Shock

by Francine Pascal

  Look at this room, now. The room that is home to my daughter and Gaia. Tatiana was such a brilliant child. Even when she was tiny, running around on her sturdy legs and laughing in that charming, tinkling way that she had, I knew she was special. I watched her get what she wanted with charm and, when charm didn’t work, with a well-placed chubby fist. I used to pretend to chide her, but underneath, I knew the two skills would complement each other perfectly to take my daughter wherever she wanted in the world.

  And I have done whatever I had to do so that Tatiana could have the most opportunities. Some very distasteful things. And then, some that were more pleasurable. But it was all done for Tatiana. So that she would never have to live the way I lived.

  Yet here, in the small twin bed next to my precious daughter, there has been an interloper. Someone who wanted to usurp Tatiana’s birthright. I have been forced to care for this ill-mannered creature, who did nothing but resent me and spit in my face in return for the care she was given. And the worst part was, I had actually begun to care for this Gaia. For a brief period things seemed calm, almost normal, almost homey.

  Until I found out that this mediocre child wanted the power that Tatiana deserved.

  That was entirely too much. Just looking at their beds, you can see which belongs to the superior child. One, with fresh bedding neatly arranged, as pretty as a picture. The other, strewn with crumpled sheets, the pillow slumped on the floor like a defeated marshmallow. Who would live so disgustingly? The heiress to power? Or an annoying creature who must be eliminated?

  Not many things really make me laugh. But there is no other response to this. To the idea that Gaia could ever be given such power when she so clearly doesn’t deserve it. When power is exactly what Tatiana so richly deserves.

  Not Gaia.

  Tatiana.

  And I will make that happen any way I can.

  Gone

  NATASHA FLUFFED HER DAUGHTER’S pillow, stepped on Gaia’s, and went over to the false-backed fireplace to look at the gun. She hoped to have an opportunity to use it again soon. And this time she wouldn’t miss.

  She moved the heavy piece of metal and peered into the dim chamber, reaching for the instrument of her revenge. Her hand closed on nothing.

  Natasha gasped as if she had been bitten and yanked her arm back out. She stepped back and looked up at the wall, wildly thinking that maybe there were two holes and she’d reached into the wrong one. But there was just the one. It was supposed to hold the beautiful gun. And it did not. It held nothing.

  With a cry of fury she reached back into the dusty chamber and flapped her arm desperately, trying to locate the gun somewhere, anywhere inside. But all she hit was bare walls and dirt. The gun was gone.

  The gun was gone.

  Had Tatiana taken it? Was she trying to act alone? The thought hit Natasha like a cold fist clenching her heart. Could she be so foolhardy? She would get herself killed! She had picked up the phone to call her daughter when the real explanation blossomed in her mind.

  Of course. It had to be.

  Gaia had somehow found the gun and taken it.

  That little monster. Now Natasha wanted her dead more than ever.

  The phone rang, startling Natasha from her reverie. She stepped into the kitchen and picked it up.

  “She is going to Greenpoint. To the water towers near the docks.”

  It was Tatiana, sounding calm but excited. This was the chance they had both been waiting for. What they had failed at yesterday, they would now complete.

  “My darling,” Natasha said. “You’re all right?”

  “Of course. Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “Just humor me,” she said. “You don’t have…anything you’re not supposed to, do you?”

  “What are you talking about? Of course not. Mother, are you all right?”

  “It’s nothing. Excuse me,” Natasha said, relief flooding her veins. She composed herself quickly. “How did you find out about this odd location?”

  “She called to tell Sam,” Tatiana told her. She gave a lilting laugh. “She begged him to meet her—gave careful directions—said she had to be sure they would be alone. She says she has reason to be very paranoid. But she loves him and she must see him tonight.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’ll be just fine,” Natasha said. “But we’ll make sure, eh?”

  “Do you know where these water towers are?”

  “I will find out. You’re coming home now?”

  “I’m in the cab. I’m almost there.”

  “Good. By the time you get here, I’ll be ready to go.”

  “I have to change. I’m dressed for a night out with those stupid girls.”

  “Yes.”

  Tatiana clicked off the line, and Natasha stood, holding the receiver as her daughter sped uptown toward her in a yellow cab. She caressed the telephone in her hand, as if her warm, loving hand would reach through to her daughter. No, Tatiana would never do something so foolish and ill-mannered. Only Gaia would take something that didn’t belong to her. It made her dangerous, but now that Natasha knew where she would be, she’d be able to neutralize the troublesome girl, and that would be the end of that. It would be a little more difficult this way. She’d have to get close to her to end her life. But maybe that was the way it should be. Up close and personal. A final embrace for the girl who had almost been her stepdaughter.

  She sat back in a plastic chair in the white-tiled kitchen. She was absolutely still. It was so quiet, she could hear the buzzing of the fluorescent light fixture above her head. She no longer felt the need to wander from room to room. Everything was ready to go. She simply waited for her daughter to come home.

  Deserted

  A sharp smell of river water pervaded the air out here.

  Zagged

  NATASHA WAS GLAD SHE HAD USE OF the sleek black sedan that took her and her daughter across the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. She found the red-and-white water towers easily—they were the only shapes rising out of the gloom of the warehouses surrounding them. A sharp smell of river water pervaded the air out here. And there was another scent: the scent of victory close at hand.

  “So she is coming here to meet Sam,” Natasha reiterated.

  “Yes, I suppose she thinks this is a nice, romantic spot,” Tatiana told her. “Yech.”

  “It is strange,” Natasha said. “But she is such a strange girl. Nothing surprises me anymore.”

  “We should be careful. Maybe she will have the gun with her,” Tatiana suggested.

  “Not to meet her boyfriend. But of course you are right—we should always be careful, anyway.” Natasha turned off her headlights for the final approach and put the car in neutral, slipping silently down the last block as they came within hearing range of the water towers. Then she pulled up the parking brake.

  They were quiet for a moment. Both with an unspoken understanding that this moment of meditative silence would focus them for the task ahead. Full of anticipation, with a tiny bit of dread. But quiet and calm.

  “Did you feel bad?” Tatiana asked.

  “What?”

  “Did you ever feel bad? About her father? And about her?”

  Natasha turned to look at her daughter. So poised. So ready to take any action, with a maturity that set her completely apart from other girls her age. Yet Natasha could look into her eyes and see the pleading, unsure girl behind them. She took her hand.

  “There are some sacrifices that must be made,” she told Tatiana. “If it were easy, anyone would be able to do it. It is people like us, who have the bravery to make the difficult choices, who will always win. Remember, my lapatchka, we are soldiers first.”

  She was gratified to see the fear subside in Tatiana’s eyes. But her gaze didn’t waver.

  “But you did not answer my question,” she said.

  Natasha looked away, out the windshield.

  “Some sacrifices must be made,” she repeated. “Now shush. Ready yourself. Tonight we must
succeed.”

  Together she and Tatiana left the car and walked quietly out toward the looming towers. Everything seemed deserted, no sound but distant sirens and the quiet rustle of city life. In the bright moonlight they could see a figure with long blond hair standing uncertainly between the towers. Waiting for a boy who wasn’t on his way. Because her phone call had come straight to Tatiana. It was too delicious.

  The two women approached Gaia from two different directions, taking wide paths to the right and left of her so that they could complement each other’s approaches and minimize the risk that she’d get away. From her vantage point Natasha couldn’t even see Tatiana. But she could sense her presence, flitting like a bat in the dark shadows. When she was sure Tatiana was situated, she gave a loud whistle and began to run toward Gaia.

  It was a bright night, and the open lot was lit by the moon. That was why they couldn’t get too close without leaving the shadows. It meant Gaia had a good ten seconds before they could reach her. In that time she looked around, confused, and realized she was being ambushed. Quickly—so quickly Natasha almost had to admire it—Gaia turned and ran.

  But she hadn’t been expecting more than one attacker. She’d run away from the sound of the whistle and straight into Tatiana. Natasha’s daughter clotheslined Gaia with a stiff-armed shot to the throat; Gaia ran right into the wrestling move and was knocked backward.

  She stumbled, momentarily stunned, and then stepped backward a few paces. She zigged a few steps one way, then zagged in another direction, looking totally haphazard. This time it was Natasha who attacked her, grabbing her around the waist and slamming her into the metal wall of one of the water towers.

  She heard the thud as Gaia hit the wall like a sack of wet sand. Then Tatiana arrived and grabbed her by the hair, snapping her head back and slamming it into the metal once, twice, three times in succession. Gaia let out little cries with each hit—but she didn’t fall. Tatiana gave her one last angry shove and finally knocked her off balance. Gaia dropped to her knees and nearly fell to the ground, catching herself on her hands, instinctively pitching herself away from the two women.

  “Wha—who—” she huffed. Natasha couldn’t tell if she was asking or just gasping for air, but the damn girl was already running again, her feet moving one in front of the other as she flung her torso ahead of herself, doing an awkward, injured ballet in her effort to right herself.

  Tatiana followed after her, grabbing for the waistband of her jeans. But Natasha could see Gaia twisting around, aiming a wild fist at Tatiana’s head.

  “No,” she shouted, and Gaia turned, confused, before her fist could make contact.

  “Natasha?” she asked. “What—what are you doing here?”

  Damn. Cover blown. Oh well, it was bound to happen.

  “Don’t worry about why I’m here, Gaia,” Natasha hissed. “Worry about whether you’ll live long enough to leave.”

  “You found our little friend, eh?” Tatiana asked her. “Our third roommate. I wanted to use it to kill you. Now I have to find a different way.”

  “Oh my God—no,” Gaia said. “Stay back. Stay away from me!”

  This was too excellent. Natasha had never seen Gaia off balance before. The girl began running again, her blond hair looking blue as it flipped behind her in the moonlight, but Tatiana was right on her heels. Natasha saw her catch up to Gaia, shoving her, pushing her, tripping her until she fell to the ground. It was beautiful. Her daughter was perfect. She ran to join her in the wide, pebbly open space, surrounded only by looming warehouse buildings.

  By the time she got there, Tatiana was on the ground, straddling Gaia, her hands in a choking stranglehold around her neck. Gaia’s arms were flailing, smacking haphazardly at Tatiana’s face, shoulders, anywhere, just trying to get a grip on her to defend herself. But it was useless. Natasha approached and placed a foot squarely in the center of Gaia’s chest, making it impossible for Gaia to move. Tatiana let go of her throat and held her flailing arms to the ground.

  “Natasha,” she wheezed, unable to get a decent breath with a boot on her chest. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Stop the charade,” Natasha scolded her. “I think you were expecting to see us. Perhaps not tonight, in this place, but when you took our gun, you knew we would come after you.”

  “Yeah, it was a big surprise,” Gaia answered from her prone position. “Finding out you were double crossing me and my father after all. So tell me—do you get paid well for being a whore?”

  “Shut up, you bitch,” Tatiana screeched. She spit in Gaia’s face. Gaia flinched but couldn’t turn away; her hair, stuck under her shoulders, kept her head pinned helplessly.

  Natasha gave a deep, throaty laugh. “My daughter is very protective of me,” she said. “It is the kind of trait you find in families. Oh, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, my little orphan?”

  “I’m not an orphan,” Gaia seethed. “I’m going to find my father.”

  Natasha’s face darkened, and her smile turned to steel.

  “The only place you’ll find him is in hell, when I send you there,” she said.

  Gaia’s eyes widened. Natasha could see her expression change even in the dim moonlight. She gave an incredulous stare.

  “You’re a liar,” she said. “You’re a bitch and a liar. My father’s not dead.”

  “Oh, but he is,” Natasha wheedled, in a parody of the soothing voice she used to use to comfort Gaia. “He is dead. I fed him poison at that dinner myself. I watched him choke and hoped he wouldn’t make it to the hospital. And I worked with our agents to have him disappear from under the doctors’ noses. He’s gone, Gaia. Deep under the East River by now.”

  Gaia seemed paralyzed. She glared at Natasha, weighing the truth in this statement.

  “It’s terrible,” Tatiana taunted her. “If anything happened to my mother, I would know immediately. And I certainly would find her and protect her if she was in danger. But you? You just let your father die. You did nothing.”

  Gaia roared and bucked her body backward. The convulsive movement caught Natasha off guard and she reeled backward, momentarily off balance. Gaia punched and kicked at her wildly, then turned and ran back toward the water towers, running toward the gap between them.

  “Coward!” Natasha called after her. She gave chase, galloping after Gaia, Tatiana lagging behind. This was becoming tiring. Amusing as it was to tease this pathetic creature, Natasha wanted to silence her once and for all. Perhaps with a twist of the head to break her neck. Perhaps with the long, thin weapon she had tucked into her boot. But first she had to catch the stupid girl yet again. She saw her disappear around the right tower, but she was right behind. She rounded the tower and saw—

  Ha!

  A dizzying halogen light splashed into her vision. Her pupils ached as they tried to dilate in the sudden flash. But before she could figure out where it was coming from, arms grabbed her from every direction, knocking her backward, shoving her against the metal side of the tower.

  Ambushed? Attacked?

  Impossible!

  Unless…

  “Gaia!” she shrieked. “It’s impossible. I’m supposed to kill you! What did you do? Who are these people?”

  “CIA,” she heard Gaia’s voice tell her from somewhere in the gloom beyond the spotlight.

  Natasha fought. With every fiber of her being she lashed out against the black-clad men who had her pinned from every angle. All her satisfaction, all her anticipation turned to horrified dread and the sickening realization that she’d been had.

  “The phone call. You knew,” she snarled. “Oh, you think you are so clever. You little bitch, I’m so glad I killed your father. Do you know he died begging to see you again?”

  “Shut her up,” Gaia’s voice snapped. Natasha heard footsteps crunching away.

  “You can’t shut me up,” Natasha screamed after her. “You’ll hear me in your dreams, Gaia. You’ll hear me and see me and you’ll never
forget how you loved me. Me, Gaia. The woman who killed Thomas Moore!”

  Natasha felt her windpipe being squeezed by the leather-clad hand of a CIA operative. She gave a strangled shout and felt a flash of pain behind her eyes as she gasped for breath. A moment later she could breathe again as she was thrown bodily into the back of a paddy wagon. She struggled to stand and look out the back window. Then she began pounding on the doors.

  Pounding. First slowly. Then quickly. Pounding in time with the wild beating of her heart. Fury ripping through her veins as she saw her prize snatched from her grasp with one stupid voice mail. She could kill herself for this. So anxious to close the deal, she hadn’t seen the glaringly obvious fact that she was being set up.

  “Gaia!” she screamed. “Gaia! GAAAIAAAA!”

  Instincts

  TATIANA SAW THE BURST OF LIGHT as Natasha was captured and stepped backward into the shadows. She watched her mother, her beautiful, proud mother, captured by thugs and treated like a common streetwalker. She nearly leapt into the light to join her mother in battling the attackers. But something stopped her. Almost like a hand, reaching out and pulling her back.

  Stop. Something told her. Some one. It was her mother’s voice, speaking from her heart.

  What is the logical progression if I run to help her? that part of Tatiana asked.

  I’ll fight, but I’ll get captured, too. There are too many of them, she answered inwardly.

  Then run.

  With the instincts Natasha had instilled in her, Tatiana cut her losses and turned her back on her mother. It was the most wrenching thing she had ever done. But that voice inside her had spoken the truth. What good was she to her mother from inside a prison cell?

  Tatiana could hear the shouts of the government agents behind her. Looking for her. Clumsy men. Fools. If she hadn’t been concentrating so hard on slipping, invisible, into the streets of Brooklyn, Tatiana would have laughed.