Killer

Ever since Gaia had entered their lives, it had been nothing but
Gaia
this,
Gaia
that—
Gaia, Gaia, Gaia
. And Loki was going to end up with his precious little niece, just like he wanted, while Ella was left out in the cold. Well, what about
her?
Didn't she count for anything anymore? Hadn't she given him everything? But he didn't care. Perhaps he'd pushed her away because she wasn't pretty enough, wasn't young enough—wasn't
Gaia
enough.

No. She shook her head, gazing into her steely green eyes in the mirror. Her red hair was dazzling, and her porcelain face still beautiful—despite the wounds. She
was
young and pretty. She was a woman. And Gaia was a child. That was the difference.

Ella snorted. Loki might have cast
her
on the side of the road like an old hubcap, but she wasn't even close to being through with
him
yet.
There's only one way of getting the attention of a man with a one-track mind,
she said to herself.
To hunt down the thing he loves the most and kill it.

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FEARLESS™

FRANCINE PASCAL

To Brianna Adler

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

POCKET PULSE, published by

Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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www.SimonandSchuster.com

Produced by 17th Street Productions,

an Alloy Online, Inc. company

33 West 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

Copyright © 2000 by Francine Pascal

Cover art copyright © 2000 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,

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ISBN: 0-7434-3416-1

Fearless™ is a trademark of Francine Pascal.

POCKET PULSE and colophon are
trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

In
algebra and other heinous forms of advanced math, there's a lot of talk about logic. You know—if
A
equals
B
and
B
equals
C,
then
A
must equal
C.
Get it? That kind of thing. It's pretty obvious. I mean, you don't have to have a degree in rocket science to make these sorts of basic connections. Even somebody who hates math (like me) can grasp the old
A
-is-to-
B
-is-to-
C
bit.

So it's kind of strange that it took me so long to figure out that my father was the one who shot Ella on the street yesterday.

Okay. I guess I should back up a little. Actually, what I should do is break it down into mathematical terms. You know, show you the logic of it.

A. I saw my father

B. He was pointing a gun at Ella.

C. Ella got shot.

So obviously my father was the one who shot Ella. This should have
been very clear to me from the moment it happened. But still, I just couldn't bring myself to believe it. Of course, that's because the idea of my father shooting my foster mother raises a lot of very disturbing questions—the kind of questions that are about as far from logic as you can get.

For starters, what was my father even doing there? All of a sudden he bursts out of nowhere and saves my life.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention a key part of this whole equation: Ella was trying to kill me. That actually sounds a lot more shocking than it really is. Legally she's my foster mother, but legality is about as far as the relationship goes. She's working for somebody (who, I don't know), she's trained in martial arts (again, this is a total surprise), and she's very unbalanced. Psychotic, in fact. (Why, I have no idea.) All I know for certain is that she hates my guts—and she
has from the moment she met me.

Which brings us back to the incident on the street.

Recently the tension between Ella and me has been a little worse than usual. Maybe that's an understatement. If the previous tension could be represented by, say, a single Krispy Kreme doughnut, the tension now can be represented by a doughnut the size of Australia. There are a lot of reasons for this, most of which revolve around a certain Sam Moon, and none of which I feel like addressing at the moment.

All I know for certain is that I can no longer live with Ella. Again, it's just a matter of logic. It doesn't make much sense to live with a woman who's trying to kill me, right?

Luckily I have a way out.

My uncle Oliver is kidnapping me. Of course, “kidnapping” is also strictly a legal term—like “foster mother.” I'll be a very willing victim. Because by kidnapping me,
he'll be saving my life. Which he's already done on one occasion. It's something he and my father have in common—besides an uncanny resemblance. That's right. Coincidentally, my uncle is another blood relative who happened to explode out of nowhere and save my life. But I guess that would make sense. He and my father are twins. Why wouldn't they choose to behave in the same totally inexplicable way?

There's only one little catch. Before I leave town with my uncle—before I say good-bye to this city for the rest of my life (or at least until I turn eighteen)—I have to find my father.

Yes, I realize that this sounds stupid. I realize that it defies logic. My life is in danger. But I don't have a choice. I have to know why my father tracked me down. He has to answer for the past five years. Somebody does, anyway, because I'm sick and tired of being so confused.
Anyway, I keep imagining the conversation we'll have when I do confront him. It runs over and over again in my head, like one of those adventure-fantasy books where you choose your own ending. Mostly it consists of me firing a lot of questions at him. (No, the gun imagery is not intentional.)

Why did he and Oliver have a falling-out?

What happened between him and Oliver and my mother?

Why did he abandon me?

The list goes on, and it takes a lot of different paths, depending on how I imagine the way my father responds. Sometimes I see him falling on his knees, begging for forgiveness. Sometimes I see him turning his back on me. Sometimes he's not there at all.

The last one is the scenario that seems most likely. But this fantasy conversation probably won't even be an issue.

Especially if Ella recovers from her gunshot wound.

She was nothing, less than nothing—a freelance assassin . . . a
pawn.

 

GAIA MOORE PUNCHED THE PHONE
number one last time. There were a few rings, just like before, then the high-pitched three-tone warning that made her want to grind her teeth right down to the roots.

Life in Under Six Minutes

“I'm sorry; the number you have dialed is no longer in service,” the automated voice droned.

Gaia slammed the receiver down in its cradle. There had to be some sort of glitch in the phone system.
Maybe everyone in Manhattan had decided to order a pizza all at the same time.
Because there was no way her uncle Oliver would change his phone number without telling her. Why would he? Didn't he promise to take her away to Europe? Didn't he say that he was going to save her from her miserable existence? This was just some sort of mix-up....

She knew Uncle Oliver would eventually make good on his promises. She
knew
it. But she wasn't about to just hang around George and Ella's brown-stone, waiting for him to get in touch with her. She would be a proverbial sitting duck.

Ella might not be that hurt. Of course, the last time Gaia had seen her,
Ella was lying on the
pavement in the middle of the park, bleeding.
It was hard to tell how serious the wound was, but if Ella was as strong as Gaia was beginning to suspect, there was a fairly good possibility the stepmonster might soon return. To finish Gaia off for good.

My foster mother wants me dead.

Even now, the words in Gaia's head made little sense. It was all still too much for her to take in. Sure, they had always hated each other . . .
but to go so far asto pull out a gun?
If she functioned like a normal human being, Gaia imagined that she would have sweaty palms right now. Wobbly knees. She'd be quivering—like an old newspaper over a subway grate. Or like a bowl of that nauseating Village School cafeteria Jell-O. Like a normal person.
She'd exhibit the signs . . .
the signs of fear. Maybe she'd even hyperventilate.

But instead, as always, her mind was sharp and clear. Her movements were quick and decisive—like an animal's. She darted up the stairs to the fourth floor, her lungs rising and falling in perfect rhythm. In situations like these, there
were
advantages to being a freak of nature. She knew she had to leave. Immediately.