Wired (2 page)

I should have known, though. It's like that old cliché goes:

Be careful what you wish for
.

I
can hardly be surprised that I've estranged myself from anyone I might wish to be close with: friends and family have all lost interest in showing me their trust again, and I cannot blame them. As Loki, I visited all forms of evil upon them without any sense of remorse or regret, and people will not simply bounce back from that. I've thought long and hard about those to whom I wish to make amends, those to whom I'll apologize despite the inadequacy of the phrase. I've made a literal list, and I've begun to make my way through it.

But at the top, the bottom, and throughout is Gaia.

Gaia Moore, my beautiful, eminently strong niece—she who, under a different set of circumstances, could have been my own daughter, does not trust me. There is no rectifying that, and without her forgiveness, any other name on the list is meaningless.

I have done what I can to show
my sincerity to her. I organized a rescue mission when her father, my twin, needed me; I have attempted to make amends with Sam Moon and to foster a relationship with Gaia's boyfriend, Jake Montone. But ultimately all that I do, I do for her.

She is in danger, this I know. I haven't yet uncovered who is after her, but I will. And while Gaia typically does not need protection, fearless and trained as she is, I will keep close watch over her until the danger has passed.

And it's fortunate, indeed, that I persist in my attempts to protect her despite her lack of interest in me: though Gaia is typically endlessly brave, just tonight I may have saved her life. I pulled her from those boys in the street and saved her from a beating and God knows what else. I, Uncle Oliver—not Loki.

Yet Gaia ran from me, continues to run from me. She is not interested in my reparations or
my warnings. Saving her life is not proof enough of my intentions.

No matter. If she won't listen to reason, I'll merely redouble my efforts. Dig deeper, reconnect with old contacts. Follow her more closely. I am Oliver these days, yet I find the fight against my Loki urges increasingly more difficult. And though I can't succumb to his urges or malevolent fantasies, I can say this with assurance: His instincts are never wrong.

Gaia is in danger. I can feel it. I will stop it. At any cost.

GAIA POUNDED DOWN THE STREET blindly, sprinting toward Jake's apartment at breakneck speed. She was still recovering from the fight she'd just had in front of her apartment She'd gotten into a cab after the Rodke party, and some thugs had been waiting to pounce on her when she'd pulled up in front of her apartment.

They were hopped up on false confidence—also known as Invince. Unfortunately, she was hopped up on fear generated by a recent procedure she'd had done. She'd wanted to be fearless so that she could experience life just like other people did. She assumed that, trained as she was in all mainstream forms of martial arts, fear could be channeled into an asset: adrenaline would fuel her power, and that fight-or-flight thing would kick in, and she'd be on fire. She was all about
fight
.

It was
flight
Gaia hadn't counted on.

Other people, she supposed, relied on fear as a means of self-preservation, a way of motivating themselves out of danger. But those guys hadn't been much danger. Hell, they were hardly more than boys—she'd taken larger groups, bigger men, with scarier weapons, on plenty of other occasions.

It was the fear.

She just hadn't acclimated herself to it yet. That last fight she'd had with Jake—when she'd run—hadn't made it easier for her to calibrate her response. But the adrenaline surge that normally came during a fight, propelling her into graceful but deadly—and, most importantly, clearheaded—motion had been replaced by sheer, chaotic panic. That, more than any logical thought, had incited Gaia to get the hell out of there before things could go from bad to worse.

Her heart still raced. She shuddered, as much from embarrassment as from lingering terror.
Get a grip, Gaia
, she told herself. Sure, Jake could be of comfort, but did she really want him to see her like this? This might be a little
too
much like other girls, looking to boyfriends for reassurance. But she couldn't help it. If there was a balance between vulnerability and inner strength, she hadn't found it yet.

Arriving at Jake's place, she smoothed an errant strand of hair off her sweaty forehead in a lame attempt to pull herself together. She straightened her wrinkled black dress as best she could. The effort was useless, she knew. The elevator door slid open and she marched toward his door. In a fun new twist, the general, vague uncertainty she usually felt when confronted with any typical boyfriend-girlfriend situation seemed to have been replaced with a more acute form of pre-Jake anxiety.

Perfect. Just what I need after a near-death experience. More anxiety
.

As soon as that thought left her brain, Jake's door swung open. He stood in front of her, clearly surprised. “Gaia?” he said, puzzled, hiking up his jeans and tugging quickly at his mussed black T-shirt to smooth it out. He moved back to allow her entrance. “What's up?” he asked, ushering her into his bedroom. Clearly he hadn't been expecting company. “Are you okay?” He stepped closer, taking a look at her disheveled appearance.

Gaia swallowed. “I, uh, was near the boarding-house. You know. And it was late. And there were these guys….” She trailed off. She heard how she sounded, heard the neediness in her own voice, and she was completely put off by it. She didn't want to tell Jake how frightened she'd been.

She didn't have to say the words. Jake took her hand. “Gaia, did they attack you? Did they hurt you? Jeez, what were you thinking? I know you're, like, superhero Strong, but did you ever think that maybe you should give it a rest for a while? I mean, starting up with dangerous people? Come on.”

Gaia surprised them both by bursting into a sudden fit of tears that subsided as quickly as they began. “I know,” she gasped, wiping angrily at her eyes. “Don't think I don't know.”

Jake folded her into his arms gently, his words taking
a more soothing tone. “I didn't mean to come off like a jerk—I just worry about you. I know you can take care of yourself, but still… it's a new experience for me, dating Lara Croft.” He smiled teasingly at her and kissed her on her forehead, running his hands over her back soothingly.

She managed a small grin. “I'm learning about the fine line between taking care of oneself and looking for trouble,” she agreed. “Tonight was definitely looking.”

“I'm just glad you're not hurt.” Jake shuddered, as if envisioning the attack. “So how did you get away?”

Gaia's features darkened, and she trembled again. “It was Lo—I mean, it was Oliver, I guess. He just appeared out of nowhere and scared the creeps off. He had a gun.” A troubled glance crossed her face. “He's Still fol1owing me. I can't believe he's totally ignoring the fact that I asked him to stop.”

“Wait a minute,” Jake cut in, taking in her wary expression. “So you're being held at knifepoint, and your uncle comes up and pretty much saves your life—and you're angry? Gaia, I know you've been on edge lately—certainly getting shaken up more easily than I'm used to—but come on. Can't you cut him some slack? I mean, based on what you're telling me, it sounds like you could have been seriously hurt if he hadn't shown up when he did, right? I hope you didn't give him a hard time.”

Gaia looked away for a moment. “I ran away,” she said curtly, without meeting Jake's gaze. She couldn't look him in the eye.

“You ran away? For chrissake,
why?”

She heard the annoyance in his tone—it would have been pretty impossible to miss—and felt a brief flicker of anger herself. “Listen, you weren't there, okay?” she said. “I sort of freaked, I know. But… I have to tell you, I don't trust him.” She could tell that the edge in her voice wasn't winning her any points with Jake.

“I know you don't trust him, Gaia. We all know you don't trust him” Jake said sarcastically. “And I know there are gaps in my understanding of your history with him. But I gotta tell you, until you fill me in on the whole do, I'm going to continue thinking that you're taking this old grudge too far.”

“And I have to tell
you
that you don't know anything about it, Jake,” Gaia argued, her voice rising. “I know you think that just because we went on one rescue mission together, you understand the whole cloak-and-dagger aspect of my life, but believe me when I say that was just the tip of the iceberg.” She softened her tone, hoping to convince him through the sheer weight of her emotion. “It's true, he's apologized over and over again and gone out of his way to win back my loyalty. And that has to count for something. It
does
count for something “she corrected
herself. “That's why I forgave him, why I was willing to give him a second chance.

“But you don't know him like I do. And when Oliver starts acting suspiciously, well… you have to be suspicious. Oliver helped to save my father, sure, but he can't really take back the things he's done over the years or make up for them. And even when I'm trying to rebuild my trust for him, it's hard to take him back into my life, no questions asked. I can't just let my guard down completely. Too much has happened. And frankly, when I feel like a member of my own family is
stalking
me, I can't help but be concerned.” Her anger was mounting. “If you knew the things that I know, Jake, you'd get it. Because it's not just my own safety at stake. When Oliver gets close to me… he hurts the people I care about.”

And that includes you, okay? she thought. He killed my mother, he hurt my father, he kidnapped Sam, and he went after Ed. You do the math. I know I forgave him, hut if there's even the remotest chance that he's defected back to the dark side, then I'm going to have to he on the offensive. I'm not prepared to fall for his lies again just to watch him add you to the list of casualties
. Until she was ready to give Jake the full story, though, she'd have to keep that to herself. Which meant she'd have to risk allowing him to think she was overreacting.

Jake's features were set in a stony mask of disapproval,
a scowling gargoyle glaring down at her. His arms were folded unrelentingly across his chest. It was clear that the gravity of her warnings was eluding him. Fighting alongside Oliver had obviously made Jake feel like the last action hero and had engendered a misguided sense of loyalty.

Great. Not only was her boyfriend not going to console her, but he was pretty much defecting to the enemy's camp. Simply put, Jake wasn't seeing Gaia's viewpoint at all. This fear thing was proving to be fun for the whole family.

Gaia sighed and turned to go. She hated leaving things unresolved, but really—what more was there to say?

“I'm sorry, Jake, that you don't understand how I feel about my uncle. But to be honest, I hope you never get to the point where you do.” She kissed him quickly on the cheek and quietly showed herself the door.

GAIA FUMED AS SHE LOPED UP THE stairs of the Christopher Street station two steps at a time. The regular, normal-girl part
of her that liked having a boyfriend and
seriously
liked Jake hated the conversation that they'd just had and couldn't stand that they hadn't been able to talk things out. But the other Gaia, the Gaia who had lived fearlessly through seventeen years, understood that Stickiness was her destiny. The stars were obviously aligned against her, and no amount of genetic mutation would change that. With all this fear coursing through her veins, she was entirely unstable but still incapable of doing whatever it was that other teenage girls did. It would have been funny if it weren't so pathetic.

Still, she had allowed herself the slightest bit of hope that Jake would give her the benefit of the doubt, that he'd acknowledge that when it came to Oliver, at least, Gaia had the goods, that perhaps her judgment was to be trusted. He was her boyfriend, right? He was supposed to be on her side. Wasn't he?

Thoughts this dour required an immediate sugar fix. Ice cream was the key, Gaia decided. She paused on Seventh Avenue and darted into the Häagen-Dazs, a blast of cold air greeting her as she ducked in. Surveying the dazzling array of flavors, she wasted no time in ordering a single-scoop cone of chocolate-chocolate chip.

“Two thirty-nine,” the sour-faced attendant barked at her from underneath his brown-striped visor, not bothering with even a glance in her direction. He'd
been deeply engaged in conversation with an acne-scarred stock boy and clearly resented the interruption. He rang up Gaia's purchase and dropped her change into her palm with a scowl. Unfazed, Gaia ignored his total lack of manners and dove in, shoving the door open with her hip. A surly cashier was no reason to waste a perfectly good ice-cream cone.

Striding back in the direction of the boarding-house and struggling to avoid an ice-cream headache, Gaia turned her thoughts back to Sam. He had been the one to first notice that Oliver might be reverting to his evil alter ego, Loki, and he had immediately come to warn Gaia. She flushed with the memory. At the time she had been concerned that Sam was looking for excuses to talk to her, maybe trying to rekindle their romance. Sure, he had told her that he needed to move on, to get her out of his life, and she didn't blame him—she was sure that every time he looked at her, he must be reminded of his horrifying kidnapping—but then he kept turning up. And no matter how she felt about Jake, it was impossible to deny her lingering connection with Sam. After all, they shared the type of history most people never knew.