Betrayed

by Francine Pascal

  “I…I’m sorry, sir,” QR1 uttered quietly, dropping back down into his chair and wiping any traces of emotion from his face.

  Loki waited one more discomforting beat before removing his hand from the gun.

  “Fine,” he said finally, scanning the room for any further dissidence. “Then let’s dispense with the congratulations and apologies and begin going over this operation. Forty-eight hours should be plenty of time, but I’ll need you all to follow my instructions with absolute precision. As I’m sure you all know, each one of these messes will require an entirely different method of cleaning.”

  Aimless Eyes

  A kick to the gut from one of Loki’s thugs would be a holly jolly Christmas memory compared to this.

  Twisted Catharsis

  WHY WAS SHE ALWAYS RELIVING the worst memories? Why couldn’t it ever be a memory of that trip to Cape Cod with her parents or that cup of Godiva hot chocolate with real whipped cream that she and Ed shared three months ago at Balducci’s? No, it was always the horrors that repeated themselves. The mistakes and the accidents and the World’s Most Painful Moments. Right now Gaia could think of a thousand other experiences that would make for a preferable déjà vu. Reliving last year’s dental surgery would certainly be a treat. A kick to the gut from one of Loki’s thugs would be a holly jolly Christmas memory compared to this.

  Because this moment—this walk of shame through the cold white linoleum halls of St. Vincent’s Hospital…this was the déjà vu from hell.

  Everything was exactly as it had been the last time Gaia visited Heather in the hospital. The same stink of ammonia, the same garbled voices barking over the PA system, the same phantom faces of the sick floating by in wheelchairs, making Gaia feel guilty for even being able to walk. And once again Gaia was trying to form the appropriate apology to Heather in her head, knowing all too well how meaningless it would be. At least this time the entire senior class of the Village School wasn’t lining the hospital halls, staring at Gaia like she was the class Antichrist for letting Heather get slashed. But it didn’t really matter if they were there or not because Gaia could still feel them there. She could still feel their eyes ripping her to pieces for being so cold and heartless.

  After all, her mistake was, for all intents and purposes, the exact same one it had been the last time. The same mistake that she’d already spent most of the evening punishing herself for: saying nothing. That night all those months ago when she’d run into Heather, that was the one time in Gaia’s entire life that she hadn’t opened her big mouth. And that’s all it would have taken. Just one sentence. Just a few words of warning to Heather about that gang of sicko skin-heads waving their knives around inside the park.

  And it was really just the same with Josh. Sure, she’d tried to warn Heather about him, but what was that really worth? It took a whole lot more than words to deal with Josh Kendall, and Gaia knew that. She should have just sought him out herself and dropped him down a manhole, but she’d been too busy being trapped in her own succession of nightmares. And yes, Heather’s new obsession with trying to pick a fight with Gaia had been a most bizarre and troubling pain in the ass. But if Gaia had taken any real time to think about it, she would have considered the likely possibility that Josh had just been systematically driving Heather crazy. Just like he’d done to Sam. Just like Loki tried to do to everyone else.

  Loki. It always led back to Loki. There was simply no one else on this planet with such an uncanny ability to infuriate Gaia or make her despise herself. At least that was what she thought. Until she opened the door to Heather’s hospital room and saw Heather’s family.

  In case Gaia hadn’t learned it already, here was a very valuable lesson: No matter how bad she felt…she could always feel worse.

  The moment she opened the door, it felt like the fluorescent lights in the room had suddenly gone to black and a glaring white spotlight had nailed her against the wall. Heather’s entire family was seated around the bed, staring at Gaia, boring holes through her skin with their eyes. Of course, she was the absolute last person the Gannis family would have wanted to see right now. As far as they were all concerned, they were staring at the girl who was responsible for the near murder of their beloved sister and daughter.

  Heather’s father’s jaw was clenched so tightly, Gaia thought he might never be able to unlock it again. Her sister Phoebe’s gaunt face and dark accusing eyes made her look like some kind of vengeful ghost. And then there was Heather’s mother, whose rage toward Gaia was so laser focused, it sent her two steps backward. But Gaia couldn’t allow herself to leave yet. After all, she still had more hatred to face. There was Ed, who was staring at her like she was in a police lineup. And then there was Heather…

  Gaia couldn’t even begin to read the expression on her face. Her eyes seemed so hauntingly blank—just staring aimlessly into space as if she couldn’t bear to look directly at Gaia. As if Gaia weren’t even in the room. Somehow, that hurt so much more than the vicious glances from Ed and Heather’s family. At least there was some kind of twisted catharsis in being actively hated. But for someone to hate you so much that they couldn’t even acknowledge your presence?

  “Who’s there?” Heather asked in a raw scratchy voice. She was staring just over the top of Gaia’s head. “Is that Gaia?”

  Gaia had no clue how to respond. Was this Heather’s immature way of insulting her? Was she playing some kind of I’m-ignoring-you game like she probably used to do in the third grade? Gaia looked to Ed for answers, but all she got from him was that same accusing stare, until he finally turned back to Heather.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “That’s her.”

  “Gaia…,”Heather uttered. “You came.”

  “Yeah,” she replied, taking a step closer to the foot of Heather’s bed, trying to ignore the Gannis family firing squad. “What…what happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” Heather said, still staring off into space.

  “Heather…” Gaia darted her eyes to Ed and the family before turning back to Heather reluctantly. “Heather, why won’t you look at me?”

  The entire family bowed their heads with discomfort, as if Gaia had just asked the one question she wasn’t supposed to ask.

  “Because I can’t see you,” Heather replied, coughing out a horrid, nervous laugh. The laugh immediately died as narrow tracks of tears began to fall from each of her aimless eyes, dripping onto her bleached white pillowcase. “I can’t see anything.”

  Dead Air

  HOW LONG WAS I ASLEEP?

  Tatiana pressed her hands to her face, grinding her palms against her barely open eyes, trying to stretch her body out of its contorted fetal position on the couch. Apparently the hours of trauma had finally caught up with her and she’d cried herself to sleep. Now everything just throbbed. Her limbs, her eyes, her brain—they were all throbbing.

  She slid her aching body slowly from the deep dent in the couch and stumbled back to the phone. Maybe her mother had called? Maybe she’d left a message and Tatiana had slept through the entire thing…?

  The red digital zero on the answering machine looked twice its usual size. She knew no one had called. She could have been in a full-fledged coma and she still would have jumped from that couch if the phone had rung. Awake or asleep, she was still praying every ten minutes for her mother—screaming silent little prayers that were clearly falling on deaf ears. Any sign would do. An anonymous ring of the phone, a blank letter in the mail, just the slightest hint to indicate that her mother was alive, that she was still out there somewhere, that Loki was the goddamn liar Gaia swore he was…

  But there was nothing. Nothing but stale dead air crawling through the much-too-spacious apartment. And that horribly depressing classical music station still cranking out tinny piano concertos that made the house feel like some dank eighteenth-century mausoleum.

  “Shut up ,” she moaned, clamping her hands over her ears. She lunged for the stereo and slammed her hand on the power butto
n, slapping the entire stereo back against the wall as silence finally filled the room.

  This is not a funeral, she told herself. Not yet…

  But now the silence was unbearable. Tatiana’s eyes drifted around the empty living room as she realized just how alone she was in this house. Just her and the world’s loudest ticking clock. And a pitch-black hallway across the room that led to nothing but more dark and empty rooms.

  But then the miracle came.

  A sound. A sound that Tatiana hadn’t made herself. A sound that wasn’t the ticking clock. This sound was coming from the front door. Her head snapped toward the door just in time to see the brass doorknob begin to twist from side to side. Only one thought consumed her brain.

  Thank you. Thank you, God.

  She leapt for the door and flipped the top bolt lock open. “Mama,” she called out. “Mama, is that you?” She placed her fingers on the bottom lock.

  And then she froze.

  Gaia’s warning had come rushing back to her. “Lock all the doors,” she’d said. “Stay away from the windows….”

  “Tatiana, please…” A man’s voice suddenly whispered through the door, causing her to jump slightly. He sounded utterly desperate. “Open the door, please.” She felt the doorknob twist again in her hand.

  “Who is it?”she shouted back nervously. “Who’s there?”

  “Shhh. Keep your voice down,” the alien voice insisted. “Loki’s people are out there. They’re probably watching you right now. Please. I’m trying to help you. I know where your mother is. She’s alive.” He shook the knob again.

  “Where is she?” Tatiana demanded, her heart rate quadrupling. “Where is my mother?” She pressed her eye to the peephole, but the man seemed to be crouched out of range, shaking the knob with more and more force.

  “I’ll tell you,” he promised, “I’ll tell you where she is. I’ll tell you everything, but you’ve got to let me in. Please, just open the freaking door. Oh, Jesus…Loki’s people are coming…. They’re coming…. They’re—”

  The bottom lock clicked open right before Tatiana’s eyes.

  Her brain hollered an instant warning:Move. Move now or—

  But her body lagged too far behind. The door was brutally forced open right into her face, ramming her forehead with a hundred pounds of cold industrial metal and knocking her straight off her feet. Everything went completely black. Her head bounced off the hardwood floor like a volleyball that had just been spiked at eighty miles per hour, leaving her brain vibrating inside her skull.

  She was stuck in a pitch-black tunnel, her eardrums cracking from the high-pitched ringing deep inside her head, the rest of her body paralyzed with shock.

  She forced her stinging, dysfunctional eyes open just in time to see him. From her hazy perspective on the floor, he looked just as tall as the ceiling. He was towering over her like a cold black monolith, a black ski mask over his face and a lock pick in his black-gloved hand.

  “They’re here,” he announced, slamming the door behind him and dropping his pick to the floor.

  Tatiana’s heart froze. Her hands and feet went numb and her body locked completely as she lay helpless and bathed in debilitating pain on the floor. A thought swept across her mind like a quick gust of icy wind:I’m going to die.

  The intruder leaned down to her paralyzed body, the black mask zooming toward her face, and finally a hint of her adrenaline kicked in. She let out a deafening screech and flipped herself over, clawing her way desperately across the floor. But his massive hands took her arms from behind, raising her petite frame into the air and slamming her back against his chest, knocking every ounce of air out of her lungs.

  “Just shut up for two seconds, all right?” he whispered into her ear. “All I need is two seconds here. Just two seconds…and it’ll be over.”

  Tatiana flailed every limb to break free, but his tight grip was making it impossible to breathe. She opened her mouth for her loudest and most desperate scream yet, but she was suddenly unable to utter a sound.

  He’d wrapped a cold strap around her neck. And he’d begun to pull on that strap with maximum force, yanking her head back against his shoulder, cutting off every ounce of her oxygen as he twisted tighter and tighter, strangling her without mercy.

  “Don’t fight it,” he said calmly, his fists tightening even further. “Just let go. Let go….”

  She could feel all the blood vessels in her face constricting from the strain. She kept trying to dig her fingers under the strap, but it was too tight. Breath was impossible now. She needed to breathe in. Her body needed to breathe in, and she couldn’t. Not even the beginning of a breath. Only the horrid, dizzying feeling of strangulation as her eyelids began to flutter from complete oxygen deprivation.

  The room grew dimmer. She could still hear him in her ear, telling her to relax, telling her to stay quiet and let go, but his voice grew fainter and fainter, rumbling and buzzing with horrid echoes and distorted static. All she could hear now was her own voice in her head. Her own voice howling at her in a rage.

  Is this how you want to die? Is this where you want to die? In this empty apartment in this filthy city? Alone? Fight, you pathetic little weakling. Wake up and fight!

  And finally she did just as her attempted murderer suggested. She stopped struggling like a dog on a leash and “let go.” That way she could focus all her remaining energy into her right leg, which she raised slowly from the ground. With all the force she could muster, she kicked backward, slamming the heel of her shoe straight into his crotch.

  “Ugh,” he gurgled, doubling over to the ground as the strap fell to the floor.

  No time to think or recover. No time to breathe. Tatiana whirled around and laid into his curled-up body with a series of wild vengeful kicks until she saw blood. She turned and stumbled quickly toward the kitchen, gasping for the massive amounts of oxygen she’d lost. She slid past the refrigerator and collided with the counter, reaching to the right of the sink and pulling the largest steel knife from a set of ten. She ran back to the living room, but before she’d even scanned the room, a sharp kick had knocked the knife from her hand and another had knocked her face forward to the ground.

  “You stupid bitch,” he hollered. “I tried to make it easy for you! You want to make it ugly, fine.” He leaned to grab for her again, but this time, thank God, there was no paralysis.

  Tatiana spun onto her back and kicked her feet out straight into this chest, knocking his six-foot frame back against the living-room wall with a thud. This left him disoriented long enough for her to grab the knife back up from the floor. He lunged for her again but stopped himself short just before her defensive thrust of the knife punctured his cheek.

  “Whoa, there.” He laughed, holding up his arms. “Watch where you point that thing.”

  “Get out!” she screamed, thrusting the knife at him again and again as he backpedaled slightly. Now that they were face-to-face, she was suddenly struck by the disturbing image of his bright blue eyes peeking out from behind that murderous black ski mask. “You get out of here or I swear to God, I’ll drive this straight through your heart and pin you to that goddamn wall! Get out! I’m calling the police!” She moved back cautiously toward the phone, but she didn’t want to leave him any opening to attack again. When she looked back at his face, she couldn’t even fathom his response.

  A smile. A big, fat, totally unaffected smile. “All right, all right,” he conceded with a disgusting giggle as he lowered his hands and shrugged. “You win, okay? Just relax.”

  He turned around and began to saunter slowly back toward the door. He stopped short at the doorway.

  “Get out!” she growled again, walking toward him with the knife. “Now!”

  “Okay, okay,”he said. “I’m just getting my tools. Jesus.”

  He leaned down and swiped up the lock pick from the floor. The next thing she knew, it was flying from his hand. And flying at her face.

  She ducked reflexively,
but the moment she faltered, she felt his shoulder slam into her gut, knocking her entire body off the ground as the base of her spine landed with an agonizing thud against the floor. He’d tackled her so fast that she’d completely lost her orientation. There was nothing but a blur of pain and jabs to her hands and face, and suddenly he was on top of her. He was crushing her to the floor with all his weight, straddling his legs over her arms and waist, making it impossible to move. His left hand was wrapped around her neck, holding her head against the floor, and his right hand…was now holding the knife.

  Tatiana had played it wrong, and she knew it. The fight for her life was over. And he had won.

  “Stab me in the heart?” he spat. “You were going to stab me in the heart?” He reached back and smacked her face with the back of his hand. She could barely even feel the sting. Because she knew now. She knew that her mother was dead. And Tom was dead, too. Loki was killing them all one by one, and she was next in line. All she had left to hope for was that she’d see her mother on the other side.

  “If that’s how you like it, that’s fine with me,” he said. He ran the knife along her throat and placed the point over her heart, smiling at her. “Good night.”

  Tatiana closed her eyes as tightly as she could and tried to picture her mother. She heard him scream out one last time, and then there was silence.

  Heather

  No one understands it. None of the doctors has a clue. They say there’s “no visible retinal damage, no visible nerve damage.” They just keep asking me the same questions over and over, and I keep giving them the same answers even though things don’t make so much sense in my head right now. I tell them that the police showed up at the apartment and Ed told them to call an ambulance. I tell them that everything just kept getting a little darker while Ed held me.