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  A young girl. A foreign land. An assassination

  Born of parents from two different countries and living in a third, all Asha wants is to belong. But she’s always the stranger, always the outsider. The day she commits a crime to gain trust and friendship, her whole world collapses. Will this be the end of her life? Or an unthinkable beginning of a new one?

  This is a short story of innocence, audacity, and death. This is the beginning of the adventures of the Red-Heeled Rebels, a band of gutsy, sassy women who fight for their rights and travel the world to find their freedom.

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  Part ONE

  The going from a world we know

  To one a wonder still

  Is like the child’s adversity

  Whose vista is a hill,

  Behind the hill is sorcery

  And everything unknown,

  But will the secret compensate

  For climbing it alone?

  Emily Dickinson

  Chapter One

  The man in the black suit pushed Katy toward the main airport doors.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Stop!”

  Two smartly dressed women walking into the business lounge glared at me.

  Why can’t everyone see what’s happening?

  “Let her go!” I yelled louder.

  I wasn’t watching where I was going and hit a trolley piled with luggage. The handle bar whacked into my stomach and I doubled over. The trolley rolled toward a man reading the flight display screens, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I straightened up and kept running. I dodged a bunch of kids walking through the terminal with their noses stuck to their phones. They didn’t move an inch. Didn’t even look up.

  “Stop!” I shouted again, waving my arms.

  Who’s this man? Where’s he taking her?

  From the corner of my eyes, I saw the vague shape of a man in a blue uniform at the other end of the corridor. For half a second, I thought of sprinting toward him, to ask for help, but the brief distraction cost me. I tripped and felt my heel buckle. I caught myself before I hit the floor and looked up to see the man in the suit pull my best friend outside. Ignoring the searing pain in my ankle, I crashed through the doors, just as he pushed Katy into a black London cab.

  Why isn’t she fighting back?

  “Katy! Come back!”

  The cab door banged shut, catching Katy’s bright red scarf on the door well. The man jumped in front and the car pulled out.

  “No-ooo!” I screamed. Everyone turned to look. “Stop that car! Help!” I spluttered, pointing.

  A group of businessmen waiting in the taxi line looked over with smirks on their faces, but most people turned away, as if embarrassed by the spectacle. I didn’t care. I hobbled across the road to see, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, the cab disappears around the corner.

  Katy’s red scarf fluttered from the departing taxi, as if giving me the finger.

  Chapter Two

  None of this would have happened if Katy had followed me inside the café. But she’d been distracted by the shoe store next door, and shoes for Katy were like crack for addicts. She didn’t make a lot of money at Dick’s Next Day Catering Company back in Toronto, but I knew she’d rather starve than forgo a pair of sexy new heels.

  Only a day earlier, four men had chased us across the city of Toronto to the Pearson Airport, where we’d hunkered down in a women’s washroom overnight. We barely evaded them on our way to the boarding gate. On the plane, I tried to forget our worries while Katy switched on the little screen to get lost in the movies, but I never relaxed, and I saw Katy’s eyes flit from the screen to the aisle and back again, as if she was afraid the men would somehow appear in midair. When the plane finally touched down at London’s Heathrow Airport, we stumbled out, burnt-out and nerve-racked.

  My hastily packed backpack weighed me down and the wheels on Katy’s fake Louis Vuitton suitcase made a racket to wake the dead. It was a relief to find our departure gate to Goa, but then, Katy spotted the flashing red sign over Air India’s check-in counter.

  “Oh no!” she cried out.

  We’d been so desperate to get out of Toronto, we’d taken the only seats available, which were standby. This meant everyone else had first dibs and the airline could bump us as they wished.

  I ran up to the desk. I always hated these high service counters that made me feel even shorter than my five feet. I got on my tiptoes. “We’ve got boarding passes, but they’re standby. Could you find seats for us please?” I asked, with a smile on my lips and hope in my heart. Maybe someone’s late or a no-show. Maybe they’ve got extra seats they hadn’t advertised.

  The ground attendant didn’t even touch my ticket. She wrinkled her nose like it smelled of bad cheese.

  “Do you not see the sign?” she said, pointing up. “The flight’s full.” Her tone was crisp, final.

  “Is there any way you can squeeze us in?” I asked, unbeaten. “It’s just two of us.”

  “We’d fit anywhere. We’re on the small side,” I heard Katy say from behind me.

  The attendant didn’t look amused.

  “It’s an emergency,” I said. That wasn’t a lie. We’d just evaded human traffickers and drug dealers. Dick and Jose, who owned the bakery in Toronto where I baked cakes and Katy kept the books, had plans to sell us, like we were nothing better than lemon tarts or plum pies. I had no idea how far their reach was, but I didn’t want to hang around to find out. “It’s really, really urgent,” I said to the attendant.

  She sighed and snapped her fingers. “All right, passports and boarding passes please.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard while we stood by, our own crossed tightly.

  “Sorry,” she said, turning to us. “There are absolutely no seats on this one. But—” She stopped to squint at the screen. We waited, holding our breath.

  “I see a couple of seats in the next flight departing to Delhi. You won’t be sitting together and I can’t promise anything because you’re on standby. That flight’s tomorrow at thirteen hundred hours.”

  “Tomorrow?” I said. That would give Dick and Jose ample time to figure out where we’d run off to and catch up.

  “Don’t you have anything today?” Katy asked, in a plaintive voice.

  “Booked passengers get priority,” the ground attendant said. “Here are your new boarding passes, and ladies, don’t be late tomorrow.”

  I took back our papers with shaking hands.

  “If you need a place to stay the night, the Sheraton’s right up—” She paused and looked us over. I think our wrinkled, hand-me-down clothes were a dead give away. Lowering her voice, she said, almost sympathetically, “There are quiet lounges in Terminal Three if you need some rest for the night.”

  She glanced at the line that had formed behind us, and snapped. “Next, please.”

  Katy and I stumbled to the closest bench and collapsed. I swung my feet out and leaned against the back of the bench, my right foot clinking as I shifted. My ankle bracelet had been a gift from my cousin Preeti, a gift for my wedding day three years ago, the day I made the biggest escape of my life. I was now on my way back to India, to save my cousin and take revenge.

  “What’re we going do now?” Katy asked. Dark circles ringed her bloodshot eyes, making her look years older than nineteen. I must look the same, I thought.

  I pulled my bag off my back and rubbed my eyes. “Find a place to sleep?”

  “Way too stressed for that.”

  “We could go hide out in the washroom again,” I said with a weak smile.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Katy said.
>
  We sat on the stiff bench for an hour, leaning against each other, not sure of what to do or what to say. Around us, businesswomen and men in sharp suits marched up and down, pulling their laptop bags behind them. Families hurried by with fussy kids in tow, toward departure gates. Couples with arms intertwined walked by on their way to honeymoons or romantic destinations. Once in a while, a harried soul stumbled by looking as jet-lagged and beat as we were, but they were few, and they seemed to know where they were heading, unlike us who felt lost and alone.

  Katy and I must have looked a strange pair. She was a sinewy redhead in a cute skirt and her signature three-inch red stilettos, all found in a consignment store, but as good as new. She’d been dressed for a date with Jose, a date that never took place. And never would.

  I sat next to her, a petite half-Indian girl in my favorite miniskirt and more sensible red pumps. I couldn’t afford to wear high heels like Katy, because while she sat at her desk in the bookkeeping anteroom most of the day, I spent most of mine bustling between the bakery’s kitchen counter and oven. Right now, my black hair and skirt were streaked with white because I’d had only enough time to throw off my apron before running out of the bakery. After that, more important worries had crowded my mind than flour in my hair or icing sugar on my skirt.

  Katy let out a loud sigh. She looked like she was asleep, but I could see her scan the crowd from under half-closed eyelids.

  “Hey.” I nudged her gently on the elbow.

  “Hmm?” She stirred and opened her eyes. Her face looked pale and drawn and I could see visible lines on her forehead.

  “Go for a walk?”

  A shake of the head. “Nope.”

  “We can’t lounge here all day.”

  “I can.”

  “They’ve probably got a shoe sale over there.”

  “I’m tired, Asha.”

  “For shoe sales?”

  She sat still for a minute, surveying the surrounding area. People were coming and going, pushing trolleys, pulling suitcases, heads lost in phone conversations. Announcements blared from the loudspeakers: pre-boarding calls, boarding calls, final calls, final-final calls. It seemed like this airport never stopped.

  Katy sat up. “I’m beginning to see Jose and Dick everywhere I look.”

  “Me too,” I said. “But I don’t think they’ll come here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—” I paused to find the right words. I’d been ruminating over this for the past hour. “Because it’s too expensive for them to fly all the way here. They only picked on us because we were right there in their store.”

  Katy raised an eyebrow.

  “We were convenient,” I said. “Plus you and me have nobody to call for help and they knew that. They knew no one’s gonna notice if anything happens to us.”

  “You think so?”

  “Who’d we call for help?”

  Katy looked down at her hands and shook her head.

  “They’re not gonna come all the way here just for us. We’re not worth the trouble. They probably already found other girls to make money off of.”

  “What a bunch of bast—.”

  Bang! We both jumped. It was only a suitcase that had dropped from a luggage trolley to the floor. Katy and I sighed in relief. I sat up. We had to find something to do, a distraction, any distraction, or this paranoia was going to overtake us both.

  I touched her shoulder. “Hey, let’s get out of here.”

  With another sigh, Katy unraveled her legs and stood up slowly.

  We spent the next two hours strolling the length of the airport. With time on our hands now, we stopped for a sandwich and tea at a takeaway booth and walked through the terminals, mindlessly window-shopping.

  Very soon, we’d left the airport’s security zone and stepped into the shopping plaza to gawk at the high-end clothes stores, gadget shops, and shoe boutiques that carried gorgeous things we couldn’t afford even if we worked a lifetime. Looking at them helped us to forget our worries, if only for a little while.

  We’d just stepped out of one of these fancy shops when I spotted the café.

  Chapter Three

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “Katy, look.”

  “What?” she glanced around, worried.

  “Over there.” I pointed at the red-and-white striped awning of the bistro in front of us.

  Katy looked confused. “Are you still hungry?”

  “No, but that’s not why I—” I paused.

  I’d seen photos of these cafés in glossy magazines at Mrs. Rao’s house in Toronto, where I first landed after I ran away from India. I hadn’t realized it then, but I wasn’t the first girl to become a slave to Mrs. Rao while being promised my wages would be sent back to my family. A promise that turned out to be a lie. She’d known how to keep me under her thumb. Experimenting with recipes in Chef Pierre’s foodie magazines had been my only escape then, but I never dreamed I’d see one of his cafés in real life.

  The lettering on the window was unmistakable. Inside, pastries of all kinds weighed down glass shelves that extended the length of the store. Golden croissants, fruit tarts, sugar buns, mousse cakes, cheesecakes, caramels and éclairs sat side by side looking rich and pompous. The heavenly smell of oven-fresh baked things wafted our way. I took a deep breath in and closed my eyes.

  It was my mother who came to my dreams every night, bringing memories of us baking on lazy Sunday afternoons. She’d been in my life for only a short time, but I never forgot her captivating smile, that contagious laughter, and those sweet cakes she loved to make. As a child, I believed she was a mysterious good witch, like the beautiful ones in my storybooks who knew ancient magic. Like them, she knew how to weave together simple things and create luscious treats.

  When I was confined to Mrs. Rao’s house and later, when I was stuck at Dick’s bakery, it was Chef Pierre’s cookbooks and magazines that helped me get away from reality, at least in my mind. Everything I learned about the art of baking after my mother died, I learned from him, and it was this skill that had saved my skin every single time.

  “What’s so special about this place?” Katy asked, pressing her face against the window.

  I stepped up, next to her. “It’s Chef Pierre’s café.”

  “Who?”

  “The king of bakers. Don’t you remember? I used his recipes at Dick’s place.”

  Katy pulled her face from the window and gave me a dubious look. “Six euros for a ping-pong sugar ball? Seriously?”

  “They’re good. Even you liked them.”

  “Don’t remember,” she said, frowning at the cakes on display. If Katy could go through life without eating, she would, so I forgave her for saying that.

  I peered inside. “Wish I could work here. I’d clean their toilets, if they’d let me in.”

  “Who needs all this sugar and fat?”

  “All our clients loved them, remember?”

  She made a face. “That’s why I’m fat. I’m gonna gain ten pounds just by looking at these. How you stay skinny with all the sweets you stuff yourself with, I don’t know.” She sniffed as two thin European women walked into the café. “You and those French girls.”

  “Small portions,” I said with a smile. Katy was always complaining about her hips, her thighs, her arms, and her waist, which was ironic because she’d been the prettiest girl in high school and all the boys would have given an arm and a leg to date her. I worried those days when she ran off to the toilet after every meal. If I pressed my ears to the door, I’d hear her retching, but I never knew how to bring the topic up.

  “Yeah, right.” She turned away from the coffee shop. “Oh my god, look!” Her eyes flashed. She’d caught sight of the shoe store next door. “Jimmy Choo!”

  It was her turn to grab me and pull me away. She marched inside and toward a pair of four-inch black boots studded with Swarovski crystals and a sticker price that could have bought a used car.

  “Can I try
these on?” she asked the store attendant, who barely acknowledged us. Katy didn’t seem to care. She plopped down on the nearest bench with the boots in her hands and let out a happy sigh. This was her heaven. Mine was next door.

  “Hey Katy,” I said, “I’m going to check out some of the pastries, okay?”

  “Join you soon as I’m done,” she said, but she was already lost among the leather and plastic.

  I felt goose bumps on my arms as I crossed the threshold of the café. Chef Pierre was my role model, the person I’d looked up to on those dark days in Toronto. I could get lost in his magazines for hours. He’d kept me company on days when I felt like the whole world was against me.

  Chefs in Europe are like royalty. They come from regal lineages with noble blood and even nobler connections. They grace the covers of flashy magazines and hang out with fashion designers and film stars. Chef Pierre, though, was an anomaly. He was the son of a coal miner from the south of Belgium who’d fought his way to the top, armed with his grandmother’s recipes, a whipping whisk and a big dream.

  His story had a happy ending when he finally made it big and married his true love, Andre from the Netherlands, in the biggest, fattest, gayest wedding of the century. In those snazzy magazine photos, handsome and buff Andre looked like he’d just stepped out of GQ. Next to him, plump Chef Pierre looked like a village boy, out of place in any high society club.

  Just like him, I was different. And just like him, I didn’t fit anywhere. I was born in Africa, but I wasn’t really African. After my parents died in a crash, I went to live with my grandmother in India, but I wasn’t really Indian. I’d lived in Canada for the past three years finishing high school and working, but I wasn’t really Canadian. I was a strange, mixed-up girl who’d been everywhere but belonged nowhere. And just like Chef Pierre, all I carried with me a whipping whisk and a big dream.

  But first, I was going to Goa to rescue Preeti, who’d been forced to marry the disgusting old man I was supposed to have married. After I found her, I was going to convince her and Katy to join me in my dream. I’d spent my entire life learning how to cook and bake, and while most times it had been forced on me, I did it well. All I wanted now was to bake like my mother did on those sunny Sunday afternoons in Tanzania a long time ago. I dreamed of the day Katy, Preeti, and I would set up our own bakery somewhere in Goa near the beach among the waving coconut trees. And with the first money I’d make, I’d go back to Africa and visit my parents’ graves. That was my plan.