She watched the event play out in Ruth’s mind, feeling as though perhaps she had seen it before as Irene experienced with most anything concerning the young woman. Blindfold had acted, she felt, in the best possible way. Nobly, even, to take the burden of guilt in knowing that by saving one person, you condemned another. No peace to be found there. “I like the way those words sound out loud.” Irene remarked of the saying. She marveled again for a moment over her companions ability to endure.
Irene envied Ruth’s ability to accept things that she couldn’t change. She couldn’t help but rage and rant and rave about what Vogel had done, first refusing to accept being a hostage and now refusing to believe being free. She was under the distinct impression, as absurd as she knew it to be, that she would turn a corner and simply be plucked off of her feet again. Illogical as it was, she refused to buy juice or bread at a grocery store for fear of recreating the events. Neither she nor her savior could endure another fifteen years, so she followed these irrational rules in order to avoid capture by a man she knew to be dead. “Maybe I’m going out of my mind…” she murmured, flicking her thumb anxiously against the back of Ruth’s hand.
It would explain a lot. Especially the dreams. “Who can we save?” she asked, half knowing the answer as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Rather, who could be moved out of harm’s way for a while longer? Warn someone of this, only to send them to that. Warn them of that merely to send them right back to this again. What to do, what to do? It was enough to get a person anxious.