The Girl Who Made Them Pay Read online

  “Luc, that ain’t happening.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re seventeen and I’m almost nineteen.”

  “So?”

  “You’re underage, aren’t you?”

  “That’s age discrimination.”

  “It’s illegal.”

  “You Americans are so stuck up.”

  It was Tetyana who said Germany was the best place to lie low. As far as Katy, Win, and I were concerned, we just wanted to get as far from Brussels and London as possible. Luc had suggested a long drive down to Sicily, where he had “good colleagues,” but Tetyana ruled it out firmly, saying we didn’t need to meet any more “Freds.”

  I looked down at the map, trying to learn this new world we were in.

  To the west of us was the rest of Belgium. To the north were the flat lands of the Netherlands. To the south were France and Luxembourg. And to the east was Germany, where we’d be within minutes. The map, however, stopped at the border.

  I unfolded the bottom half. If Belgium was shaped like a foot, Luxembourg was its big toe. It was a tiny country nestled between Germany, France, and Belgium. Luxembourg...why is that name so familiar? Then, I remembered.

  I reached into my jacket pocket and felt Chef Pierre’s magazine still tucked inside. I was surprised it hadn’t fallen off. I pulled it out and flipped to the centerfold with the picture of the castle in the Luxembourgian hills. That was where Chef Pierre and the Diplomatic Dragon Lady would be this weekend. I looked at her photo, wondering how in the world someone like me even got to meet her.

  It was the Dragon Lady who’d singled me out from my more experienced competitors back in Toronto. She hadn’t judged me by how I dressed, what I looked like or even by my experience. She’d only judged me by my work and handed me the most amazing catering contract in the country.

  She’d been demanding, but fair. Plus, she’d passed my name to everyone else, so half the diplomatic community in town called me for their parties. While the recent, and more urgent, events had been occupying my brain, I couldn’t ignore the guilt of running away without letting her or her team know, and just before an important charity ball at that. The Diplomatic Dragon Lady had probably fired me. In absentia.

  “Hey, Luc? What do you know about Luxembourg?”

  “Filled with snooty rich people.”

  “What about Germany? Even been there before?”

  “Only once, to make a delivery.”

  “Has Tetyana been to Germany?”

  “Don’t think so. She spent a lot of time in Bucharest and Graz before heading off to London, when she was running away.”

  “Why was she running away?”

  Luc was silent for a long minute. “You’re gonna have to ask her yourself,” he said, finally.

  I pulled my attention back to the map, wishing we had a proper GPS instead. But Katy’s phone and mine were tucked in our bags back in London. Win never had a personal phone in her life. Tetyana had one, but as soon as the video was uploaded online, she flushed the SIM card down the toilet and threw the phone out of the van into a giant wheat field, somewhere between Bierbeek and Hoegaarden.

  “Would be much easier if I had a phone,” I said out loud. “This map’s so hard to read and there’s nothing after Aachen.”

  “You can use mine,” Luc said, digging into his pant pocket and slipping a shiny mobile between the front seats.

  “You brought your phone?” I said, taking it. “Didn’t Tetyana—”

  “Shh. She’s a bit paranoid. Thinks the whole world’s out to get her. Besides, it’s shut off.”

  “But if I turn it on, the police will know where we are, right?”

  “It’s brand new. Got it only a couple of days ago in London. It’s not even out officially. Besides, no one has my number.”

  “Are you sure?” I said, staring at the bright Apple logo.

  “Turn it on. It’s got the coolest apps, you’ll see.”

  “But does it have GPS?”

  “Have you been living in a cave all these years?” Luc sounded insulted.

  I switched the phone on. It rang as soon as I did.

  I dropped it, startled.

  The phone tumbled from my lap, bounced off my foot and landed with a dull thud on the floor.

  “Allo!”

  I froze. Somehow, the call feature had turned on.

  “Allo, Monsieur Luc?”

  Oh, my god. That’s Fred.

  “Merde!” I heard Luc swear up in front.

  “What’s going on?” It was Tetyana, waking up from the commotion.

  I bent down and picked up the phone with two fingers, feeling like I was touching a live bomb. I clicked on the red phone icon, cutting Fred off in mid-sentence. Holding down the main on/off button, I switched it off for good.

  “Shit!” Luc said, banging his palm on the steering wheel. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “What the hell?” Tetyana had turned around and was looking wide-eyed at the phone in my hand.

  I gave her a guilty look.

  Next to me, Win and Katy stirred awake.

  “Stop the damn car!” Tetyana shouted.

  “What’s going on?” A sleepy Katy asked.

  Luc pulled over to the shoulder, looking a little shaken. I glanced behind to see if anyone had been following us, but only one car zoomed by, not giving us a second glance.

  “Who still has a phone?” Tetyana demanded. “Hand them over. Now!”

  I passed her Luc’s phone.

  “Any more?” she snapped.

  Katy and I looked at each other and shook our heads.

  “Left mine in London,” I said.

  “Me too,” Katy said. “Somewhere in the airport.”

  “Luc.” Tetyana glared at him so hard, I could see daggers come out of her eyes. “You know better than this.”

  Luc put his face in his hands.

  Tetyana opened the door and jumped out. We watched as she bent down in front of the van. Within seconds, she was back.

  “Go forward,” she commanded Luc. “Real slow.”

  Luc followed instructions.

  She nodded. “Now, reverse.”

  The crunch was unmistakable.

  “Again,” she said. Luc complied.

  Tetyana jumped out, picked up the broken pieces and flung them toward the empty field next to the road. She got back in and slammed the door shut, her face grim.

  “They can trace you even when it’s off.” Her voice was controlled, but her face was a ball of fury.

  No one spoke.

  I peered through the windshield and saw the large green highway sign that announced Germany was only five kilometers ahead of us.

  We’re almost there.

  “They know where we’re going,” Tetyana said. “They’re going to call their goons as soon as we cross that border.”

  “Sorry,” Luc choked, finally finding his voice. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  “What’s done is done,” Tetyana said with a huge sigh. “We’ve got to find a new route now.”

  “Do you want me to turn back?” Luc asked meekly.

  “I don’t wanna go back to Brussels,” Katy spoke up, a note of panic in her voice.

  “Me neither,” Win piped up.

  “Same here,” I said.

  “We can try Germany through the southern border,” Tetyana said thoughtfully.

  “Why don’t we go to Luxembourg instead?” I asked, tapping my map.

  “That’s a two-hour drive south,” Tetyana said.

  “Wouldn’t that still be better than driving into the hands of Fred’s goons? Or the police?”

  Luc looked at me via the mirror. “He’ll never guess we’re heading that way, that’s for sure.”

  Tetyana contemplated this silently, while I wondered if she’d had any run-ins in Luxembourg. She was a mystery to me, one I was too afraid to inquire about because of what I might uncover. The less I knew, the better, I thought.

  “Luc,” s
he said in a quiet voice.

  “Yes?” he replied timidly.

  “Luxembourg.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  We were driving into the land of fairy-tale princes and princesses.

  Thousand-year-old castle towers soared above the ancient city, dark ominous shapes against the twilight sky. Visions of Sleeping Beauty lulled into a never-ending sleep by a vengeful sorceress flashed across my mind. Surrounded by fortifications on top of a sheer rocky cliff, Luxembourg looked forbidding the moment I glimpsed it.

  We were ravenous and we needed to find a place to sleep for the night, but all we had was a total of fifty euros and seventy-three cents among us, remnants of the deposit from Fred.

  Without Vlad and Zero, Tetyana no longer had access to the money she’d saved from her work with them. They’d put it all in a Swiss bank account which could only be accessed with three passwords, one held by Vlad, one by Zero and the third by her. She shrugged as she told us, but I could see defeat in her eyes. “Should have known better than to deal with thugs,” she said in a flat voice.

  I gave Katy a discreet look. She was guarding our packet of cash with her life, and wouldn’t let anyone near it except me. We had no choice now but to dip into it.

  I was surprised how demure Tetyana was in her thanks when I told her we’d take care of the expenses. She didn’t even ask how much we had.

  I knew she had two guns on her, one tucked in her right boot and another somewhere under her shirt. She had a knack for carrying concealed items in the strangest of places. Luc and Win merely looked relieved we could finally eat and find a place to shower and sleep.

  A few minutes later, I was in line at a currency exchange booth with one thousand Canadian dollars of drug-tainted money in my purse. My palms were damp and my heart was beating faster than normal. I wondered if they’d hold the bills to the light, refuse to take them, call security, or even the police.

  Tetyana came with me, for “security,” she said, though I had a hard time imagining how we’d get away if they called the cops. A gun-fight wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  But things went better than I expected.

  The woman behind the counter handed over the euro notes in a matter of minutes. I picked up the money with shaking hands and walked out quickly, with Tetyana two inches behind me, like a trained bodyguard. I half expected someone in uniform to jump out and shout “freeze,” and I only started to breathe again once we got back in the van.

  We stopped at the nearest shopping center to find toilets, freshen up, and get new clothes to change into. Plus, some food before the stores closed for the night.

  Ever since she’d been kidnapped as a child, Win had been wearing hand-me-downs that had once belonged to an older prostitute. Or a dead one. She now walked through the H&M aisles as if in a dream, brushing her fingers on the clothes racks, not believing her eyes. This was no haute couture merchandise, but it might as well been for her.

  “I can get anything I want?” she whispered for the third time. I nodded, “Anything you want, sweetie.” I had enough money to buy ten rounds of tickets to Goa if I wanted, though it was in highly questionable cash. If a handful of new outfits made Win happy, it was perfectly fine with me.

  I noticed she avoided the faux leather skirts and bawdy tops like the plague and went for jeans and T-shirts like any regular teen. She was especially keen to cover up the tattoo on her thigh.

  The rest of us crowded into the couch near the fitting room and coaxed her out to show us her outfits. While Win seemed scared and shy, it was like watching her come alive. At that moment, as we sat shoulder to shoulder, cheering her on, it felt like our worries and paranoia had disappeared. It was like we were meant to be together, doing normal things like this.

  Katy turned on her full shopping mode after that.

  While the rest of us chose casual, comfortable gear, she picked a stack of party dresses. “You never know when you’ll need a proper black dress,” she said, pulling a petite off-the-shoulder piece from a rack. “Try it,” she urged, pulling me toward the fitting rooms. When I resisted, she turned and hissed, “this is therapy.” With a sigh, I followed her in. I was anxious about throwing our money on frivolous things, but she was right. We all needed to do something fun to take our minds off everything we’d gone through.

  When we were done with the clothes, Katy, without missing a beat, steered us to the shoe department. “We need new shoes,” she declared, as she marched in front of us.

  So we spent the next hour trying on new shoes—even Luc. Katy grabbed a red mid-heel that came with a fancy gold broach in front. To humor her, everyone tried on variations of red.

  In the end, Win fell in love with a pair of red kitten heels, I ended up with comfortable red wedges, and Tetyana got herself a pair of new red boots. Then Luc dug out a pair of red canvas shoes from the bargain bin. They looked so comfortable we all bought a pair each. “Good for walking,” Tetyana said. “And for running.” We didn’t know it then, but that was the smartest purchase we made that day.

  We walked over to a café to eat after that, our first full meal in days. It was nearing closing time and the bistro had run out of most dishes, so we ordered everything still available and stuffed ourselves like we’d never had a proper meal in our lives. Katy devoured her food like the rest of us and I noticed she didn’t even make her usual run to the bathroom afterward.

  Before we got back into the grimy van, we walked around to stretch our legs.

  We were in a high area of the city, at the edge of a steep cliff. From up here, we could see the city lights against the darkening skies. A placid river wound through the valley below us, looking like a silver velvet ribbon. A medieval church sat in this sunken gorge, serene and peaceful. Near the city’s fortress, a thousand-year-old black tower, remnants of an abandoned castle turret, jutted out. From afar, it looked like an ugly black tooth in a witch’s craggy mouth.

  “American Werewolf in Paris was shot right here,” Luc leaned over and whispered to me.

  “I can believe it,” I said. The stark hilly backdrop punctuated by the fortress was the perfect set location for a werewolf movie. The streets were almost empty now. I could easily imagine strange creatures soundlessly leaping among the frosty skyscrapers in the dead of the night.

  “So where do we sleep tonight?” Katy asked, looking at me.

  In the few hours since we’d run from Brussels, we’d each taken an unofficial role for the team. While Tetyana still kept a close eye on everything, she was clearly head of security, ready for anyone or anything that spelled trouble. Luc was our driver. He didn’t mind the long-distance hauls and had refused to give up his seat for the two-hour drive to Luxembourg. Katy, the professional bookkeeper from Toronto, was now guardian of our cash, a job she carried out like her life depended on it. We all knew Win’s whiz kid gifts now. And I, somehow, had morphed into a trip coordinator of sorts.

  “I booked a room at a youth hostel,” I replied. While Katy and Win had been busy at the purse department, I’d used a phone at the information center to reserve a room with two double bunk beds and a cot for Win.

  “Oh good, I need sleep badly,” Luc said, yawning.

  “So what do you think?” I asked Tetyana. “Safe to stay here for the night?”

  “Safe as anywhere,” she said quietly, surveying the area. “We can stay a few days till things get quiet. Might be good to stop running for a bit.”

  “Oh, good,” Katy said, her face relaxing. “I’d love to stay here. This is my first time in Europe. First time out of Toronto. First time on a plane.”

  “Nothing wrong with some sightseeing,” Tetyana said with a shrug.

  “Can we go see that?” Win asked, pointing at the magnificent castle towers nearby.

  “Me too. I’d love to visit it,” Katy said.

  “I wanna see the dungeons,” Luc said. “Saw them online. I always wanted to see them in real life.”

  “Whatever we do,” Tetyana sai
d in her low voice, “we’ve got to stick together. Don’t go off alone without telling me, okay?”

  In the last few hours, she had ditched her scowl and the scornful look she reserved for anyone who disagreed with her. It was a kinder, gentler Tetyana with us now.

  Everyone nodded.

  Win didn’t need to be told though. She latched on to us like glue like she was scared someone might snatch her if any of us were more than three feet away.

  The five of us stood silently in the growing darkness, watching the lights of this fairy-tale city, lost in our thoughts. I was among newfound friends and one old one. I tried not to think of the uncertainty of our future.

  A light breeze drifted by, ruffling our hair.

  This was probably the first time in a long time any of us had felt free. No one had to worry about being chased, kidnapped, raped, tossed around like a piece of furniture, or dragged off to be harmed by someone else. As for young Win, I imagined this was the first time in her entire short life she’d felt this way.

  Huddled in the middle of this raggedy group, I felt like I’d found home. Home. What a nice ring that word had.

  It dawned on me that home wasn’t a place I’d been yearning to find all my life. It wasn’t in Kenya, where I’d been born or Tanzania, where my parents lay buried. It wasn’t in India, where my one and only remaining relative lived. It wasn’t in Canada, where I grew into adulthood. It wasn’t in London, Brussels or Luxembourg, places I’d only known in passing. Home was where I was surrounded by friends, friends I knew would have my back, as I’d have theirs.

  “Hey,” Luc said, shattering the silence. “Did you know Dracula’s real name was Vlad?”

  I think he expected a laugh, but then he saw Win shiver. We all did.

  Tetyana spoke up. “I just realized what we left behind.” Her voice was subdued, introspective. “I just didn’t think it was going to get this bad. I didn’t think I was going to go this far.”

  “Me too,” Luc said, with a sigh. “Didn’t plan for this either.”

  “But you were only twelve when Zero found you. He tricked you.”

  Luc looked down at his feet. His face was scrunched up like he was ready to burst into tears or punch someone. Maybe both.