Chase (6 page)

Gaia walked over to the door, opened it a crack, and glanced out. Another nurse had taken charge of the desk while the first woman was off paging Loki's
doctor. There was a doctor talking to a harried-looking couple outside another of the rooms. It wasn't Fort Knox, but it wasn't going to be easy. She closed the door again, silently.

“They'll never let me take you out of here in this condition,” she said, glancing skeptically at his frail body. “We're gonna have to run.”

Dead Ahead

TATIANA STILL COULDN'T GET USED TO
seeing all those dark strands of hair blowing in front of her own face. Every other time the wind kicked up and tousled her wig, she flinched. Not exactly the nerves of steel required for the spy game. But she'd been following Gaia all day, and since the girl seemed to be able to function indefinitely without food, Tatiana hadn't eaten, either. She leaned her shoulder against the big blue mailbox next to her and tapped her fingers on the dented metal, her stomach letting out an
irritated growl.
She was starting to get a little antsy.

“What the hell is she doing in there, having that long overdue personality change operation?” Tatiana muttered, glancing away from the hospital entrance long enough to check her watch. Gaia had been inside
for more than two hours. A new record of stagnancy for the day. Maybe Tatiana could just duck into that bagel place and—

There she was. Not coming from the entrance, but from around the far corner of the hospital. And she was hustling. She was hustling with her arm around someone. Someone who was stooped over and shielded from view. Tatiana stood up straight, pulled her dark sunglasses down to the end of her nose, and narrowed her eyes.

Who the hell was Gaia smuggling out of the damn—

The patient glanced in her direction, only for a split second, and Tatiana's knees almost caved in. Tom Moore? Gaia's
father?
But how had she—? How had he—? She'd thought he was—

Then it hit her, and
a dry heave caught in her throat.

It wasn't Tom. It was Loki, obviously. Tatiana and her mother had known for a while that Loki was being held in one of the city's many hospitals, but the name of the exact hospital was kept on a need-to-know basis. And even though it made absolutely no sense for Gaia to smuggle Loki out of the hospital, it made more sense than the idea of Tom being in New York. Tatiana knew for a fact that Tom was nowhere near the United States.

This can't happen
, Tatiana realized, her heart racing. If Gaia and Loki had decided to team up, there
was no telling what they might be able to do. And if the two of them compared notes, it wouldn't take long for them to figure out who Tatiana and Natasha were working for. Once they figured that out, Tatiana was as good as dead. Especially if she could have done something to stop it.

Gaia and her uncle scurried across the avenue and headed toward Tatiana but on the other side of the street. Tatiana ducked behind a lamppost, seething, swearing under her breath.

“I'll kill them,” she said. “I'll kill them both.”

Gaia and Loki turned a corner and started up the street toward the subway station, their backs to Tatiana. Suddenly a sleek black sports car pulled up to the curb right next to Tatiana's feet and the engine died. Tatiana squared her shoulders, walked around the front of the car, and waited for the driver to open the door.

A coiffed businessman of about thirty stepped out onto the street, his back to Tatiana. She reached around him, took his keys from his hand, and, before he could utter any sound of surprise, grabbed him by his jacket lapels and flung him to the ground.

As she sat behind the wheel and locked the doors, Tatiana absently noticed that now her hands weren't shaking. They weren't shaking as she inserted the key into the ignition. They weren't shaking as she cut the wheel and peeled out, slicing through four lanes of heavy New York traffic.

The driver stood up and yelled after her; countless cars screeched to a stop; curses were flung out like yesterday's meat loaf. But Tatiana didn't hear them. She didn't see them. She saw nothing but the tall blond girl and the sickly, stooped man, who were so helpfully stepping off the curb and into the street
dead ahead.

You
know what's unhealthy? Giving up stuff for a girl.

Like when I was in high school, my friend Frank quit the spring play because his girlfriend, Lily, was jealous because he had to kiss Maria Viola. Then five days after we all watched Frank's understudy, Calvin Carmichael, knock over the set and pass out from an asthma attack in the middle of act 2, Lily broke up with Frank for some kid from the debate team. Frank never acted again, never trusted women again, and took his first cousin Agatha to the prom. I haven't spoken to him since, but I'm sure he's still a shell of his former self.

It's because of the Frank and Lily story that I'm in New York at all. I had a girlfriend in high school. An amazing girlfriend. Her name was Anna, and she was perfect–smart, funny, legs that went on for miles. We always used to lie around and
talk about what it would be like to go away to school together, live together, and all that stuff. But Anna wanted to go to Notre Dame more than anything. Her whole family went there. Their den was like a shrine to the place, with pennants and jackets and photos, pillows, blankets, and mugs. I applied there, but I knew that I didn't want to stay in the Midwest. I knew I wanted to go to school in a big city, see new things, get the heck out of small-town USA.

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.

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 right?” A burly man in an orange
Con Edison vest crouched over them on the sidewalk.