by Tikiri
When Tetyana came out, she’d dumped her red kimono for jeans and a T-shirt, and was carrying two knapsacks. She motioned to us to follow her down. We walked in single file, Tetyana up front, then Katy and myself at the back of the line.
There was a crowd huddled in the little kitchen now. Luc was there with four other girls I hadn’t seen before, none older than sixteen, all anorexic-skinny and in varying stages of dress and makeup. One of them was smoking, her fingers trembling as she held the cigarette against her bright orange lips. There was a murmur of hushed, scared voices, but not one looked up as we walked in. A few glanced curiously at Katy, but they seemed mostly consumed with their own safety.
Tetyana marched straight to the back door of the kitchen, yanked it open and looked out. An Arctic wind streamed inside. Katy and the others pulled their shirts or jackets around them and huddled even closer. Even I felt a cold draft under Bibi’s black robe.
“Everyone out,” Tetyana said. One by one, the girls stepped outside, unsteadily, warily.
I was the last one out. I stepped out of the house and surveyed the scene. We were in a back alley, behind the square. Nearby were two white cargo vans, parked and ready, their engines running.
It was raining outside now, the kind of rain that comes sideways and drenches you no matter how much you try to take cover. Though it was still late afternoon, the skies were dark, as if they knew what evil was going on below. The girls started to climb into the back of the first van, one by one. While I waited near the doorway for instructions from Tetyana, something in my brain began to whir. I tapped Katy on her shoulder.
“Hey,” I said in a low voice. “Let’s make a run for it.” She didn’t move.
“Now!” I whispered as loudly as I dared. “Now, Katy!”
“Bibi!” someone barked. I felt something hard press against my back. I swirled around.
It was Zero scowling at me. He had a gun in his right hand and a small laptop cradled in his left hand. The gun was pointing right at me.
“Bibi!” Tetyana snapped at me. “Time to go! Come! Get in the van now!”
Zero motioned the gun toward the van, and like a zombie, Katy walked toward the vehicle. Tetyana and Luc climbed into the back of the van and leaned out to help her in.
I stayed where I was. Do I make a run for it? Call the police? Will Zero shoot me? Will he shoot Katy after that? Everyone was in the van now, waiting for me. I looked at Katy, at her tearstained, terrified face. She pulled her jacket around her shoulders as if to hug herself. I can’t leave her now. Whatever happens, I can’t leave her here. I stumbled toward the van and gripped the steel handle to pull myself up, without tripping on my robe.
Inside, the van was bare. There were no seats, no benches, just bare floor. Separating the driver’s seat up front and where everyone was sitting was a long black panel of steel. Tetyana had pulled out scratchy army blankets from somewhere and was spreading them out in the back. Luc was arranging the bags in a corner.
That reminded me. Katy’s suitcase was still at the airport, probably picked up by security now, and my own backpack was lying outside the window on the street, just around the corner from here. Thank god I’ve got my passport on me. I wondered about Katy’s, but this was not the time to ask.
Luc and Tetyana’s speed and efficiency at arranging things gave me a dismal feeling they’d done this before. They pointed to where Katy and I should sit. I hunkered across the floor from Katy and waited for what was to happen next.
Tetyana reached over. I thought she was going to say something, so I leaned in. Instead of a whisper, I felt a prick on my arm. “Hey, what’re you doing?” I tried to pull away, but Tetyana was strong. I didn’t struggle for long because my mind went fuzzy. What’s wrong with me? I closed my eyes to stop the nausea, took a few deep breaths and leaned back.
Around me, I heard vague noises of people shuffling, men’s gruff voices. Someone or something big and heavy was being put into the van, next to me. Then someone jumped out of the van, making it bounce up and down. I felt even more nauseous. What’s going on? Why do I feel so sick?
In the distance came the sound of a police siren, an ear-splitting alarm I wished would stop. My head hurt as if it was being squeezed in a vice. Then, the van’s doors slammed shut, plunging us into darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
My eyes opened to darkness.
It was pitch black inside, except for a yellow light that streaked across the floor every few seconds and just as quickly faded away.
It took me several seconds to get my bearings. I was moving. I was in the back of a car. No, I was on the floor of a van, a van with no seats. I stared into the dark space around me and saw only vague shapes. Silent gray shadows, looking like ghosts that had lost their edges. There were five, no, four of them. Who’re they?
I reached down and felt around me. I was sitting on something cold and hard—a sheet of steel. I leaned back to stop the nausea. My head throbbed and I felt sore and weak, like I was recovering from a fever. I took a deep breath and swallowed hard, trying to keep down whatever wanted to come up.
Where am I? Where am I going?
I looked up as the light fell across the van once again. Up above us was a narrow slit of a window. Every time we passed a streetlight, the inside of the van lit up for a half a second. I waited for the next light.
That was when I saw her. A woman crouched across from me, her head between her knees, her curly red hair cascading to the ground.
“Katy!” I said, sitting up. “Katy? Is that you?”
“Shhh,” someone said from a dark corner.
The redhead barely looked up, but I saw a twitch of her foot. I peered through the darkness.
I waited for the next streetlight. A girl was lying on the floor of the van, her head resting on the lap of a third woman. Who are these people? I waited for the light again. I recognized the girl’s short black hair falling across her pale forehead.
“Win!” I called out.
“Shhh. Keep your voice down,” the woman holding her said. It was a familiar rough voice. Tetyana?
“Who are you?”
Silence.
“Where are we?”
“On the road.”
The girl stirred awake. “Hey,” she said in a weak voice.
“Hi, hun,” the second woman said, stroking the girl’s hair.
“Are we moving again?” the girl asked softly.
“Yes, hun.”
The girl looked around. She seemed more alert than I was. I had a hard time focusing.
“Where’s Bibi?” she asked.
Bibi. That rang a bell.
“She stayed back,” the woman replied.
“Is she going to be okay?” That was a young man’s voice.
Silence.
I rubbed my forehead. My headache was bad. A distant dream was playing in the back of my mind, telling me I had to get somewhere urgently, a place I was supposed go with Katy. I shook my head to clear the fog, but it felt like my mind was filled with mud. I squeezed my temples, but that only made things worse. My throat was parched and my stomach ached. I hadn’t eaten for days. A vague memory of a cup of bitter black espresso at a seedy hookah bar crossed my mind.
The vehicle hit a pothole, throwing me up in the air a few inches. I landed back down hard. Ouch! I steadied myself and leaned against the wall of the van, wincing from the pain. I put my head, now throbbing like it was about to explode, into my hands. But that jolt helped clear my mind. I remembered everything.
The van changed gears. It was slowing down. I craned my neck to see through the high window, but all I could make out was darkness.
“Get everyone ready.” I was sure it was Tetyana this time. Her voice was low, signaling danger.
Peering in the direction of the voice, I saw her now sitting with Win’s head on her lap. Tetyana was trying to get everyone to move to my side of the van. She said something to Katy, then helped Win sit up. Win moaned, but moved over.
/>
“Hey.”
I looked to my right. It was Luc. His bright blue eyes were only five inches from mine.
“Put this on now,” he whispered, shoving something on my lap—something big, black and billowy. I looked down. It was Bibi’s robe. I pushed it away. I had taken it off a few minutes into our ride, as it had made me feel claustrophobic.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No way. I feel sick with that thing.”
“Zut! You don’t have a choice,” Luc said. “Put it on.”
I looked around with groggy eyes. The van was traveling slowly now in what seemed like a dimly lit tunnel. A steady light came in from outside, enough to see the inside of the van. Next to me, Katy was leaning back, eyes closed. Is she asleep? Is she okay? Win was leaning against her. Tetyana was busily building a fortress right down the middle of the van using the bags. What’s she up to?
I pushed the robe away.
“Keep that thing away from me.”
Luc shoved it back on my lap.
“We don’t have a lot of time.” He glared at me.
“First tell me where we are.” I said, glaring back.
“Do it!” Tetyana hissed at me, without even looking up from her task. “They will open the doors soon.”
“Who?” I demanded. “Tell me what’s going on!”
Luc shot Tetyana an exasperated look.
“Gave a double dose for the Americans,” Tetyana said to him, rolling her eyes. “Too much trouble, as you can see.”
“Double dose of what?” I asked. Just then, the van stopped and something or someone scraped against the back doors.
“Are you trying to get us shot?” Tetyana asked me. For once, she looked rattled. That was not a good sign.
I reached for the robe. With Luc’s help, I pulled the dreaded cloth over my head and adjusted the eye slit. My movements were sluggish, like I was wading through a muddy pool.
“Where’s your passport?” I looked through the eye slits to see Tetyana still looking my way.
“My what?” I said.
“Your passport,” Tetyana whispered. “They don’t know you’re you. Give it to Luc.”
“No way!”
But Luc had already slipped his hand under the robe and was starting to root around.
“Stop it!” I hissed, slapping at his hands. “What’re you doing, you creep?”
“Passport,” he whispered urgently. “Give it to me.”
“Leave me alone,” I said, but his hand was now in my jacket pocket. He pulled out my recipe booklet and my passport. He handed the recipe book back after a cursory glance and opened my passport.
“Asha,” he read.
I glared at him in reply.
“Indian?” he said, with a startled look on his face. “Thought you were American.”
“Give that back,” I said reaching for the booklet. But he pocketed it before I could grab it.
“Hey!” I yelled.
“Shhh.” Tetyana took her place next to me. “No talking. It’s dangerous.”
Luc squeezed in on my other side.
I tucked my recipe booklet back in my jacket pocket and zipped it close. This little book was as precious as my passport to me, maybe even more. On its pages were my favorite recipes from my mother. Tucked between those pages was also the letter Preeti had sent me a year ago explaining what really happened after I left Goa. With it was also the thank you note from my most important client back at the bakery in Toronto. I kept the letter from the Diplomatic Dragon Lady because it was a testament to my first baking gig, and because for the first time in my life, someone had taken me seriously.
We were now sitting with our backs to the front of the van, behind Tetyana’s two-foot-tall fort construction. I wondered how this flimsy wall of bags could stop anyone from shooting at us. Our heads were exposed. They’d get us easily.
“Down,” Tetyana said. I felt Luc’s hand on my head, pushing me down.
“What’s going—”
“Shush.” Luc said, pushing my head down.
The van rocked back and forth as if people were getting out. Doors slammed. Men yelled. I waited for whatever was to come. Everyone inside the van was breathing loud, fast, chest-heaving breaths, even Tetyana. I concentrated on trying not to throw up inside the robe.
The back doors screeched open and we were blinded by a bright white light. I blinked, the screeching still ringing in my ears. The wall of bags was not high enough to hide us from them, or hide them from us. Even from my crouched position, I could see the two strange men in khaki overalls prop the doors open. Without even a glance at us, they step away. They surely saw us, didn’t they?
I lifted my head slightly. From what I could see through the robe’s eye slit, we were inside a warehouse. Or a hangar.
My eyes wandered around the warehouse. Nearby were almost half a dozen white vans just like ours parked haphazardly. The two men in khaki overalls were packing brown boxes into one of them. It could have been a scene from any warehouse, except for a beefy man standing in the shadows of a parked truck. On his face was a balaclava mask and in his arms, a machine gun. It made the handguns I’d seen so far look like toys. I felt a chill go through my spine.
I watched silently as the men worked methodically and rapidly, packing each van one by one. Then, a man I recognized came into view. It was Zero, smoking and talking in quiet tones to another unknown man.
Suddenly, a scream rocketed through the warehouse. “Nooo! Aiiiii!” The van rocked as everyone startled at once. I craned my neck to look outside but couldn’t see a thing. The shrieking started again. It was a woman’s voice, desperate and frightened, and it wasn’t too far from us.
“Noooo!” The woman’s voice penetrated the air again. The men in khaki kept working like they’d heard nothing. They might as well have been packing vegetable boxes into a grocery van. I trembled under my robe. The hair-raising shrieks went on for several minutes, but it seemed like everyone outside was pretending nothing was happening. What in god’s name is going on?
After a few minutes, Zero looked up with his signature scowl. It took only a casual flick of his hand for the man with the machine gun to stroll over to the van where the screaming was coming from. A hard knot formed in my stomach.
The man with the machine gun peeked inside the van, then climbed in. I held my breath.
The woman screamed again. “Aiii!”
Chapter Nineteen
We all heard the sickening whump, and the screaming ended.
Did he hit her? Did he kill her?
I started to sweat profusely. Katy, Win and Luc all had their heads down. I thought I heard a sob come from Katy. I noticed Tetyana, like me, was keeping an eye out. She didn’t notice me, consumed with what was happening in the warehouse. Her face was contorted into something nasty, more furious than fearful, I thought.
The man with the machine gun emerged from the back of the van, holding his gun in one hand and pulling a girl with the other, his hand around her neck. To my surprise, Vlad came out behind them, pulling up the fly on his pants, a cocky look on his face.
I felt the bitter taste of bile in my mouth.
Vlad strolled over to Zero and his companion and dug out a cigarette.
I looked at the girl being pulled across the warehouse by her neck. She looked Hispanic, maybe fifteen or sixteen at most, wearing only a yellow blouse tied at the waist. The man threw her on the ground and grabbed her arm.
“What are they going to do to her?” I whispered in horror.
“Head down,” Luc whispered and pulled at my robe. I didn’t move.
“Hush. Don’t talk.” I heard Tetyana whisper.
If I’d felt nauseous before, it was nothing like how I was feeling now, sick to the pit of my stomach.
I watched as the girl tried to pull away from the man. She got on her knees and attempted to get up, but she didn’t get far. The man gave her a swift kick, turning her body into a football that landed with a thud on the conc
rete floor.
Every nerve in my body cried out. I wanted to run out, grab her, and pull her away from these evil men. I twitched madly underneath the robe. I felt Tetyana reach over and put a hand on my shoulder. She squeezed it tightly and held on.
Even after that horrifying kick, the girl somehow regained enough strength to sit up again. This time, he hit her on her face. She fell on her back. I watched in horror as she fought to get back up, again and again. Each time, the man punched her. Again and again. She cried in agony with every blow.
I closed my eyes every time the man’s fist came down and opened them every time the girl tried to get up. Tetyana’s hand dug into my shoulder. I knew it was there as a reminder to stay quiet. But every time the girl cried out, her hand squeezed down tighter, like she too felt that punch in her bones.
“Shut her up!” It was Zero.
The girl was convulsing on the floor now. I can’t watch this. The man with the machine gun stepped over her and lifted the butt of his gun high. My gut screamed. I wanted to throw up. I couldn’t watch anymore. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Though Katy, Win and Luc weren’t watching, I felt the same frisson of unspeakable terror go through every one of us.
We clutched each other, like we were hanging on to our humanity, while out there unbelievable insanity raged. I closed my eyes, but I heard the dull thud.
It’s over.
When I opened my eyes, the half-naked girl lay lifeless on the stark warehouse floor, her head open and bloodied, her yellow blouse splattered red, her legs crooked under her.
I sat frozen, staring at the girl’s body. I wanted to scream. I wanted to sob. But I couldn’t. Not because we weren’t supposed to make a sound, but because I felt dead inside.
I’m sorry I didn’t help you. I’m sorry I let this happen to you. I’m sorry I did nothing.
I wanted to scream, but nothing came out.
Zero and Vlad smoked another cigarette, taking puffs as if it was just another ordinary day.
