The sirens are closing in. We will be rescued! I’m going to make sure Pap knights Jasmine, or whatever he can do to reward her for this, because either by seeing the video and calling the police or by giving me the clue for the emergency number, she has been instrumental to our rescue.
“Get down here!” Felix barks up the stairs. We don’t move right away; after all, help is at hand. “Now!” Felix shouts, and then he is stomping up the stairs himself. “Didn’t you hear me? I need you all downstairs. Now!”
Since we still don’t move fast enough for him, he grabs me around the waist and lifts me off the floor again. Being the smallest really stinks sometimes. At first I’m not even scared, and then I feel the cold steel of the gun barrel touch my temple.
“Mam,” I whimper.
“Put her down!” Mam demands.
“I will not. She’s my insurance policy. Now, all of you. Downstairs.”
This time, Mam and Georgie head down the stairs, and Felix follows, still carrying me. I would struggle to get away, but the gun to my head scares me into submission. I’m letting myself be carted around like a ragdoll, and I don’t like it, but I don’t know how to do anything about it.
The sirens are now right outside. The men with the guns break the front window and start shooting before the police car even stops. Felix moves the gun from my head long enough to open the front door.
“Where are you taking her?” Georgie screams and grabs at my arm.
“Behave, and no one gets hurt,” he growls.
Georgie holds me for a second longer, and I feel something being shoved in my back pocket. My phone? Hopefully.
Now the door is open, and I see the police officer hunkered down behind his car, gun pointed at the townhouse. There is only one police car, and the officer is on the radio, obviously calling for reinforcements. One police officer is not going to be able to help at all in this situation.
“Call for an ambulance!” I scream to the officer, hoping he hears me. “Someone’s been shot.”
“Be quiet, Princess,” Felix hisses.
He carries me out of the house to a car and shoves me inside. The police officer, still taking cover from the gunfire, can do nothing to help.
“Where are we going?” I ask as Felix steps on the gas and drives away, with me as a captive in his car.
“To a nice safe place where you can wait for your father to come for you.”
“He won’t come for me. He’s busy saving the kingdom.”
“He’ll save you instead.”
Part of me wants that to be true, and part of me doesn’t. The best I can do is make sure that he can’t use me as a pawn. I need to get away.
Soon he has to stop at a traffic light, and I’m sure the only reason he doesn’t run it is because the car in front of him is stopped. It’s not much of a chance, but it’s the only one I’ve got. I hit the unlock button, open the door and jump out of the car, running back the way I came and ducking down the first side street I come to.
I know he’s going to follow me, but if I can get some distance between us, I might be able to lose him. I run blindly up and down streets, ducking into alleys between buildings and hoping beyond hope that I don’t run into a dead end at some point.
I come out of one alley onto what looks like a fairly main street. There are restaurants and stores and lots of people. I stop and catch my breath and look behind me. I don’t see Felix anywhere, so I take that as a good sign. I don’t know where I am. I’m not near the school. I’m not even sure which direction the townhouse is in from here. I stand on the sidewalk, nearly paralyzed with indecision. Where should I go? Even if I knew how to get to the townhouse, that probably wouldn’t be the safest place to head. I need to be someplace safe so Felix can’t get me, otherwise I’ll always be on the run.
What I should do first is let Pap know I’m okay. If he sees the video Felix made, he’ll think he needs to come here to rescue me, but I don’t need rescuing. He needs to stay with the kingdom.
I reach around to my back pocket. My phone is there. Yay for Georgie keeping her head when all around her people were losing theirs. I duck into the doorway of a vacuum repair store and start taping.
“Prinzessin Fredericka here,” I begin. “Pap, I am safe. Do not fear for me. Stay with the country, and save the kingdom. Remember you are king. Ich leibe dich.”
I hope that is enough. I shove my phone back into my pocket and move quickly down the street, turning down the first side street I come to. I need to keep moving so that Felix can’t find me. And I need to get help. I need to find a policeman. There should be one on nearly every corner directing traffic, right? I’ve watched American movies. I know how this works, but I haven’t seen one yet. I pull my phone back out of my pocket as I walk and dial 911, remembering that I don’t have to find the police. They can send them to me.
On the other end of the phone, a pleasant female voice says, “911, what is your emergency?”
“I need a policeman,” I say.
“What is the emergency?” the woman repeats. “Why do you need a policeman?”
“Someone was trying to kidnap me, and I got away, but I don’t know where he is, and I need a policeman.” I keep walking as I talk, and the simple act of telling what is wrong makes me panicky. This is real, this is really happening.
“Okay, where are you?” the woman says, her voice steady and calm.
I take a breath. I can do this. I can stay calm as well. “I don’t know. Somewhere near Boston.”
“Are you inside or outside?”
“Outside.”
“What street are you on?”
“I don’t know,” I say, looking for a cross street and a street sign.
“Can you find out?”
“I’ll try.”
“What phone number are you calling from, in case we get disconnected?”
I tell her, but it’s a foreign number and that confuses her.
“What is your name?” she asks.
“I am Fredericka Mohr.” I answer. “Please can you send the police? I’m afraid.”
“You need to tell us where you are,” she says. “Did you find a street name?”
I see a cross street and hurry to it. I tell her the names on the sign.
“Okay, you stay there, and we’ll have a police officer with you shortly.”
“I can’t stay here. If I stay in one place, he’ll find me.”
“But we need to find you, Fredericka. Just stay calm. Someone will be with you soon.”
I scan the street and see what looks like the car that Felix forced me into before.
“I see him,” I try to scream, but it ends up as more of a whisper. “He’s back. I need to get out of here.”
“Fredericka,” the woman begins, but I’m not listening. I need to get out of here. I shove the phone back in my pocket and run down the side street, hoping Felix didn’t see me before I saw him. I turn down one street and then another, hoping that by not keeping a straight line, Felix won’t be able to follow me.
Then as I turn down a street that is more residential, with cookie-cutter houses lining both sides, I see Bethany, walking with Kim and coming toward me. They will help me. I’m saved.
“Boy, am I happy to see you!” I say, finally stopping to catch my breath.
“Hello, Fritzi,” Kim says and nudges Bethany, who looks like she’s searching for an escape route. I know the feeling.
“What are you doing here?” Bethany asks. “I thought you were trapped at home waiting for the police. I guess that was just a pathetic attempt at getting a little more attention. Saying you were a princess didn’t get you enough?”
I’m not even sure what she’s talking about, but I can’t waste time trying to figure it out. “Do you know where the police station is?” I ask. “Or even a policeman? I’ve looked on the corners but didn’t see one.”
“This isn’t the nineteen-fifties,” Bethany says with a roll of her eyes. “Do you think America is like you see in old movies?”
“Of course I thought that,” I answer, not in the mood to play games. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Just make another video,” Bethany says. “Or didn’t that one bring the police?”
“It did,” I say and realize that she has admitted to watching my videos, but I don’t have time to sort out what that actually means. “But I need a police officer. Now. I’m in danger.”
“Call 911,” Kim says.
“I did. But they didn’t get here fast enough.”
“She’s probably so used to traveling with private security she’s afraid to walk around without an armed guard,” Bethany sneers as an aside to Kim, treating me like I’m not even there.
While that is scarily accurate in its own way, it falls a little short of reality.
“I just need the police,” I say. I don’t care if she’s dissing me. This is no time to worry about injured pride. I need help, and they can help me. I know they can. “Please! Do you know where I can find them?”
Bethany shrugs as if it’s no concern of hers. Kim screws up her face in concentration. “I think the station is at the end of Main Street. You go right when you get to the corner and then just go straight.”
I start to thank her when I’m distracted by a car pulling up behind them. My heart starts to beat faster even before Felix jumps out of the car. I don’t wait for further explanations. I turn and start to run.
“Fredericka!” he yells after me. I glance behind and see that he’s grabbed Bethany. I stop.
Her eyes are wide with fright. Kim runs away, hopefully to get help.
“Come here, Fredericka,” he says.
Like a pull toy on a string, I go.
“You don’t want to see anything happen to your friend, do you?” he asks.
“Let her go,” I say, trying to sound regal and commanding like Mam. My voice comes out in a pathetic squeak instead.
“I will let her go as soon as you agree to come with me.”
If I go with him, he will have power over me again. He will use me as bait to get Pap to abdicate. The whole future of the kingdom will be in jeopardy. Not to mention my life, since he’s threatened to kill me tomorrow if Pap doesn’t abdicate. If I go with him, there is no good outcome for me at all. None.
But if I don’t go, what will he do to Bethany? She has nothing to do with any of this. She does not deserve to be caught in the middle of it. She might not like me because I’m not the underdog—though in this particular situation I don’t think I could get more underdog-ish—but no matter what I do, I lose.
I lose, yes. But not Bethany. A princess does not let others suffer on her behalf. That was another lesson taught by my grandmother.
“I’ll go with you,” I say. “Let her go.”
He drops Bethany, shoving her away from him, and grabs me. I don’t struggle. What’s the point? If I escape here, he’ll just grab Bethany again. He shoves me in the car and takes off again.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask. He’s got to know I’m thinking it; we might as well just get it out there.
“My, you are direct.” He pretends to think about it for a moment. “If you prove to be no longer useful to me, then yes, probably.” He grins at me; it is not a friendly grin. “I can be direct, too.”
“Well, I don’t think I’m going to be particularly useful to you, so you might as well kill me now,” I say with a resigned sigh. I will not be a pawn to deceive my family or my country. Instead I will go down in the history books like the Romanov Sisters, as someone who died in a revolution.
I’d rather not, but if that’s the way things have to be, I can be brave. Hopefully. For as long as it takes.
“Feisty Fritzi indeed,” he says with a chuckle.
I don’t think my imminent death is a topic for amusement.
“No, I think you can be useful to us,” he says.
“I don’t want to be useful to you,” I say.
“I’ve gotten that impression.”
We ride in silence for awhile. I don’t know where we are going. We seem to be getting farther and farther from town and anything remotely familiar.
I don’t want to die for the nobler cause. Perhaps I was too hasty when I said I wouldn’t work with him. Maybe I can be forgiven for trying to save myself. It’s not unreasonable to want to live until I can at least say I’m officially a teenager.
“There’s no reason to be concerned,” Felix says after probably a half hour of silence. “No one really wants to see you hurt. You have nothing to fear.”
I don’t feel particularly comforted by that.
We come to another town, and Felix pulls the car into an underground parking garage. Is this the end? In the movies, nothing good ever happens in a parking garage. If he is going to kill me, I hope it can be outside so my last view can be of something beautiful.
Felix pulls me from the car and drags me toward an elevator.
So maybe I won’t die in the garage.
My blood starts to warm a little. Maybe I won’t die at all.
Because, really, I’d rather not.
He drags me up a very industrial staircase to a slightly less industrial hallway. We seem to be in an office building, but no one is around. Maybe it’s a closed office building. I’m not sure this is much better than a parking garage, to be honest.
He opens a door marked Suite 103, and we go in. There’s a standard-issue waiting room with semi-comfortable looking chairs and side tables with magazines on them. We don’t stop in the waiting room though. He unlocks a door to the left and opens it. My whole body is shaking, and I don’t know what to expect next, but something tells me it’s not going to be good.
He reaches into my back pocket and extracts my phone. “You won’t be needing this,” he says and shoves me into the room.
Behind me, the door locks, and I find myself alone in an empty, windowless room.
Now what?