Chapter 5

 

Belinda felt sorry for John. The stress of the situation had to be hard to deal with if you believed it was real. And she was sure it wasn’t. What else could it be other than the fake kidnapping her brother had threatened her with? There was just too much evidence against it being real. Although she would have been a tad more confident if the kidnapping guy had broken character for a couple of minutes to reassure her things were fake.

“Don’t worry, John, everything is going to be fine,” she said to the man who was glaring at her.

“Don’t call me John.”

She blinked several times. That was not what she was expecting him to say. “Why shouldn’t I call you John? It’s your name. Did the drugs they gave us affect your memory? Have you forgotten your name? How many fingers am I holding up?” She held up two.

He did that annoying growling thing again. “I’m not concussed. I know who I am. What I’m telling you is simple. See if you can follow along. Don’t call me John. Call me Beast. Or nothing at all.”

Belinda gaped at him. “Call you what?”

He held out his bound hands and made a fist with the right one. Sure enough, tattooed on each knuckle were letters that made up Beast.

“B.E.A.S.T. Beast,” he said. “You memorise lines for a living; one word shouldn’t be too hard to remember.”

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “Beast? You want to be called Beast?”

“This isn’t hard, Hollywood. Say it with me—Beast.”

This was just too, too funny. Belinda grinned at him. “This is priceless. My name is Belinda, but people call me Belle…and you’re Beast!”

He stared at her. “Are you one of those actors who takes a pill to get through the day, and another one to get to sleep at night? Did you miss some meds?”

Belinda started to giggle. “Don’t you get it?” She burst into the theme from Beauty and the Beast, which was hard because she was still laughing.

Beast didn’t even crack a smile as Belinda wiped tears from her eyes. This was too good not to share. As soon as she was done being kidnapped, this was going on Instagram.

“Just use the name,” he snapped. “Now, stop laughing and untie me. We need to get out of here.”

She shook her head as she struggled for composure. “We can’t.”

His eye twitched and his jaw clenched and unclenched. “Why not?”

She pointed at the tiny, glassless window. “It’s dark o’clock. Didn’t you hear him? We’re in the middle of the rainforest, and you don’t want to be out in the jungle at night. Especially when you don’t have a clue where you are. Don’t you watch the Natural History channel? Didn’t you see the movie Daniel Radcliffe made? Four men got lost in the jungle; only two of them made it out. Daniel was one of them. That’s how bad it is out there. Everything can kill you in the jungle at night. Everything.”

He gave her a look that made her think he might turn out to be one of the things that could kill her.

“Untie me,” he said very slowly. “I have a plan.”

“Oh.” Her eyes went wide. “I get it. You think we should do what kidnap victims would actually do. I agree. We should definitely escape. We should make this as hard on them as possible.”

“Then untie me.”

She considered him. He was a loose cannon. He could get himself hurt if he freaked out and ran off half-cocked. “Tell me the plan first, and if it makes sense, I’ll untie you.”

Yeah, he was definitely going to kill her. It was there in his eyes.

“Hollywood, you wouldn’t recognise a good plan if it bit you in the ass.”

She shrugged. “Then I guess you stay tied up until someone comes to rescue us.” A rescue had to be part of the package Daniel paid for? Surely, she wasn’t expected to rescue herself? That seemed like way too much work.

They waited in silence. She folded her arms over the silver dress that was little more than a long T-shirt and wished she’d been kidnapped when she’d been wearing jeans and sneakers.

The silence stretched, and it became clear that Beast had a stubborn streak to match hers, which was impressive.

“Fine,” he snapped at last. “I was going to get you to put your acting skills to good use and send you outside to see what their camp looks like.”

“I’m going to ignore the fact you sneered the word skills and say that’s a great idea.”

Before he could say anything else, she was on her feet and thumping at the door. “Hello, anybody, I need to use the bathroom. Hola, tengo el baño.”

“I wasn’t finished detailing the plan,” Beast snarled at her.

“What’s to finish? I agreed with this stage. If it looks like we might be able to escape, we’ll discuss the next step. First, we need to see what we’re up against. Right? And I can totally do this. I have kidnap victim experience. Although the woman I played was kept in an apartment in Manhattan. But I can adapt. Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

She beamed at him. Beast leaned back and hit his head on the wall. Repeatedly. She would have told him to stop before he hurt himself, but the door opened and a man with a gun appeared.

“Baño?” Belinda flashed her movie-star smile.

“Vamos.” He motioned for her to follow.

“Oh wait, my shoes.” She ran for her silver high-heeled sandals as the guy followed her into the room. He sneered at Beast as Belinda tugged her shoes on. Then the two men watched in bewildered wonder as she fluffed her hair and adjusted the strap of her tiny cross-body bag. “I’m ready.”

Both Beast and the guy with the gun just stared at her.

“What?” she said as she tottered towards the door on four-inch heels.

She heard Beast groan as the door closed behind them.