The Girl Who Made Them Pay Read online

  The back doors of the van screeched open. The wall of boxes didn’t let much light in, but I could smell the fresh air from outside. I wanted nothing more than to take a deep, long breath in, but I didn’t dare. The men were only a few feet away.

  Someone was pulling out the boxes. I strained to listen with one hand tightly holding onto Luc’s and the other clutching Tetyana’s arm.

  Someone was now opening the boxes up, inspecting them or taking something out, then closing them up again and throwing them back into the van. They were looking for something.

  “This mine?” the officious voice asked.

  “No sir, this for Belgium,” I heard Zero say. He sounded confident, not the voice of an anxious man running away from the murder of a cop and trafficking five of us across borders.

  “Where’s mine?” asked the unknown man’s voice.

  “Here, right here, sir.”

  Another box was pulled out and cut open. More rustling of newspaper.

  “Moroccan tea, sir. Very good for your heart,” Zero said.

  Vlad guffawed.

  In the back of the van, Tetyana had spread her arms out, as if to keep us all back, to protect us. We sat quietly, just as we did at the warehouse a couple of hours ago.

  “This also is for you, sir,” Zero said. A box slid off the truck and was ripped open. “Especially for you.”

  A satisfied grunt from the officer.

  “This is real?”

  “Yes, sir. Always. We only work with real stuff.”

  More grunts. Silence from Vlad and Zero.

  A car buzzed by, but other than that, it was quiet.

  I tried to imagine the highways from London to Belgium. I knew Belgium was north of France, across the channel from England. How did we get here? How many countries have we crossed? Where are we? I regretted not paying more attention in my geography class.

  “Ça va.” The officer sounded satisfied. "You can put these in my car."

  I heard a grunt from Vlad, and the sound of boxes being pulled out of the van one by one and taken away. It took them several trips. I wasn’t sure how many boxes they took from the back, but our wall remained intact.

  “Merci,” the man’s voice said. “Bon journée.” He sounded uncharacteristically friendly after all that commandeering.

  The doors screeched shut again. The men got back into the van, slammed the front doors and started the engine.

  “Ten thousand euro protection fee,” I heard Luc say next to me. “Works every time.”

  Something bitter came to my throat.

  Part FOUR

  If they hadn’t tried to break me down, I wouldn’t have known I’m unbreakable.

  Gabourey Sidibe

  Chapter Twenty-three

  It was early in the morning when we arrived at our destination.

  After the first pit stop at the warehouse and the second one at the pseudo-checkpoint, the van stopped at four more places along the way. And Katy and I had gotten over the indignity of peeing in a bottle.

  Sometimes, the van stopped for ten minutes, other times for an hour. Every time the van parked somewhere, I'd wondered if something nasty was going to happen. And every time I heard footsteps walk away from us and not return for a while, I'd wondered if they’d abandoned us to die, cramped behind this wall of boxes.

  I wanted nothing more than to break through and run out, but Luc said it would be a waste of energy. “That’s bulletproof glass and the doors can only open from the outside,” he’d said shaking his head. “Trust me.”

  If Tetyana hadn't kept track of time and reminded us to breathe, I'd have gone stark raving mad.

  When the doors of the van finally opened eight hours after our departure, we stumbled out like zombies. And I was back in Bibi’s black robe.

  The van was parked in a back alley next to a nondescript house with graffiti on its cracked walls and iron bars across its windows. It was a shabby, narrow three-story structure, one of those traditional European row houses that are taller than they are wide. This house looked like it had been built centuries ago and not been taken care of since, just like the one we’d left behind in London.

  But we didn’t have time to take in the fresh air or our surroundings. Vlad and Zero were grouchier than ever. They made us line up and move the remaining boxes into the house, one by one, while they watched with guns in their hands and dark frowns on their faces.

  Once we were done, Vlad ordered us all inside. I was cold, hungry and afraid, but all I could think was, At least we're alive.

  The inside of this house had the same peeling paint and musty smell as the previous place. Exposed electric wires hung from the ceiling. Someone had either taken out or stolen the light fixtures. One spot on the kitchen wall looked like someone had gone berserk on it with a carving knife. The dark maroon splatter was ominous. Luc examined it and nodded. “Dried blood,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  The only drinking water here trickled out of the kitchen tap. The remaining taps in the house drizzled a disgusting brown liquid we suspected was water, but couldn’t say for sure.

  Vlad ordered Katy, Win and I into a room on the second floor.

  It held a simple desk and one bed, which occupied most of the space. A small bathroom was right outside this room. He pointed Tetyana and Luc to the room next to us, large enough to fit a bunk bed. Zero took the entire third floor of the house while Vlad took over the first floor where the living room was. He slept on the couch with his gun by his side, to “make sure no one get out,” he said with an ugly curl of his lips.

  We woke up the next morning to a surprise.

  The police were everywhere, patrolling the streets with sniffer dogs, looking inside every parked car and watching every doorway. Five police vans were parked on the street right across from the house we were in. Luc was sure they were raiding the brothels in the neighborhood. Tetyana wondered if a sting operation was happening across Europe, especially since a police officer had been shot dead in a red-light district. A trigger to finally take action, she said with a wry look on her face.

  Zero and Vlad were all nerves. This meant they had us on lockdown. No one was allowed out and no one was allowed in. And no one was allowed to make noise, except for when one of the men went on a rampage. While both men slept through most of the first day, worn out from the long drive, we remained alert, knowing our lives were at the mercy of their moods.

  That first day, while the men were asleep, we spent most of our time trying to figure out how to escape this sick place. We quietly tried all the doors and windows, but nothing would budge open.

  All we’d done was move from a prostitution house in London to another one very much like it in Brussels. It even smelled the same here, that stale, unwashed smell like the old house in South Hill Square.

  Our most immediate problem was food. I’d hoped the boxes in the van contained something edible, but they were loosely packed with cheap clothing, T-shirts, pants, and skirts. That was one reason none of us got badly hurt when the boxes came tumbling down on us in the van. It was only later I learned that Zero and Vlad had hidden contraband cash wrapped inside the clothing—currency at rogue checkpoints.

  The men found four bottles of evil-smelling alcohol in one box. They then bullied Luc into handing over a packet of his white stuff which he’d hidden in his jacket pocket.

  By the end of the first day, Vlad and Zero had drunk up all the booze and sniffed part of Luc's stuff. Whatever it was, it was potent. Sharing a small house with two drugged-out, gun-toting nervous gangsters wasn’t what I’d planned when I’d fled India, or when Katy and I had escaped from Toronto. We were now further off our original track than ever before.

  The five of us huddled in our room after pushing the heavy desk against the door so neither man could come barging in. They seemed too preoccupied with what was going on outside to bother us, anyway. For the moment, at least.

  We remained barricaded in our room until the second evening when Win swore
she was ready to starve to death. Then, Katy said she was going to die of an exploding bladder. No one wanted to risk going outside the room. But we had to do something.

  Very early the next morning, Tetyana and I opened the bedroom door and sneaked out, leaving Luc, Katy and Win behind. We had to take our chances with Zero and Vlad.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Slam!

  I ducked just in time, almost tripping on my robe.

  I’d been scavenging for food in the kitchen. It was very early in the morning and I’d thought the men were still asleep. But I was wrong.

  The kitchen door crashed open and a crack-filled raging bull roared in. The hair on the back of my neck sprang up. I spun around to see Zero’s flushed face. His bulging red eyes looked like they were about to explode. He stomped toward me with his gun in one hand. He pushed his face three inches from mine and snarled.

  “You useless piece of nothing!”

  I turned my face away, but the stench of stale saliva marinated in drugs and alcohol was too strong. I tried not to gag.

  Zero didn’t believe in selling the stuff Luc sold, but he made a regular habit of snorting it. I was learning quickly what an unstable and walking contradiction he was. And when he was high, he became as dangerous as a stampeding rhino I’d once seen on safari.

  I peered through the eye slit of my veil, my eyes darting across the room, looking for an escape. But I was trapped. Trapped between a hungry, boozed-up, drugged-out thug and the kitchen sink.

  “Do your job, you stupid, lazy girl! Why you not make food for me?” His voice was a slur. His spit rocketed out and landed on the veil. I cringed in disgust, thankful for Bibi’s robe.

  I’d done a good job being Bibi so far, but there had been close calls. In the van coming over, Tetyana had said I’d be okay as long as I kept my mouth shut. Bibi supposedly didn’t talk to men, any men. She cowered in the presence of males, a mute puppet who bent to their whims. I was glad I was impersonating a woman as voiceless as a street pole. This shouldn’t be difficult to do, or so I’d thought then.

  “Answer me, you idiot! Are you stupid and deaf?"

  Zero swayed unsteadily to one side, then to the next. I wondered if he would crash and fall anytime now. My mind raced to think of a way out without giving myself away.

  He jabbed a thick brown finger under my nose. “Remember, I own you! Your older brother. Respectable brother!” He drew back and gave me a disgusted look like I was a pile of rubbish.

  Respectable?

  “Should have burn you alive.” He glared at me with those angry eyes. “Or sell you to gang master in London. Maybe I thrash you to death now!” He threw his gun down on the table and raised his hand.

  I ducked. He missed and hit the countertop instead.

  “Arrrgh!” He drew his hand back in pain.

  I shuddered under the robe. There was no place to run. I stood silently, my heart pounding, watching, waiting to duck another incoming fist.

  I remembered how mercilessly he kicked Win in London, and I couldn’t get the image of that bloodied girl in the yellow blouse out of my mind. The self-defense classes I took at my international schools were like child’s play now. I was no match against raging fists and deadly weapons.

  He was frothing now. “You can’t cook for me. You can’t feed your own brother, but you can run in night like stupid female goat in heat. You shame me!”

  What a madman.

  I wondered how much of the white stuff he’d inhaled. I spread my arms innocently, shrugging as visibly as I could. I hoped that was a gesture Bibi did, that it would placate him somehow.

  “You talking back to me?" His eyes looked like they were about to spurt blood.

  Talk back?

  “You whore!” His roar blew back my face veil. “That what! I saw you without niqab.”

  My blood froze. Oh my god, he knows I’m not Bibi. I looked away. Inside the robe, I was shaking like a leaf. What do I do? If I make a run for it, where do I run?

  “I saw you talk to dat boy!” Zero’s eyes were glowering. “You ruin my family’s name again? That’s it, ha?”

  Ruin family’s name?

  My mind cleared. I understood now.

  Win had woken up at three in the morning the night before, sick to her stomach. She’d woken up shaking and gagging and had wanted to use the bathroom. She had been in such a bad state, I hadn’t had time to think. I’d jumped out of bed, moved the desk enough to squeeze through, and tiptoed with her to the bathroom outside, leaving Bibi’s robe at the foot of the bed. A careless move.

  As I’d waited for Win outside the bathroom, I’d seen Tetyana and Luc’s door crack open. It was Luc coming out to see what was going on. He’d walked over, helped me clean the bathroom and take Win back to her bed. I hadn’t thought anyone else had been up at that time.

  “You dishonor me and my father!” Zero raised an index finger to the sky as if calling his gods. “My father, may he rest his soul, is turning in grave to have stupid daughter like you!”

  Underneath the robe, I was trying to stay sane.

  How is having an innocent chat with someone from the opposite sex worse than dealing in drugs, running a brothel, threatening to kill, kidnapping, murdering and inciting a man to rape his own sister? And doesn’t he know what his sister looks like? Or was he too drugged last night to see clearly?

  I straightened up. If he thinks I’m going to sit here and get beaten up, he’s wrong. I'm gonna fight, I told myself. I’m gonna fight like a tiger, claws, teeth, and all. I glared at the man in front of me.

  “If he here now, he twist your neck in half!” Zero loomed over me. “Maybe it's time I did Father duty and get honor back to family.”

  I glanced at the table that was at arm’s reach from me. On it sat Zero’s gun, glinting under the pale kitchen light. A few inches to the side and I’d be able to touch it. I lifted my arm slowly, so he wouldn’t notice.

  Bibi’s robe felt heavier than leather sheeting and my whole body had broken into a sweat. But I hadn’t forgotten all my self-defense lessons yet.

  Zero opened his mouth to yell something about his father and god again when I raised my knee and slammed him, aiming right between his legs.

  “Aaargh!” He doubled over screeching, more from shock than pain, I was sure. But I didn’t wait to find out. I ducked around him and snagged the gun.

  Zero straightened up and tried to grab me. “Get here, you slut!”

  I pointed the gun at him with shaking hands.

  He gave me a wild look. “What the hell you do? Give dat or I thrash you to pieces!”

  I don’t know what overcame me, but I felt a surge of electric strength travel from the hand that held the gun to my spine. I whipped the gun up, so it pointed directly at his face and took a confident step forward. Through that slit in the veil, I gave him a dark look.

  His face went white.

  That jelly feeling in my legs had disappeared and was being replaced by rage—rage from knowing what he had done to Bibi, from remembering how he had kidnapped Katy, how he had kicked Win, and how he had directed those soul-less men to torture and kill that young girl in the warehouse.

  It all flashed across my mind like a fast-tracked video. I felt adrenaline course through me. My feet felt solid on the floor, my back strong and my arms tight. I peered through my slit to give him a penetrating look. The gun was steady in my hands. I was ready for blood.

  “Are you possessed, woman?” Zero’s eyes bulged. “Why you do this? I’m your brother.” His voice faltered.

  I took another step forward and with a quick flick of my wrist, cracked the gun against his nose.

  Zero jumped back, cradling his nose, his face ashen. Now, he was the one stuck between an angry woman and the kitchen sink. How ironic. I hadn’t even touched the trigger. I didn’t even know where the trigger was, but that was enough for him. He threw up his arms.

  “Aiiiee!” he cried.

  I cracked the gun across his fac
e again.

  “Stop! God willing!”

  His eyes glistened with water. His chest heaved and he started simpering in fear, unable to hold my gaze.

  Guess it’s hard to look at people you abuse, right?

  I held my stance for a few seconds and thrust the gun right into Zero’s pot belly. This time, I found the trigger. He whimpered. I jabbed again, deeper into his stomach cushion. He wheezed like a sick water buffalo, sweat streaming down his face.

  Bullies are the biggest cowards, I thought.

  I didn’t want an easy death for this man. I wanted him to feel the pain of all the people he’d hurt over his lifetime.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  I snapped my head around.

  That momentary distraction cost me. In a flash, Zero turned around and fled the kitchen.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Ash...I mean, Bibi!”

  I spun around. It was Tetyana. Her cheeks were pink and she was panting.

  “What the hell is goin...” Her eyes widened when she saw the gun in my hands. “How did you manage to get that?”

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “There's a basement in the house,” she said, in a low voice. “There’s got to be a doorway out. Probably to a sewer, maybe an underground tunnel. There’s a maze under Brussels, just like Kiev.” She turned to leave. “Let’s get everyone. And bring that gun.”

  “Stop that!”

  The cry startled us, stopping us in our tracks.

  “Help me!"

  Oh my god. That’s Katy.

  Lifting up the robe, I rushed out of the kitchen with Tetyana at my heels.

  A door slammed upstairs.

  “Help!”

  This time her voice was muffled. I ran up to the second landing, holding my gun in front, trying not to trip on the robe.

  “Hey!” A shadow sprang aside.

  “Luc?” I said, adjusting the eye slits to see better.

  “What are you doing with that thing?” His eyes, wide with terror, were on the gun. I lowered the weapon.