Killer

by Francine Pascal

  Dozens of thoughts danced frantically through Ella’s skull. But she couldn’t help but notice something peculiar: for all Pearl’s strength, there was a surprising lack of anger in her fists. Almost a detachment. This wasn’t personal.

  And that made the attack all the more dangerous.

  Summoning what little strength she had left, Ella snapped into action—delivering a karate chop to the left side of Pearl’s face as the woman reared back to launch another blow. That would buy her a few seconds to regroup.

  The surprise force of the hit sent Pearl stumbling in her high heels, her arms flailing to keep balance. Seeing another opportunity, Ella pounced immediately, lashing out with a quick side kick that sent Pearl sprawling to the garbage-strewn cement.

  “Who sent you?” Ella gasped.

  Pearl rolled over and jumped to her feet. “No one,” she panted. With her hair in disarray and face bathed in sweat, with her clothes stained and dripping with trash, Pearl no longer looked like the seductive socialite. Hardly. She looked like a deranged killer. She was a deranged killer.

  “Tell me,” Ella hissed, circling Pearl in a combat stance.

  The two danced around each other, like two burning suns in mutual orbit.

  With a sudden jerk Pearl deftly swung her legs in a half-moon, sweeping Ella’s feet from underneath her. For what seemed like an eternity, Ella felt herself flying helplessly through empty space. When the flight was over, the only sound Ella heard was that of her bones slamming against the pavement.

  GAIA STOOD STILL AS A STATUE AT the mouth of the alleyway, waiting to see if Ella would get up. So far, Ella’s fingers were moving, but little else. Gaia blinked. She had no idea what she was feel-ing—other than utter bewilderment. Ella was getting her ass kicked. That was no small feat, either. Shouldn’t Gaia be dancing around with joy? Watching this should have been the best show she’d seen all week.

  No More Ella

  But it was just too strange.

  First this woman had stalked Ella . . . then it turned out they were friends . . . then just as quickly the woman turned into a vicious assailant. But who the hell was she? And why did she want to hurt Ella?

  Now the woman was kneeling beside Ella’s crumpled form and opening her purse, the one Gaia had rescued from the trash. Even in the shadows Gaia could see something glinting. It looked like a glass tube and a vial.

  The woman stuck the vial on the tip of the tube and pushed on it.

  Holy shit. It wasn’t a tube at all. It was a medical syringe. With a three-inch needle. Gaia shot a quick glance down the deserted block. It was dead silent.

  Ella groaned.

  Gaia peered back into the alley. The woman was pushing Ella’s head down against the pavement with one hand and pinning Ella’s arm down with her knee. Gaia caught the briefest flash of Ella’seyesin the darkness. She could see the whites. There was terror there. Ella knew she was about to die.

  Time seemed to split in half—like a fork in the road, one path racing toward the past, one racing toward the future. Gaia knew that this was a pivotal moment in her life. Her body hummed with the cold energy that came in place of fear. Ella had made Gaia’s existence miserable. Ella had tried to kill her. Ella had stolen the one boy Gaia could ever love. So why didn’t Ella’s impending murder fill Gaia with a sense of satisfaction? How many times had she fantasized about killing the woman herself?

  But she’s never been a victim before, came the silent answer.

  That was the difference. That was why Gaia couldn’t feel pleasure. Besides, allowing Ella to die wouldn’t do Gaia a damn bit of good. Nothing about Gaia’s life would change. She would still leave town with Uncle Oliver. If she could ever find him . . .

  “Hold still, dammit,” the woman hissed.

  Gaia could just turn and walk away. Easily.

  And then no more Ella.

  The needle seemed to hang in the air, suspended in time.

  In a vision asclear asany reality, Gaia saw the needle puncture Ella’sskin and drive deep into her carotid artery. She saw the sudden jolt of pain and fear before the life drained from those hateful green eyes.

  But she also saw a thousand unresolved questions slipping away. She saw mysteries without answers. She saw shame in herself for not intervening on behalf of a victim who was clearly helpless, at least for the moment....

  Before she even realized what she was doing, Gaia pounced into the alley.

  “Hai!”

  Startled, the woman turned her head—just as Gaia’s foot made contact with her wrist. The syringe went flying. It danced and flipped in the air, hitting the ground with a shatter.

  “Hey!” the woman screamed, her face blazing red.

  She lunged at Gaia like a mountain lion clawing at the throat of its prey. Caught off balance, Gaia suddenly found the woman’s bony fingers around her neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. Surprisingly, they were very strong. Gaia’s wind-pipe was slowly being crushed. But her mind was clear.

  Raising her arms high above her head, Gaia quickly rotated her body 180 degrees. Her arms, combined with the sudden jerking motion, made it impossible for the woman to maintain her grip. It was a pretty basic move, one her father had taught her at the beginning of her training. Breaking a choke hold wasa fundamental technique in all martial arts.

  With the woman behind her now, Gaia pulled back her arm and jabbed an elbow hard into her side. Then she snapped her arm up like a lever, smashing the back of her fist into the woman’s forehead. The blow landed sharp and solid. Clearly disoriented and hurt, the woman staggered backward three steps. It was all the time Gaia needed. Energy pumped through her joints as she launched herself into the air. Spiraling, she delivered a powerful roundhouse kick, smashing the side of the woman’s face.

  The woman collapsed in an unconscious heap.

  Gaia towered over her, panting.

  She’d done it. She’d saved Ella.

  But before she could ask herself why she had done this ridiculous thing, black dots swirled at the edges of her vision and the ground rushed up to meet her.

  I’M BEING CRUSHED BY THE PERSON I hate most.

  Surrender

  It would have been funny if it weren’t so terrifying. Ella lay pinned against the ground, Gaia’s heavy body sprawled on top of her. Strands of Gaia’s blond hair lay across Ella’s cheek. The girl must be unconscious. Or dead. Ella stared helplessly at the gray sky. Pain pooled in her left shoulder blade. Had Pearl managed to stick the needle into Gaia as Gaia was finishing her off? Was that why—

  “Are you all right?” Gaia groaned.

  Ella blinked. “What?”

  Moaning, Gaia rolled off her and sat up straight. “I said, are you all right?”

  Ella couldn’t answer. The question was absurd.

  “You’re the one who fell down,” she finally mumbled. She swallowed, meeting Gaia’s cold gaze.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Ella’s eyes flashed to Pearl, then back to Gaia. Now that she thought about it, given the choice between being killed by Gaia or a needle, Ella would have picked the needle any day.

  “Why did you come in here?” she whispered shakily. “To finish me off yourself?”

  Gaia shook her head.

  Ella’s stare hardened. “Then why? Why did you do it? Why did you save me?”

  “Because I want you to answer some questions,” Gaia said simply. “And because you were in trouble.” Her face darkened. “But believe me, if you were the one with the syringe, you’d be out cold right now yourself.”

  Ella didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even really know what Gaia was talking about. All she knew was that nobody had ever risked their life for her. Not even Loki.

  Gaia was the first.

  Gaia had appeared out of nowhere. Gaia had stepped right in and saved her. Ella turned her head away and bit her teeth deeply into her lower lip to keep the tears at bay. Shame and confusion flooded every cell in her being. She had underestimated Gaia’s
character. She had underestimated everything about her—

  A muffled ringing noise interrupted her thoughts.

  She looked at Gaia again. “What is that?” Gaia whispered.

  Ella’s gaze flashed to Pearl’s purse. Without thinking, she snatched up the purse and fumbled for Pearl’s cell phone, then clicked the answer button. Whoever was calling Pearl might also know why Pearl had been sent to kill her. Ella didn’t say a word. She simply held the phone to her ear. Gaia stared at her.

  “Is she dead yet?” an icy voice demanded.

  Loki. Ella’s heart caught in her throat. Pearl worked for him. She should have known....In a way, she supposed she always had known. But that didn’t make the revelation any less terrifying. She hung up quickly, the phone tumbling out of her hands.

  “What’s going on here?” Gaia whispered.

  “That was Loki,” Ella gasped. “He was the one who sent . . .” Terror prevented her from finishing her thought.

  Confusion clouded Gaia’s eyes. “Loki?”

  Ella slumped against the light post. He couldn’t have known about the missing money so soon. The world seemed tilted, turned, inside out. Everything wasbackward. Loki was trying to kill her. Pearl was the assassin. Allies were enemies, and enemies were . . . Ella blinked hard several times to make the world right again.

  But nothing changed. Gaia was still sitting beside her.

  Gaia had still saved her life.

  Stranger than Fiction

  NEVER IN GAIA’S WILDEST IMAGININGS could she have imagined this: that she’d be helping Ella to her feet and dragging her away from the scene of an attempted murder. But her months of living in New York should have taught her something by now. Never be surprised. Never be off guard. Never be close-minded. Reality was always stranger than fiction. Always.

  They left Pearl unconscious in the alley and began walking—aimlessly, through the cold Chinatown night. Neither of them said a word. Their footsteps reminded Gaia of the ticking of two out-of-sync clocks. They marked the passage of time into an uncertain future. And with each second Gaia grew more impatient.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded.

  After several more steps Ella finally exhaled. “I don’t even know where to begin,” she stated.

  “How about by telling me who you are.”

  Ella nodded, her head down. Gaia couldn’t help but feel a wave of pity. Ella looked almost like a whipped dog; all the fight had drained from her. She was an empty shell. She was pathetic, lost, confused.

  Much like Gaia herself.

  “I’ve been Loki’s partner for years now,” she said. Loki. There was that name again. Who was Loki? And why did Ella talk about him as if Gaia was supposed to know who he was? She’d never heard of anyone named after the Norse god of the underworld. The last time she’d even thought about Norse mythology was as a child, when her father had made her read a book about ancient religions....

  “He assigned me to you,” Ella continued. “I mean, the reason I married George was so I could keep an eye on you. Of course, George doesn’t know anything about this—”

  “Hang on a second,” Gaia interrupted. She shook her head, trying to get her bearings straight. It was as if Ella were talking in some foreign language she didn’t understand.“Why would Loki want you to keep an eye on me?”

  Ella shrugged. “He wanted me to protect you because he couldn’t do it himself.”

  Gaia froze in her tracks. For a moment she was almost tempted to laugh. “You were supposed to protect me? Then what the hell was up with the gun? The shooting? The attack—”

  “Shhh.” Ella’s face grew serious. She glanced warily down the street. “That’s why he’s after me now. Because I tried to kill you. He . . . he cares about you.” Her downcast eyes fell to the sidewalk. “He loves you more than anything. But his job ...see, his job prevented him from making contact with you before now....”

  Suddenly everything fell into place.

  Blood turned to ice in Gaia’s veins. She felt like she’d been standing at the edge of a vast precipice for years, always looking down . . . and Ella had just shoved her over the edge. His job. Only one kind of job could have prevented somebody with a name like “Loki” from seeing her. Someone with a job that required an alias. A code name.

  Someone like her father.

  TOM

  One of my greatest fears is that someone will attempt to tell my daughter why I left her. The reasons are complicated and involved and can be understood only by someone who has actually lived through it.

  I’m afraid that if Gaia hears about it from someone other than myself, she’ll get the wrong impression. There are important parts of the story that will invariably be left out—like how much I love my daughter, how thoughts of her consume my every waking hour, how I write letters to her only to file them away because they cannot be sent. Only I can express to her the ache in my heart at having to leave her alone. Or the pain I feel on her birthday when I can’t call or even send a card.

  If Gaia doesn’t know any of these things, if she doesn’t have the complete story, then I’m afraid she could get hurt from the misunderstanding. I’m afraid I could lose her.

  That’s why I have to find a way to tell her myself.

  contract

  But things were different now. Much different. The hunters were the hunted.

  ELLA KNEW THAT GAIA DIDN’T believe a word of this. Then again, Ella never really expected Gaia to believe her. But there was something new in Gaia’s eyes now . . . something Ella had never seen before. Was it curiosity? Anxiety? Fear? Any of those emotions would have made sense. They were all fitting when it came to Loki.

  A Dangerous Place

  “Tell me about him,” Gaia said.

  For a moment Ella just stared at her. Discussing Loki’s life was dangerous territory. The more you knew, the more jeopardy you were in. Of course, Loki would never harm Gaia. That was the one certainty. “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “Everything,” Gaia stated. As if to prove her point, she sat down on the curb. Ella hesitated. Her eyes roved the street. There was a very good chance that Loki was already coming after her. They should get somewhere . . . somewhere safe. Away from Chinatown. Her gaze came to rest on a large window display. There were carvings and vases and a huge tapestry of a mountain landscape, woven with silver thread. Just like the one she had seen at Mr. Xi’s . . .

  No. Mr. Xi.

  Gaia had a contract out on her life. But Gaia had just saved Ella. There was no way. . . . Okay, yes, Ella had wanted her dead. But things were different now. Much different. The hunterswere the hunted. Ella would need Gaia’s help if she wanted to survive. And vice versa. Ella had to tell Mr. Xi the deal was off ...if it wasn’t already too late.

  “There’s something I have to take care of right away,” Ella mumbled, her feet already in motion. A vague feeling of panic tingled at the base of her spine. “It’s important.”

  “Hey!” Gaia shouted, leaping to her feet. “You can’t just leave! You owe me some answers!”

  Ella quickened her step. “It’ll have to wait until later.”

  “Not later—now.”

  Ella stopped. “Look, Gaia—this is a dangerous place for you to be right now.” Her voice was trembling. She stared at Gaia intensely, making it clear that defying her was not an option. “Meet me tonight at the building on the southeast corner of Avenue C and Eighth Street. We’ll talk then—I promise.”

  “Why the hell should I believe you?” Gaia cried.

  Ella didn’t even attempt to argue. There was no point. “I can’t answer that,” she said. “Now get out of here.”

  Thankfully, Gaia turned and walked away.

  ELLA WAS PANTING BY THE TIME she burst through the door of Mr. Chin’s. The old Chinese woman looked up slowly from her newspaper. Not even the faintest glimmer of recognition flashed across her weathered face.

  Savage Swing

  “Can I help you?” she as
ked.

  “Mr. Xi,” Ella gasped, struggling to catch her breath. Sweat poured down her forehead, even though it was freezing outside.

  “Can I help you?” the woman repeated.

  “I was here less than an hour ago,” Ella stated, her brow furrowing in anger and confusion. “Take me upstairs.”

  The woman turned back to her paper. She didn’t even blink.

  Ella smacked her open palms on the wooden counter. “This is an emergency!” she shouted. “I need to see Mr. Xi now! Okay?”

  Unruffled by Ella’s outburst, the woman licked her gnarled thumb and delicately turned the page. Her lips silently formed the words as she read.

  Shit, shit, shit . . .

  “I’ve made a big mistake,” Ella pleaded, on the verge of tears. Panic raged like a flash fire across her entire body. “A girl’s life is in danger.”

  Still the woman kept reading.

  Money. Of course. The woman needed a bribe. Ella gritted her teeth as she dove into her purse and pulled out a fifty. She slid the crisp bill across the counter.

  The woman didn’t even look away from her paper as she slipped the bill into her dress. “Mr. Xi is not here,” she said.

  Ella was half tempted to lunge across the counter and strangle this woman. “Well, where did he go? I have to talk to him immediately.”

  The old woman shrugged.

  Fine. Ella was sick of playing games. Anyway, why was she even wasting her breath on the old hag when she already knew the way to Mr. Xi’s lair herself? She stormed around the counter. With a look of alarm, the old woman jumped off her stool and threw herself in front of the curtained doorway, arms outstretched. Ella snorted, shoving the frail old woman aside as easily as if the woman were a straw mannequin. She headed for the stairs.

  “You can’t go up there!” the woman called, her Chinese accent melting away to perfect English. “Mr. Xi will be very upset!”

  No problem. Ella was upset, too. She bounded up the rickety staircase in pitch blackness, praying that none of the dusty boards would suddenly buckle under her feet. She wouldn’t get angry, though. No. She would just politely explain to Mr. Xi that she had resolved the conflict on her own, so there was no reason to go through with the contract. He could even keep the money for histrouble. A free $150,000. How could he possibly refuse?