Chase (3 page)

Gaia sighed and pressed her palm into her forehead. Maybe this was pointless. Maybe she was just
wasting her time. Her blood rushed through her veins as a little voice in her mind taunted her for being so stupid. Natasha wasn't an amateur. She wouldn't keep the secrets of her master plan right under the nose of one of her primary targets.

Still, Gaia wasn't quite ready to give up. Her father was depending on her. Alive or dead, she had to find out where he was, and as far as Gaia knew, Natasha and Tatiana were the only ones who had that information. She hit Natasha's room again, and the moment she walked in, she realized she hadn't checked the nightstands. She dropped to her knees in front of the closest one and yanked the small drawer out. It flew open and then stuck stubbornly. As much as Gaia jimmied and tugged, the drawer wouldn't come free. Gaia pulled out the paperback novel, the pad of paper and pen, and the sleep mask inside, dropping it all to the floor at her knees. She shoved her hands into the empty drawer and felt along the plywood surface.

“Come on,” Gaia said under her breath, starting to feel desperate. A trickle of sweat ran down from her temple along her cheek. “Come on . . . .”

And then her fingertip hit something. Something sharp. Gaia's heart leapt into her throat. She ran her fingertip along the slim edge of what had to be a small envelope, from the feel of it. She pulled out her hands and crouched, tilting her head to one side and trying
to see into the back of the drawer. Sure enough, she spotted the folded edge of a brown envelope that was wedged into the seam between the back of the drawer and the bottom. Gaia reached into the drawer again, grasped the envelope with both hands, and yanked as hard as she could.

The envelope came free and Gaia tumbled backward into the pile of shoes and boots behind her. Her heart slammed against her rib cage in excitement as she looked at the envelope. Across the front five capital letters were printed:
ABCSH.

There was something heavy inside. Gaia tipped the envelope over her hand, and into her waiting palm fell
a single brass key.
It lay there, cold and unhelpful, but Gaia felt like she'd achieved a small victory. It was a clue. It had to be. The key had been just hidden enough and the message on the front of the envelope was just cryptic enough to reassure her that she was on to something.

Gaia slipped the key back into the envelope and stuffed it into her back pocket. She returned to her room, grabbed her duffel bag from under her bed, and stuffed some clothes into it at random. She slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, took one last look around at the destruction she'd caused, and headed for the door.

She had no idea where she was going, but she couldn't stay here. Aside from the possibility of being
murdered by Tatiana in her sleep, this place had too many bad memories. Memories of how for weeks on end, she'd been sleeping with the enemy.

It was time to start over. Something Gaia was growing more and more accustomed to.

Another Enemy

ABCSH, ABCSH, A . . . B . . . C . . . S . . . H.

Gaia stared at the corner of the chessboard, the squares and playing pieces blurred before her. She'd come to the park hoping that a nice solid trouncing of Mr. Haq would help calm her nerves, help her focus, but all she could think about was the letters. They danced in front of her mind's eye like one of those animated lessons from
Sesame Street
, but they refused to form themselves into any kind of order that would yield an answer.

ABCSH . . .

What did it mean? And what did it have to do with her father?

“Girlie?” Mr. Haq said. “Girlie? Your move!” He snapped his stubby, calloused fingers in front of Gaia's dazed face.

She blinked, and her eyes settled on the board.

“I got you this time, eh, girlie?” the old man said gleefully, rubbing his palms together. “You not yourself today. I on top of my game.” He snickered and Gaia sighed. She could take him in five moves, no problem, but she couldn't see the point. This was totally useless. The game had done nothing to calm her down. She had to get out of here. She had to go . . . somewhere, she just didn't know where. All she knew was that she felt like she had millions of tiny little Ping-Pong balls dancing around under her skin. She couldn't just sit here any longer.

“I have to go,” she said, standing up.

Mr. Haq's tiny, dark eyes widened as he tilted back his head to look up at her. “You forfeit? You can't forfeit! You never forfeit!”

“First time for everything,” Gaia said flatly.

“But I have you! I have you!” Mr. Haq wailed in protest, gesturing wildly at the board. “You can't just leave because I have you!”

“Sorry,” Gaia said. She shouldered her messenger bag, grabbed her duffel, and hurried away, followed by the continued sounds of Mr. Haq's
protesting wails.

Gaia crossed over to Waverly and started to walk east with less than no clue as to where she was headed. She immediately regretted forfeiting her game. At least as long as she was sitting there, she was
somewhere.
Somewhere familiar. Now she was headed right back to nowhere.

If only she knew what her next move should be. If only she had some idea of where Tatiana was. But by now she could be in another state. She could be in another country. Gaia had waited too long. With each passing moment Tatiana gained an advantage. She was slowly slipping through Gaia's fingers.

Gaia continued to wander, letting the Walk and Don't Walk signs define her path. When she hit the corner of Second Street and Second Avenue, she heard the sharp start of a scream that was quickly cut short. Gaia's senses went on the alert as she looked around, searching for something amiss, wondering if she'd just imagined it. But then something caught her eye. A few figures struggling right in the center of the ages-old cemetery across the street.

Gaia dashed into traffic, ignoring the angry horn of a large meat truck that had to skid to a stop, and tossed her bags over the iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. She scrambled up and over the barrier. As she ran toward the fray, she saw that two average-size men were trying to pull the purse off a middle-aged woman who was struggling on the ground. The strap was wrapped around her body and under her arm, making it difficult for the guys to get it free. But they soon would, and who knew what they would do to the woman once they had what they wanted?

“Hey!” Gaia called out, bending at the waist.

The two men looked up in surprise, and Gaia used the moment to rush straight at the slightly taller guy, shoulder first. He didn't even have a chance to throw out his arms. Gaia hit him hard, and he let out an “Oof!” before tumbling to the ground with her in a
mass of tangled limbs.
Gaia was just getting her bearings to pummel the crap out of him when his buddy came up behind her and got her in a headlock. He yanked her away from his friend, and Gaia felt her eyes bulge as her windpipe was cut off. She choked and sputtered, grasping at the guy's arm with both hands.

“Don't go nowhere,” her assailant said to the woman on the ground.

Gaia tried to shoot her a look, telling her to run, but she knew that her widened eyes, probably just made her look panicked. The woman wept and pulled her leg toward her. It was twisted unnaturally and was probably broken. So much for running.

“Yo, Tino, we got a spark plug here,” the headlock guy said.

Tino, who had a nice scar that cut from the corner of his eye all the way down to the corner of his mouth, scrambled to his feet and fixed Gaia with a menacing glare. He slowly cracked his knuckles, then came at her, fast. But at the last second Gaia pushed her feet off the ground, used every muscle in her abs to bring up
her legs, and double kicked Tino
right in his nasty face.

The force of his momentum worked against him, and Tino crumbled to the ground, knocked out. The guy behind Gaia loosened his grip in surprise and she ducked out from under his arm, turned, and landed a nice right hook across his nose. His hands flew up to cover it, and she punched him once in the gut and kicked him in the groin. When he fell to his knees, she finished him off with an elbow jab to the back of his neck.

He hit the ground in a fetal position, unconscious. Gaia looked down at her handiwork—two knocked-out thugs in short order—and waited for a nice sense of satisfaction to come over her, but it didn't. She was still antsy. She was still made up of Ping-Pong balls.

“Are you okay?” Gaia asked the woman, who was now leaning back against a headstone.

She turned amazed eyes on Gaia. “I need to take a self-defense class,” she said.

Gaia frowned. “I think your leg is broken. I'm gonna go get some help.” The woman eyed her two attackers warily. “Don't worry about them,” Gaia assured her. “They're down for the count.”

She jogged over to her bags, grabbed them up, and this time found the open gate to exit the cemetery. A block and a half away she spotted a parked patrol car and told the officer behind the wheel that there was a woman hurt back at the graveyard and that the two
guys who'd hurt her were still there. He picked up his radio and called it in.

“Don't move,” he told Gaia as he turned on his siren. “We'll want your statement.”

“Right,” Gaia said. And the moment he peeled away, she took off in the other direction.

ABCSH . . . ABCSH
, her brain started up again. What was it? What
was
it? She wished she had someone to talk to—someone to bounce this clue off and see what they came up with.
Someone to brainstorm with.
But there was no one left. Ed hated her. Sam hated her. There was no one else who knew about her psychotic family—her psychotic life. And there was certainly no one she knew who was up on espionage. No code crackers in her immediate acquaintance.

Except, of course . . .

Gaia stopped in her tracks so fast, the woman behind her walked right into her.

“Excuse me!” the lady snapped as she righted her bags and shuffled around Gaia.

But Gaia was in the midst of an epiphany—a bona fide brainstorm.
Loki.
As long as Gaia had lived, every awful thing that had ever happened to her had been perpetrated by Loki. Gaia had always thought it was just a little too weird that her father had fallen into a random coma the same day Loki had become comatose himself.

Gaia stepped out of the foot traffic of the sidewalk,
her mind reeling. What if Loki's men
had
caused her father's coma? What if Loki
was
responsible for her father being kidnapped from the hospital and taken who knew where? That would have to mean that Natasha was working with Loki's men . . . and maybe even Loki himself.

I haven't checked up on him since he was put in the hospital
, Gaia thought.
Not once.

Gaia had never had a chance to find out who Natasha and Tatiana were working for. Were they employed by some unknown agency—some new adversary—or were they just more of Loki's operatives? Was it possible that Loki had woken up and somehow escaped? Was it possible that he was calling the shots once again?

It was a slim chance, but it was the only lead Gaia had. If Loki was out there somewhere, she needed to know. At least she would have some idea of what she was up against. And if he was still safely tucked away in his coma, then she would know for sure that she and her father had
another enemy.

With an actual purpose, an actual destination in mind, Gaia finally felt her nerves start to relax. She rolled back her shoulders and headed for the subway.

Gaia
is starting to crack. I can tell. She's been wandering the city without purpose all day. The longest she has stayed still was the half hour she spent at our old apartment. I imagine she was tearing it to shreds. It doesn't bother me, however. I know she didn't find anything there. My mother is nothing if not careful.

Since then she has been through Central Park, across Columbus Circle, through Midtown, down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square, where she played a game of chess for five minutes, and then into the East Village, where she found a fight. Of course. For a moment I was concerned that she was headed for the safe house–she came very close to that neighborhood–but then she suddenly stopped. She stared at nothing for a few moments and got on the subway. And all this time she has never looked behind her. She's had a crazed sort of look in her
eye all day, and she never even suspected I was following.

Like I said, she's cracking up.

And I could have killed her so many times. So many times I almost pulled out the gun and ended it. It was as if the weapon was calling to me, taunting me, telling me to finish her off. It is, after all, what my mother wants.

But I can't. Not yet. Without Gaia I will never find out where my mother is.

There has to be some way to get to her. Some way to trick her into meeting with me. Someone I can use as a decoy. But as far as I can see, I have only two not very attractive options.

One is Ed, but I will not put him in the middle of this. I could not bear it if he were killed. He is the one mistake I have made in all this time. I was not supposed to care for anyone, but I do care for Ed. Until I met him, I did not believe that any person in this world could be
truly good. I didn't believe in friendship or in pure intention. But Ed is different. He is a good person, and he does not deserve to die just because he was stupid enough to fall in love with Gaia and be friends with me. Maybe that is his one flaw. His stupid heart.

But even if a small part of me wanted to be with him, I realize it is better that we were never really together. I would only break his heart like Gaia has so many times. Because once I'm done with Gaia, I'm gone.