Run (14 page)

ONE IDIOT AN HOUR. GAIA FIGURED that if they would let her beat up a butt-head per class, it would make the whole day go oh-so-smoothly. She would get nervous energy out of her system, add a few high points to her dull-as-a-bowling-ball day, and by the time the final bell rang the world would have eight fewer losers. All good things.

It might also help her keep her mind off Sam Moon. Sam whose life she had saved more than once. Sam who was oblivious to her existence. Sam who had the biggest bitch this side of Fifth Avenue for a girlfriend, but didn't seem to notice.

And still, Gaia couldn't stop thinking about him. Apparently, somewhere along the line, she had also been taught
self-torture.

Gaia trudged out of her third-period class and shouldered her way though the clogged hallway with her cruise control completely engaged. Every conscious brain cell was dedicated to the ongoing task of what to do about her irritating and somewhat embarrassing Sam Problem.

It was like a drug problem, only
slightly less messy.

Gaia tried to sidetrack her consciousness with a number of past favorites:

And the newest:

And the fact that Heather had had sex with Sam. And the fact that Heather had taken the credit for saving Sam. And the fact that Heather got to hold hands with Sam and kiss Sam and talk to Sam and --

Gaia came to a stop in front of her locker and kicked it hard, denting the bottom of the door. A couple of Gap girls turned to stare, so Gaia kicked it again. The Gap girls scurried away.

She glared at her vague reflection in the battered door. In the dull metal, she was only an outline. That's all she was to Sam. A vague shadow of nothing much. A joke.

For a few delusional days, Gaia had thought Sam might be
the one.
The one to break her embarrassing record as the only unkissed seventeen-year-old on planet Earth. Maybe even the one to turn sex from something as hypothetical as the equations in calculus class into a good, solid, warm reality.
But it wasn't going to happen.

There was not going to be any sex. There was never going to be any kissing. Not with Sam. Not ever.

Gaia popped the door of her locker open, tossed in the books she was carrying and took out another at random without bothering to look at it. Then she slammed the door just as hard as she had kicked it.

The poor locker door looked like someone had used it as a trampoline.

This was it.

Gaia had to get her shit together before more helpless inanimate objects suffered the same fate.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, squeezed hard, as if she could squeeze out her unwanted thoughts.

Even though Gaia knew zilch about love, knew less about relationships, and knew even less about psychology, she knew exactly what her girlfriends, if she had any, would tell her.

Find a new guy. Someone to distract you. Someone who cares about you.

Right. No problem.

Unfortunately it had taken her seventeen years to find a guy who didn't care about her.

NAVIGATION OF HIGH SCHOOL HALLways takes on a whole new meaning when you're three feet wide and mounted on wheels.

Ed Fargo skidded around a corner, narrowly avoided a collision with a janitor, then spun right past a knot of students laughing at some private joke. He threw the chair into hard reverse and did a quick 180 to dodge a stream of band students lugging instruments out a doorway, then he powered through a gap, coasted down a ramp, and took the next corner so hard he went around on one wheel.

Fifty feet away, Gaia Moore was just shutting the door of her locker. Ed let the chair coast to a halt as he watched her. Gaia's football shirt was wrinkled and her socks didn't match. Most of her pale hair had slipped free of whatever she had been using to hold it into a ponytail. Loose strands hovered around the sculpted planes of her face and the remaining hair gathered at the back of her head in a heavy, tangled, tumbled mass.

She was the most beautiful thing that Ed had ever seen.

He gave the wheels of his chair a sharp push and darted ahead of some slow walkers. Before Gaia could take two steps, Ed was at her side.

"Looking for your next victim?" he asked.

Gaia glanced down, and for a moment the characteristic frown on her insanely perfect lips was replaced by a smile. "Hey, Ed. What's up?"

Ed almost turned around and left. Why should he push it? He could live on that smile for at least a month.

Fearless, he told himself. Be fearless.

"I guess you don't want us to win at basketball this year," he started, trying to keep the tone light.

Gaia looked puzzled. "What?"

"The guy you went after this morning, Brad Reston," Ed continued. "He's a starting forward."

"How did you hear about it?" The frown was back
full force.

"From Darla Rigazzim," Ed answered. "She's talked you up in every class this morning."

"Yeah, well. I wish she wouldn't." She looked away and started up the hallway again, the smooth muscles of her legs stretching under faded jeans.

Ed kept pace for fifty feet. Twice he opened his mouth to say something, but he shut it again before a word escaped. There was a distant, distracted look on Gaia's face now. The moment had passed.
He would have to wait.

No, a voice said from the back of his mind. Don't wait. Tell her now. Tell her everything.

"Gaia . . . ," he started.

"Something in his tone must have caught Gaia's attention. She stopped in the middle of one long stride and turned to him. Her right eyebrow was raised and her changing eyes were as blue-gray as the Atlantic fifty miles off the coast. "What's wrong, Ed?"

Ed swallowed. Suddenly he felt as if he were back on his skateboard, ready to challenge the bumpy ride down another flight of steps -- only the steps in front of him went
down, and down, and down forever.

Ed shook his head. "It's not important."

I love you.

"Nothing at all, really."

I want to be with you.

"Just . . . nothing in particular."

"I want you to be with me.

"I'll talk to you after class."

Gaia stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded. "All right. I'll see you later." She turned around and walked off quickly, her long legs eating up the distance.

"Perfect," Ed whispered to her retreating back. A perfect pair, he thought. She's brave to the point of almost being dangerous, and I'm gutless to the point of almost being depressing.

And with those words, Gaia's seventeen-year streak officially came to an end.

THE SCHEDULE WAS A XEROX. Maybe a Xerox of a Xerox. Whatever it was, the print was so faint and muddy that David Twain had to squint hard and hold the sheet of paper up to the light just to make out a few words.

He lowered the folded page and looked around him. People were streaming past on all sides. The students at this school were visibly different. They moved faster. Talked faster. Dressed like they expected a society photographer to show up at any minute. They were, David thought, probably all brain-dead.

Still, nobody else seemed to be having a hard time finding the right room. Of course, the rest of them had probably spent
more than eight minutes
in the building.

A bell rang right over his head. The sound was so loud that it seemed to jar the fillings in his teeth. David winced and glanced up at the clanging bell. That was when he noticed that the number above the door and the room number on the schedule were the same.

A half dozen students slipped past David as he stood, stunned, in the doorway. He turned to follow, caught a bare glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, and the next thing he knew he was
flying through the air.

He landed hard on his butt. All at once he bit his tongue, dropped his books, and let out a sound that reminded him of a small dog that's been kicked. The books skidded twenty feet, letting out a spray of loose papers as they went.

The bell stopped ringing. In the space of seconds, the remaining students in the hallway dived into classrooms. David found himself alone.

Almost.

"Sorry."

It was a mumbled apology. Not much conviction there.

David looked up to see a tall girl with loose, thick blond hair staring down at him. "Yeah," he said. There was a warm, salty taste in his mouth. Blood. And his butt ached from the fall. At the moment those things
didn't matter.

"You okay?" the girl asked, shoving her hand in her pocket and looking as if she'd rather be anywhere but here.

"Yeah," he said again, reaching back to touch his spine. "I'm fine. Great."

The girl shook her head. "If you say so." Her tousled hair spilled down across her shoulders as she reached down to him.

"Thanks." David let her help him to his feet. The girl's palm was warm. Her fingers surprisingly strong. "What did I run into?"

""Me."

"David blinked. "You knocked me down?"

The blond girl shrugged and released his hand. "I didn't do it on purpose."

"You must have been moving pretty fast to hit that hard." David resisted an urge to rub his aches. Instead, he offered the hand the girl had just released. "Hi, I'm David Twain."

The girl glanced over her shoulder at the classroom, then stared at David's fingers as if
she'd never experienced a handshake before.

"Gaia," she said. "Gaia Moore." She took his hand in hers and gave it a single quick shake.

David was the one who had fallen, but for some reason the simple introduction was enough to make this girl, this painfully beautiful girl, seem
awkward.

"Great name," he said. "Like the earth goddess."

"Yeah, well." The girl looked down at the floor and shrugged before glancing back at David. "If you're okay, I need to get to class."

David shook his head. "No," he said.

Gaia blinked. "What?"

"No," David repeated. "I'm not okay." He leaned toward her and lowered his voice to his best thick whisper. "I won't be okay until you agree to go to dinner with me tomorrow night."

"UH . . . HUH."

"What?" David asked, his very clear blue eyes narrowing.

He was a male. He was, apparently, a nonfreak. He was not Sam. He got the
affirmative grunt
before Gaia could even remind herself of the ramifications.

"I said, uh-huh," Gaia said evenly, lifting her chin.

"Good," he said. "There's this place called Cookies & Couscous. It's more like a bakery than a restaurant. You know it?"

Of course she knew it. Any place that had cookies in its name and was located within twenty miles of George and Ella's automatically went on
Gaia's mental map.
"On Thompson."

"Right." He nodded and a piece of black hair fell over his forehead. "We can eat baklava, wash it down with espresso, and worry about having a main course after we're full of dessert."

"When?" she said. Oh, good, Gaia. Look eager. Look eager when you're anything but.

He smiled. "Tomorrow? Eight o'clock."

Gaia nodded almost imperceptibly.

His smile widened. "It's a date."

And with those words, Gaia's
seventeen-year streak
officially came to an end.

I AM AN IDIOT.

Gaia stared down at the toes of her battered sneakers and wondered how long it would be before she threw up. Or ran out of the room. Or exploded.

Taking a date from a guy you had known all of ten seconds seemed like such a desperate thing. A total loser move.
Like something a girl who was seventeen and had never been kissed might do.
The whole thing was starting to make her more than a little nauseated.

Who knew what this David guy expected out of her? Gaia the undated. Gaia the unkissed. Gaia the ultimate virgin.

Maybe it was a setup. Maybe Heather and some of the certified Popular Crowd (also known as
The Association of People Who Really Hate Gaia Moore
) had put this guy in her way just so they could pop up at her so-called date and pull a
Carrie
.

Gaia closed her eyes. Stupid. Definitely stupid.

"Uh, you're Gaia Moore, right?"

Gaia looked up from her desk and found a tall blond girl standing in front of her. From the way people were up and moving around the room, class had to be over. Gaia had successfully managed to nondaydream away the entire period.

"Are you Gaia?"

""Uh, yeah." Gaia was surprised on two counts. First was that the girl knew her name at all, the second was that she
actually pronounced it right
on the first try. "Yeah, that's right."

"I'm Cassie," said the girl. "Cassie Greenman."

How wonderful for you, thought Gaia. She had noticed the girl in class before. Though she hadn't seen her running with the core Popular People crowd, Gaia assumed that Cassie was in on the Anti-Gaia Coalition.

"Aren't you worried?" asked Cassie.

"What am I supposed to be worried about?" asked Gaia. She wondered if she had missed the announcement of a history exam or some similar
nonevent.
Or maybe this girl was talking about Gaia's upcoming date. Maybe Heather and her pals really were planning some horrible heap of humiliation. Maybe they were all standing outside the door right now, ready to mock Gaia for thinking someone would actually ask her out. Not that Gaia cared.

The girl rolled her eyes. "About being next."

"The next what?" Gaia asked.

"You know." Cassie raised a hand to her throat and drew one silver-blue-painted fingernail across the pale skin of her throat.
Being the next one killed.

Killed.
That was a word that definitely drew Gaia's attention. She sat up straighter in her desk. "What do you mean, killed?"

"Killed. Like in dead."

""Killed by who?"

The blond girl rolled her eyes. "By the Gentleman."

Gaia began to wonder if everyone had just gone nuts while she wasn't paying attention. "Why would a gentleman want to kill me?"

"Not
a
gentleman," Cassie said. "
The
Gentleman. You know -- the serial killer." She didn't add, "Duh," but it was clear enough in her voice.

Now Gaia was definitely interested. "Tell me about it."

"Haven't you heard? Everyone's been talking about it all morning."

"They haven't been talking to me."

Cassie shrugged. "There's this guy killing girls. He killed two over in New Jersey and three more somewhere in . . . I don't know, maybe Connecticut."

"So?" said Gaia. "Why should I be worried about what happens in Connecticut?"

That drew another roll of the eyes from the blond girl. "Don't you ever listen to the news? Last night he killed a girl from the university right over on the MacDougal side of the park."

Now Gaia wasn't just interested, she was offended. The park in question was Washington Square Park, and that was Gaia's territory. Her home court. Since coming to New York, she had been living in an old brownstone with George and Ella Niven. But the room at the top of the brownstone was not home. Washington Square Park was home.

From the chessboards to the playground, all of it was hers. She used it as a place to relax, and as a place to hunt city vermin. Gaia had been in the park herself the night before, just hoping for muggers and dealers to give her trouble. She had found nothing. The idea that
someone had been killed just a block away
made the muscles at the back of her jaw draw tight.

"How do they know it was the same guy?" she asked.

"Because of what he . . . does to them," her informant replied with an overdone shiver. "I don't know about you, but I'm dyeing my hair jet black till this guy is caught."

"Why?"

"Cassie was starting to look a little exasperated. She pulled out a lock of her wavy hair and held it in front of her face. "Hello? Because all the victims had the same color hair, that's why. You need to be careful, too."

"I'm not that blond," said Gaia.

"Are you nuts? Your hair's even lighter than mine." The girl gave her a little smile. "It's not too different, though. In fact, ever since you started here, people have been telling me how much we look alike. Like you could be my sister or something."

Gaia stared at the girl. Whoever had said she looked like Gaia needed to get their eyes checked. Cassie Greenman was
patently pretty.
Very pretty. There was no way Gaia looked anything like her.

"You're nothing like me." Cassie frowned. "You don't think . . ."

"No."

"I think we would look a lot alike," insisted Cassie. "If you would . . . you know . . . like, clean up . . . and dress better and --" She shrugged. "You know."

All Gaia knew was that all the cleaning up and good clothes in the world wouldn't stop her from looking like an overmuscled freak. She wished she was beautiful like her mother had been, but she would settle for being pretty like Cassie. She would settle for being normal. "Thanks for giving me the heads up on this killer."

Cassie wrinkled her nose. "Isn't it creepy? Do you think he's still around here?"

"I wouldn't worry too much." Gaia stood up and grabbed for her books. "If he's still here, he won't be for long."

Not in my park, she thought. If the killer was still there, Gaia intended to find him and stop him.

Suddenly she felt pinpricks of excitement moving over her skin. For the first time all day, she felt fully awake. Fully engaged. Fully there. She needed to make a plan. She needed to make sure that if this guy attacked anyone else in the park,
it was Gaia.

As terrible as it was, in a weird sort of way the news about the serial killer actually made Gaia feel better. At least she had stopped thinking about her date.