Terror (3 page)

“Message received. Danger duly noted. But I really have to go, Oliver. And if you don't stop harassing me, I'm going to run.”

“Don't do that.” Oliver felt the breath forcing its way out of his nostrils. His patience was almost used up. He was on the verge of getting extremely pissed, and once he got to that point, there was no telling what he'd do. Apparently sensing this fact, Gaia took off in a sprint. Oliver's instincts took over and he ran after her. But just as he was beginning to bridge the gap, he realized how ridiculous he was being.
What am I going to do, tackle her?

Oliver shuffled to a stop. He looked around him to make sure there were no significant witnesses. No cops. Watching her sprint away, he considered following her. But he couldn't. A full-speed chase through the Village would have been more than just a little suspicious.
Damn it!
Oliver kicked a metal trash can. A stuffed bag flew out and the can rolled to the bottom of the curb, then back and forth in a semicircle. When had Gaia turned into such a jittery ball of nerves? Why was she being so defensive? Stupid girl. It was just a matter of time before those fake agents got to her, and then she'd be wishing she'd skipped town with her uncle. When they turned her into their personal lab rat, she'd be wishing she hadn't been such a stupid, insolent little brat.

GAIA RAN TOWARD HER ADOPTED nonhome, the Collingwood Residency Hall—or “the bunker,” as she had taken to calling it. She couldn't go see Ed and Kai now. Oliver would definitely follow her. Not to mention, according to him, the streets were crawling with some invisible
new enemy. And she had to admit, the few people she'd run by did seem oddly menacing. It was as if the only people allowed outside were guys, all of whom were staring at her. Not that a sprinting woman wasn't a spectacle, but they all seemed more annoyed than concerned. A man on his stoop sneered, then looked away. She bumped into a younger guy who gave her a sideways look of pure hatred. When she turned around to apologize, she found that he'd turned around, too. He looked like he wanted to eat her.

Walking up the wide staircase to the mahogany front door of the boardinghouse, Gaia searched her pockets for keys. Where were they? She jammed her hands into all four pockets. Nothing. She wouldn't feel safe until she was inside her bedroom and the door was locked. She slid off her backpack and rummaged through the pockets. A man carrying a brown paper sack stumbled toward her from the right. Gaia dug deeper into her backpack.

“Oh, yeah, baby!” the man said. “That's my girl, right there.”

Gaia knew better than to respond. She'd never felt panic like this over such a trifling little encounter. Groping through the backpack, her hand was like a blunt, useless object, unattached to her brain. It was as if she'd lost all hand-eye coordination.

Where the hell are my keys?

“Baby, how about you give it up for an old friend?
All I need is eighty cents to catch the bus back to Jersey.”

Gaia handed the man a dollar.

“Told you that's my girl!” the man said. “Bless you, baby.”

“No problem,” Gaia deadpanned, still fishing through her backpack.
He's just a homeless guy. It's no big deal Chill out.

“You ever been out to Jersey?” the man asked. “'Cause we could take the 126 bus out there and have us a nice dinner, you know….”

Gaia heard a jingling sound. Keys!
Thank God.
She located the right one and shoved it into the keyhole. “No, thanks,” she said hurriedly. “Good luck. Good night.” She ran through the lobby to the staircase. After lunging upward two stairs at a time, she found her jittery, uncoordinated fingers fumbling to get the key in the lock.

She finally made it inside. She propped her forehead against the door, sweating and heaving like she'd just completed the New York City Marathon.

I'm safe,
she thought,
home safe.
Gaia had heard about New Yorkers who barely left their apartments and had always felt contempt for them. The whole point of paying New York's cover charge of jacked-up rent and obscene prices for just about everything was to get out there and participate in the whole ensemble-cast drama of the city. But for
the moment, she was perfectly content with this guaranteed alone time. All she needed was her bed and a book. And the remote control. Nothing ventured, nothing lost.

Gaia tore off her clothes and threw on pajamas. She put in a Sade CD that Sam had given her and pressed play, then switched the TV to the Cartoon Network on mute. She should be enjoying her normal girl status right now. There was no reason to go out there. It was okay to be alone in this boxy room, opting out of the world's dangers.

But the problem with avoidance was that the mind did whatever it wanted. And right now her mind couldn't stop thinking about that run-in with Oliver. That deranged look in his eyes toward the end of the conversation. Had that been Loki? Was he back? Or even worse, potentially, what if that actually
had been
Oliver and his warning had been totally legit? In that case she wouldn't have to fear
him
so much as every other Joe Random on the street.

And what about Ed? The thought of him, blue with bruises and eyes closed, lying on one of those metal-sided hospital beds, made her almost nauseous. She should be with him right now. How many times had Ed supported her when she'd been teetering on the precipice? And now, when she should be reciprocating for all those years of support, she'd bugged out just a block away from St. Vincent's and run home like
a girlie girl. He was in critical condition, for Christ's sake.
Kai got a transfusion,
Gaia remembered someone at school saying.
But they don't know if Ed's gonna make it.

“Enough!” Gaia said out loud. She couldn't beat herself up for this. It wasn't her fault that she'd been followed and harassed by Oliver. And no matter what, she wasn't going out there again. Besides, if Ed was going to survive, it would have nothing to do with her. On the Cartoon Network they were showing old reruns. Tom was chasing Jerry around the yard—or vice versa, she never knew who was who—but the chaser never caught his prey. Why was satisfaction always so elusive?

Gaia slid across the bed and grabbed her portable phone off its little pod. She dialed. It rang. The thought of hearing Jake's deep voice made her smile. It rang again. Voice mail. Jake's voice said to leave a message and he would call back.

“Hey, you.” Gaia felt suddenly shy. Why was she never prepared to leave a message? “It's me. I really want to talk to you, so uhhh… give me a call at home.”

Gaia hung up. Had that sounded too clingy or just boring? Whatever. Protocol in romance wasn't exactly her strong point-reason number two hundred and fourteen why Gaia's relationships never worked out.
Ah, well. She exhaled and turned the volume up with her remote, hoping to drown out her thoughts.

“He's a smooth operatuhhh,” Gaia sang. “Smooth operatuhhhhh.”

The phone rang. Gaia jumped. She grabbed it and clicked talk. “Hello?”

“Did you just call?” Jake asked. “Your name came up on caller ID as a missed call. For some reason it never rang. What are you doing?”

“Sitting around my dark, dank, empty room, listening to music and watching Cartoon Network on mute. How about you?”

Jake laughed. “I'm playing basketball on the corner of Houston and Sixth Ave. Not that far from you, actually.”

Gaia had a vision of Jake in shorts and a sweaty tank top. She smiled into the phone. “Maybe I should come by and watch you then. See if you got any game.”

“Oh, I got game, baby. Come by and check me out if you want. Just do me a favor… no cheering. No, like, flips or back handsprings…”

Gaia laughed. “So you're saying I should put these pompoms away?”

“Yeah, please do,” Jake said. “But you're welcome to wear one of those little polyester skirts.”

“Oh really?” Gaia said with a little chuckle. “How gracious of you.”

Out of the corner of her eye Gaia saw something
scuttling across the floor. She did something she'd never done before—she screamed with all the force her lungs could conjure. It sounded so high-pitched and foreign that it doubled her skittishness.

“Whoa…,” Jake said. “What was that? Are you okay?”

“Uh… yeah. Sorry about that.” Gaia scootched into the middle of her mattress and hugged her knees to her chest. The brown crawly thing looked like it was from another world. It was like something straight off the Sci Fi Channel, semitranslucent, with wings like giant shields.

“I think my heart just stopped,” Jake said. “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing. It's just a…” Gaia crawled across the mattress and leaned out to inspect the critter more closely. “A cockroach.”

“A cockroach? Are you kidding me?”

“Mm, no,” she said. “I mean, yeah.”

“Is it the smaller kind or the bigger brown kind with wings?”

Gaia sat back up on the bed. “That's got to be the bigger kind.”

“Those are water bugs. They're pretty freaky looking. But it's weird to hear you scream like that. I don't think I've ever heard you scream, let alone over a bug. I mean, everyone has cockroaches.
How
long have you lived in New York?”

“I know; it's ridiculous. It's just the way they move. They're so sneaky and hurried. Is there any way you could stop by and do some exterminating over here?”

Jake laughed. “Don't think so, Gaia. Listen, I'm sorry but I have to get back to this game. The guys are all groaning.”

“I understand. Well kick some ass. I'll be hanging out here with Wesley.”

“Wesley?”

“Wesley Water Bug.”

“Oh, right…” Jake chuckled. “Listen, I'll call you afterward. Bye.”

“Bye, Jake.”

Gaia clicked off the phone and bit her lip.
Did I just scream?
How embarrassing. What must Jake have thought? Was this how it would be from now on? Screaming at bugs and shuddering at the thought of getting hit? Well, so be it. This was what she'd chosen when she decided to go through with the procedure. If normal meant screaming, then she would just have to get used to it.
But good Lord.

Gaia leaned over and watched the cockroach wiggle along the perimeter of the bed. Okay. She had to admit—it wasn't exactly a terrifying sight. Its frame looked crispy and delicate. Its body mass was nothing compared to hers. The pile of ganglions in its beady little head was a sad excuse
for a brain. It was just sitting there, motionless except for those two probing antennae.

So what was her deal? Why hadn't she crushed the filthy little germ-infested thing? Something in her simply didn't want to. She had read that squashing a female cockroach just spread the eggs and worsened the infestation. Plus the Buddhists said killing insects was bad karma. She waved her hand and the thing wiggled beneath her bed. It was a relief just to not be looking at it. She would have to talk to Suko about an exterminator. She pulled the covers down and crawled beneath them. Mmm. That was better. So much better. Nice and warm. Beneath the covers was the one place where you were safe from fear.

A knock at the door. Gaia blew out a lungful of air. What was with this place? No rest for the weary? She was used to having a moment of preparation time after buzzing her visitors in at the front door. She made a mental note to check and see if the front door's lock worked.

“Gaia,” a voice said from behind the door. “It's the crazy girl across the hall. I know you're in there.”

Gaia said nothing. She turned the music down. She was comfortable here beneath the covers. The last person she wanted to see was Zan. She lay still.

More knocking. “Don't get me wrong. It's not like I'm dying for your company or anything. I'm just bored. Let me in.”

Gaia controlled her breathing, trying not to make a sound Since when had Zan deigned to hang out with her?

“I know a party we could go to,” Zan added.

A party was exactly what she didn't need. Shaking a bunch of hands and faking smiles in a claustrophobic apartment would not be the best venue for her right now. If Zan sensed her vulnerability, she was one of those type-A characters who would exploit Gaia's weaknesses on instinct. She should be civil, though, right? Maybe she should call out that she was feeling sick? Nah. She would just plead the fifth. Deny everything. She was taking a nap, or maybe she was gone. Who knew?

“All righty.” Zan kicked the door so loud that Gaia sat upright in bed. “Have a great night alone then, bitch.”

Dear Gaia,

I am writing because you obviously don't want to speak to me in person. You said to e-mail but a letter is actually more difficult to intercept and trace. As I mentioned, the magnitude of this new danger is both great and complex, so please be patient.

I know that you have been spending time at the hospital. Though I have been unable to ascertain the nature of your meetings there, I urge you to stop.

Why? you ask. I don't know for sure, but I have theories. You may or may not know that new recreational mind-altering drugs have flooded the city. These drugs affect mood, pleasure centers, and confidence levels in a positive way. In short, they inhibit the fear mechanism. Dealers have been sprouting up faster than they have since Ecstasy hit the streets in the mid-1990s.

My theory is that this street drug is just being used as a testing ground. Whatever company or drug ring is behind this, I think it has much bigger plans. Whether it's a secret governmental weapon or a cleverly marketed prescription drug is unclear. What does it have to do with you? I'm not sure yet. But my intelligence shows that these drug dealers are aware of you, and they seem to know that you are of some value to them.