“They weren’t there to kill you,” he said. “They were there to save you. And they did their job. You’ll be safe as long as you stay here, I promise you that.”
“I don’t understand,” Gaia muttered, feeling her exhaustion winning out. “I don’t understand anything you’re saying.”
The edges were all disappearing again, the entire room turning into nothing but floating objects free of gravity or shape. Her father’s face was fading away.
“We’ll explain it all when you’re feeling better,” he said. “I promise. I just need to catch up with Loki while the trail is still hot. He’s done enough damage as it is.”
Gaia’s eyes were closing on her, the heat enveloping her body once again. But one last burst of memory sent a surge of anger through her chest—up into her swollen face, forcing her eyes back open. She grabbed her father’s wrist, digging her nails into his skin, speaking with what little strength she had left.
“Was I your experiment?”
She glared at him, confused and unforgiving. Her father stared back at her, raising a deeply puzzled eyebrow.
“Just tell me the truth,” Gaia insisted. “I don’t care anymore—I just want to know the truth.”
“What is she talking about?” Natasha asked.
“I think she’s still delirious,” her father replied, looking deeper into Gaia’s eyes. “Gaia, what are you talking about?”
“Just tell me,” she uttered as her voice became faint.
That burst of raw coherent energy had been her last. It was an aberration, and once again Gaia found herself unsure of where she was and whether or not she was awake. A feverish sleep began to swallow her up again.
“Gaia?”
“Tell me …,” she muttered, mostly to herself at this point. Even if he’d answered, Gaia wouldn’t have known it.
Family Portraits
“TOM, JUST HEAR ME OUT—”
“George, please,” Tom interrupted, rising from George’s couch for another cup of coffee. “This is not a subject for debate.”
“But how well do you know the woman?”
Tom stepped into the kitchen and dumped another splash of black coffee into his mug, but that would be his last. He’d stopped at George’s town house for one final briefing, but it had already become far less brief than he’d intended. It was foolish to leave Loki even an hour of leeway, let alone the half day Tom had already spent making arrangements. George couldn’t have picked a worse moment to introduce antagonism into their friendship.
“I told you.” Tom groaned. “Natasha’s record is impeccable. She’s one of the top ten agents in the Eastern sector. She’s got more successful ops under her belt than seventy-five percent of the Agency. And she’s part of Katia’s family, George. I don’t care how distantly they’re related. Family in Russia means loyalty and that makes me more secure than any statistic possibly could.”
“But leaving Gaia with total strangers,” George mumbled as he stepped into the kitchen.
“Natasha and her daughter are not strangers, George. They’re family—”
“They’re strangers to her, Tom,” George interrupted. He locked eyes with Tom, placing himself in the way of the kitchen door. His plea for Tom’s compassion felt more like a demand than a request.
Tom knew how much he was asking of Gaia, to make another adjustment to another foster situation, but he could see no way around it at this point. Not if he wanted to protect her. Not if putting Loki out of commission was going to get his full attention. He had to believe that Gaia’s resilience would get her through the initial shock of boarding with a new family. Natasha and Tatiana would earn her trust. He might not know them that well, but he certainly knew them well enough to see their honesty and their kindness and their strength—all qualities Gaia was sure to appreciate.
But looking into George’s eyes, so saturated with apprehension and caring, Tom realized just how far he’d regressed into tunnel vision the last few months. All this time George had been backing Tom up, taking the reins as Gaia’s guardian at the drop of a hat, Tom really hadn’t stopped to consider what Gaia had come to mean to George. He was a great friend and a deeply committed agent, but that couldn’t account for all the enormous sacrifices he’d made. After all these years how could George not have developed a deep personal stake in Gaia’s life? It was only human. Tom had never seen that as much as he did right now in George’s eyes.
But he needed to be firm in his decisions. Wavering would only chip away at his confidence, leaving himself and Gaia that much more vulnerable to Loki’s maneuvers. George’s devotion was a blessing, to say the least, but this was no time to make Gaia’s parenting any kind of democracy. It didn’t take much for Tom to start second guessing himself on the choices he’d made with Gaia. And if he started down that road, he knew where he’d end up—huddled in a well of unfathomable self-doubt and self-hatred. He’d been there more than a few times, and he could ill afford to fall back into that well right now.
“I trust them, George,” he said firmly. “That’s all I have to say on the topic.”
George didn’t say a word. He simply marched back into the den. Tom followed, fighting his frustration.
He sat down on the couch directly opposite George so that they were face-to-face. George ignored Tom’s eyes and focused instead on the photos by the window—framed Polaroids he’d taken of Gaia and Ella posing uncomfortably for instant family portraits. Gaia’s face had never looked so dour, nor had Ella’s smile ever looked so painfully forced. Why did George feel a need to frame and display such disposable gloom? Tom shook his head, pushing the thought from his mind.
“George, listen to me, all right? The situation is clear. All the old reasons for distancing myself from her have proved totally valid. You can’t deny it. The closer I am to Gaia, the closer my brother becomes and the more she suffers. As long as he’s still out there, my proximity to Gaia is just going to cause more damage.”
“You’re missing the point,” George stated. “If you leave Gaia alone again with this Natasha woman, then you’re hardly any better than him, Tom.”
Tom could barely believe his ears. To hear his closest friend compare him to his sick brother was more than just a slap in the face, it was a full-scale emotional ambush. Even after searching George’s eyes more closely, Tom still couldn’t find an ounce of remorse or regret for having made such a blasphemous suggestion. “What the hell are you talking about?” he finally choked out.
“Tom, do you understand what’s been happening here? Do you understand how cruel you’ve been to your daughter for the last five years?”
His words made Tom’s heart shrivel. His feet clenched with tension. He was suddenly stuck in an icy tug-of-war between unbearable shame and irrepressible anger. He didn’t know whether to agree and beg for George’s forgiveness or rip his ignorant, short-sighted eyes out. But he was certainly leaning toward the latter.
“You know how tortured I’ve been, leaving her all this time,” Tom uttered, feeling rage simmering in his chest and working its way up his neck. “You know it. Why would you want to rub that in my face, George? Why would you want to do that?”
“I just think Loki’s got you rattled,” George mumbled. “And it’s affected your judgment.”
“What?”
“Open your eyes.” George leaned in closer to him. “What do you really know about this Natasha and her daughter? I don’t care how good her reputation is, and I don’t care who her father’s great-grandmother was. Is this really the best time to trust a stranger with your daughter? Is this the best time to leave Gaia alone in a totally alien environment? You’re being callous and foolish, and Gaia’s going to be the one paying for it.”
“I don’t have time to listen to this,” Tom breathed. “You tell me what the hell else I’m supposed to do.”
“You’re supposed to leave her with someone you trust!” George shouted. “You’re supposed to leave her with me, Tom.”
Tom st
ared at him. “Is that what this is all about?” he squawked.
“I was practically the girl’s father for a year,” George shot back. “I did everything I could for her—”
“And so have I,” Tom said. “You tell me, George, should I trust Natasha more or less than you trusted Ella?”
Once the statement was made, Tom knew he’d officially crossed an unforgivable line. He knew the kind of guilt George must have felt for loving and trusting Ella—who had not only turned out to be a spy for Loki, but had actually attempted to kill Gaia in cold blood. It was nothing less than cruel to rub that fact in his face. But Tom hadn’t said it to be cruel. He’d only said it out of his own dire obsessive need to justify his choices. Especially after George had laid into them with such blunt disapproval. He needed George to recognize and confirm what an impossible task it was to protect Gaia and to make choices that would help her rather than harm her.
George’s expression turned gravely serious. His anger no longer even seemed to be the issue. “What happened with Ella should be a lesson to you, Tom,” he said. “You’re making a terrible mistake—”
“I have to go,” Tom interrupted, standing up. George had his own issues to deal with, whatever they might be, and he’d picked the absolute wrong moment to challenge Tom’s fathering. It was out of line, and Tom had heard enough. He walked to the door.
“I’m her father, George. She only needs one.”
The Phantom Zone
IT DIDN’T SEEM QUITE AS PATHETIC until he’d seen himself in the mirror. But Ed just happened to catch a glimpse of himself as he pressed down on the liquefy button. Now he was frozen in place, staring at his own sunken eyes as the loud whir of the blender echoed through the kitchen.
Milk shakes.
Gaia was gone, and Ed was churning out black-and-white milk shakes. It was time for a much needed sanity status check. Unfortunately, he looked like a zombie. There was no discernable expression on his face. The sacks under his eyes had turned a vicious shade of eggplant, while the eyes themselves were a crackled road map of little pink highways and access roads-owing to that totally unexpected little bout with tears.
But maybe milk shakes weren’t so bad. He’d tried every other way to cope, after all. He’d tried the business-as-usual approach by going to school. That had only left him with an embarrassing public display of idiocy in front of Heather. He’d tried sitting still in every chair in his house and lying in every bed. He’d tried listening to music, sleeping the rest of the day away, watching a movie, doubling his physical therapy regimen … but absolutely nothing worked. Gaia’s face was still chiseled so deeply in his brain that it seemed to appear on any surface in his field of vision. Along with her neck. And her stupendous shoulders and her powerful legs and her gold-dusted hair … Jesus, Fargo.
Sanity status on a scale of one to ten? He figured about a negative three.
His only real goal at this point was to stop asking himself the same incessant questions again and again. Where did she go, why did she go, is she injured, wounded, dead, why won’t she call? Maybe that’s why he’d opted for the blender. At least the shrill sound of mechanical grinding could drown out all the questions in his head. Not just the questions, but the silence. The horrible sound of Gaia’s not being there—
He turned off the blender. There was another sound, too. The most welcome sound in the world. The sound of the phone ringing.
A smile spread across his face. He’d known she would make contact somehow. He’d known she would find a way, no matter what the hell was happening to her. Ed smacked the blender out of the way, splattering its thick gray contents all over the kitchen table as he tipped his entire body toward the phone that was hanging from the wall. His crutches toppled to the floor with a clatter, but he hardly noticed. He nabbed the phone, leaving only one ice-cream-covered hand on the table to support his entire torso.
“Gaia!” he yelled. “I’m here, I’m here—”
“Oh my God,” came a familiar voice, followed by an ugly, high-pitched giggle. “Could you sound any more desperate and hopeless? That’s really not what women go for, Ed. Keep that up and you’re going to send that girl running.”
Ed’s smile evaporated. It wasn’t Gaia. It was his asinine, moronic freak of a big sister, Victoria. He clamped his eyes shut and tried not to let this horrid unwanted surprise finish him off. At the very least his parents, his sister, and her horrible husband were all still off on their little upstate getaway. And that was pretty much the only thing Ed had going for him right now.
“What do you want?” he murmured through clenched teeth, looking down at the hand that was now soaked in half-blended ice cream.
“Jeez, what is your problem?” Victoria groaned. “We’re just checking in to see if you’re okay. Mom and Dad want to make sure you’re not throwing any wild parties over there.”
Oh, yes. That was certainly what he was doing. It was one big, wild, drug-crazed, promiscuous party after another at the Fargo residence. “I’m fine,” he grunted.
“Well, you don’t sound fine,” she said. His sister’s genius never failed to amaze him. “Is this about Gaia?”
Ed didn’t utter a word. Of course it was about Gaia—she just heard him shout Gaia’s name, hadn’t she? All he could do was balance himself silently on the table and pray that she didn’t pursue this line of questioning.
“It is, isn’t it?” she pushed. “I don’t get you two, Ed. Your whole ‘best friends’ thing. I mean, you broke up with Heather, right?”
Please stop talking. Please stop talking—
“It just doesn’t make sense,” she went on, stomping all over Ed’s prayers. “You so obviously like her, Ed. I mean, does Gaia like you that way or not? Does she know you’re probably going to make a full recovery?”
Ed shook his head slowly, once again questioning any natural law that could possibly place him and his sister in the same gene pool. He vowed to investigate the possibility of a clandestine adoption. Yes, as soon he was out of this abandoned depressive nightmare, he would prove that he and his sister weren’t related. If only he could just switch his sister with Gaia. Put Gaia on the phone and send his sister out into the phantom zone-into the invisible limbo where Gaia was lurking.
“I really have to go,” he uttered in a robotic monotone. “Tell Mom and Dad I’m fine. All right?”
“Come on, Ed—”
“I mean it,” Ed snapped.
There was silence on the other end of the line as Ed’s hand began to slip ever so slowly along the melted ice cream. He was forced to hold himself up with his elbows, which only crammed the phone farther into his face.
“Whatever, Ed,” Victoria finally mumbled. “I was just trying to help you out. Give you the woman’s perspective here. You obviously like her—I can tell by the way you answered the phone. But you’re not going to get anywhere waiting around, believe me. You should just tell her, Ed. Just tell her and I bet she’ll—”
Ed dropped the phone on the hook, grabbed one of his crutches, and hoisted himself back upright. Ahhh. Sweet silence. He had no choice but to hang up on his sister. He had to keep those phone lines open in case Gaia called.
Right. In case she called. That was a good one. What Victoria didn’t understand was that Ed had told Gaia everything. And this was what he had to show for it. One spilled milk shake and another stretch of unbearable silence.
another foster home
She also realized that there was at least one merciful aspect of this life: you only die once.
The Same Face
THE ROOM HAD TAKEN ON THE PALE lifeless gray of the city just after sunset. Loki hardly noticed that he was sitting in near darkness. He’d become so engrossed in the results of Gaia’s blood tests that he was still using the dim natural light from the massive windows to read. The report consisted mostly of undecipherable pages of letters and numbers—the various compounds that made up Gaia’s blood and tissue. He should have just asked the remaining doctors for
a report in plain English. He was an expert in many things, but biochemistry didn’t happen to be one of them, and it was becoming quite frustrating to read. Though not half as frustrating as Josh Kendall’s ignorance.
“I don’t understand it,” Josh grumbled, slumped on one of the two black leather couches that made up most of the vast room’s furnishings. His voice was laden with testosterone and postadolescent impatience. “Why aren’t we doing something? They took out seven of our guys. They took Gaia. We should retaliate. We should strike back. What are we waiting for?”
“Calm yourself.” Loki sighed from the corner of his mouth, keeping his eyes glued to the test results. “We need to take our time now. Rushing hasn’t served us in the least. Rushing only leads to chaos. QR3 was a perfect example.”
Josh went silent. After a tense pause he shot up from the couch and stomped across the long empty floor to the industrial-size refrigerator in the kitchen, then pulled out a bottle of imported beer with a loud clank and slammed the door shut. “Are you calling that an accident?” Josh asked sharply, flipping the top off the beer and taking a long gulp.
“What would you call it?” Loki asked, finally lifting his eyes from the pages.
“I’d call it murder,” Josh replied, staring back accusingly. “You shot him right in the head. I don’t understand what he did that was so bad, you had to shoot him in the head.”
“He was incriminating me in front of Gaia,” Loki argued, sitting comfortably still in his seat. “He was fingering me for Moon’s death. You know I can’t have that. Everything would have gone smoothly at the loft if QR3 had just kept his mouth shut. He should have taken his beating from Gaia and stayed quiet. That’s what he was trained to do. That’s what they were all trained to do.”
“Well, there were plenty of other ways to shut him up,” Josh challenged.
Loki studied Josh’s mournful eyes from a distance. This empathetic reaction was surprising. It was worthy of some further investigation—later, when Loki had the time. He placed the test results on the glass table next to the couch and approached Josh curiously. The the sound of the heels of his shoes echoed loudly off the bare walls, which still smelled of fresh paint. “Does it upset you that I shot him?” he asked, examining Josh’s face as if he’d sculpted it himself. “Does it feel like you’ve lost a brother?”
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