2SAM 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 ½GAIA 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
3WHEN SAM LOOKED AT GAIA'S face, he thought his heart broke for her, but he realized later that it broke for himself.
JUST CRUELHEATHER 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 CHASEJust 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, lif
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 MINUTESAM 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 fel
A BRIEF VISIT WITH HEATHERHEATHER 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 o
AND ANOTHER WITH EDED 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 lai
HELL'S KITCHENIf 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
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 mov
BANGTOM 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.Gaia was alive. She was standing at the entrance to a building, looking around to see whence the shots had come. She was unharmed. She didn't even appear particularly concerned. Had she any idea how close that bullet had come to ending her life?Tom ducked out of sight again. With relief flooding his body, he slid to the pavement and allowed himself a moment of rest to slow his speeding heart. Then he took out his phone and connected with his assistant. "There's a man down. I need you to report it to 911.
GAIA'S BACKSAM WAS WEARY AND CONFUSED and fast losing his grip on reality. He'd chased Gaia for at least two miles of congested city streets up to this godforsaken neighborhood and onto a side street as dark and empty of people as a New York City street could be. What was she thinking? Did she have some plan in mind? And was he crazy, or was there more than one other guy following her?What was Gaia into now? What had she really come to tell him when she'd barged into his room tonight? Nothing was clear to him anymore -- except that Gaia was a source of astonishing complexity and trouble, and of course he knew that already.Sam staggered along the street, catching a flitting glance of Gaia's back disappearing into an old loft building that faced the river. Now what the hell was he supposed to do?He didn't pause to answer his own question. He just followed her, of course. He hoped she wasn't leading them both to their deaths. And at least if she was, he hoped he would get a chance to tell
HER FATHERGAIA FOLLOWED HIM UP THE STAIRS on silent feet. Did he know she was still behind him? Did he know she could hear his footsteps perfectly well in the darkness? She was certain her father could have evaded her more skillfully than this. Was it possible he wanted her to find him after all? What could it mean?Complicated questions were filling up the purposeful blank that had been her mind. Eleven floors up, he exited the staircase. The heavy cast-iron door banged to a close behind him. She waited a second before following.This had the feeling of an ambush. Gaia knew she should be cautious and prudent, but on the other hand, if her own father was leading her into an ambush, what was there to live for, anyway?She walked through the door and found herself suddenly in a vast, well-lit loft. The ceiling soared twenty feet above her, and the floor under her feet was highly polished parquet. Enormous floor-to-ceiling windows spanned the entire wall facing the river. She could see the l
NOT NOTHINGThe raw pain that lived hidden inside her every day of her life had broken free.
A SOULLESS VIPERGAIA'S HEART WAS VOLCANIC. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes.It was really him. He was here with her. For the first time in almost five years she had before her the thing she'd yearned for most.In those long, empty years she'd hardened her heart against him with anger and distrust, commanding herself not to care, not allowing herself the hope that he would ever come for her.But now, in his presence, her heart's protective shell was cracking and threatening to fall away. She'd been so strong, so capable for all that time, and now she felt that the pressure of the misery and frailty and helplessness built up over those lonely years could flatten her in a torrent of sorrow and self-pity.She was like the toddler who'd lost her mother in the grocery store, facing miles of grim, dizzying aisles and shelves with numb courage, not allowing herself the luxury of tears until she was back in her mother's arms.Now Gaia's tears distorted her father's familiar features, the blu
THE DARK HALFTOM MOORE STOOD SWEATING IN the dark stairwell on the eleventh floor of the largely abandoned loft building. He had a terrible feeling about this. Why had Gaia come to this place? He felt certain there was grave danger here. He sensed it so strongly, his brain clouded with dark, impenetrable fear. He hadn't had this feeling in a long time.He was preparing to follow her when he heard the metal door creaking open just a few feet away. He hurled himself backward, concealing at least most of his body behind dusty boxes in the corner of the landing. He crouched there silently.Gaia staggered through the door and into the stairwell. Her face displayed pure psychic pain. He stopped breathing as she walked within inches of him. Clearly she didn't see him because she continued down the stairs.Tom felt as if his heart were being ripped from his chest. This was too hard, being near Gaia, seeing her pain, and not being able to help. But he was involved now, and how was he ever going to
IF YOU LOVE SOMETHING . . ."YOU LET HER GO?" ELLA ASKED IN disbelief, returning to the loft from the floor below.Loki said nothing. He sat there, meditative."After all that, you let her go?"It was a great failing of Ella's that she couldn't keep her temper under control. She was self-destructively trying to get a rise out of him, and he wasn't in the mood to play. Ella made a grave error in allowing her dislike of Gaia to get the best of her.For a man who had risen above (or perhaps fallen below?) his emotional impulses long ago, it was rather confounding to feel the sting of Gaia's rejection. He should have been delighted to see the rage and hatred she held for her father -- or a man she believed to be her father, at any rate. Instead, in some primal way, he longed to see love in her eyes, no matter who she believed him to be. She was his daughter after all, genetically if not actually. She was the child of the woman he'd loved. In all of the sordid, black history between him and Kati
BAD CHOICESAM LAY ON THE CONCRETE FLOOR, feeling the thumping ache in his shoulder and ribs, dully considering the pale shaft of light that crept into the far side of an otherwise black space. Where was he? Where was the light coming from? Why had he come here, and who wanted to imprison him?He hadn't caught up to Gaia. He had no idea where she'd gone. But the insidious suspicion had taken root in his mind that she had led him here just to be beaten up and held captive by two large men in ski masks. Blind, lovesick moron that he was, he'd chased her right into a trap.Why, though? What had he done? Who were these people, and what could they possibly want from him?He heard the wail of sirens coming close and wished without much real hope that maybe they were coming for him.This was a truly depressing twist. It was so awful that a part of Sam -- not a part relating to his shoulder or ribs -- almost wanted to laugh.He'd had a choice between a safe, loving girlfriend and a seamy, mysterious
BEING BRAVEGAIA'S LIFE FELT BLEAKER AND more desolate than the trash-strewn street where she walked. In one night the few joys she'd had or hoped for were obliterated. Her father -- the idea of her father -- was irretrievable. She had no choice but to accept now that Sam would never be hers. In her misery she allowed herself to imagine the scene between him and Heather after she'd run off. Sure, they were embarrassed, but once they got
over it, they probably had a good laugh at her expense and got back to business -- Sam more passionately than before in his joy and relief to have Heather in his bed and not a psychotic miscreant like Gaia.She walked slowly down the forsaken street, wondering in the back of her mind where CJ was with his gun. She was ready for him now. Plans 1 and 2 had crashed and burned with equal horror. Not a single hope had survived the collisions. She officially had nothing to live for.Chill winds blew off the Hudson. She was probably cold, she realized, but she wa
Unnamed
SAVE SAMOne of his eyes was black-and-blue, swollen shut, and he looked frighteningly pale. Weak.
YOU'VE GOT MAILGAIA HAD JUST STEPPED OUT OF the shower, when she heard his voice floating up the stairs to greet her. She wrapped a towel around herself, went to the landing, and leaned into the stairwell."Ed?""Yeah.""What the hell are you doing here?"She heard him chuckle. "Fine, thanks, and you?"Gaia smiled in spite of herself. "Sorry. I had sort of a rough night.""What else is new?"She imagined him shaking his head at her."You can tell me all about it over breakfast," he called. "I brought bagels.""Really?" Her stomach grumbled loudly. One thing this city had going for it -- the authentic, fresh-out-of-the-oven bagels. They almost made up for the high price of Apple Jacks."Yeah. So c'mon down.""I'm totally naked, and I'm dripping wet!" Gaia yelled, wishing Ella hadn't left ridiculously early this morning so she could be shocked by this exchange. At least she'd taken George with her. The last thing Gaia would want to do was give her sweet old guardian a heart attack."I repeat," said
Fearless: No. 2 - Sam (Fearless) Page 15