000 dollars, Willian Keeling, torture and violence, coma.
He looked around and saw that Eames and Ariadne were already gone; he closed his eyes and waited.
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