Bad

Some people were gluttons for punishment. Stupid people. Sure enough, they fit the category. The man sprinted toward Gaia, fists swinging.

It was pitiful. Gaia almost felt like laughing. But she was too pissed off. The stupid ones were always the worst fighters. Gaia stepped sideways. There was no reason to engage him. As she dodged the guy's fists, the force of his own weight made him stumble. He fell toward the ground, and Gaia heard a popping sound in his wrist as he tried to catch himself with his left hand.

Logically, Gaia knew that she should probably feel
some
semblance of fear right now. Sure, she was winning the battle.
Even so, deserted park plus attacking mugger equals fear.

But all she felt was another surge of adrenaline.

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#2 Sam

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FRANCINE PASCAL

To William Rubin

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

An
Original
Publication
of
POCKET BOOKS

Copyright © 2001 by Francine Pascal

Cover art copyright © 2001 by 17th Street Productions, an Alloy Online, Inc. company.
Cover photography by St. Denis. Cover design by Mike Rivilis.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address 17th Street Productions,
33 West 17th Street, New York, NY 10011, or Pocket Books,
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

ISBN: 0-7434-2256-2
eISBN-13: 978-0-743-42256-7

Fearless™ is a trademark of Francine Pascal.
POCKET PULSE and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

GAIA

Gaia
and Sam. Sam and Gaia.

I never thought I'd see those two names together.

Sam and
me.
Yes, me. Gaia Moore. A poorly dressed Xena, Warrior Princess, minus the sex appeal and cult following. It's impossible to believe. After everything that happened—after all the lies and betrayal and death and just plain old bull-shit—it's beyond miraculous. It's out there in biblical, apocalyptic, here-comes-the-rapture territory
.

People always talk about kismet. You know, the idea that two people are destined to be together—and they'll eventually find each other, no matter what bizarre, horrendous paths they may take. And I've always put kismet right up there with UFOs and the tooth fairy on the believability scale
.

But now . . . I don't know.

When Sam found me in the park, I honestly felt like I was being
visited by some kind of apparition. A phantom, conjured out of my subconscious. He was literally the last person I expected to see. For once I hadn't even been
thinking
about him. No, my mind was definitely somewhere else. There's nothing like nearly getting killed and then seeing your foster mother murdered to distract you from your obsession.

Then, when Sam started to apologize for everything that had happened between us—for Ella, for the misunderstandings, for how he'd failed—I wondered if the bullet hadn't missed me after all. For a split second I honestly thought I had died. And that's a pretty big deal because I don't believe in the afterlife. (I don't believe in much at all, actually, but that's another story.) But I especially don't believe in some great spirit world, some ethereal plane beyond our reach.

Still, at that moment, I have
to admit, I had my doubts. After all, I was experiencing my version of heaven. There was Sam Moon, standing before me at the Pearly Gates (okay, at the miniature Arc de Triomphe in Washington Square Park, but close enough), telling me everything I'd always dreamed of him saying.

And it was all real. When he put his arms around me, I knew I wasn't hallucinating. For one thing, he accidentally stepped on my toe—hard. It was like pinching yourself on the arm to make sure you're awake. Plus I never cry in my dreams. And we cried that night. About a lot of things. About Ella, whom neither of us ever even really knew . . . the Ella who ended up finding her true self in the last moments of her life because she realized she had been used—used by a monster far more sick than I had ever imagined
her
being.

But I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think
about all the people I've lost, like my mother, or Ella, or my best friend, Mary. There's no point in dwelling on the negative. Not anymore. Because mostly Sam and I talked about the time we missed out on being together because we can both be complete assholes.

Then we kissed
.

To be honest, I can't remember much else
.

 

SAM

They
say that there are only two things a person can ever be sure of: death and taxes. Having never paid taxes myself, I'm not even sure of that one. But I'm sure of one thing: Gaia Moore.

It's funny. Not “ha-ha” funny, either. More like the kind of funny that makes your insides twist into a horrible, sickening knot—because since the moment I saw her, my life has been a Tilt-A-Whirl. For example: My grades dropped, I was kidnapped, I broke up with my perfect, desirable, beautiful girlfriend, and I have reason to believe that I've developed an ulcer. And that's just for starters.

But it's all been worth it. Describing my feelings has never been my strong point, but I have to say, when I'm in a four-mile radius of Gaia, nothing else exists. Nothing. Yes, that's a terrible, simpleminded cliché, but it's actually true. Nuclear war? Who cares? The bubonic
plague is headed for New York? So what? I'll stay inside. I felt that way the very first time it happened—even before I knew her, and I can't explain why.

I've spent countless hours thinking about Gaia, trying to figure out what it is about her that makes me risk life and limb to be close to her for even a minute. I've come to the conclusion that she isn't human. I don't know if she's an angel, an alien, a sprite, or an oversize leprechaun. But she's definitely not of this earth.

I knew it for sure when I actually had Gaia in my arms. If I could just hold her on a steady basis for about a week, I would die a happy man. But maybe I won't have to die to get my wish. Maybe, just maybe, Gaia and I actually have a shot at being together.

If it works out—even for a week or less—then everything bad that's happened will be null and
void in my mind. Life will be perfect. . . .

Except for one thing.

My friend Mike Suarez is in the hospital, and he might die.

But that can't happen. No. Not when my life has the potential to be so good. Please, God, don't let that happen.

 

She could feel the exhaustion creeping over her, smothering her like one of those lead blankets people have to wear in an X-ray room. Her knees buckled. Her eyesight dimmed.

 

THE MAN AT THE MORGUE WAS
straight out of central casting. Pale, bloated face, long, skinny fingers, creepy black eyes. He actually
grinned
at Gaia as he pulled Ella's body out of the morgue's special refrigeration system. Gaia wasn't afraid of the guy—she was never afraid—but it didn't take too much imagination to picture the kind of things he might do after hours to the corpses in his care.

Overly Made-up Nympho

“Can you identify this woman, Ms. Moore?” the man asked, flicking his gaze over Gaia's body before raising his eyebrows at her.

“Her name is Ella. I mean . . . it
was
Ella. Ella Niven.”

It sounded to Gaia as if her voice were coming from a speaker in some other room: fake, distant.
Everything
about the moment seemed fake—the harsh, fluorescent lights, the antiseptic stink of chemicals, the cold metal surfaces—everything, in fact, except the film of sweat forming over the pathologist's upper lip.
Ella
certainly didn't look real. Her skin was a sort of light blue-gray color, and her lips were completely white because of all the blood she had lost. Her dyed red hair had been pushed away from her face,
and it resembled the kind of cheap clown wigs they sold on Bleecker Street.

Gaia thought Ella would at least appear as if she were finally at peace. People always said that about the dead.
But Ella just looked . . . lifeless. Cold and lifeless
.

Creepy Guy smiled again, holding out a form for Gaia to sign.

And then it was over.

The next thing Gaia knew, she was running down Seventh Avenue, determined to put as much space as she could between herself and the basement of St. Vincent's Hospital. Sometimes New York City just wasn't big enough.
Her thoughts swirled like dead leaves breaking into fragments in an autumn wind.
One more person was out of her life. Like her mother. Like Mary. Ella Niven was officially no more. Gaia was minus one foster mother.