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  Having a boyfriend is turning my brain to mush, Gaia thought as she entered the hallway, the rose dangling by her side. It was true. She was becoming one of those shiny, happy people she so resented because she could never figure out. People like Heather and the FOHs (Friends of Heather), Megan and all the rest of them—

  She froze. Thoughts of love and roses instantly vanished from her mind. A man dressed completely in black was kneeling by the door next to Sam’s dorm room—picking the lock with the air of an experienced professional. Adrenaline shot through Gaia’s veins. Somebody was trying to break into Sam’s suite. My boyfriend’s suite. Over her dead body. A smile crept across her face. Not only had she brought Sam a rose, she now had the opportunity to defend his honor. Luck came in strange, unforeseen ways.

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  FEARLESS™

  TEARS

  FRANCINE PASCAL

  To Burt & Jeanne 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

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  Copyright © 2001 by Francine Pascal

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  ISBN: 0-7434-2262-7

  eISBN-13: 978-0-7434-2262-8

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  GAIA

  I’m seriously considering checking myself in for a battery of psychiatric tests. I’m talking inkblots, big colored blocks, electrodes taped to my head, the works.

  Ever since my father and I moved back to New York, I’ve been exhibiting some very strange behavior. I guess it makes sense, considering that for the first time in five years, I actually have a home. I’m no longer a stranger. I’m no longer a guest in somebody else’s domain. Okay: The apartment doesn’t actually belong to me or to my father. It’s a two-bedroom on Mercer Street that my dad is subletting from one of his Agency friends. But that’s a minor detail.

  The point is, I’m part of a family who actually lives under the same roof. And yes, it’s a small family. A family of two. But who cares? Size doesn’t matter. I saw that in a movie poster once. So the sentiment must be true. False advertising is a major crime in this country.

  Oh, yeah, that’s another thing: My sense of humor is definitely suffering, too.

  To complicate matters further, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my boyfriend, Sam Moon. There was a time (that being pretty much every waking moment until now) when the words Gaia and boyfriend would never have appeared in the same sentence unless also accompanied by words such as joke, dream, or somebody else’s.

  So where I once had nobody, I now have a father and a boyfriend. It’s a little overwhelming, like binging on very expensive chocolate and slipping into a food coma that doesn’t end but somehow is never uncomfortable. So maybe that’s why my behavior has been so erratic. Here are some examples:

  Exhibit A: I was shopping for dinner last week, and one of those unlistenable songs by Celine Dion or somebody was blaring over the loudspeakers—something about “the power of love.” And just as I reached into the freezer for some chocolate chocolate chip ice cream, I realized I was singing along. Right in the middle of the frozen food section. I didn’t even realize I knew the words. They must have just crept into my subconscious somehow. Anyway, needless to say, it was a very disturbing moment. Luckily the aisle was empty.

  Exhibit B: I was headed home along Sixth Avenue on Wednesday, and I stopped for a second to look at the puppies in the window of a pet store. This isn’t weird per se. I mean, nobody is completely immune to staring at cute puppies. I’m sure Genghis Khan and the Marquis de Sade could even appreciate puppies. The weird part is that I stopped for ten minutes. The clerk at the store came out to ask me if everything was all right. I’d just been standing there, smiling wistfully the entire time. I didn’t even realize it.

  Exhibit C: Sam and I were in Washington Square Park yesterday, playing chess. I don’t know what came over me. The sun was setting, the slightest signs of spring were starting to show, and he was looking at me. So before I knew what was happening, we’d leaned across the chess table and kissed—a wet, sloppy kiss right in front of Zolov, Mr. Haq, Renny: the entire squad of my best chess-freak friends. I mean, do I even need to tell you my opinion of public displays of affection?

  Three words: Get a room.

  But there I was, smooching away as if I was an actress in a bad romance movie and the violins had just come to a huge crescendo and the camera was spinning around us endlessly, giving the audience an unfortunate case of motion sickness.

  And those are just a few examples of the “new” Gaia. I’m either in need of some drastic and immediate psychiatric treatment, or else I’m unmistakably happy.

  Happy.

  There. I said the word. I didn’t throw up or have a seizure.

  So maybe this is just what happiness is—this kind of stupor that makes you smile at nothing, become hypnotized by puppies, kiss in public, walk around as if there’s a sound track behind you, belt Celine Dion to a pint of ice cream in aisle five, et cetera. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t felt that emotion since I was little.

  Anyway, I should probably be figuring out how and when this whole “happy” thing is going to fall apart. That’s certainly what the “old” Gaia would do. Be careful what you wish for, right? That’s a cliché with some truth to it.

  I don’t know, though. I ask myself: Could I just relax and appreciate this new phenomenon? Maybe there’s something to be said for basking in the warm melted cheese of happiness. Maybe it’s time to give five years of absolute pessimism a well-earned rest. I am, after all, the new Gaia.

  normal girlfriend

  Sam was utterly powerless to defend himself. Strangely, though, he felt no pain. Once again, that familiar empty laughter echoed through the room. . . .

  SAM’S MOUTH WAS DRY. HE TRIED to swallow, but his lips felt as big as balloons, too thick to move.

  Ghostly Souvenirs

  “Cat got your tongue, boy?” a voice asked.

  With his ear stuck to the cold floor, Sam couldn’t move.

  His entire body was strewn on its side, limp and lifeless, as a pair of dark shoes traveled in and out of his field of vision. He could barely hear the man’s hollow laughter, but the footsteps on the polished wood were booming like gunfire.
>
  I’ve been here before, Sam thought. I’ve heard that laugh before.

  Sam’s whole body was growing numb—his body, his mind. Everything was light and heavy at the same time. The voice was distant, more echo than actual sound. It was saying something about. . . Gaia.

  “Do you love her, Sam?”

  Sam wanted to answer. He knew the answer as instinctively as he knew his own name. But he couldn’t. Cat. . . got. . . my. . . tongue, he thought, disoriented, trying to swallow, trying to speak. The ringing in his head was louder now, piercing his skull.

  And then the door swung open. A pair of bloody sneakers marched toward Sam, nothing more than a crimson blur. Sam strained to focus on the face as the figure knelt down to him.

  “Brendan?” Sam croaked.

  Brendan Moss’s face was covered with bruises and soaked in blood. The ringing was deafening now. His features contorted into a mask of hatred.

  “You killed Mike,” Brendan said, blood falling from his lips, “You tried to kill me, Sam.” With a sharp, vicious kick Brendan lashed out at Sam’s stomach. And Sam was utterly powerless to defend himself. Strangely, though, he felt no pain. Once again, that familiar empty laughter echoed through the room. . . the laughter of that man.

  Suddenly the man came back into view, socking Brendan in the gut, sending him falling to the floor.

  “No,” the man said with a horrid belly laugh. He leaned down toward Sam, grabbing him by the shoulders. “We both tried to kill him,right,Sam? Sam?...Sam?”

  And then Sam could see the man’s face. . . the man who kept shouting his name over and over again.

  “Josh?” Sam groaned, blinking.

  The dream faded. The strong hands shook him mercilessly.

  “Josh?” he asked again. He was no longer on the floor. He was in his bed. The remnants of sleep clung to him, but the grip was tenuous. The shaking didn’t stop. Finally he snapped out of his miserable nightmare—only to find himself at the hands of his RA and new suite mate, Josh Kendall. He shoved Josh away from him almost involuntarily. “Stop it. Get off me!”

  “All right! Jesus, relax,” Josh said, stepping away from Sam’s bed. “Calm down, man, it was just a nightmare.”

  Just a nightmare. Sam gaped at Josh. It had felt real, but there was nothing real about it. And why is my skull still ringing? Sam wondered, his throat parched. He brought a hand to his hair. He was sweating, a clammy film drenching his body as he struggled to focus his eyes on his disaster area of a dorm room. The blinking red light of his bedside clock read 5:00 A.M.

  No. . . it wasn’t just a dream, Sam realized. It was a flashback. It was a real memory of horror that had occurred several months earlier—when he had been kidnapped and almost died. He’d never really remembered much of what had happened. He’d spent the time in the throes of a diabetic attack, his body shutting down. Close call. For some reason, though, he’d started dreaming about it lately. He couldn’t tell which parts he was making up—for instance, the part about someone asking him if he loved Gaia—and which parts were real. And that ringing—

  But what was Josh doing here?

  “How long have you been in my room?” Sam asked.

  Josh flashed a defensive smile. “I just came in.”

  “But it’s five in the morning,” Sam croaked.

  “I just thought maybe you’d answer your goddamn phone after the twenty-fifth ring,” Josh replied, his voice teasing. He began to dig through a pile of clothing—wildly, crazily, as if he were a dog bent on retrieving a prize bone. Finally he found the phone and answered it himself. Sam hadn’t even realized that the phone had been ringing the entire time.

  “Hello?” Josh barked. “Hello? Goddamn!”

  “Who is it?” Sam whispered, shaking his head. He was too confused and disoriented to follow what was going on.

  Josh slammed the phone back into its cradle. “It was a hang-up. You must have been having some kind of nightmare. That phone rang forever.”

  “Oh. . . well, I’m sorry,”Sam mumbled thickly. He stared at Josh, a fresh cold layer of sweat settling on his brow. Flashes of the mysterious man and blood still burned through his mind.

  We both tried to kill him, right, Sam?

  Somewhere in the dream logic of sleep, the image had melted from Sam’s kidnapping to his recent bar brawl with Brendan, his former friend and suite mate. Somehow, three nights ago, he and Josh had ended up giving Brendan a brutal beating. True, Brendan had instigated it. True, Sam had only been defending himself. But the incident had unleashed an ugly side of Sam’s own personality that he’d never seen, drunk or not drunk. He just prayed he never saw it again.

  But luckily (or not, depending on how one looked at it), Brendan was gone. Only three days ago he had wordlessly removed his stuff from B4 and switched to another dorm. Not that Sam could really blame him. Brendan, like the rest of NYU—not to mention NYPD detectives Reilly and Bernard—believed that Sam was responsible for Mike Suarez’s death. That sad truth was that Josh was the only person who believed in Sam’s innocence. And Josh was still practically a stranger.

  Or was he?

  Sam’s eyes flashed over the guy—his chiseled jaw, his spiky black hair and sharp blue eyes, not even puffy at this hour. In some ways, Josh knew more about Sam than almost anyone...even Gaia. Sam had told him about Gaia’s evil foster mother, Ella Niven, whose Fatal Attraction—style obsession with Sam had cost Mike his life. And put Sam firmly into prime suspect territory. But Josh had pretty much saved Sam’s ass. He’d set him up with a perfect alibi to get him off the hook right before he was about to be indicted. All it took was one forged chem lab sign-in sheet, and Sam’s whereabouts the night of the murder were instantly accounted for.

  Sure, the sign-in sheet was fraudulent. Josh’s actions might even qualify as shady. They certainly went above and beyond the obligations of a good friend—and Josh barely knew him. Moreover, Josh was also an RA, sworn to uphold the rules of the school. On one level, Sam couldn’t help but think that it didn’t make any sense. But maybe Josh just felt sorry for him. Whatever the reason, Sam practically owed his life to Josh. . . not to mention a debt of eternal gratitude. Without Josh’s help, Sam would have been in jail at this very moment.

  So why is he in my nightmares?

  “Sam,” Josh said sharply, snapping his fingers. “Are you gonna keep staring at me like a zombie, or do you want to get out of that bed and come with me for a run? You’re freakin’ me out here.”

  Sam swallowed, unable to answer. He lowered his eyes.

  “Ease up. You’re out of the woods,” Josh said quietly.

  Finally Sam nodded. “You’re right,” he whispered. The worst was over. His subconscious was just lagging behind. “Sorry. I just need to wake up. A run sounds good.”

  “Cool,” Josh said with his usual crooked smile. “I’ll catch you downstairs in five. I need to do some Achilles stretches.”

  “Okay.”

  As Josh left the suite, Sam ran a hand through his red-blond curls and forced his legs out of bed. He looked around his room in disgust. He really needed to pull his life together. How the hell would he find sweats in this mess? Towers of socks and towels greeted him from every end. The muddy carpet was hidden by a layer of Fruit Of The Loom V necks. He still hadn’t brought himself to clean up since the police had turned his room into a nuclear test site. Shaking his head, he hopped up and started rummaging. A minute later he finally tracked down a pair of sweats pinned underneath a stack of library books.

  A long sigh escaped his lips. He peered through his small window at the barely lit navy sky. A run did feel like a little much at this hour. But he could use it. That, and maybe a year or two holding Gaia in his arms without interruption.

  He shook his head. He still couldn’t fully digest that she was his girlfriend. Gaia is my girlfriend. The wait had been endless, intolerable. And as he pictured her thick blond hair, her powerful arms wrapped around his waist, the small of her back. . .

 
; I want to make love to you.

  The thought came to him, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere. Not that it was unusual. He’d been having that exact thought a lot lately. They’d barely started going out, but the time was right. It would happen. But first he had to forget about the pressures of the past two weeks—

  Another phone started to ring.

  Sam jumped. It was coming from Josh’s room, emitting a low buzz into the stillness of the suite. Sam stepped out of his room and into Josh’s doorway. His pulse picked up a beat. Somebody must be calling for Mike. Maybe an old friend, somebody who didn’t know he was gone. But why would they call so early? Could this be a call for Josh?

  No, Josh had been using his cell phone. He’d hardly even moved into Mike’s room. Some decent part of him was still no doubt waiting for Sam to give him the okay. And even though the Suarez family had come to clear everything out, a few remnants of Mike still remained. Remnants that Sam couldn’t bring himself to remove. He stared at the ringing phone and the three dumbbells on the floor—ghostly souvenirs from someone who would never be back. Sam swallowed and promised that he would talk to the powers that be about having the phone number switched off that day. He took three quick steps across the room and answered it.

  “Hello?” he whispered, a gnawing feeling in his gut as he held the receiver.

  “Sam,” a strange voice hissed. “Good morning.”

  “Who is this?” An arrow of fear darted up Sam’s spine. He couldn’t place the voice. It was distorted. But whoever it was knew his name.

  “A message from beyond.” The voice chuckled, a weird crackle and fizz down the line. “Your friend Mike is worried about you. He doesn’t want to see you get hurt.”

  Sam was wide awake now, snapped taut. Freshly rewired with fear. Someone was obviously playing some kind of sick joke. “Who the hell is this?” he spat, his knuckles white on the phone, his voice shaking.