Shame Of Maastricht: The Revelation of Misery - Marie N. Hallen (top rated books of all time .txt) 📗

to be a deadlock for everyone. In the best case, only she will die. If Luuk doesn’t obey, his family and Sterre will be murdered too.

“This is disgusting!” Stijn cried out and started crying. “You can kill me, but please, leave my son alone, for God’s sake! I have nothing else to say! I never wanted my son to end up captured by terrorists like you.”

“Too late, Stijn,” Maarten answered and looked at Luuk, “Our loss is… unbearable… And she was our only child.”

“I know Maarten, I know you are mad at us, I know you hate us. But what you want to do is a big crime. You have gone mad, completely mad, Maarten. And you involved Nienke into this.”

“Doesn’t matter. Yes, I’m a madman. I have no mercy, I have no heart, I won’t shed a tear anymore. Neither will Nienke. I don’t care if I die, but I want revenge. All we want is revenge.”

“Shoot me, Luuk, I don’t want your parents to die! I don’t want you to die! Anyway this is my fate, I shouldn’t remain alive. Now my time has come. And it would be a true pleasure to die from your hand!”

Sterre looked at her and started crying, then she tried to free her hands, but the chain was invincible.

“Kate! They will kill us anyway… I’m so sorry…”

“These people love to kill. We gave them a very good reason,” Kate replied, “But I want you to live.”

“I don’t want to live,” Sterre said bravely. “I don’t care just like these two. If only they left everyone else alone.”

“No they won’t…” Kate said in a low voice and tried to move. The chain didn’t let her do it. “Give us time! It’s hard to make up someone’s mind in a moment.”

“He spent less than a minute deciding that our daughter should die,” Nienke replied. “We know everything.”

“I hope you burn in hell”, Luuk said to Nienke. “And these three too. You all are monsters. It’s you who should die.”

“Kill your wife and no one else will get hurt. As I said, I don’t care about death too.”

“What if I don’t love her?” Luuk asked. “Why do you want me to kill her?”

“You love her, Luuk. You really do. And you must kill her. You must. Otherwise you know what will happen.”

“Choose your way to kill her.” Nienke added. “I can give you a gun, a knife, a rope, a chain, a hammer, an axe, a saw, or you can choke her. If only I had poison. But no. Not today.”

“Disgusting.”

“Your wife has no hand. If you don’t decide now, she will lose her other hand. If you don’t start acting, she will lose one body part after another until we completely dissect and disembowel her.”

“Give me the knife,” Luuk said, turned around and looked at the table where someone placed instruments for torturing the captives.

“Release him,” Nienke said and took a knife from the table. As Ruben removed the chains from his hands, Nienke handed him the knife while pointing her gun at him.

“Come on, Luuk. Act like a man.”

Luuk approached Kate, stopped and closed his eyes. He moved even closer, holding the knife ahead.

“Leave us alone,” Maarten asked the three men who were standing behind him. They left the hall and went to another room, separated from the hall by a metal door.

“Wait!” Kate shouted, trying to move again, although she knew it wasn’t possible. “This will be unfair if I remain tied up or chained while being murdered. Is this how real men should act?”

“Are you afraid?” Ms. Dijkstra asked her in surprise.

“I’m not scared at all. I hope life will punish you sooner or later. You will get what you deserve. For what you did. To us.”

“Life has already punished us. Do you think there could be something worse?”

“Do you think you will be happy if Luuk or everybody dies?” Sterre involved, trying to remain calm and unaffected.

“For sure. There is no doubt about it. If you were in our shoes, I’m sure you would do the same.”

“You don’t even know what I’ve done and what I’m going through.”

“If Luuk manages to successfully accomplish his task, you will leave this building alive. And then you can arrange your own judgement party and do whatever you wish. You are free to do anything you want. But today is our judgement party and we will get what we want,” Maarten explained, but released Kate, although pointed his gun at her so that she couldn’t take any further steps.

“Never liked you!” Stijn said and looked in Maarten’s eyes. “You never were honest. I knew something wasn’t right.”

“Never cared about your opinion,” he replied, but Sterre interrupted him before he could say something else.

“I wish I could murder Luuk with my own hands. It’s him who deserves death, but not Kate. She has been through all this shit because of him. And now you want to hold her responsible just because she ended up in a wrong place at a wrong time. Kill Luuk, but leave Kate alone. I love her and she means everything to me.”

“It’s not you who decides today. Pray that Luuk kills Kate so that we could let you and Stijn go. And then you can build your own revenge plan, no one will be in your way.”

“It’s not about revenge. I don’t live by revenge. Unlike you. You are pointless. I don’t want Kate to perish because of people like you. And I don’t want her to die from a coward’s hand. You called him a coward and I second that. But I don’t think Kate should die because of his failure. This is miserable. And I’m sorry for your daughter, but you involve too many people. You can then arrange a terrorist attack in a public place. Kill hundreds of people or even thousands. Why don’t you set up a metro station on fire or blow up a shopping center or some government building? Why don’t you hijack a plane then? Make your revenge bright, or give us equal opportunities to fight back. This is cowardice. You chained us and you are going to kill us one by one? Like sheep? This poor garage or warehouse… Away from people’s eyes… Where no one will see your beautiful and righteous judgement... This doesn’t make you decent. Especially if you have such a noble goal and don’t care how you will end your life. Make it unforgettable, in the name of your daughter! I do respect the art of revenge. And you should respect your enemies. We are not asking you for forgiveness. We are not asking for mercy. Oh well, I’m sure you will say that you have no time!..”

Sterre’s fiery speech ended up in silence leaving everyone speechless. Maarten Dijkstra got up from the chair and started walking around the hall, knocking on a gun with his metal keys. Nienke Dijkstra took out a bottle of water and poured it in a paper glass. Kate started laughing but didn’t say a word. Luuk rushed to her and embraced her, still holding a knife in his hand. He couldn’t hurt her, he wouldn’t even hit her, but the situation smelled like kerosene.

“Why don’t you kill me Luuk, why don’t you… Do you really think there is something we can do? Don’t make it worse, we can’t change anything. Maybe this is fate, I don’t even want to think about it. I can’t even cry. Save your father and Sterre, they don’t deserve this misery.” Kate’s voice was broken but she really couldn’t cry as if all her tears froze and turned to stone. If she could cry stones, she would. Instead, Kate took a deep breath and whispered something into Luuk’s ear. Before she finished, Sterre interrupted them again.

“Have you ever seen someone die? My one and only dream is to see this town on fire. If I could destroy it with napalm, I would do it with pleasure. I really want to see them suffer and beg and plead and cry and suffocate while being buried alive. There are dozens of ways to kill them which I would like to try but I’m so weak… Always so weak… You hate Luuk while I hate them all… I have everyone including Luuk. I hate everyone but Kate and I wish she joined me so that we could bomb this town together. Otherwise I’m feeble and slack… Release me! Release me!”

Sterre finished her final speech almost screaming, at the same time feeling hopeless and as weak as never. At this moment she realized she was about to faint and fell down semi-conscious together with the chair she was chained to. As she was skinny and exhausted due to starving herself for a long time, she realized her hands were thin enough to get through the handcuffs. She got rid of them in a moment, pushed away Nienke who rushed to her and hit her with a chair just like Kate did the past time. As Nienke fell down on the floor, Sterre picked up the gun, grabbed the knife from Luuk’s hand while he was cuddling Kate, and stabbed him in the arm and in the back. Luuk screamed and snatched the knife from her hand, pushed her away and stabbed Kate in the stomach under her ribs.

“I killed her, just like you asked me!” he screamed, as Stijn tried to catch them both falling down next to Nienke who was lying unconscious.

“Sterre, what are you doing?” Stijn said in despair and tried to hold Luuk. Luuk was injured but could still move and function. “Luuk, Luuk, what have you done? Are you insane?”

“I’m fine, it’s not a deadly injury, dad,” he replied.

“Freeze!” Maarten shouted and started shooting but missed a few times.

“I killed her! I killed her!” Luuk repeated crying. “Leave me alone!”

Sterre grabbed the chair and ran out of the hall to the yard where Kate’s car was parked. Maarten shot a few times, but she protected herself with a chair, using it instead of a shield so that the bullets met the metal surface of the chair.

“She stole a gun! Get her!” Maarten exclaimed and ran after her. A shot was heard and Maarten screamed from pain with his leg bleeding. Apparently Sterre hit the target.

Three men appeared. Ruben ran out and followed Maarten, while Martijn and Bram approached Stijn, who was sitting between Kate and Luuk.

“Don’t shoot them!” Maarten said and tried to crawl back to the premises. While Ruben was trying to hold him and help him walk, they failed to hear the noise behind. A huge truck, driven by Sterre was moving right against them. Maarten shot, the bullet hit the glass but missed the target. In the next few seconds they both were knocked over by the truck which drove right into premises, hitting the other two gunmen. Sterre jumped out of the truck, rushed to Kate and pulled her inside, while Stijn helped Luuk get inside.

“I failed to kill them,” Sterre told them, driving the truck out of the building. “No one got killed.”

Kill:Kill

They were driving down the highway at the highest possible speed. Other cars had to move aside to give them way.

“I didn’t know you were such a good driver, Sterre,” Stijn said.

“I’m not that good but I can drive as long as the police don’t start to chase us.”

“We need to drive them to the hospital. You stabbed my son in the back.”

“I had to distract them, otherwise everyone would get hurt. I didn’t think he would attack Kate. Looks like you’re a real coward, Luuk. No offense.”

“I didn’t plan to kill her at all, I only wanted to make them believe I had done what I was told. If they got their hands on her, she would be dead,” Luuk replied.

“Let’s not start the fight now, we are all in the same boat!” Kate joined the conversation. She