You'll Thank Me for This Nina Siegal (red white and royal blue hardcover .txt) 📖

Karin could feel her chest start to constrict and her breathing get shorter. Stay loose, she told herself. Stay relaxed. Don’t trip. There was the sound again: something rustling, something moving, something…walking. Oh no…

Whatever it was, she didn’t want to wait to find out. And at any second, because of the noise it was making, the others would wake up and see her standing there, getting ready to go. She had to “be decisive,” as her father would say.

In an instant, Karin made up her mind to run. As soon as she did, all hell seemed to break loose. Suddenly there were flashlights everywhere and bodies surrounding the tarp. Not the people who had taken her captive but other people, from outside the camp, wearing different clothes, a flash of something that looked like a shield, and shouting obscenities: “Get the fuck up!” “Move your asses!” “We know what’s going on here!”

Karin was already running when she heard the others waking up and screaming in response. Then she was running faster, as fast as her legs could take her. She heard the sound of something popping, like fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Could it be guns? Was someone shooting? She didn’t wait to find out or look back; she just kept running, leaping, driving through the woods to get as far away from there as possible. She was only a kid! Who would be firing a gun at her?

She whipped through the forest, the wet leaves of the trees smacking into her face, the branches scratching her shoulders and chest, jabbing at her sometimes so she had to fend them off like arrows. She smashed through the foliage, forearms raised in front of her face to guard off more attacks; she nearly got a twig in her eye but managed to bat it out of her face just seconds before it gouged her. Breathing heavily and using every ounce of her energy, she dodged and ducked and kept her legs moving as fast as she could, propelled forward by terror.

At long last, when she felt her breathing becoming too difficult and bile rising in the back of her throat, she stopped. Putting her hands against the trunk of a wide tree, she dropped her head and tried to suck air into her lungs. She could feel her legs trembling underneath her and her knees throbbing. Tears came pouring out of her eyes uncontrollably as she heaved in air—as much as she could swallow. She coughed and spit. Then she listened.

Nothing. No sound of anyone coming after her. No pop-pop firecracker sound in the distance. No sound at all, except the rustle of leaves. She had gotten away. No one had come after her. No one had followed her through the woods. She was alone.

She was alone. And now she had no compass, no backpack, no clothes, no map, no food, no water, and obviously no phone. Only the clothes on her back, which were wet with sweat and clinging. And she had no clue anymore where she was.

But this time, she told herself, she was not going to cry.

Chapter 16Blood

Grace had finished packing Karin’s suitcase and was back in her own bedroom. She had finally called a friend, an old friend named Jenny, the one who lived in The Hague and worked at the International Criminal Court there. They’d met each other in pregnancy yoga long, long ago, but they’d maintained a connection, as two Americans living abroad, and checked in with each other every once in a while.

Because of Jenny’s work as a prosecutor at the ICC, she had understood the context of Pieter’s work. They too had been friends, and she and Pieter had sometimes engaged in long, even heated political discussions over wine or whiskey, way into the night. Grace thought of Jenny as part of her “old life,” and Martijn had never met her. Which was another reason why she might be a good person to visit at a time like this—Grace wasn’t exactly planning to run away from Martijn, but she felt it might be wise to go somewhere he wasn’t likely to find her.

“Look, I think there’s a very good chance that all of this can be explained simply,” said Jenny, echoing her own doubts. “Just discuss it when he’s back home. It’s hard to talk to someone on a camping trip on a mobile phone. He’s in one universe and you’re in another.”

“I still feel like I need to get out of here and get my head together,” said Grace.

“Perfect, then come and visit us. It’s been way too long since I’ve seen you, and a weekend away with Karin should be within the reasonable limits of a healthy marriage,” she said. “Just pop down. Once you’ve had a couple of days to yourself, you’ll figure out the right way to discuss this.”

Grace was talking while standing on a stepladder trying to reach a felt storage box that contained her father’s coin collection, her mother’s precious jewelry, and a handful of critical documents they’d need, just in case they never returned to this house: social security cards, notarized documents, mortgage records, that sort of thing…She was probably overreacting, she told herself. But, well…

“Remember when you guys came down a few years ago and we had such a nice time visiting the Binnenhof and the Mauritshuis?” said Jenny. “I’d love to do that again. This very lovely restaurant just opened around the corner that serves oysters on the half shell and very contemporary gin and tonics. Should we do that?”

Jenny was trying to help calm Grace’s nerves, when probably they both knew the only thing they’d be able to muster during this emotional crisis was a bottle of whiskey after the kids were in bed. “Oysters,” Grace said, as if they were relics from another time and another universe, where there was still anything to celebrate.

The phone started to beep as if another call was coming through.