Abducted

by Tikiri

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

  “What the hell?” Tetyana said, looking at the phone in my hand wide-eyed.

  I gave her a guilty look.

  Next to me, Katy and Win stirred awake.

  Tetyana shouted, “Stop the damn car!”

  “What’s going on?” I heard a sleepy Katy ask.

  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 even a second glance.

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

  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. “Slowly. 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 and quiet, but her face was a ball of fury.

  No one spoke.

  I peered through the windshield and saw a large green highway sign that said Germany was only five kilometers ahead of us. We’re almost there.

  “They know where we’re going now,” 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 snapped with a dismissive wave. “We have 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 friends? Or the police?”

  Luc looked at me via the mirror. “Fred will 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,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “Yes?” he replied timidly.

  “To Luxembourg.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  We had driven into the land of fairy-tale princes and princesses.

  Thousand-year-old castle towers soared above this 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.

  Katy needed to pee and the rest of us were ravenous, but all we had was a total of sixteen 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.

  Surprisingly, Tetyana was demure in her thanks when I told her we’d take care of the expenses, and 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, but those weapons remained hidden. Luc and Win merely looked relieved we could finally eat and find a place to sleep.

  A few minutes later, I found myself in line at a currency exchange booth, my palms damp, and eight hundred Canadian dollars of drug-tainted money in my purse. 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 did call 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 breath normally once we got back to the van.

  We could finally relax now. We stopped at the nearest shopping center to find toilets, freshen up, and get new clothes to change into, and 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 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 to me for the second time. I nodded, “Anything you want, sweetie.” We had enough money to buy ten rounds of tickets to Goa if needed, even though it was in highly questionable cash, so if a handful of new outfits made Win happy, it was perfectly fine.

  I noticed she avoided the faux leather skirts and bawdy tops like the plague, and went for jeans and cute T-shirts like any regular teen. She was especially keen to cover up the tattoo on her thigh, which I was sure brought only bad memories. We crowded into the couches near the fitting room and coaxed her out to show us her outfits, applauding her choices. While Win still 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 collective worries and paranoia had disappeared. It was like we were meant to be together, doing normal things like this.

  Katy went on full shopping mode after that. While the rest of us chose casual, comfortable gear, she picked a stack of party dresses to try on. “You never know when you’ll need a proper black dress,” she said, pulling a petite off-the-shoulder frock off of a rack. “Try it,” she urged, pulling me toward the fitting rooms. When I resisted, she turned to me and hissed one word, “therapy.” With a sigh, I followed. I’d started to get anxious about throwing away our money on frivolous things, but I guessed she was right. We all needed to do something fun, after all we’d gone through.

  When we were done with the clothes, Katy, without missing a beat, steered us to the shoe department. “We all need new shoes,” she declared, as she marched in front of us. Her face said don’t even argue with me. So we spent the next hour giggling and 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 to match her shoes. 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 red boots. Then Luc found a pair of red canvas shoes that were so comfortable and on sale, so we all bought a pair each. “Good for walking,” Tetyana said. “Or for running.” That was the smartest purchase decision 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 of their dishes, so we ordered everything still available and stuffed ourselves like we’d not had a proper meal in our lives. I’d never seen Katy devour as much food as she did that evening, 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 and take in the view. 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 said 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.

  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 now, ready for anyone or anything that spelled trouble. Luc was our driver. He didn’t seem to 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 like gifts now. And I, somehow, had morphed into a trip coordinator of sorts.

  “I booked a room at a youth hostel for the night,” I said. 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 to catch up on my sleep,” Luc said, yawning.

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

  “Safe as we can be 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 see this city. 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.

  “I’d love that too,” Katy said.

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

  “Whatever we do,” Tetyana said 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 beautiful city, lost in our own inner worlds. I stood among my newfound friends and one old one, trying not to think of the uncertainty of our future.

  A light breeze floated by, ruffling our hair. This was probably the first time in a long time any of us had felt free, I thought. No one had to worry about being chased, kidnapped, raped, tossed around like a piece of furniture, or dragged off to someplace 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 was not 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 certainly 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,” Tetyana said, shattering the silence. “Did you know Dracula’s real name’s Vlad?”

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

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, and paused. “I just realized what I’ve left behind.” Her voice was subdued, introspective. “Just didn’t think it was going to get so bad. Didn’t think I was going to go so far.”

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

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

  Luc looked down at his feet. “He’s a real monster,” he said. His face was scrunched up, like he was ready to burst into tears or punch someone. Maybe both.

  “But me,” Tetyana said, “I was twenty-one. I mean, I am twenty-one. Should have known better than to get involved with them.” She looked at Win with a sad face. “I allowed this to happen to you, Win. I’ll never forgive myself for as long as I live.”

  “But I was with them way before you came,” Win said, and reached out to touch Tetyana’s arm. “They bought me when I was ten. It wasn’t you who did bad things.”

  Tetyana frowned. She’s angry, I thought, angry at herself.

  “I could have saved you,” she said, “got you out three months ago, instead of letting it go on.” She looked at Win, her face softened, sad. “I’m not asking you to forgive me, Win. I just want you to live a better life. And I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen.”

  “It’s easy to see things in hindsight,” Katy said softly, but I didn’t think she heard her.

  “All I wanted was to keep my brother alive,” Tetyana continued. “That’s all I was thinking about. Nothing else. That’s what I promised her just before she died.” Her voice faded to such a whisper that if I hadn’t been listening carefully, I wouldn’t have heard.

  “Promised who?” I said, my curiosity overcoming me.

  “My mother.”

  I knew there was more, but this was not the time to ask.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  We got three days of rest, three blissful days, before we were forced to move again.

  Our distance from the memories of the past few weeks helped. Katy’s rosy cheeks reappeared. Tetyana showed her more compassionate and gentle side, and to our surprise, an intellectual side we hadn’t seen before. Luc grinned and joked around, though he was slowly getting the hint I wasn’t interested in a date.

  It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive. It was like having a cheeky younger brother around, one you cared for, but one who annoyed you all the same. The perfect man for me, the one I daydreamed about, was older, wiser, with dreamy brown eyes and more buff. Yes, definitely more buff, I thought. When I stop all this running, I’m going to meet him, I told myself. With almost four billion males on this planet, he’s got to be out there, somewhere.

  Win had her ups and downs and remained reclusive, staying close and not saying much. One day, I caught her listening to a bird singing near the window of our hostel room. She had a soft smile on her face. How incredible it is, I thought as I watched her watch the bird, that someone can go through such an ordeal and still hang on to their humanity. It was going to take a long t
ime for Win to open up, but that smile gave me hope. For her. For us all.

  No one discussed what had happened in London or Brussels. No one stopped to glance at a newsstand, or dropped into an Internet café to find out if anything had come out of the information we’d posted online. Like me, everyone wanted to put it all behind us. It seemed everyone had decided to simply live for the moment, a luxury many of us had never had.

  It was like we were on holiday, made even more special because none us had ever had one. We explored dungeons and castle ruins, tried new foods, ate on park benches and napped under the afternoon sun. But we always stayed on guard.

  Tetyana took her security duties very seriously and gave us rotating four-hour shifts at night. This was helpful because Win had a habit of waking from nightmares every night, so someone was always up to calm her until she drifted to sleep again.

  Our van had been parked under a tree at the back of the hostel lot, strategically placed so no one could read the license plate easily. And there it sat, remaining untouched. Renting cheap bicycles from the hostel was much more fun than driving, and made us look like student tourists. No one bothered us.

  Until our third day in Luxembourg.

  We’d been lining up to visit the history and art museum that morning, something we’d all wanted to do, not because any of us were history buffs, but because we were eager to experience something so different from our previous lives. Luc had stepped out to visit the washroom, but came back running within seconds. His face was white. Something was wrong. Tetyana straightened up, her hand on her belt where I knew she had a gun. We stepped out of line.

  “What’s going on?” Tetyana asked.

  “We gotta get outta here,” Luc said, panting. “Now!”

  “Why?” I asked. He pulled me by the elbow and motioning the others to follow, ushered me roughly into a quiet alcove near the toilets.

  Everyone gathered around him.

  “I saw Busboy!” he said, his hands shaking.