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

She started to shiver again, but she didn’t know if it was from the cold, because she had no jacket, or if she was just afraid. How long would it take her mother to get the police to come? How hard would it be for them to find her now? How long would she have to wait? And would Martijn get to her first?

There was a crunching sound in the woods—footsteps. At first she thought, prayed, it could be deer. Couldn’t it? It could be animals. Even if it was the wolves again, she would be happy. But it sounded like a step and then a slide, a step and then a slide. Like a peg leg walking in wet leaves. Karin tucked herself into a tiny ball, trying to become as small as she could possibly be, and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

“Karin,” she heard a quiet, soft, girlish voice whisper, not far from her. “Karin, it’s me.”

She turned and looked, her eyes searching the woods around her, but she couldn’t see anything.

Then it came again: “Karin, it’s me. Look to your left.”

Karin turned and saw Margot there, or at least her small face, swaddled in a green camouflage tarp that cloaked her inside a large bush. Her face was very dirty—almost half of it was covered in something black that seemed to coat her temples and cheeks. Her eyes were bloodshot; it seemed she’d aged ten years since Karin had seen her last, just yesterday.

“Margot,” Karin whispered, but too loudly, knowing that she was endangering them both. She loosened her grip on her knees and crawled out from behind her tree and toward Margot’s hiding place. They grasped each other in a hug, careful not to make too much noise. “How long have you been here?” Karin asked.

“I was just over there,” Margot said, pointing to another clump of bushes. “I heard you run into the forest and I was afraid it was him, coming back. Then I saw it was you. I stayed quiet for a while until I saw that he hadn’t followed you. It’s been about fifteen minutes now, I think. I’m guessing that he’s lost your trail or he gave up looking.”

“What happened to your face?” Karin asked, reaching out to touch her fellow Scout, who just several hours ago she had disliked for no apparent reason. Margot drew back, not wanting to be touched.

“He hit me,” she said. “It had to be him. I was walking along next to him and suddenly I felt this thing, like I’d been shot in the head, and then I fell. I think he used a rock, but I don’t know.”

Karin looked closer and understood that the black on her face was actually dried blood. “Oh my God…” Karin said, in the softest whisper she could manage. “You must have bled a lot. I can’t believe he did that. I mean I can believe. I mean, he tied me up and chased me too. I think he’s actually crazy.”

“Wait a second,” Margot said. “Shhhh.” They both stopped their whispering and listened. Karin could hear the faint sound of something shuddering. Maybe it was thunder—a storm approaching. Maybe it was the rattling of a truck? The sound seemed to be repetitive and rumbling.

The two girls huddled together, and Margot opened her rain tarp to let Karin get in. She kept listening. It wasn’t a sound of someone walking in their direction. It was coming from somewhere else entirely. It was coming from the sky.

It became clearer, and came closer. Chud, chud, chud.

It wasn’t a storm, and it wasn’t a truck. It was, Karin realized with a sudden burst of joy and relief, a helicopter! A helicopter was whirring overhead. Her mother, the police, whoever was going to save them, were on their way.

She looked up through the trees but couldn’t see anything. But the more they listened, the more she was sure it was there. It was flying over the park. Soon it would be right above them. Whoever was inside the helicopter would be looking down, trying to find her. Trying to find them. They could be rescued!

But then she and Margot realized, maybe at exactly the same moment, that they probably couldn’t be seen here, in the middle of the forest, with all these trees covering them. One of them would have to go back out into the clearing to get the helicopter’s attention. Martijn would probably still be there. He’d be waiting for her, the moment she ran out.

She considered for no more than a few seconds and decided it had to be her. Margot was badly hurt, and it was her stepfather who had done it. She had to take the risk that he would see her, so the helicopter people would find them both. “I’m going,” she said to Margot. “You stay here.” Once she was on her feet, she added, “We’ll get you once we’ve got Martijn in cuffs.”

Margot yelled her name to try to stop her as Karin ran back in the direction she had come from, not sure how dense the forest was in any other direction. She kept her head up, eyes alert, as she tried to find her way out of the woods again. The whirring of the copter overhead drove her on, toward the end of the tree cover. Chud, chud, chud. It might not be long before they would see her.

Karin reached the edge of the trees and looked out, trying to see if she could spot Martijn, but the clearing seemed to be empty. She looked up and could see the helicopter had already passed and was going in another direction. It was about to be too far out of sight. Now was the time to go, if ever there was a time.

She threw herself into the open space and sprinted, right back up a large mound of heath where she knew she’d be visible to anyone who was looking—even