SAM MOON
Sam blinked. That couldn’t be right... but the words were there. In black letters. He’d been expecting the address of some warehouse or Josh’s name on the package. But this package was personally addressed to Sam. He ripped the tab on the envelope. Bits of colored paper fell to his feet, rustled by a gust of wind. Photographs. Sam knelt and picked them up, and as his eyes fell on one of them, his face froze.
Gaia.
Or rather Gaia and him.
In his bed.
Her blond hair fanned out across his chest. His arms were wrapped around her naked back. A black cloud descended over Sam’s thoughts as he thumbed through the other pictures. They were all variations on the same intimate theme, spelled out in a string of Kodak moments. His fingers began to shake—so violently that he couldn’t handle the pictures anymore. He sat down on a bench and tried to think. To deal. To stomach the obvious color-printed truth in his hands. Someone had been spying on him and Gaia. Someone had actually photographed them.
He shoved a hand into the envelope to see if there was more. Just a slip of paper with a neatly typed message in all caps: HANDS OFF.
Sam dropped the note to the ground. Memories of that early morning phone call flashed through his head once more.
Don’t touch her, or you’ll be sorry.
The note blew away in the wind. That was it. He shot up from the bench and turned in circles, again and again, searching the park for any sign of his enemy. Or was it enemies? The possibilities were too overwhelming. Were they watching him right now? And who were they? One thing was for sure: They were not some prank caller. They were for real. He dropped back down to the bench and tried to steady himself. Stay calm, he shouted inside his own head, his heart beating a mile a minute, his mouth as dry as the wind.
How did they know I’d be here? No, what am I saying? They didn’t just know I’d be here; they sent me here just to get their message. Josh sent me here—
A series of questions flashed through Sam’s mind. What was Josh doing in his room that morning? How long had he been there? Where did he go right before Sam got the phone call? All of Sam’s fears of the last few weeks—every one of his “bad feelings,” every one of the vague doubts and unsettling premonitions. . . they were all falling together to form one huge and terrifying conclusion. A conclusion that Sam had really known all along.
Whoever they were, Josh was one of them.
And Josh was in control.
To: J
From: L
Date: February 12
File: 776244
Subject: Gaia Moore
Last seen: Broadway, 3:44 p.m.
Continue to monitor subject at close range. Keep subject away from the Messenger.
Request status report re essentials required for party.
To: L
From: J
Date: February 12
File: 776244
Subject: Gaia Moore
Last seen: Broadway, 3:44 p.m.
Subject and Messenger are being closely monitored. All party plans are moving swiftly. Expect further communications via the Messenger.
GAIA
Maybe it’s possible that men have a “time of the month” just like women. I once heard a theory that males have testosterone surges that affect their moods, but I always thought it was a bunch of crap. Now I’m not so sure. It might explain the weirdness of the two most important guys in my life (aside from my father, of course): Sam and Ed.
Okay, maybe not Ed’s. My first guess is that things aren’t so hot between Ed and Heather. He’s been pretty icy to her of late. So maybe Heather is why he’s totally humorless these days. But he won’t tell me anything, so I don’t know for sure. All I know is that he’s acting very peculiar—jittery and distant and generally un-Fargo in all ways.
As for Sam, I have no theories there. Except for the lame-assed hormonal one. But I do know beyond the shadow of a doubt that something is up with him. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of caginess. It’s not like I’m unfamiliar with secrecy in a relationship, of course. But only my own.
Yes, that’s hypocritical. But it’s also the truth. And I never lie. Which is another reason this whole trend disturbs me. Both Sam and Ed are lying to me. About what, I don’t know. But maybe this is my punishment. Maybe this is karma: the whole what-goes-around-comes-around part of existence. For once I’m happy and my life is out in the open—but now everyone else is acting weird and keeping secrets.
Or maybe this is just what life looks like from a happy person’s perspective.
If so, happiness is overrated.
pretty boy
This one had close-cropped bangs and was more overweight than muscular. She also had a lazy, milky eye that drifted to the side.
SAM HAD NO IDEA HOW LONG he’d been standing outside Josh’s closed door. Minutes, definitely... possibly longer. But he was frozen solid, still as a statue in the sickly yellow light of their suite. There was nothing to be done. As a chess player, Sam knew the certainty of defeat very well: that one clear moment when your opponent had cut off all options. And even if Josh was in there, what could Sam possibly say, given the circumstances? He was utterly powerless. One wrong move and he was in jail for life. Checkmate.
Checkmate
So he stood by the door with his heart in his throat and his chest constricted until Josh opened it himself.
“Sammy!” Josh greeted Sam with a slap on the shoulder and his usual grin. Sam couldn’t believe he’d once found that perfect smile reassuring. Now it made him sick. “I thought I heard somebody out there. Come on in. How was the delivery?”
For a split second Sam thought about punching him in the face, knocking him cold, strangling him. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even look at the guy—dressed in the old sweat suit he always wore, as if he truly were just another ordinary RA at NYU. Sam couldn’t bring himself to look anywhere but his shoes.
“Did you get your package?” Josh asked.
Sam’s head jerked up. He shot daggers at Josh with his eyes. He couldn’t believe it. He was dealing with a true sociopath. Which meant that Josh was more dangerous than Sam had imagined. Which only made Sam more frightened.
“Did you?” Josh pressed, his voice hardening.
Again Sam remained silent.
“I’m sure you did.” Josh opened his closet door and pulled a box from it with an envelope attached. “Now, this one’s not going to be too pleasant.” He handed the box to Sam. “I need you to take this to the Manhattan federal jail. Just go through the visitors’ entrance. Your contact will find you right inside the door. The details are in the envelope, okay? Are we cool?”
Cool? Come on! Say something! Find another move! There’s got to be another move—
“Hello?” Josh laughed. It sounded like the bark of a cruel dog. “Earth to Sammy. Are we cool?”
“Yes,” Sam replied, his heart flooding with futility. It was the first time he’d spoken in hours. The word was dry, hoarse.
“Excellent. See you soon.” Josh sat at his desk and opened a notebook, as if Sam were being dismissed.
Sam turned around and walked halfway through the doorway. But something stopped him. He wasn’t sure what it was—rage, maybe. Either that or panic. But he whirled and turned back to Josh.
“Josh?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I need to know....”Sam wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say. Maybe he was just praying that there was some stitch of common decency somewhere inside this coldhearted bastard. “Who’s doing this? It can’t be just you. Who are you working for? Who hates me so much?”
Josh shook his head, his eyes buried in the notebook. “You don’t need to know that,” he mumbled.
“I just... I just want to know why.”
“Don’t get philosophical on me,” Josh warned in an annoying, jokey tone.
“No, please.” Sam clenched his jaw. “Why? Why me?”
Suddenly the
smile dropped completely from Josh’s face. He snapped the notebook shut and stared coldly into Sam’s eyes.
“Ours is not to reason why, Sam. Do I need to finish that proverb for you?”
Sam felt ice in his veins. “No,” he said. He turned away and left the room with a sense of horror that was totally new to him—a kind of dread he’d never experienced. No, Josh didn’t need to finish the sentence. Sam’s dad used to quote it all the time.
Ours is not to reason why...ours is but to do and die.
“BRIEF ME.” GAIA HELD UP A COPY of Albert Camus’s The Stranger as Ed slammed his locker shut. “I haven’t read it.”
No Reason
That wasn’t entirely true. Gaia had actually read the classic in its original French with her father when she was twelve years old, but she couldn’t remember it as well as her teacher would want. Her mother had been killed shortly thereafter. The first line was what she recalled most vividly: Maman est morte. Mother is dead.
It hit a little too close to home.
As they walked to MacGregor’s class, Gaia stared at the cover of the thin book: a desert scene with a silhouetted figure of a man in the distance. It was a short novel. She could easily have reread it the night before. If she hadn’t wasted so much mental energy trying to figure out Sam’s problem. Or Ed’s. But at least in Ed’s case, she’d come to some conclusion: Patience was the best bet. A great virtue. But not one of mine. Still, Ed being Ed, he was bound to spill sooner or later.
“It’s about a man who kills another man for no reason,” Ed said as he wheeled himself down the hallway.
“That much I knew.” Gaia stole a sideways look at Ed, hunched over in his wheelchair as he maneuvered his way through the traffic of floating Jansport bags and Diesel jeans. His eyes gave nothing away, but his tight jaw betrayed the tension lurking beneath. Gaia knew that was about all she’d get from Ed in silent mode. He’d barely even looked at her, much less volunteered any clues as to what was happening with him.
“It’s about the absurdity, expendability, and randomness of life,” Ed continued in an oddly intense tone, still staring ahead.
“Camus should have been a movie director,” Gaia joked.
But Ed didn’t reply, didn’t even register that she’d spoken. His eyes were on something else. Someone else. Gaia felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, sensing who it was even before she saw that unmistakable brown hair and teen supermodel face.
“Hi, Ed.”
Heather paused as Ed slowed to greet her. She didn’t even acknowledge Gaia’s existence. Which was fine with Gaia. She hung back a little. She was not in the mood for a witchy Gannis greeting, not so early in the day. Nor did she feel like witnessing a broad Heather-to-Ed beaming smile.
“Hi,” Ed answered. His voice was flat.
For once Heather seemed less than composed. Her hair was kind of tousled, now that Gaia took a good look at it. And her eyes were puffy.
“Did you finish the book?” Heather asked Ed.
“Yes.”
“I nearly finished it.”
“Oh. Well, you should. It’s worth reading.”
Gaia knit her brow. What the hell? They were talking like a couple of androids, lobbing impersonal quasi-pleasantries back and forth. Only a slight tremor at Heather’s lower lip betrayed any feeling at all. For his part, Ed was totally without emotion, unless you could call stilted awkwardness an emotion.
Ed glanced up at Gaia. “We should get to class.”
“Uh. . . yeah.” Gaia nodded, waiting for Heather to strike. Whenever Ed addressed Gaia directly in Heather’s presence, it inevitably elicited some scathing insult. But there was nothing. And Gaia knew she looked like crap this morning, having slept badly and woken up late. Circles under the eyes. A threadbare pair of puke-green cords and a sweatshirt that was bravely attempting to hold itself together at the seams. Hair a mess. Overall, she knew she looked like she’d been dragged backward through a bush. An easy target for Heather.
But in a Village School first, Heather didn’t say a word.
And for the first time in her life Gaia wished Heather would insult her, thus reassuring Gaia that all was well with the universe and the logical order of things hadn’t been completely tossed out the window.
Instead Heather just sighed.
The three of them silently filed into MacGregor’s classroom. Ed immediately made for a space at the back, surrounded on all sides. No room for Heather. Or Gaia. Like an automaton, Heather sat down next to the FOHs. Gaia slouched into the first vacant spot she could see, still trying to process the schizoid scenario she’d just witnessed. She knew she wouldn’t get an answer from Ed. No, Ed had closed himself off to the world—as tightly as Gaia herself had in the very first weeks she had arrived in New York.
“And here we have our protagonist, Meursault...,” MacGregor opened.
Gaia stared at the blackboard, her muddled, irritable thoughts punctuated in short intervals by MacGregor’s words. Words like disconnected and alienated.
More than ever, Gaia felt she could relate.
I SHOULD JUST GET OUT OF HERE.
Penance
But it wasn’t an option. Sam’s feet carried him through the forbidding metal doors of the visitors’ entrance of the Manhattan federal jail—a dank spot in the bowels of lower Manhattan, virtually hidden from the sidewalk by a long, descending staircase. As soon as the doors slammed behind him, he froze. A metal detector blocked further entry into the facility. His grip tightened around the package. His skin was clammy with sweat, but he couldn’t tell if he was hot or cold. Anxiety had scraped his nerves raw. He had no idea where he was going or who he was supposed to meet. The instructions hadn’t said a thing about his contact. Sam could only picture trying to walk through the metal detector and setting it off—then being apprehended for whatever horrible stuff was concealed in this box—
A woman in a prison guard uniform suddenly appeared from behind the security station and strode toward him. Sam sucked in an extra hit of oxygen. Her. That woman from the park. His pulse slammed into overdrive—but then his eyes narrowed. Or. . . not. This one had close-cropped bangs and was more over-weight than muscular. She also had a lazy, milky eye that drifted to the side. Sam shuddered. What kind of a place was this?
She stopped right in front of him. He looked at her. A curt nod was the only signal she gave. But that was all he needed. He handed over the package.
“Better get out of here,” she said, weighing the package in her hands, her good eye boring into Sam. “This is no place for a pretty boy like you.”
Sam blinked. His stomach squeezed. Without pausing for another breath, he turned and bolted out the doors—nearly tripping on the stairwell, using his hands to propel him up the last few steps. There were no words to describe his revulsion: at that guard, at himself, at the stale jail air. No place for a pretty boy. The words conjured up images too sordid to ponder.
He kept running as he hit the street, sprinting toward the nearest subway station. His heart knocked at his rib cage. He blinked rapidly, feeling the weight of tears behind his eyes.
Why is this happening? Why was everything falling apart, just when it had started to come together? But just as fast as self-pity swooped in, Sam felt the familiar gnaw of guilt. He was ashamed to feel so sorry for himself. At least he could feel something. Mike Suarez didn’t have that option anymore. Maybe this whole situation—the mess with the police, the bribes, the photographs, the mysterious enemy—was his penance for Mike. Maybe that voice on the phone hadn’t been lying. Maybe that voice really was a messenger from beyond the grave.
In which case, Sam might have to heed the voice’s warnings—even the ones that told him to keep away from Gaia.
To: J
From: L
Date: February 13
File: 001
Subject: Dinner party
Plans for the party progressing. Invitations have gone out. Costumes have been delivered. More to follow.
&n
bsp; ED
Why I believe I will walk again:
• The doctors are optimistic.
• I stood up.
Why I believe I won’t walk again:
• Doctors are optimistic by trade.
• I fell down.
freaking posers
Ashen faced, he opened his mouth, apparently searching for the right words to say. As if there could be any.
GAIA NODDED COOLLY FROM THE fountain as Sam waved from the miniature Arc de Triomphe. He ran toward her, smiling.
The Boyfriend-Girlfriend Thing
“Hey,” she called. But her voice betrayed her lack of enthusiasm. Her eyes were on the dry fountain bed, where old brown pennies lay like bits of dirt—dead wishes from some long-ago summer, when the water had incited people to throw their change away so that their dreams could come true. As if it could make a difference.
And then Sam was right in front of her. Gaia stiffened her neck and moved almost imperceptibly so that Sam’s mouth found her cheek and not her lips. He had suggested a walk after school instead of their usual get-together at his dorm. And as usual, he didn’t give any reason for the change in plans.
More secrets. More deception.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Fine,” she lied.
She hated lying. Until very recently she’d made a hard-and-fast rule for herself: Always tell the truth, or don’t say anything at all. But that had been back when she was alone, on her own, with no attachments. She realized she’d learned a lesson. The closer you got to people, the more you had to lie. It was sick.
Sam stared at her. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then sighed. Gaia shook her head. Maybe he didn’t want to lie anymore, either, so he was just shutting up as well. She stuffed her hands inside her fleece jacket. She and Sam remained silent as they headed out of the park and south, over to Bleecker Street. Gaia concentrated on the drab gray concrete beneath her feet. It was so confusing: Until now they’d grabbed every available moment of privacy so they could explore the intimate side of their relationship—keeping the world out because nothing mattered except their being together. Until now.
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