Betrayed

by Francine Pascal

  So there had been no time to wonder whether or not his lifesaving reflexes would kick in. The fact was, they already had. Tom was on lifesaving autopilot at this point. As was Natasha. So neither one of them had thought twice when they opened the door and saw a man in black crushing one of their daughters to the floor and raising a knife in the air for a quick and brutal kill. They had simply reacted.

  Tom took to the air and aimed for the knife, terrified to even know who he was trying to save. Was it Gaia trapped under the man’s legs? Was it Tatiana? If Tom and Natasha had opened that door three seconds later, would they have walked in to find one of their children stabbed to death, lying in a pool of blood with a knife through her chest? It was nothing short of a miracle that they’d walked in when they had. But that made sense, Tom supposed. He knew that it would take more than a few miracles to defeat Loki. He’d realized that years ago.

  He rushed forward and grabbed onto the man’s wrist from behind, knocking the knife from his hand and ramming his shoulder straight into the center of the man’s spine, forcing an excruciating howl out of him as he knocked him against some object he couldn’t see and rolled him flat against the floor.

  Natasha ran in right behind Tom and jumped down to the girl’s side. Tom shot a glance at to Natasha and saw her shoulders slump forward. He couldn’t even tell if her gesture had been one of relief or anguish. He looked down to the girl’s face, and he realized…it was Tatiana he had saved, not Gaia. “Is she all right?” Tom called to Natasha, grabbing onto the assailant’s wrist and twisting his arm painfully behind his back.

  Natasha didn’t waste a moment. She frisked her daughter for potential injuries and then pressed her fingers to her neck. “No wounds,” she announced, sounding on the verge of tears as the words fell quickly from her lips. “She’s alive, Tom. She’s out cold, but she is definitely alive.”

  Tom breathed an internal sigh of tremendous relief. He immediately understood what must have happened. The mystery object that the man had hit wasn’t an object at all. It was Tatiana’s head. That was why she was out cold. The bastard’s knee must have smacked straight into her chin as Tom tackled him off her. Out cold but alive. Miracle number two.

  Tom turned back to Loki’s hired dummy and drove his face into the cold wood floor. “You hear that, you son of a bitch? She’s alive. You screwed it up. You know what Loki does to people who screw things up? It’s a hell of a lot worse than what you were going to do to her. I can’t wait to—”

  Tom should have known better than to gloat. It wasn’t even like him. He was just so utterly at his wits’ end with Loki and every one of his brainless, spineless, reptilian henchmen. But one tiny moment of hubris and he hadn’t seen the punch coming. Or was it a kick?

  Somehow the hooded thug had managed to twist his entire body over and kick Tom in the face, whipping his head against the corner of the dining table. The sting was like nothing Tom had encountered in years of service to his country.

  “Tom?” Natasha shouted. “Are you all right?”

  A vicious wave of vertigo crashed over Tom’s head, spinning the entire room into circles within circles. He clutched at his wound and tried to shake out the roller-coaster ride in his brain. “I can’t quite…”

  The man in black took this chance to leap up from the floor and slip away from Tom. Tom swiped out his arm to catch the thug, but he missed by a mile, still trying to get his bearings straight. He could see Natasha rising to her feet through his wavy fish-tank vision. She whipped her gun out from inside her coat.

  “Freeze,” she hollered, double gripping the gun and thrusting her arms forward. But the thug was no slug. Not by a long shot. Tom watched in utter shock as he leapt high up into the air and snapped his leg forward with a pinpoint flying kick straight into Natasha’s face. The gun flew from her hands as she went rocketing backward, falling headfirst into a coffee table and shattering every glass-and porcelain-framed picture on the table.

  Tom snapped to attention instantly, jumping to his feet. Dizziness gone. Confusion gone. There was no way one of Loki’s pathetic clansmen was going to overpower two of the CIA’s top agents. He clamped his hand around his gun and whipped it forward, targeting the man’s shoulder to put him out of commission so he could cuff him for questioning. But the thug was moving too fast.

  Tom squeezed off three quick shots, but the man had already leapt and rolled under the dining table. Tom dropped to one knee and tried to spot him under the table, but he was already moving again. He shot out from under the table and rolled for the dark hallway that led to the bedrooms.

  “You okay?” Tom double-checked with Natasha as he started for the hallway.

  “I’m fine,” she announced, clearly furious with herself for letting her daughter’s attempted murderer take her down and get away.

  Get used to it, Natasha, Tom thought. Trust me, I know the feeling, and it doesn’t get any better. You just have to get back up and fight him. Again, and again, and again…

  Natasha made a move for the hallway, but Tom shook her out of her rash need for instant vengeance. “No, stay here,” he insisted. “You stay here and protect your daughter. I’ve got him.”

  Stay here and protect your daughter. Such simple advice. Such an obvious prescription for safety. Why was it so easy to see when it was someone else? When the hell was Tom going to come to his senses and take his own advice? Stop falling into every one of Loki’s wild-goose chases and just stick by his daughter at all times?

  This time it will be different, he swore to himself as he streaked down the hall. This time I’m going to stick by Gaia and never leave her side again. That is that.

  But that thought only led to a far more pressing question he hadn’t yet considered in all the chaos. Gaia. Where the hell was Gaia?

  Those Purple Sheets

  All these days of zombifying self-enforced deprivation, and here at last was a moment of critical relief.

  Ed

  The last two years have made me despise hospitals. I mean, I’m sure everyone despises hospitals, but I doubt they had to go through what I did every time I set foot in St. Vincent’s. So to speak.

  Three words: monthly spinal tap.

  Monthly. I know of no pain equal to that of a spinal tap…because there is none. Honestly, it had reached the point where all I had to do was come near a hospital hallway and my back and limbs would literally start to throb with pain. It was the ultimate in behavior modification. I never wanted to go within thirty yards of another medical institution. That’s why I insisted on doing most of my physical therapy at home. Anything to avoid another trip to the hospital.

  But that all changed today. As of today, I have hereby established an overwhelming affinity for hospitals. I honestly felt like kissing the walls of St. Vincent’s, and I don’t really care how sick that sounds. Because today, something damn near glorious occurred in that pasty and depressing white room. And yes, a part of me feels guilty as all hell for saying that, given the nightmare Heather has been through. But the glorious might never have happened otherwise. Heather would never have been so completely honest if it weren’t for what she’d been through, and then she never would have brought everything out in the open.

  Maybe all those butt-annoying people who used to tell me that “something good always comes from a tragedy” weren’t as full of crap as I thought they were. I mean, now that I’m walking again, I can guarantee those people that walking beats the chair, hands down, but still, I guess sometimes it takes a tragedy for something to change for the better. Sometimes it takes a tragedy for the truth to come out.

  Today, sitting across from Gaia in that hospital room, I finally saw the truth. I saw it in her eyes. And I heard it in Heather’s story. I felt it.

  Gaia is still in love with me. She still loves me. She never stopped loving me.

  This whole treating-me-like–a-plague thing…is all about her uncle. I know it now. After hearing everything Heather had to say and watching the way Gaia looked
at me, I’m positive. She’s just being Gaia. She’s playing the goddamned hero again. She’s been staying away from me to protect me from him, not because she hates my guts, but because they are going after anyone who’s even remotely close to her.

  I bet Gaia’s uncle was behind my shooting, too. He’s obviously capable of a hell of a lot worse. He was probably the one who sent that gun-toting asshole after me. Of course. That makes perfect sense. That’s when Gaia turned on me, right out of the freaking clear blue sky. Right after she’d seen me get shot at. No, I should rephrase that.

  Right after her uncle tried to kill me.

  And that’s when I lost her.

  Who is this guy? Gaia’s uncle. Why is he such a sick bastard? What the hell happened to him as a kid? And why hasn’t the son of a bitch been locked up or just plain put down? After what he’s done to Gaia, and to Sam, and to Heather, and to me, for Christ’s sake. Why don’t they just put him out of his misery? That’s obviously the only way anyone is ever going to stop him.

  I should have done it. I should have just ripped into him that day I watched him sniffing around school for Gaia. I could have ended it right there, and then Heather would have been absolutely fine and Gaia and I would still probably be in bed. If I ever get the chance again…I swear to God, if I ever see him again, I’m not going to hesitate. I don’t know what I’ll do to him, but I guarantee he won’t be standing when I’m done.

  But I’ll have to deal with that then. And I’ll be back to visit Heather in the hospital tomorrow and every day after that. And I’ll do whatever I can for her, whenever she needs it. But right now…Right at this very moment, I’m not thinking about tomorrow or the next day. Right now, all I’m thinking about is Gaia’s gorgeous profile set against the ugly white walls of a hospital hallway. And what a complete idiot I’ve been. I was right not to trust her freakish change of heart in the first place. The world isn’t that cruel. People can’t fall out of love with you in fifteen minutes.

  It’s really no different than what happened with my legs. Here I was walking around on crutches for I don’t even know how many extra days, maybe even weeks, thinking I couldn’t use my legs. Like I was glued to the ground without my crutches or something. But it turned out I wasn’t really glued to the ground at all. My legs were just standing there, waiting for me to fix my screwed-up head, waiting for me to dump all my subconscious fears and take control. And it’s the same with Gaia. I’ve been sitting here moping around, believing all the fearful voices in my head telling me I’d lost her, telling me I’d never even had her in the first place. But the truth is, she’s been there the whole time. I just need to dump my fears and go back to my instincts. That’s what I have to do.

  Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned after two years in that chair and watching Heather laid out on that hospital bed, it’s that there is no time in this life to listen to those fearful voices. I need to move forward, and Gaia is coming with me. I will not stay glued to the ground. That is not going to happen.

  Dim Yellow Light

  HE’D NEVER QUITE BEEN ABLE TO figure out how she did it. All that bitterness and distrust and sorrow should have made her so ugly, shouldn’t it? Wasn’t inner joy and inner peace what made people beautiful? That angelic glow that always shone through in old masters’ paintings and old Hollywood movies? Wasn’t that beauty? Yes, in every other case but this one. But that made sense, Ed supposed. Gaia was an exception to just about every rule. Here she was, set against the dank halls of a hospital, her tangled hair falling down her shoulders in greasy tendrils, staring straight ahead with a cold, vengeful glare, looking so pale and exhausted under the gray-blue fluorescent light…

  And she was beautiful.

  More than beautiful. Something about her transcended the entire scene. She wasn’t like those paintings of docile angelic maidens with their cherubic inner glow. No, she was like the paintings of the martyrs and the warriors. Joan of Arc. The steely-eyed Greek goddesses on bucking horses with swords over their heads, forging on through a sea of enemies, weathering the winds of Zeus or whatever the hell else got in their way. That was Gaia. A warrior goddess, forging on through the crap-storm of her life, yet somehow always seeming completely untouched by the crap.

  Ed tried to keep pace with her as they sped down the only available hallways. One of the beauties of walking was that Ed could finally keep up with Gaia’s determined stomping without getting tire burns from pumping his wheels or underarm cramps from pumping his crutches. He matched her step for step, and with each overdriven stride, he struggled to find the right first words. He had to find the words that would cut through her lies and bring her back. “Look, I—”

  “Now’s not a good time to talk, Ed,” she snapped coldly, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead as they made their way down a particularly long hall.

  “Gaia, come on, can we just—”

  “Ed.” Gaia swiveled her head to all sides, darting her eyes suspiciously through every doorway they passed. She was obviously convinced that her uncle could be waiting around any corner at any time. Her uncle probably was waiting just inside the next room down the hall, holding his finger to the trigger of an AK-47 and counting down from three. But that possibility was not going to hold Ed back at this point. And not for any good reason. It wasn’t as if he were being particularly brave. In fact, he was quite sure he was indulging in new heights of stupidity. But when you realize that you haven’t lost the love of your life after days and days of head-crushing depression, you’ll do incredibly stupid things. And you won’t care.

  At this point, Ed was basically applying skaters’ law to matters of the heart. Rule number five in Shred’s Personal Skating Manifesto: If you see a great jump, you must take it. You can figure out the landing later.

  “You know…I can take care of myself,” he offered tentatively.

  “Glad to hear it,” she muttered in response.

  “I mean, if, for instance, maybe you were treating me like crap to keep me away from you…so that you could protect me, you know, from your uncle…” He checked for a reaction and got absolutely nothing. He couldn’t even get her eyes to roll in his direction. “Well, that wouldn’t be necessary,” he said. “I mean, I appreciate the thought, but it’s not necessary.”

  “That’s not what’s going on,” she assured him quickly, sounding almost too insistent. Her head dropped so that she was staring at the floor. And she began to pick up the pace. “And even if it were, you wouldn’t have any clue what was necessary. In case you hadn’t noticed, Heather is dying in there, so I’d cut the whole I-can-take-care-of-myself routine. When it comes to my uncle, no one can take care of a goddamn thing.”

  “I know that. I’m just trying to say that you are not responsible for everything that happens to everybody—”

  “Yes, I am, Ed.” She halted suddenly, turning just to assault Ed with those warrior eyes. “I am responsible. I am responsible for all of this. All of it.”

  Her guilty eyes left Ed momentarily speechless. He wasn’t even sure why. It could have been the anger, or the beauty, or just one empathic moment of feeling how heavy a burden she’d been carrying all this time. Whatever it was, it made his heart hurt for a moment. And Gaia used that moment to take off at an even brisker stomping speed.

  Ed quickly shook off his freeze-up and chased her down. He had to be quick because they had finally come upon a hallway with an exit on either end, and he knew that she would take whichever route he didn’t. And then he’d lose the moment. And then he would have to try to create another moment, and with Gaia’s unparalleled avoidance skills, that moment might not present itself for another five years.

  Don’t listen to her, Ed. That’s the trick. And for God’s sake, don’t listen to yourself, either. Just do what’s real. This thing she’s doing, this is all smoke and mirrors. Just cut to the real part. Cut to the truth. And do it now, you idiot. She’s three steps from good-bye.

  “I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Gaia�
��s back was already to Ed as she turned the corner toward the exit.

  “Gaia, wait.” Ed reached out and grasped her arm. The sudden shift in momentum spun her back toward him before she could pull away. For one sweet moment their faces were only an inch apart, but Gaia quickly regained her balance and took a step back. Though she didn’t yank her arm from his grip.

  “What?” she asked impatiently.

  “J-Just…,”Ed stammered. It wasn’t as if he’d prepared his remarks here. “Just let me…”

  Gaia began to pull her arm away. Her eyes were darting around to all sides again, scanning the halls suspiciously, like some cyborg scanning for the enemy. “Ed, I’m going home, and I want you to go home, okay? Get off me and go home.”

  “No, I need to…” Again he had nothing. No more words. Three seconds, Ed. Three more seconds of this wimpy crap and she’s gone. How was he supposed to talk to her when she kept shifting her watchful eyes in all directions, like some paranoid soldier?

  “Ed, let go, okay? Just let go.” She pulled her arm away.

  “This is ridiculous!” Ed blurted. “I can’t talk to you like this.” He turned behind him and saw the door to a janitor’s closet. Fine. Good. No more hesitation. Go.

  He clasped her hand tightly and tugged. “In here. They can’t see us in here .”He threw open the door and pulled Gaia into the cramped quarters of the janitor’s closet, moving so swiftly that Gaia couldn’t resist. Or maybe, just maybe, some part of her didn’t want to resist. Whatever the reason, and however loudly she huffed with frustration and dismay, she stepped in after him. And before she could possibly change her mind, Ed slammed the door behind her, stepping so close to her that she was forced to push her back against the door just to keep her distance from him.

  But there was no room for distance. However much Gaia might have wished for it, distance was no longer an option. There was, in fact, so little room to stand that Ed was forced to lean his hands against the door on either side of her face, holding his arms extended just to keep from falling against her. And now Ed was sure that there was such a thing as fate. Because fate had put a six-by-six janitor’s closet between the last hallway and the last exit on this floor. Fate had placed them in the right proximity for an honest conversation.