Poked in the Back
THINK, GAIA. THINK. HOW DO YOU KILLsomeone when you can’t move? That was one of the only two thoughts in her head. How could she kill Dr. Glenn without moving? And what had they done with Heather? Gaia had sworn to herself that she’d protect her, and it was fast becoming another dead promise in her life.
The orderlies seemed to be taking pleasure in it. Who was she kidding, they probably weren’t even orderlies. Just more of Loki’s idiot thugs. That’s what they were. And they were enjoying it. They were practically grinning as they watched Gaia writhing around furiously in the straps, her limbs turning purple from the incessant strain and the lack of circulation.
I swear to God, when I break out of these things…whenever someone is stupid enough to unfasten these straps, I’m going to rip those smiles off all your faces. Literally.
Dr. Glenn looked a hell of a lot more nervous now as he scanned back and forth across the ambulance lot every two seconds. Being a doctor was clearly his forte. The actual kidnapping part was another story. “Come on,” he said, jerking his hand at the orderlies and guiding them toward a wide ambulatory truck that was parked out on the street just beyond the hospital’s ambulances.
For one second, Gaia was out in the open air on Seventh Avenue, just two feet from hundreds of New Yorkers with their beautifully banal lives—rushing with their five-dollar coffees and their New York Times es, leaving their normal wives and lovers, walking their normal dogs, going to their normal jobs. Gaia had never envied them so much in her life. Strapped to a hospital gurney, being shoved along to who knew what fate. So pathetically helpless that all she could do was scream. Scream at those normal sons of bitches and beg for their help—beg for someone on the street to be intelligent enough to realize that doctors didn’t roll patients along the goddamn bike lane of Seventh Avenue.
Wake up, she wanted to scream. Can anyone see that something isn’t right with this picture? Of course not. The hospital’s own nurses couldn’t even put two and two together.
Ten more seconds and Gaia’s little visit with the real world had ended.
The doors of the truck flew open, and Gaia cocked her head forward to get a good look. She honestly could not believe what she saw.
She’d known he was behind the whole maneuver; she just hadn’t expected to see, well…him. Not yet. But there he was, sitting right there in the truck. Loki in the center. And a Josh on either side of him. It was such a surreal image that Gaia even stopped thrashing around just to take it all in. All her enemies, gathered together. Shoulder to shoulder. Waiting for her.
The orderlies lifted her up into the truck and slid her in. And lying next to her was the answer to at least one of her questions. Heather. Still breathing, but unconscious on the gurney next to hers. Gaia turned back to her uncle (her father?).
And now that she was closer, she realized that the image was even more surreal than it had been at first.
There was something wrong with his face. His face and his body. His mouth kept twitching on the right side, repeating the same sick little half smile over and over, as if someone had filmed his face for three seconds and then looped the tape to repeat endlessly. His left shoulder had the same disturbing pattern—jutting upward every few seconds as if he were being poked in the back with an electric prod. And then there were his eyes. Stretching wide open and then blinking in two or three rapid flutters at a time.
They hadn’t even closed the door to the ambulance, but ten good seconds of staring at Loki’s (it was definitely Loki) maniacal face and Gaia was already getting motion sickness.
“What the hell is the matter with your face?”she asked, trying to decide if she could bear looking him in the eyes while his face continued its unwatchable workout.
His shaking hand pulled a bottle of pills from his coat pocket, which he struggled to open. He slapped two of the pills into his mouth and then shoved the bottle back in his coat. And then he smiled. If you could call it a smile.
“I know you’re none too pleased to see me,” he said. “But that no longer bothers me, Gaia.”
“How nice for you.”
“Oh, if you only knew how nice.”
Gaia quickly eyed the faces of the two Joshes on either side of him. It was strange. One of them looked quite vindictively pleased to see Gaia strapped down and completely at their mercy. That was, of course, what she would have expected. But the other…he looked oddly dissatisfied and sour. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at Gaia. His eyes didn’t stray once from Heather.
“It’s really a shame that you hate me so much,” Loki went on. “Especially now that we have so much in common, you and I.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, well, I’ll explain it all a bit later. When we have some more privacy. For now, why don’t you get some sleep. Dr. Glenn,” he called out of the truck. “Shall we?”
Sleep? What did he mean, sleep? She’d just finally gotten up.
Dr. Glenn stepped into the truck, tapping a syringe to be sure it was clear of air. He leaned down toward Gaia.
“No!” she howled, writhing madly in her straps again. “No!”
But she knew her protests were useless. The doctor injected her at will. And within a few more seconds, it was all fading to white. Loki’s repellent, jittery face finally disappeared from view.
Every Single Person
EMPTY.
Tom’s body went temporarily numb. He glimpsed his watch. 9:55. Whoever had sent him that memo had promised him Gaia would still be in Heather’s room at ten. Ten, he’d said. Which had given Tom only thirty minutes to get all the way downtown. Tom had done it in twenty-five. So why was Heather’s room empty? Where the hell was Heather Gannis? Where the hell was Gaia? Had Tom been crazy to take that anonymous tip seriously?
He was pounding on the window of the nurses’ station before he’d even finished that thought. Why waste time thinking that question when he needed to be screaming it at one of the nurses?
The nurse jumped in her chair as Tom’s fist nearly punched a hole in the Plexiglas wall of the nurses’ station. He continued pounding until she stumbled out into the center of the hallway.
“Excuse me, sir,” she squawked, staring at Tom like he was an escaped schizophrenic from one of the other floors. “Excuse me, but this is a hospital—”
“Where is Heather Gannis?” Tom demanded. “She was in room 305 just last night. And my daughter was supposed to be visiting her . Where is my daughter?”
“Sir, if you would just calm down for a minute—”
“Where is my daughter?” Tom barked. “You’ve got ten seconds to tell me where she is.”
“Are you a member of the family—?”
“Yes,” Tom snapped. “I’m counting down from ten. Ten, nine—”
“All right, all right,” she squeaked. “I only asked because I assumed you knew. Ms. Gannis is being taken to her private medical facility back home.”
“Her what?”
“Yes. They just took her downstairs to the ambulatory truck. Ms. Gannis and her sister, Ms. Moore.”
Tom felt both of his lungs collapse.
“Ms. Moore?”
“Yes,” she said. “Don’t worry. Her private physician was here. Dr. Glenn oversaw the entire transfer. He’s taking them both home for treatment, and I just assumed if you were a relative that—sir? Sir?”
Her voice disappeared in the background as Tom jumped entire flights of stairs to get back down to that street.
Her sister? What on earth went on in this hospital? The door, Tom. Just get to the door.
Tom snapped open his Blackberry and called for backup as he sprinted through the hospital lobby. But that call was utterly useless. Backup could take as much as twenty minutes. If he had any chance whatsoever, it would be gone in the next three. He drew his gun and burst out of the lobby, scanning Seventh Avenue from left to right.
And then he saw it. The truck. An ambulatory truck with
a doctor stepping up inside. In the middle of Seventh Avenue. This was completely wrong. This wasn’t where the ambulances loaded the patients. They didn’t cart them out on the sidewalk before lifting them inside. And since when did the hospital’s doctors hop into the ambulance for the trip?
Move, Tom. Move now.
He was already running.
“Gaia!” he shouted. But there was no response. He thrust his gun forward and ran for the ambulance. And as he got a few steps closer…he saw him. He could only see an off-balance glimpse, but he swore he’d seen all of them, in fact. Every single person in the world that he’d been trying to find for the last month, in the back of the same ambulance. His daughter, and Heather, and that son of a bitch kid who’d tried to kill Tatiana…
And finally his demented brother had revealed himself. Finally Tom’s gun was where it had needed to be for the past month—maybe even the past twenty years.
Aimed at his brother’s head.
But as he closed in with the gun, Tom could have sworn that his brother’s only reaction…was to smile. He smiled the strangest, most inexplicable smile at Tom, and then he slowly disappeared from sight as his men began to close the back doors to the ambulance.
No. He won’t just slip away. Not this time. Not again.
Tom knew he had only one chance. He was close enough. There was still enough room between the closing doors. He could jump it. He was sure. One well-planted leap and he’d be inside that ambulance, with a gun to Loki’s head….
As If
ED TOOK A SHARP TURN ON THE corner of Twelfth Street and zipped onto Seventh Avenue right at the entrance to St. Vincent’s. He was rolling for the front door when he saw it. Not it. Him. He saw him.
It was one of those moments when the world suddenly spins at half its speed. The wheels of Ed’s board seemed to break down into a slow-motion roll as the entire horrid scene unfolded before his eyes.
Gaia’s uncle. Running down the block with a gun. Running toward an ambulance.
Thoughts blasted in and out of Ed’s mind at hyper speed as he kicked his board up onto the sidewalk. Was Heather in that ambulance? Was Gaia? Was Gaia’s uncle back just to finish the job on both of them? And then Ed remembered. He remembered what he had sworn to himself after seeing Heather lying in that hospital bed, after realizing that this was the man who’d sent out an order to have Ed shot. He swore that if he ever saw Gaia’s uncle again, he would kill him. Or if not kill him, then at least put him out of commission for a long, long time.
And so, without even thinking, Ed poured on as much speed as he could pull out of his board and crouched down as low as he could get.
Aim for the legs, Ed. Out of commission. That’s the goal….
It was a full-on collision. Full powered. Fully fueled. Loud and painful and totally disconcerting. Gaia’s uncle flew off his feet. His gun went tumbling onto the asphalt, and then they both followed, landing in a painful two-man pileup on the ground. Ed’s face skidded against the rugged sidewalk. He could just barely hear her uncle screaming.
“No,” he howled. Just “no.” That was all Ed heard before her uncle rolled across the sidewalk and smashed into the side of the building. There were other sounds in all the chaos. He heard the doors of that ambulance shutting. He heard the screech of the tires as the ambulance took off down Seventh like a rocket.
If you were in there, then you’re safe now, Heather. You’re safe.
But Ed wasn’t done. The human collision had brought something out of him. It had brought out all the anger. Anger he didn’t even know he had. This was the man who’d tried to kill him. Kill. Not just hurt him. Not just scare him. Kill him. As if he had the right to do that. As if he had the right to decide who lived or died.
Ed was up on his feet before he knew it, and he was charging at Gaia’s uncle, who was still on the ground. All his rage was channeled into his legs as he began to kick and kick without the slightest concern for what or where he was kicking. He just kept pounding away.
“You sick twisted ass hole ,” he spat, practically vomiting out every word from deep down in his gut. “Try to have me freakin’killed? What are you trying to do to us? Heather and Gaia and Tatiana and anyone else you can get your hands on. What kind of an uncle are you?”
“No,” the man growled again from the ground. “No, you don’t—”
“What kind of an uncle does that to his own family?” Ed went on. He couldn’t stop himself now. Nothing could stop him now. “Who are you? What kind of a sick—”
“No, you idiot!”
Suddenly Gaia’s uncle took a swipe at Ed’s legs, dropping him straight back down to the pavement. Before Ed could reorient himself, he felt the most agonizing pain he’d ever felt in his life, shooting through his neck and his spine, all the way down through his already weakened legs. It was some kind of torturous half nelson that left him completely contorted, driving the side of his face into the sidewalk.
“Enough!” her uncle screamed, grinding Ed to the ground with more and more pressure. “You idiot! You stupid, stupid child! I swear to God, I should break your idiot neck! I should just crack your—no, damn it…Damn it….”He took a long, deep breath and blew it out. “I am not Gaia’s uncle, Ed. I am her father. Her father, Ed. Her uncle was the man in that ambulance, along with my daughter and Heather Gannis. The ambulance that is now speeding off to God knows where.” He finally released Ed from his torture.
Ed collapsed to the ground and stayed there, trying to regain the feeling in his entire body. But he wasn’t sure he would ever want to get up again. Because he knew the man was telling the truth. He knew that this was in fact Gaia’s father and that he had just made quite possibly the biggest mistake of his life. “I…I’m so…sorry. I thought—”
“No,” her father interrupted, jumping up off the ground and then lifting Ed quickly and powerfully back to his feet. “There’s no time for that,” he barked, running a few steps ahead and swiping up his gun. “It was a mistake. That’s all.” He double-checked that his gun was still fully loaded as he began backing quickly toward his car. “You were trying to be noble, and you made a mistake. I know all about that, Ed. So just put it out of your mind and move on. Because I need your help now.”
“Yeah,” Ed said desperately, still reeling from the guilt in spite of her father’s words. “So what can I do? How can I help?”
“You get up to the Seventy-second Street apartment and tell Natasha and Tatiana that Loki has Gaia and that I’m going after her. I want you to stay there. You stay there and you protect them, you understand?”
“I understand,” Ed said.
“Go,” Gaia’s father said one last time. He ripped open the door to his car and started shouting urgent orders into his phone. “I need air support. Anything we’ve got in the area. We’ve got a white ambulance, thick red stripes on the sides and roof, headed south on Seventh Avenue. We must track this vehicle. We cannot lose this vehicle, copy? I’m in pursuit, but there have been delays here….”
That was the last Ed could hear as Gaia’s father slammed his car door and took off down Seventh Avenue, racing to catch up with the ambulance.
Delays, Ed thought, slapping his hands over his head in shock and disgust, discovering all-new giant untapped wells of shame and guilt. I’m the “delays.” I’m the goddamned idiot of the century.
Ed spun around three times before he even knew what direction he was going. He kicked his board up into his hand and ran for the subway uptown. He couldn’t remember ever having despised himself more. He kept trying to remind himself of Gaia’s father’s words. They were so true. Ed had just been trying to be noble. And he’d made a mistake. A simple mistake.
But no matter how many times he told himself that, the same thoughts kept echoing over and over for the entire train ride up to Seventy-second Street and for every minute after that.
He has Gaia and Heather. He has them both. And I let him get away. No, I didn’t just let him get away…
I helped him get away.
Trigger-Happy
With the exception, perhaps, of pictures of Charles Manson, Gaia had never seen more clear-cut insanity in a man’s eyes.
Too Hideous
KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. GAIA WAS finally awake enough to know how important it was for her to keep her eyes open. If she didn’t keep them open, then she wouldn’t be able to see the key details. She wouldn’t be able to see who was being assaulted with Loki’s maniacal shouting. Much more important, she wouldn’t be able to see what had happened to Heather.
That was the most infuriating part of being drugged again in that ambulance. Aside from the agonizing sense of helplessness, she knew that it also meant losing track of Heather. She couldn’t guard Heather if she wasn’t awake.
You’ve already missed enough. You must keep your eyes open.
But once she stretched open her crusty eyelids, she almost wished she hadn’t. The image before her was so stark and ugly. And above all, sad.
Heather was strapped into a chair directly across from her. Her head was sagging off to the side, her eyelids half open and her lips parted, with an ugly white crust gathered at the dry corners of her mouth. There was no longer a trace of blood in her pale skin. The circles under her eyes were black. And after all the progress she had made the night before.
“Heather…,” Gaia whispered. “Heather, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
Answer me…. Come on, Heather, say something. Please…
“Gaia?” Heather whimpered. Her hands jolted into contorted positions under the straps and then settled again. She was still a mess physically, but she was alive. Gaia hadn’t failed her completely just yet.
Heather’s head darted up like a wounded animal’s, veering off in all directions, trying to locate Gaia. Tears instantly fell from her vacant eyes. “Gaia, I thought I was alone. I thought I was going to die alone here.”
Betrayed Page 12
