Gaia knocked again. She waited for what felt like two weeks, but nobody came. Had Sam managed to slip out between the time she'd called and now? She thought she heard a noise inside. Was it okay to go in? Was it kind of a public room?
The thought of trudging back home to Ella and George's house in defeat, potentially only to be hunted down by CJ, was so unappealing, she turned the doorknob and walked inside.
It was a good-sized room, housing four desks, a minifridge, a hot plate, bookshelves, piles of sports equipment, notebooks, jackets, a couch that looked like it had been retrieved from a dump, and a very large television set. Gaia took a deep breath. No people, though.
Could Sam possibly be in his room? Maybe he was sleeping and he hadn't heard her knock. What if she were to creep in and climb into bed with him? Would he start screaming and call the police? Or would they have a beautiful, semiconscious, dreamlike sexual encounter? Gaia's head began to pound at the thought.
She walked very quietly toward room B5. Her spirits lifted. It was just her luck. The door was open a crack, and she heard a sound from inside. It sounded almost like a sleep sound.
Gaia took another deep, steadying breath. Do it, she commanded herself. You have to try. She put out her hand and placed it lightly on the knob. The brass sphere was a little wobbly in her palm. She gave it the lightest push and let it swing open.
Physicists were always crowing about the speed of light, but in this case the light from the common room seemed to filter into the small chamber slowly, as though well aware it was not a welcome guest. In this case, light traveled at the speed of dawning horror, of rude awakening, of hopes being dashed -- but no faster. Before Gaia's round, naked eyes, the form on the bed was illuminated.
Two forms.
2
SAM HAD BELIEVED HIS BODY and mind joined together as he made love to Heather. But in truth, they weren't actually joined until several seconds later, when his senses alerted him, in fast succession, to the subtle creaking of the door, the surprising influx of light, and most importantly, the stunned face of Gaia Moore. That was actually the moment when his body and mind snapped back into one piece.
2 ½
GAIA HAD NEVER SEEN ANYBODY having sex before, so the image was raw, crude,strange, terrible, and electrifying at the same time.
She should have dashed out of there instantly, but her astonishment seemed to lock her muscles, giving her eyes ample time to torture her with the sight of Sam's naked body, poetic even under these circumstances. His long, lean form was cupped against Heather's, their hips joined, dewy sweat shared between chests and arms, their legs a mutual tangle.
But by far the worst moment came when Sam turned and saw her. Her pain was too big to hide, she knew, and scrawled flagrantly on her face. Sam was baring his body, but she was caught exposing her soul. Her secret pain, her crushed hope, her sickly envy, and her queasy fascination were there for all to see. Worst of all, Sam saw her see him seeing all of this.
At last her muscles freed her, and she ran.
It wasn't until afterward that she realized she hadn't bothered to look at Heather. Heather didn't really matter much.
3
WHEN SAM LOOKED AT GAIA'S face, he thought his heart broke for her, but he realized later that it broke for himself.
JUST CRUEL
HEATHER WATCHED GAIA'S FACE with a disturbing sense of excitement. As full and complex as Gaia's expression was in that surreal moment, Heather knew she wouldn't forget it.
Heather realized later that she hadn't even looked at Sam's face. Somehow she knew his response without needing to look. At the time, it didn't really seem to matter much.
THE CHASE
Just when she'd settled herself on that bench and he'd gotten her temple between the crosshairs, she'd taken off again.
THE PARK . . .
GAIA STRODE DOWN THE SIDEWALK, tears dribbling over her cheeks, past her jawbone, and down her neck, hair streaming in the breeze. Her hat and scarf and whatever were someplace. What did it matter? If CJ wanted to shoot her right now, he could be her guest. In fact, she might ask him if she could borrow his gun.
At that moment she would have burned her eyes out rather than have to see that picture of Sam and bitch-girl ever again. But now the image was stored in her brain for good. Or at least until one of CJ's bullets came to her rescue. "CJ!" she called out semideliriously.
She walked blindly under the miniature Arc de Triomphe that marked the entrance to the park. She staggered to a bench and collapsed on it. She hid her face in her hands and cried. Her shoulders heaved and shook, but the sobs were noiseless. Why did her life always go this way? Why did it always seem to take the worst-possible turn?
Whenever she made the mistake of caring, of wanting something badly, life seemed to take that desire and smack her in the face with it.
What had she done to deserve this? Was it because she was strange? A scientific anomaly? Just plain made wrong? If she had fear, like a normal girl, would she also have been allowed to have a mother and a father and a boyfriend? And if so, was there any way she could go back and renegotiate the deal? Give me fear! she would say. Give me tons of it. Give me extra; I don't care.
No more caring, that was the golden rule. Forget about "do unto others" and all of that crap. Life's one great lesson was: Do not care. Not caring was a person's only real protection.
In the midst of sobs and tears and internal ranting, something made Gaia look up. Afterward, when she thought back, she couldn't say precisely what it was. But for whatever reason, she turned her tear-stained face up at that moment, and a terrible night became a perfectly mind-shattering one.
There, not fifteen feet away, standing against the trunk of a compact sycamore tree, was her father. In that split second she saw that he was thinner than he was five years before, that his face was more lined and angular, that his reddish blond hair was cut very short now, but he was unmistakably her father.
Gaia didn't jump to her feet as the result of any specific thoughts or decisions. One minute she was collapsed on the bench, and the next minute she was running toward him. He didn't run to her with open arms in slow motion the way long-lost relatives do in old movies. He gave her a look that was both surprised and pained, then he took off in the other direction.
Gaia followed him without thinking. She had to. She couldn't have stopped herself if she'd tried.
10th St. & 5th Ave.
EXACTLY ON SCHEDULE, GAIA HAD seen him standing under the tree. They had locked eyes, and she had recognized him. As if on cue, she ran toward him, and he ran away from her. It's what her father would have done.
Now he would lead her to his loft on the Hudson River, just as he had planned. He was about to meet Gaia face-to-face. Excitement, true excitement, bred in his heart for the first time in many years.
For this great meeting the playing field wouldn't be even, of course. But when was it? He would go into it knowing everything about Gaia Moore, knowing her present, her past, her mother . . . intimately. She would go into it believing he was her father.
17th St. & 6th Ave.
CJ CURSED IN FRUSTRATION. HE was so completely consumed by anger, he couldn't think straight anymore. Just when she'd settled herself on that bench and he'd gotten her temple between the crosshairs, she'd taken off again. He stowed his gun before anybody saw him and followed her.
Now he was badly winded, running, walking, dodging throngs of pedestrians, weaving through wide avenues clotted with traffic, staying with her each and every step. Not for a second would he lose sight of her blond hair, which luckily for him practically glowed in the dark.
Tonight was his night. He'd make sure of it. This couldn't go on another day. Tarick and his boys had made it clear. If he didn't kill Gaia tonight, he'd be dead by morning.
17th St. & 7th Ave.
TOM KEPT THE YOUNG MAN WITH the gun clearly in his sights as he ran. Here was an example of why agents were never allowed near the business of protecting their
families. Tom had seen Gaia's face when she'd emerged from the dorm building, tear soaked and racked with misery, and he'd stopped thinking like an agent and started thinking like a father. He'd lost a step, screwed up.
Gaia had narrowly avoided a bullet, and now they were on the run.
BACK UP A MINUTE
SAM HAD NEVER PUT ON CLOTHES faster. He felt disgusting about leaving Heather at such a moment, but his more urgent feeling was the need to catch up to Gaia and ... what? He had no idea. Make her feel better? Make himself feel better? Tell her he wanted her desperately, body and soul, and the fact that he'd just been making love to Heather was an odd, irrelevant coincidence? That would be a complete lie, yet also true at the same time.
"Heather, I'm really, really sorry," he said to her numb-looking face as he raced for the door. He wasn't so sorry, however, that he waited for a response or even looked back at her once. He felt disgusting.
The elevator was many floors away. He ran for the stairs instead. He took them two and three at a time, stumbling at the bottom and practically crashing into the serene lobby like Frankenstein's monster. Gaia was gone, of course.
Sam ran to the door and scanned the sidewalk in either direction. No sign of her. Now what? If Sam hadn't felt the frantic pangs of a drowning man, he would never have involved the security guard in his predicament.
"Uh, Kevin, hey. Did you see a girl, a blond girl around eighteen, rush out of here?" Sam asked.
Kevin paused for an infuriating two and a half seconds to consider. "Tall, pretty, crying?" he asked.
Oh God, she was crying. "Y-Yeah, that's probably her," Sam snapped, feeling an irrational desire to cram his hand down Kevin's throat and pull whatever informative words he had right out of there. And Sam liked Kevin. He and Kevin talked about the Knicks five out of seven nights a week.
Kevin paused again, savoring his important role in Sam's drama.
"Did you see which way she went?" Sam prodded, wild-eyed.
Kevin sighed thoughtfully. "Coulda been downtown," he said at last. "I'm pretty sure she walked downtown."
Sam was already at the door and out of it. "Thanks, Kevin. I really appreciate it." Most of his thanks were wasted on passersby on Fifth Avenue.
He ran toward the park. Of course she'd gone to the park. Every major event in his brief life with Gaia (with the notable exception of this evening) had taken place in the park.
Suddenly Sam had it in his mind that this was a good sign. If Gaia had gone to the park -- their place, really -- she would want him to find her there. If she was in the park, that would mean Sam could somehow repair this disaster.
When he caught a glimpse of yellow hair, sagging shoulders, and a face buried in familiar hands on a bench near the entrance, his heart soared irrationally. He would take her in his arms; he didn't care. He would tell her he loved her. How weird was that? But it was what his heart was telling him to do. He did love her. He loved her in a way he'd never come close to loving anything before. He'd known it for a while, even if he was too cowardly to say it or act on it. Now he would cut through all the chaos and defensiveness and confusion. He would take a risk for once in his life.
I love you. I love you, Gaia.The words were on his tongue, he could practically feel her in his arms, and suddenly, without warning, without even appearing to see him, Gaia leaped off the bench and started running.
Sam was destroyed. But he did find a reserve of insanity that pushed him to follow her.
A BRIEF VISIT WITH HEATHER
HEATHER SAT VERY STILL ON SAM'S bed, half dressed, with her chin resting in her hands. The room was dark; the suite was perfectly quiet.
In her mind she knew she felt horribly wronged and betrayed and mistreated by Sam, but her insides felt strangely dry. She felt too dry for tears or any of the really muddy emotions. Why was that, exactly? Why did she feel so oddly calm and lucid?
When she thought of Gaia's ravaged face, she felt a burst of gratification and maybe even joy. They had a word for this in German, her mother's first language. Schadenfreude. It meant shameful joy -- taking pleasure in somebody else's pain.
Heather knew she should have felt shamed by this, but she didn't. She should have felt shocked and furious at Sam, but she didn't quite. Maybe later.
Maybe she was just numb.
Or maybe in her heart she already knew that Sam had fallen in love with Gaia and that he had never truly been in love with her.
Or maybe it was really all because of Ed. Because of the awful things that happened with Ed, Heather's heart wasn't the soft, supple muscle it had once been.
AND ANOTHER WITH ED
ED FLICKED OFF THE LIGHT IN THE hallway. He wheeled back into his room and unbuttoned his shirt -- his best, softest shirt. On the collar lingered a tiny whiff of the cologne he'd put on after his shower. It brought on a pang of wobbly self-pity, and the self-pity brought on anger and discontent. Self-pity was the single worst feeling there was, particularly if you happened to be in a wheelchair.
He hoisted himself into his bed and struggled to take his pants off his immobile legs. A close second, in the race of worst feelings, was helplessness.
Ed didn't need to brush his teeth. He'd brushed them twice two hours ago.
Why was he so sad? He didn't really think Gaia was going to come, did he? No, not really. Not rationally. But he'd made the mistake of listening, just a little, to the seductive whispers of that rotten, misleading bastard called Hope.
If there was some way Ed could have strangled Hope and put the world out of much of its misery, he would have.
Instead he laid his head down on his pillow and cast a glance at the glowing blue numbers of his clock radio. It was 10:02. Only 10:02. Not so late.
What if Gaia . . . it was still possible. . . . And maybe she . . .
Ed groaned out loud and put the pillow over his head. It did nothing to drown out the whispers.
HELL'S KITCHEN
If her own father was leading her into an ambush, what was there to live for, anyway?
39th St. & 11th Ave.
GAIA'S MIND WAS BLANK. HER existence was all and only about keeping the tall man in the gray sweatshirt -- her father, she reminded herself -- in her vision. At this point Sam, Heather, and CJ were strangers to her, inhabitants of a different planet.
The fact that her father was running away from her was immaterial. The reasons for his presence here didn't cross her mind. She made no consideration of what she'd do or say when she caught him. Past and future no longer shaded her thoughts.
She wouldn't let him get away. She would not let him get away. Her consciousness was only as big as that thought.
Pedestrians, cyclists, cars, trucks, pets passed in an unobserved blur. She didn't pay attention to which streets she took and where they'd lead. Chasing was so much easier than being chased because it required no strategy.
The man -- her father -- was fast. He was clever. He almost lost her when she collided with the Chinese-food deliveryman someplace on the West Side. Her dad was still pretty nimble for an old guy. But Gaia was unstoppable. She was too focused to feel loss of breath or any ache in her muscles. Her father had trained her too well for him to have any hope of losing her.
Now they were in the West Forties, Hell's Kitchen, she believed it was called, and her father was showing signs of exhaustion. From Eleventh Avenue he peeled off sharply to the left onto a dark side street. Gaia pulled up short and turned to follow. In this creepy neighborhood the streets and sidewalks were virtually deserted. Streetlights were few and far between. She saw that the side street dead-ended into the West Side Highway. Her father had disappeared into a building. Which one, though? A second passed before her fine hearing picked up a thud. The inimitable sound of a closing door. Gaia traced the sound to the door belonging to the last building on the street, one overlooking the Hudson River. Quickly she raced around the corner to determine if the building had a second entrance on the river side. It didn't. She had him.
44th
St.
JESUS, WAS SHE EVER GOING TO stop? CJ felt like his lungs were on the verge of collapse. He was in no shape to scramble thirty-some blocks uptown and all the way west to the river, much of it at a dead run.
Gaia was running away from him, but she never once looked over her shoulder to see him coming. Not even when he'd nearly picked her off on Hudson Street, after she'd collided with the Chinese guy on the bike. He'd locked on her head at point-blank range, and she'd stopped to help the Chinese guy up! The girl had ice in her veins. She wasn't a regular person.
When she turned off on the side street, CJ skidded to a hard stop, almost losing his balance. Gaia slowed down, then walked to the entrance to the building at the very end of the street and stopped. CJ didn't move from the corner. He felt his heart pounding like a jackhammer. But now it wasn't just exhaustion. It was excitement, too.
He secured the gun in both hands. He brought it up almost to eye level. Why wasn't Gaia moving -- getting her ass out of there? Didn't she know he was there? She was crazy! She was a dead woman.
He tensed his right index finger on the trigger. "This is for Marco," he whispered. And with a huge, heady surge of accomplishment, he pulled the trigger and blew her away.
BANG
TOM MOORE WATCHED THE YOUNG gunman from a distance. With deep concentration he observed the young man aim the pistol, aiming his own weapon almost simultaneously. He pulled the trigger and heard two explosions, a fraction of a second apart. With fear spreading through his heart he watched the young man go down. It was a good wound. Enough to scare a guy like that off. For now, he was out of the equation, and all that mattered was Gaia. Tom bolted around the corner in flat-out panic.
Fearless: No. 2 - Sam (Fearless) Page 10
