A Girl Called Fearless: A Novel (The Girl Called Fearless Series)

by Catherine Linka

  I struggled to get away, but the hand tightened around my throat. The man fired a shot at Roik, while I dangled in his grip.

  The cold mouth of a gun kissed my forehead.

  Roik held his fire, poised to shoot. “Drop her NOW!”

  “Like hell I will.” The guy held me like a shield and my brain emptied of everything I knew about self-defense. Roik and I had trained together at a security camp, but at this moment the only thing in the world was the gun beside my eye.

  “Let her go!” Roik yelled.

  I tripped on the uneven grass as the guy began to walk me backward down the hill.

  “Look at me, Avie. Look at me!” Roik yelled from above us.

  I focused on his face, and his lips formed a command. Claw him.

  I couldn’t.

  “Avie!”

  I threw my hands back and blindly tore at the man’s eyes.

  “Bitch.” His hand fell off my throat. I dropped to the ground as a shot smacked by me.

  Then Roik charged past. “Get in the car!”

  Below us, the blue van hurtled down the service road.

  I crawled to my feet. Blood blackened the man’s shirt from a wound below his collarbone. I rushed for the car, the ground heaving beneath my feet. I threw myself inside and slammed down the lock.

  Bulletproof glass and armored panels couldn’t keep me from shaking. Sirens screamed and cops swarmed the hill. An ambulance braked behind me.

  If Roik hadn’t stopped that guy, I’d be in that van right now. Handcuffed? Duct-taped? Ready to be someone’s— Stop it. Don’t go there.

  Roik climbed in beside me. “The police want you to come down to the station. Your father’s talking to them right now, trying to convince them to interview you at the house.”

  “Okay.”

  A cop knocked on the window. Roik stepped out and I watched him bum a smoke and light up. He hadn’t had a cigarette in two years.

  Roik could have been killed.

  His phone buzzed next to me on the seat. “Dad?”

  “Avie. Thank God, you’re safe.”

  For a second, he sounded like old Dad, the one I had before everything fell apart, and all I wanted was to go home and feel his arms around me. “The police have agreed to interview you at the house, but first, Roik’s taking you to Huntington,” he said. “We need to get you checked out.”

  “I don’t want to go to a hospital.” A news copter rattled the air.

  “Roik said he saw bruises and scratches. That man who grabbed you, he didn’t do … anything else … did he?”

  Dad’s face sagged like a bad day on the stock market. His big investment threatened. He wasn’t old Dad at all.

  “No. I’m in one piece. No broken anything.”

  “Still, Jessop wants you to be examined.”

  “You told him what happened?”

  “I had to. It’s part of your Contract: I have to inform him of any significant life event.”

  Dad and Hawkins ganging up on me. Well, I would fix them. “Daddy, if I go to Huntington, the place will be swarming with reporters. What story do you want on the news: this one or the one in People?”

  Dad flinched like Biocure’s stock had just dropped fifty percent. “All right. I’ll meet you at the house.”

  Roik hopped into the driver’s seat. He gunned the engine and tore out the cemetery gates. Halfway home I realized I’d left my bag on Mom’s grave. And the phone Yates gave me, the one I needed if I wanted to get away, was inside.

  36

  Cops followed us home and Dad arrived just after us. He went to hug me, but an officer stopped him. “Not until we get her clothes, Mr. Reveare. Everything she’s wearing is evidence.”

  “But she’s…”

  “You can wait in the kitchen.”

  They told me to strip right there in the library. “In front of a bunch of men!” I cried to Roik. “Can’t you do something?”

  Roik held up a sheet and I peeled my clothes off behind it. The officers dropped each piece in an evidence bag, but when they demanded my bra, I refused. The guy never touched me under my clothes, I argued, but they weren’t happy until they had everything.

  I shivered on the stone floor as an officer snapped shot after shot of the bruises on my arm and neck and the bloody scratches on my legs where I’d been dragged through the rosebush.

  I couldn’t stop feeling the cold metal shoved up against my face or the panicked rush as I tore blindly at my attacker.

  Claw him, Avie, claw him.

  Bam!

  Roik handed me my robe, and I knotted it tight. “Can I go now?”

  “We have a few questions,” one officer said.

  Dad met me in the hall and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re all right.” He looked like he had when I was ten and broke my arm on the trampoline. Like he never imagined I could get so hurt. “Jessop’s plastic surgeon arrived—in case you need a stitch or two.”

  Cold skittered up my legs. “Right.” Hawkins didn’t want any marks. Nothing to blemish the landscape.

  I felt a sheet of bulletproof glass roll up between me and the world. Everything else was on the other side.

  The surgeon examined me in Gerard’s office. I trembled as the man ran his gloved fingers over my bruises and the cuts on my thighs, lingering on the two deepest scratches.

  Please let this be over.

  “Good news,” he said, placing a bandage over one cut. “I don’t think you’ll scar.” He opened the door, and the detective was waiting at the kitchen table. “Shall we get started?”

  I wrapped my arms across my body. “Can I at least get dressed?”

  “This will take just a few minutes.”

  I sat down and Dusty jumped into my lap. I held her close as I answered the detective’s ridiculous questions. Why did we go to the cemetery? What time did we arrive? Was that our routine?

  Then a cop showed up with my purse and I held my breath as he spilled it out on the table. First my phone fell out, then the one Yates gave me. The rhinestone Tinkerbell case sparkled under the lights, and Roik looked from me to the phone he knew wasn’t mine.

  The detective sensed something, because he picked it up and studied the cracked screen. “What do we have here?”

  “Give me that,” I said, and he swung it out of reach.

  “This isn’t the perp’s?”

  “No, it’s a friend’s.”

  The cop wiggled the phone at me. “You in cahoots with the perp? You set up this little drama?”

  Roik took the phone from the cop and began to tap through the screens.

  “What? You think I arranged for that guy to attack me? To shove a gun in my face?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first. Girl under Contract. Doesn’t like who Daddy picked out…”

  Dusty started to growl and thrash in my arms. Everyone turned to the sound of boots clacking down the hall. Gerard appeared at the door, flanked by a German shepherd and a hulk in fatigues and a Kevlar vest. “Jessop Hawkins sent this man to escort you to his compound.”

  I leaped out of my chair, still holding Dusty. “No. No! I have to talk to Hawkins.”

  “You know he’s in Singapore,” Dad said.

  “I don’t care where he is! He can’t do this!” I paced, and Gerard locked Dusty upstairs while Dad got Hawkins on the phone.

  “Aveline, I’m glad you called. I was worried about you.” Hawkins’ voice was oily with concern.

  “Yeah, that guy you sent to take me to your house, I’m not going with him.”

  “I want you to be safe.”

  “I am safe.”

  “You’re not in a condition to decide that. You need to listen to me—”

  “And you need to listen to me. I—”

  “I want you in my compound where you can be watched!”

  “And I want to stay here with my family!”

  Hawkins’ silence was long and angry, but finally he spoke. “You’re obviously hysterical, so
I will ignore your little outburst, but I have decided that you may remain at your house on the condition that the additional perimeter guard stays.”

  Another armed guard and this time with an attack dog. What choice did I have? “Okay.”

  “And?”

  It took me a second before I realized what he wanted. “Thank you, Jessop.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I hung up the phone and grabbed mine off the table. “I’m done answering questions.”

  37

  I locked my bedroom door and ran the bath as hot as it would go. Then I perched on the edge, waiting for it to fill. I wanted that man’s touch off me even if I had to boil it off.

  The world’s a dangerous place for girls.

  Roik had said it a hundred times, but I never thought anything would ever happen to me. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be in that van. Blindfolded. My arms and legs bound with plastic ties. Duct tape over my mouth. The kidnapper probably wouldn’t even bother asking Dad for ransom, because chances are he’d have a buyer lined up. And not one like Hawkins.

  More like a guy who’d handcuff me to a bed, and then—

  I clutched my bathrobe tight across my chest. Don’t, you’re making yourself crazy.

  There was a knock at the door. “Go away!”

  “Avie, it’s Gerard. Can I come in?”

  I turned off the water. When I opened the door, Gerard was holding a tray with Mom’s favorite blue teapot and jam sandwiches with the crusts cut off. “I thought you could use a little something to settle your stomach.”

  My eyes filled. Mom’s Bad Day Cure. “Peppermint tea?”

  “Of course. Let me set this down.”

  I nodded, and he nudged the door shut with his foot. He dodged the piles on my floor and set the tray on my bed. “Sit.”

  I plopped down on my quilt, and he put the napkin in my lap. “Open it.”

  A stack of fifties was hidden in the folds along with my secret phone. I crushed the napkin to my chest. “Oh.”

  Gerard held a finger up to his lips and leaned in close. “I told Roik I’d return the phone to the family. Don’t let me see or hear or find a thing,” he whispered, and backed away.

  Thank you, I mouthed.

  When the door closed, I peeked and counted the bills. Eight hundred dollars.

  Gerard was telling me to run. I wasn’t sure I had the guts to do it anymore—not even with Yates right beside me.

  I pulled Titanic off the shelf and tucked the bills inside the plastic case. Then I peeled back the credits card to see Yates’ picture.

  That glance yanked me back to the moment the cop struck him with the baton.

  I’m so freaking blind.

  Yates doesn’t play it safe. He charges right into danger. If he’d been with me today instead of Roik, he’d have thrown himself on that gunman, trying to save me.

  I couldn’t let Yates anywhere near my extraction. Maybe he wouldn’t get back to L.A. in time, but if he did, I had to stop him.

  I wasn’t like the other girls he’d helped. Hawkins would send an army of Retrievers after me and Hawkins wouldn’t care if they killed Yates to get me back.

  38

  I slammed awake in the middle of the night.

  I’ll never feel safe again.

  39

  As soon as Roik drove me out the Flintridge gates the next morning, my heart started to race, even though Efram, the perimeter guy, was tailing us.

  You can’t be afraid, I told myself. Or you’ll never get away. You’ll be Hawkins’ prisoner.

  My fingers shook as I put in my earphones and cranked up the music. Call me Ninja Warrior Templar Gladiator. I shouted the words in my head as we left the nicer neighborhoods. My skin prickled, seeing men sitting on the curb in front of the liquor store, drinking from paper bags, men begging at stoplights, men loitering by alleys, smoking cigarettes.

  The world’s a dangerous place for girls.

  My chest heaved as I sucked in a breath.

  Roik pulled the car over. “Son of a— I told them you weren’t ready,” he muttered. “Avie, you want to go back to the house?”

  I combed my fingers through my hair, trying to decide. I have to go to school. If I don’t Roik won’t take me to St. Mark’s after to see Father Gabe. “No, take me to school.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. I want to see my friends.”

  Roik insisted on walking me to class. Ho had kept me off the network news, but even Ho couldn’t control cyberspace or gossip. Underclassmen stared as I passed, trying to get a glimpse of the bruises under the makeup on my neck. I was sweltering in the sweater and bicycle shorts I wore under my uniform skirt, but I wasn’t letting anyone see my cuts and bruises.

  Zara taped LEAVE HER ALONE over the window in our classroom door. Ms. A brought me lunch, and arranged for our class to have the track all to ourselves.

  Roik was first in the car line when school let out. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, you going to see that priest today.”

  For a second, I was scared Roik knew what I was up to, but then I realized he was worried. “It’s counseling, Roik. It’s good for me.”

  I can do this, I thought, looking out the Masterson gates. The gates rolled open and the perimeter guy came up behind and tailed us into St. Mark’s dicey neighborhood.

  Roik walked through the church with me to Father Gabe’s office.

  I had this crazy fantasy that Yates would be waiting in the confessional, but as soon as we entered St. Mark’s, I knew he wasn’t. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.

  It’s fine. It’s better if Yates stays out of this.

  Mrs. Kessler, the receptionist, let Father G know we’d arrived. Roik tried to follow me into Father Gabe’s office, but Father G blocked him. “The instruction is private and spiritual. You can wait out here and Mrs. Kessler will chaperone Aveline and me.”

  Roik took one look at the stack of Catholic Weekly in the waiting area and headed for the courtyard.

  Mrs. Kessler sat down with her knitting on Father G’s couch. When I went to sit beside her, Gabe led me to a door across the room, talking in his priestly voice. “When the Lord joins a man and a woman…”

  He waved me through, and I was in the priest’s dressing room. Sun streamed through two stained-glass windows, smearing color over the room and distorting the cabinets on the walls.

  He shut the door behind me, and I was alone.

  But then Yates stepped out from between the windows. His dark hair was a mess and he had a bandage above his left eye and he hadn’t shaved in days, but he was back. He opened his arms and I leaped into them.

  “I was so scared. I saw the cop hit you, and then you disappeared and didn’t pick up your phone. I had no idea what happened to you.”

  “They didn’t release me until this morning,” he said. “I’m sorry, I probably stink. I drove right through so I could be here.”

  He held me tight and I squeezed him back, but that only lasted a moment before it became awkward and stiff, and we both let go.

  We sat down, facing each other on the bench where Father G probably tied his shoes. My hand lay on the seat between us, and I stretched out my little finger, so I could touch the seam of his jeans without him seeing. I needed to feel he was really there.

  Yates’ shirt was damp with sweat and he smelled like leather. The sunburn on his cheeks made his eyes look even bluer and there was a narrow band of stubble along his jaw.

  I touched the frayed gauze on his forehead. “Don’t worry about how you smell. Are you okay? What did they do to you?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just a cut. Nothing serious. The police had paramedics standing by so they wouldn’t get sued.”

  “But they hit you with pepper spray.”

  “Yeah. It burned like hell. But you know, it was worth it.”

  “How could that be worth it?”

  “Because after the police attack, we were totally united: fifty student groups from all o
ver California. We held meetings in holding cells, made plans. I’m telling you, Fearless, we’re on the verge of a revolution. We’re going to take down the Paternalists.”

  For the first time in way too long, I saw his eyes fired up with hope.

  “You really think so?”

  “Yeah. All it will take is a trigger, I don’t know what exactly, but people will come to their senses and throw them out.”

  “I hope it’s soon.” I gave him a huge smile. “I’m so glad you’re back. The police took forever to let you out.”

  “I had trouble making bail, but then some anonymous donor covered it. I wish I knew his name so I could thank the guy.”

  “If you find out, I’ll send him a card. ‘Thanks for getting my best friend out of jail.’”

  For a moment, Yates didn’t move. “I guess with Dayla gone I am your best friend.”

  The slightly disappointed way he said that drew me closer. Does that mean…?

  He hooked his finger through my Love Bracelet. “Tell me about Hawkins. Is he as airbrushed in person as he is on TV?”

  “No, he saves that for the camera. At home, he sticks with cold and controlling.”

  “Guess I’ll see for myself on Saturday.”

  “What?”

  “Hawkins ordered the Biocure board members to bring their families out to his house so Dad demanded I show up.” Yates, reached toward my face, and brushed my hair away from my collar and my heart stopped. What are you doing?

  “What’s this on your neck?” he said.

  I slapped my hand over the bruises and looked away. Images strobed in my head: the man’s face, the blue van, Roik taking aim.

  Yates took hold of my arms. “Did Roik do that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hawkins!”

  “No,” I whispered. “I was attacked.”

  Yates let go and I saw his hands tremble as they hovered over my arms. “What! When? How?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Holy— Were you ambushed?”

  Yellow crime tape flapped in front of my eyes, but I tried to hold it together. “I was at the cemetery. This man grabbed me and tried to get me into his van.”