And so, when I got my acceptance letters to NYU and Notre Dame on the same day and immediately went for the one from NYU first, I knew what I had to do. I thought about Frank. I thought about how I didn’t want to make that same mistake he had. So I broke Anna’s heart and I came to New York.
The thing is, I never looked back. Yeah, I still think of Anna sometimes, but I know that I made the right decision. And not just because she got engaged to some prelaw loser six months into her freshman year (I got an e-mail from her with their engagement picture attached. They were both wearing Notre Dame sweatshirts and green turtlenecks), but because I’ve always believed that you’ve got to make your own decisions. Like I said, you can’t give up stuff for a girl.
So what do you do when you’ve given up not just your hobby for a girl, but everything? You’ve given up your friends, your passions, your education, your family, and approximately three full months of your life? And then what do you do if, after you’ve given up all that, she decides that you aren’t worth trusting? That everything you’ve done and everything you’ve lost doesn’t even prove that one small thing. How does one recover from that?
Need a few minutes to think about it? That’s cool, I’ll wait. It’s not like I have anything else to do.
the good guys
And at that moment, she knew. She knew, without a doubt, that this was truly Oliver.
Quiver
OKAY, WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE? Gaia asked herself, glancing at her uncle’s profile as she half dragged him along the street. The light of day and the noise of the streets were like blaring wake-up calls from the intense emotional daze back in the hospital room. Sure, this man claimed his name was Oliver Moore, and he didn’t seem to recall anything he’d done in the days before he fell into a coma. Sure, he looked pale and weak and his arms shook as he clasped her left hand in both of his.
But none of this changed the fact that she might have just sprung the most evil criminal on earth from the hospital. Loki was a chameleon. That was one of his strengths as a spy. And although Gaia’s gut was telling her to believe that the person she was holding up was Oliver, her gut had betrayed her enough times for her to be doubtful.
She was so sick of doing this alone—of relying on her own instincts. If only she had someone here to tell her she was doing the right thing. Or the wrong one. Either way, she could deal. She just wanted to know.
“Oh God, no,” Oliver said suddenly, stopping so fast, Gaia almost pulled him off his feet with her continued momentum. Oliver turned, spinning himself out of her grasp. He started to fall and grabbed at a grimy, overflowing garbage can to stop himself.
“What is it?” Gaia asked, glancing left and right. She doubted the nurses had even noticed that Oliver was missing from his room yet, but if Loki’s men had been keeping an eye on the hospital, they might already be tailing her. It was always better to be safe than dead.
Oliver looked at her, his blue eyes swimming and twitching, his mouth hanging slightly open. He slowly sank to the ground, every muscle in his body seeming to quiver.
“I—tried to—kill you?” Oliver stammered, tucking his chin.
Any color he had left drained from his face. Gaia felt her stomach turn over like a slowly folding omelette. Was he serious?
“Uh . . . yeah,” Gaia said, trying to prevent the emotion she felt from creeping into her voice. “Lots of times. But we can talk about that later.”
She grabbed his arms around what was left of his biceps and tried to haul him up, but he was like deadweight. His fluttering hand flew to his forehead and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“And that girl Heather . . . and Tom . . . my own brother . . . and that boy . . . that boy . . . Josh . . . I killed him at point-blank . . .”
And then Oliver started to weep. Sitting right there on the ground in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, with harried pedestrians looking him over warily as they hustled by. Gaia stood still, unsure of what to do—unsure of what she was witnessing. Everything that had happened before Loki had slipped into his coma seemed to be coming back to him, slowly and in agonizing relief. With each new victim he recalled, he collapsed in on himself a bit more.
So it was all coming back to him. But was it coming back to him as Oliver, or were his memories turning him back into Loki, the man who had actually committed those atrocities?
“Oh God, why did you take me out of there?” her uncle whimpered, covering his face with both hands now. “You must despise me. You have to despise me . . . .”
I do, Gaia thought. Or I did. I despise Loki. So if that’s who you are . . .
Car tires screeched somewhere down the street and Gaia blinked. She had to snap out of this. They both had to.
“Look, we can talk about all of this later?” she asked, grasping his hands and hauling him to his feet. She wrapped her arm around his back, supporting his weight, and started to walk. “Right now we just need to get you inside, okay?”
Oliver didn’t respond, but he did move with her, muttering under his breath. Mercifully Gaia could no longer comprehend his muddled words. If she heard him recount his memory of what he’d done to her mother, she might just give in to temptation and leave him right on a street corner to fend for himself.
“Come on. We have to cross here,” she said, tightening her grip on his shoulder.
As Gaia stepped from the curb, Oliver paused again. Gaia stopped a few paces ahead of him, in the center of the road. She was starting to lose patience.
“Are you coming?” she asked him.
A fat tear rolled down the side of Oliver’s nose and his chin quivered. He looked so entirely pathetic—so scared and remorseful. Gaia swallowed back a lump that threatened to rise in her throat. If this really was Oliver, he must be so confused. Of course, if he was Loki, he was just doing a really good job of snowing her. And he wouldn’t be the first.
Suddenly Oliver, Loki, whoever he was swayed on his feet. Gaia took a step toward him, then froze.
The sound of screeching tires filled her ears this time, impossibly close. Gaia looked up to see a black sports car almost spin out as it flew around the nearest corner. The driver was obscured, but as the engine roared and picked up speed, it was clear he wasn’t going to stop. Gaia was standing directly in the car’s path.
Huh. In all the times she’d imagined herself dying, getting run over by a car was never at the top of the list.
“Gaia!” Oliver shouted suddenly.
Then, before Gaia could even turn to him, he’d run into the center of the street and shoved her out of the way of the speeding car, his eyes wild. Gaia hit the road on her butt, her palms scraping across the grainy asphalt. When she looked up at her uncle, he was standing in the path of the car, his arms outstretched at his sides.
“No!” Gaia shouted, scrambling up.
As clear as day, she heard her uncle state, ever so simply, “I deserve to die.”
And at that moment she knew. She knew without a doubt that this was truly her uncle, her father’s brother, the man her mother once knew and cared for. He was one of the good guys.
Gaia glanced at the car, only yards away now and coming fast. A jogger jumped out of the vehicle’s way, tumbling over the hood of a parked Jeep. The black car only accelerated. Whoever was behind the wheel either didn’t know or didn’t care that he had almost killed someone.
And that meant her uncle was next. Out of the corner of her eye Gaia caught a glimpse of long dark hair and dark glasses behind the wheel of the speeding car. Then she took off, using the few steps to gain as much momentum as superhumanly possible. She launched herself into the air and slammed into her uncle, wrapping her arms around him as they tumbled toward the far curb. They rolled over and over each other, legs entwined, arms flailing, until the curb stopped Gaia’s back, sending a stabbing, body-shaking pain down her side.
The car didn’t pause or slow. When Gaia lifted her head, it had already disappeared into traffic.
“Hey! Are you all righ
t?” A burly man in an orange Con Edison vest crouched over them on the sidewalk.
Gaia sat up slowly, touching a cut on her head and wincing as she glanced around at the crowd that had gathered. Her uncle started to cough, and Gaia helped him into a seated position, checking him over for broken bones. He was clearly shaken but still intact.
“We’re fine,” Gaia said to the little clutch of people. “Thanks.”
“Wacko,” the Con Edison worker said under his breath. “I tried to get his license plate, but it all happened so fast.”
“Thanks again,” Gaia said as the man stood up and walked off, shaking his head.
As the rest of the bystanders started to disperse, Oliver got his breathing under control. He looked over at Gaia and blinked rapidly.
“You saved my life,” he said. “Why?”
Gaia shrugged. “You saved mine first.”
Oliver looked down at his hands as if he couldn’t believe they were there. “Back in the hospital, you said that Tom was . . . missing?”
Gaia’s heart turned. “Yep,” she said, pretending to concentrate on dabbing the blood from the scrape above her eye with the end of her sleeve.
“But he’s alive,” Oliver said.
“I don’t know,” Gaia replied.
Oliver let out a breath, and his shoulders slumped a bit more. “Well, wherever he is, I’ll find him,” he said. “I’m going to put a stop to all of this. Once and for all.”
Gaia turned her head to look at him, and Oliver looked right back into her eyes. She wanted to believe him so badly—believe that he was really going to help her. But even if he really was Oliver, how long would he stay that way?
After all, Loki hadn’t been born. He was a product of Oliver’s bottomless self-hatred.
Good Progress
ED HAD NEVER SEEN SUCH A PATHETIC display of athleticism in his life. There were four girls on the two racquetball courts that the school gymnasium could accommodate, and they all sucked. He hadn’t seen a good volley yet. Mostly one girl hit the ball at the wall, it came flying back, the other girl screeched and ducked out of the way, and then the first girl had to chase the ball down. Then the whole process started over again. The guys sitting in the bleachers above him seemed to find it entertaining, but all Ed could think about was the fact that these were forty-five minutes of his life that he would never get back.
And that if Gaia were here, she’d be putting all the other girls to shame.
Damn. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking like that.
“Hey, Fargo!”
Ed turned around to find Jake Montone lumbering down the bleachers toward him with Carlos Bernal in tow. The skin on Ed’s bare arms flared with heat at the sight of him, and he turned to face the courts again, feigning such sudden intense interest, he could have been a college racquetball scout.
“S’up, man?” Jake said, standing a couple of rows down from Ed so that he couldn’t avoid looking at him in his gray T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Carlos waited for Jake down on the gym floor, keeping one eye on the racquetball players for his own safety.
“Nothing,” Ed replied.
“Where’s the little woman today?” Jake asked.
Ed pulled in a deep breath. “What little woman would that be?” he asked.
Jake laughed. “You know—belligerent chick with a nice big man-shaped chip on her shoulder?”
“Belligerent! Big word!” Ed snapped, in order to cover the surge of jealousy that threatened to overtake him. What the hell did this guy want with Gaia? And exactly how many guys did Ed’s ex have lined up for herself, anyway? Sam, Jake . . . who was next?
“All I did was ask you a question,” Jake said, an edge creeping into his tone.
“Well, all I know is she’s not here,” Ed said, lifting his feet and placing them on the step in front of him. “Out of curiosity, why do you ask?” he added, forcedly casual. It wasn’t like he really wanted to know the answer. And it wasn’t like he wanted Jake to think that he cared. But sometimes his tongue just felt the need to set him up for punishment.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I have something to ask her,” Jake replied. Then he turned and loped down the rest of the bleachers, walking with Carlos over to the far court to take their turn with the rackets.
What do you have to ask her? Ed wanted to shout after him. Is this like a help-me-with-my-homework-so-I-can-look-up-your-skirt question or a go-with-me-to-the-prom-so-I-can-put-my-hand-in-your-blouse question?!
But Jake was right about one thing: It was none of his business. Ed knew this. He had to stop obsessing about Gaia and what she was doing and who she was doing it with. This behavior was going to get him nowhere.
Unfortunately, it was tough to teach an old Ed new tricks. And he’d spent so much time focused on Gaia in the last year, it was going to be difficult to break himself of the habit. Perhaps impossible.
Ed picked at a string sticking out from the leather upper on his sneaker, wishing he had something else, anything else, to focus on. He’d thought dating someone new would be the answer, but the further the school day progressed, the clearer it became that there was no one out there for him. This school was just too damned small. He’d been friends with every girl in it since his paste-eating days. And sure, there was a whole big city out there, but what was he going to do, go down to SoHo and pick up random chicks? The whole point of getting away from Gaia was to keep from getting his life threatened. Well, that was one of the points, anyway.
Maybe he should join a club. Or . . . or get a pet. Yeah, that was it. A dog. Or a nice cat. Yeah. Cats were cool. And then he could train it and feed it and it would cuddle up next to him at night and—
Yeah. Okay. Now he was thinking like a seventy-five-year-old woman. Good progress.
“Hey, Ed!”
He looked up from his sneaker to find Jennifer Niccols standing on the gym floor directly below him. Her curly brown hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and she was wearing a pair of short blue gym shorts that might as well have been underwear for all the area they covered.
“I need a partner,” she said, flashing a toothpaste-commercial smile. “Wanna play?”
She took two rackets from behind her back and held one out toward him.
“I don’t know,” Ed replied, finding it difficult to imagine himself out of wallow mode. Especially as far out as he’d have to be to get up the energy for racquetball. “I’m not really in the mood.”
“Oh, come on,” Jennifer said. She put the rackets down and climbed the bleachers until she was one riser in front of him. “What if I said pretty please?”
She cocked her head to one side and pretended to pout, reminding Ed of the time in kindergarten she’d proposed marriage to him in the Housekeeping Corner. Yet another girl he’d known for way too long. They were like brother and sister to each other.
Back then, of course, Ed had given in to her girlish wiles and ended up with his first kiss on the playground later that day.
He still blushed just thinking about it.
“Yes!” Jennifer said, noting the change in his coloring. She grabbed both his hands and pulled him out of his seat.
Ed followed her down the bleachers and picked up the racket, then swung his arm around and around, loosening up. It actually felt pretty good to move. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe smacking a ball around would get out some of his pent-up emotion. And maybe participating in gym would take his mind off his total lack of potential girlfriends for a little while.
But later he was definitely going to get a cat.
Bra Strap
TATIANA LIFTED THE SMUDGED GLASS of vodka from the bar, and half the contents sloshed over the rim onto her hand. She cursed under her breath and put the glass down again with a smack, attracting the attention of the surly bartender who was devouring the want ads at the other end of the counter.
“You gonna drink that or wipe down my bar with it?” he spat, one cheek so full of chewing tobacco,
he looked like he had mumps.
Tatiana narrowed her eyes, steeled herself to stop her shaking hands, and downed the rest of the drink. She closed her eyes and tipped back her head as it burned down her throat, then immediately felt better.
At least she hadn’t done it. Or, in truth, at least she’d been prevented from doing it by the tag-team heroics of what was left of the Moore family. And at least there were seedy, no-name bars open in this city in the middle of the afternoon—bars that didn’t bother to card as long as you had cash. At least she’d been able to ditch the car and disappear.
Tatiana took a deep breath and leaned her elbows on the rough edge of the chipped wooden bar. She couldn’t believe she’d just come so close to eliminating Gaia—the one person who knew how Tatiana could get her mother back.
But why did Gaia get Loki out of the hospital? Tatiana wondered. Why did she save one of her enemies from death?
Tatiana lifted her hand to signal the bartender, and he quickly poured her another drink. As she took another hot swallow, she realized that only one thing in this life was certain—she would never figure out Gaia Moore. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use her.
I have to get her to tell me what she knows, Tatiana thought. But if there was one thing that her near encounter with Gaia today had proved, it was that there was no way Tatiana could ever hope to take her. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known this before, but watching Gaia throw herself across the street in front of a speeding car had just brought the point home for Tatiana. Gaia was practically a superhero. Tatiana couldn’t rely on her own strength to deal with her. She had to find someone to help her—preferably someone with a little firepower. And that was the other reason that bars like this one were so handy—they were full of shady characters.
Tatiana lifted her finger again. The bartender sighed heavily, spat a wad of tobacco into a decaying glass, then trudged over to her.
“You ready to settle up?” he asked.
“Actually, I have a little trouble that I thought you might help me with,” she said, calling upon the broken English she spoke only days after immigrating to the U.S. Her trouble with the language made her seem helpless, and guys like this bartender were often more inclined to notice a damsel in distress.
Chase Page 5