Shame Of Maastricht by Marie N. Hallen (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

Fuck memories! Do they have any neighbors now? Hopefully not. If you don’t bang on that goddamn door, you will never find out. Come on, it’s time now. Let’s demolish the remaining illusions and the whole gestalt. This has to end somewhere. Kate gathered all her courage and banged on the door. The steps in the deep became louder and louder, someone was getting closer and closer. Her pulse was about to make her blood transform into a powerful jet and break through her chest, though the wall and avalanche everything in the way, to flood this damned house, albeit with blood, so that no stone leaves unturned - she got red in the face. Then there was another sound behind the building as if some other car pulled up nearby. She was about to turn her head, but at this moment the door opened and Luuk showed up at the threshold. He stepped outside almost dropping a glass of beer.

“Wow” - he said. He obviously wanted to say something else but then Lotte showed up. She looked just like in the pictures on social media. Nothing really remarkable. Not ugly but not charming. Or it depends on personal preferences. And it’s her who is in the house now. In the doghouse. But Lotte is not a dog. She shouldn’t be there. May she be somewhere else, why not on Hilton premises, at the mansion of some millionaire in the south of France or in The Hague, chilling with some handsome employee of the International Court of Justice. And Kate would remain in the doghouse. She would be happy to be Luuk’s dog. Yes, this is where she made a mistake. Time to fix the situation now.

“Hey guys,” she blurted out, “I know you’re kinda having fun and I didn’t mean to interfere, but your motorcycle is on fire. Joke. Luuk forgot to tell you something. He just disappeared and I was wondering… Oh new girlfriend, wow… How many more women do you cheat on? Oh sorry, I forgot, you just...” she started to saying everything that appeared on her mind and it felt rather awkward as she her words were complete nonsense.

“Calm down, calm down! But hey, what, what are you doing here? What the hell? Oh Lord...” Luuk was obviously astonished, but not annoyed. And it was fine. She didn’t know what to say any more. Didn’t want to sound abusive,.

“Guys, I’m really sorry to bother you with this. I just wanted to check where my boyfriend went… Left me and didn’t say anything. Last month he said he was at hospital… Then something else… I’m so sorry to say,” she proceeded with trembling voice, “But if I were you, I would be really careful with that person. If he stops liking you, he will just disappear. You will never know… Ok, have a good day.”

Is that what she wanted and was going to say? Should she say things like that? Will he block all her social media profiles after that? Will he tell his parents? What did Lotte think? Kate didn’t even have time to think about this because as she turned around and stepped away from the porch, leaving Luuk and Lotte astonished, she saw them. Maybe there were five of them. Maybe only three. But they were very close, determined and acted decisively, holding baseball bats ready. One of them rushed towards Kate like a leopard, blocking her way, lashed out and pushed her against the wall as hard as he could, knocking her out immediately. At the same moment other several men attacked Lotte and Luuk, throwing a barbed wire around them at lightning speed and making them trapped, and then knocking them out simultaneously with a baseball bat.

All three were immobilized with the help of injections and dragged into the black minivan parked behind the building. This is the sound Kate heard when banged on the door. And probably she made a fatal mistake, worse than all her previous ones. What a dark car… Both Lotte and Luuk were lying unconscious in the backseat as Kate was just feeling dizzy but could still hear and even see everything around. Though it was only the car ceiling she could see. Her mouth was sealed with tape. The darkness around condensed into the heavy icky mass and covered her eyes. Then she passed out.

A Cage Within A Cage

What color is the pain? Before Kate could say it was red just like blood. But now the colors were fluctuating and slowly merged in one black pulsating mass growing inside her head and tearing it apart. She found herself in a very uncomfortable position, making her shoulders, neck and hands ache but something didn't let her move. Kate opened her eyes and tried to look around but it was too dark. Did she get drunk in the evening? Was she delivered home by a stranger and left to sleep in her chair in the kitchen? No, this is not her kitchen. The air in her house can’t be so stale, and the smell around was absolutely disgusting.

All she could see was a dark basement with a heavy steel door, relatively high ceiling and only one dim lamp closer to the exit. The air was heavy and thick, as tangible as never before. This place reminded of an abandoned factory or a storage facility in its worst possible condition, although warm which was quite unusual for an abandoned building. Kate tried to get up and walk towards the place where she believed was an exit, but something didn’t let her move forward, holding her leg tightly. She realized hands were tied up, her mouth was taped and there was no chance to make a sound.

She turned around and saw Luuk and Lotte chained to chairs with their mouths sealed with a tape. No one else was in the room but Kate could hear someone walk and talk outside. It was hard to figure out what kind of premises it was except the obvious fact this was a very hidden place, hidden too far to allow someone inside be heard or found. And it looked totally isolated. She wasn’t going to scream anyway. She could see a metal table in the corner and remains of broken furniture with old and torn rags. Or blankets? Her bag was also there, hidden in the rags. Did they take anything? Is her phone there? Is there phone service? Not likely. And she couldn’t check this.

The other two were already conscious. Luuk was placed to the right while Lotte was placed to the left so Kate was in the middle. She felt a steel collar on her neck that was almost choking her. Lotte was crying and Luuk was moaning angrily, they both tried to move, rock the chairs, get up or simply change the position. Luuk’s muscles swelled as he tried to get rid of the chain that bound him leaving no chance. No one knew how much time had passed, how many hours or days. Time seemed to stop in this dark and desolate place which had obviously became their prison for days or even for weeks if not forever.

Suddenly a steel door opened and two men and a woman entered. All men were wearing black leather coats and white shirts, one of them was carrying a black leather case. All three looked around forty, although the woman could be younger. The men were bald while the woman had long dark hair and was all dressed in black, but Kate couldn’t a good look at her because it was too dark. It was pretty hard to determine their age as the lighting in the room was poor.

“I know you guys might be angry with us,” one of the men began. “But this is what happens when we see our potential target, and this time we are extremely, extremely lucky to have you all three at once. When I just looked at one you, I thought this person would finish badly, it just came to my mind at the first glance, but we will see how you all behave. We just need more people here because we need more money. My name is Bas, by the way. And I’m a financial inspector in case if you wonder who the hell I am. In the past though.”

“I’m Felix and this is Anne, we are really happy to welcome you here. You are our most desired guests,” the second man with a weirdly soft voice intruded and pointed to the woman standing next to him. She remained silent but stepped towards the prisoners and looked at them as if she saw her neighbors.

“Do you really wonder why we brought you here? Any versions?” Felix asked. Luuk and Lotte started moaning furiously and kept trying to move the chairs.

“Oh sorry, we forgot, your mouths… We are really sorry for that. May the lady have a say” Anne approached Kate and unsealed her mouth. “So what do you think of this? Why did we abduct you?”

Kate only shrugged indifferently. Bas let Luuk speak.

“Whoever in the world you are, you can’t keep is here! This is abduction!” he shouted harshly in rage, as vexed as never before. This was the first time he expressed rampant in Kate’s presence but it would be hard to imagine a different reaction of a person who found himself restrained, locked in a basement and surrounded by extremely malevolent people.

“And human trafficking. Oh yeah, this is something I expected to hear. Boring. Boring as hell,” Bas yawned and unsealed Lotte’s mouth. She didn’t wait long and immediately began to plead him to let them go.

“Please, set us free, we don’t even know you, this is definitely a mistake! This is some mistake, release us, we planned to travel to Barcelona next week! I beg you! Can we do anything for you?”

Bas only laughed almost choking on his obnoxious laughter.

“Barcelona! Barcelona, oh my… And maybe a tea party at your grandma’s, no?”

Luuk became even more vexed, he was about to break the chain but the latter resisted and he sank down red with anger.

“Like we said, our main goal is to get your relatives to pay us as much as we request. We pick people carefully and in case with you guys we are sure your families will be able to fulfill this request. And if this doesn’t happen, we will keep you here until the end. And we will do our best to get you to do what we request. You will stay here. All of you. And no one will leave this room unless we decide so. It's just that we can't get hands on the rest of your friends. They would like it here”

“But Felix, are you sure they understand it properly?” commented Bas.

“At least we got