Flee Read online

  For a while they said nothing. There was only the sound of chewing and of water lapping quietly next to them.

  “You gotta love Brooklyn,” Gaia mumbled finally. She lay down flat on her back and stared up at the tree. “Hey. Check this out.”

  Ed crumpled the candy wrapper in his fist and lay down beside her, his mouth still full of chocolate.Hmmm.She had a point. The view was pretty trippy. The green willow leaves were like a giant, torn umbrella, with the snatches of sky shining like blue ribbons. He finished swallowing and turned slightly, stealing a peek of Gaia in profile. From this angle she lookedcompletely at peace.Yup, it all came down to sugar.

  She was very still, gazing up at the sky, her breath light and even. He was close enough to see the light freckles playing at the bridge of her nose. She closed her eyes. He could just lean over and—

  And what?

  Ed swallowed. He felt hot. The silence between them dragged on, seeming to stretch into an eternity. He couldn’t stop what was happening to him. He was moving closer. Just a fraction of an inch—but still. . . it was almost like an out-of-body experience, like he was justa marionette and someone else was pullingthe strings.He couldn’t stop. He was going to—

  He jerked back his head. His heart was thudding like a gong.

  “Are things really over with Heather?” Gaia asked out of nowhere.

  The question sliced through the still air. His pulse was racing now. Why would she mention Heather? She opened one eye. Had she felt what Ed felt? No.She was just pulling a classic Gaia: bringing up the most awkward and painful subjects without a second thought.He propped his head up on his elbow, forcing himself to breathe evenly. “Yeah. We’re through. Heather is out of my life.”

  Part of him felt good saying it. But another part felt a pinch of guilty pain. Words from the letter scrolled through his mind, and he fought to block them out. They could never change the way he felt. She’d lied to him for two years. A lie of omission, no doubt, but still a lie. And the fact that her own obsession with status had led directly to his accident. . . her newfound confessional honesty was probably about as authentic as Madonna’s English accent.

  Okay, maybe that was overly cruel. Maybe that was just anger talking. Heatherwassorry. It didn’t change what she’d done, but at the very least, it prevented Ed from hating her completely. He could tell from her words that she was suffering. And that didn’t make him particularly proud or pleased.

  So put it out of your mind,Ed ordered himself. He needed to stay with the here and now. Going back was a road to nowhere.Crutch forward!Yes. That was the motto. Even if it hurt. Even if he fell flat on his goddamned face. It was forward or nothing.

  “How about you and Sam?” Ed asked. Might as well put it out there.One proverbial can of worms had already been opened.Gaia had brought up theHword twice in one day. So theSword didn’t seem like overstepping the mark.

  “It’s over,” Gaia muttered, her gaze fixed to the sky. Her voice was low. She swallowed. “I never thought. . . .”

  Gaia shrugged. “Feelings change, I guess.”

  Ed didn’t say a word. Truth be told, he was too shocked to respond.Wow.That was the most Gaia had ever confided to Ed about Sam. Ever. But it was okay. He didn’t need to say anything. Not that he’d ever really known how to broach the Sam subject, anyway. The fact that Sam had gone out with Heather before Gaia complicated matters enough. But Gaia didn’t need to say anything, either. Sam was part of their shared past. Their friendship was picking itself up and dusting itself off. Or maybe they were entering some new phase—

  Just then Gaia turned, and Ed caught her eye. Something about the way she looked at him stopped his thoughts in their tracks. Was it his imagination? Orwasthere something new there, something different?No. Gaia flicked her eyes away and sat up. She brushed some leaves from her hair. His heart sank. Except that when she turned to look at Ed, to help him up, the look was still there. He couldn’t define it. Maybe it was nothing at all. So why did he felt like he’d just ridden the roller coaster at Coney Island instead of lying under a willow tree—expending about as much physical effort as a pebble in a Zen rock garden?

  And then it hit him.

  He was dizzy and unsure, but he also felt weirdly clear. Like all the shit in his mind had been flushed down a toilet.When all of this is over,he vowed. By “this” he meant Gaia’s current state of being. Yes, he would take action when the giant swirl of debris and heartache that circled her like a twister had passed. If it ever did. But. . .when all of this is over, I’m going to tell her how I really feel about her.

  He stole a glance at her as she picked up their candy wrappers and stuffed them into her messenger bag. Yes, he would come clean. When the time was right. When she could handle the truth. What was the worst that could happen? She could reject him. That was the worst. Tell him he was freaking crazy to imagine the two of them as anything other than just friends.

  And so what if that happened? He had pretty much always lived in the shadow of Gaia’s unspoken rejection. It was a pain he knew well.

  Nauseating Smog of Booze

  “YOU’RE SURE YOU WANT ANOTHER scotch, buddy?”

  Sam glowered up at the bartender. Then he flashed a lopsided smile. Everything was spinning in delirious harmony. From where he sat slumped on a stool in the darkness at. . . what was the name of this place again?. . . wherever, some dump in the East Village that served minors; anyway, the sour-looking, thirty-year-old slacker bartender looked more like two guys than one—

  “I think you should drink some coffee instead.”

  “No, no, iss fine,” Sam slurred, shaking his head.He slapped the bar with his palm: the international symbol for another round.“’S not a problem.”

  No. Having one more drink would definitelynotbe a problem. Sure, he’d gotten into trouble drinking in the past. But he knew how to handle it now. Just like he knew how to handle darkness and misery and depression. He was an expert.Practice makes perfect,he thought—and hiccuped.

  The bartender shook his head with a disgusted snort. “Last one,” he grumbled, but he reached for the bottle.

  “Thanks . . .” Sam was going to say,Thanks, man,but it was too much effort. He was half dead. Too drunk to care if he kept on drinking, and too drunk to know what else to do. It wasn’t even eight o’clock—

  Shit!

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. Lifecouldget worse. Of course it could! Almost immediately the soft edges of his buzz hardened into a moment of clarity. Sam’s eyes were tracking the figure walking through the door even before his brain caught up with his vision. Yup. It was him, all right: sweatpants, Tom Cruise hair, that perennial, baking-soda smile varnished to his face. . .your regular Mr. RA Next Door, your classic best buddy, your Josh Kendall.

  What a treat.

  Without thinking, Sam lowered his face to his arms. Darkness. If ostriches could hide this way, maybe he could, too. Maybe he was invisible right now. Maybe Josh would walk right past him and leave.

  “Sammy, bro!” Josh sang out. He slapped Sam’s back.

  Nope.No such luck.Sam hiccuped again. For a second he was worried he might puke all over the two of them.Which would be funny.He kept his face buried in the crook of his arm.

  “Yo,” Josh muttered with a snicker. “Letting it all out, huh? Slamming ’em solo?”

  Finally Sam dug his bleary eyes out of his sleeveand blinked up at the face he hated so much. It was pretty remarkable: not even thenauseating smog of booze overloadcould block out that hatred.

  “You. . . you got tha’ right,” Sam said slowly, trying desperately to enunciate his words. “So why don’ you leave me alone?”

  Josh sighed. “Wish I could. No can do.” He dropped a small package wrapped in bubble wrap and silver duct tape on the counter beside Sam’s scotch.

  “I’m off du. . . duty,” he said coldly. “The asser iss no.”

  “Thewhatis no?” Josh asked, grinning.

  Sam scowled and reached for his dri
nk. “Th’ answer!” he barked. He tried to slug it down in one gulp, but half the scotch ended up on his face and shirt.

  “This package has to be delivered within the hour,” Josh said, as if he hadn’t heard him.

  Sam felt it building then. The fury in his gut. Pistons fired in his heart; heat radiated down his arm and into his fist—the fist now itching to rearrange Josh Kendall’s facial bone structure.

  “I said. . .no!” Sam roared.

  A couple of heads turned. Just the other drunks at the bar. What did they care?

  “You said no,” Josh repeated. He spoke quietly, calmly. “And how many times do we have to go through this, Sam? You say no, I say yes. You refuse, and I threaten your sorry ass with jail. Or maybe wehave to go a notch higher. You tell me to go screw myself, and I tell you the various ways in which your girlfriend will be killed if you disobey orders. You know I just have to say the word and it’s done. So in fact, you say yes. Always yes. ”

  Sam swallowed. Never mind the fact that Gaia wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. Occasionally, very occasionally, Josh would drop the buddy act and let his true colors show—those of a cold, calculating, and utterly mysterious killer.The back of Sam’s throat felt as raw as a steak. Something burned there. Was it whiskey or tears? Why not slit it and find out?

  Josh patted Sam on the shoulder. “Now sober up. And get your ass to Queens.”

  Sam didn’t move. He put his elbows down on the counter. He closed his eyes. His head swam. He breathed in the darkness. Maybe if he wished long and hard enough, he could stay that way—stay still long enough so that his heart eventually slowed and stopped.And then, nothing but sleep and blackness.Why not? It wasn’t as if he had anything to live for. School? He barely went to class. His grades were in a free fall. Friends? None left. People he knew tended to avoid him now; he looked like a wreck. Family? He hadn’t spoken to his own parents in weeks.

  Besides, if there was one thing this nightmare hadtaught him, it was that anything was possible. Absolutely anything.

  Fresh Footprints

  TOM NEVER EVEN BOTHERED TAKING off his coat. If he did so, Henrik might try to convince him to stay. Henrik’s wife, Charlotte, was certainly making an effort. She kept asking Tom if he wanted coffee, a bite to eat, anything. But Tom wouldn’t even allow himself to get a good look at her. When he’d walked through the door, something about her—the cheekbones? the white nape of her neck?—had instantly reminded him of Katia. And he couldn’t afford to let his emotional armor crack. Not now. He had to ignore her, even at the risk of appearing rude.

  Maybe he would get a chance to explain himself one day. But not tonight. It was simply best to stand in the hall of the cozy apartment and stare at Henrik as he called Interpol from an outdated phone-fax-copier unit on a side table.

  Tom had smiled when he’d first seen the clunky old machine on entering the apartment. MostEuropean agents he knew kept these machines by their front doors. That way they were in a position to move quickly should any vital information arrive. It harkened back to days past, when things were simpler, when the enemy was clear-cut.

  He wasn’t smiling now.

  The conversation was in Dutch, but Tom could understand every word. Evidently one of Henrik’s hackers had found a promising lead: a confirmation on some numbered accounts in the former Soviet bloc. But then last time Loki had led him on a wildgoose chase. Tom chewed his lip. Just because they could trace Loki’s numbers didn’t mean the numbers themselves were real. Still, either way, Tom had no choice but to take each new piece of information seriously. And to keep hoping.

  Henrik hung up.

  “They’ve cracked the code, Tom,” he whispered excitedly. “They’re faxing us the information right now.”

  Tom swallowed. “They know where he is?”

  “We haven’t found him yet, but we’ve got some big footprints. And they’re fresh.”

  The phone rang again, and the other parts of the machine whirred to life. Henrik caught the printout as it came through. His eyes narrowed, flashing over the page. “There are transfers to several different people,” he murmured. “But there’s a major monthly deposit—” He broke off, frowning.

  “What?” Tom demanded.

  Henrik handed over the page. “An account in Chechnya. First of the month without fail. It’s in the name Igor Vasilyevic. My men ran some checks. He’s a retired physicist, formerly the head of a large nuclear arms plant in Georgia—which was officially closed down in the 1980s.”

  Tom shook his head. His mind raced.Chechnya. Inert nuclear arms plants.The last lead on Loki had been an illegal weapons factory in the Sudanese desert that manufactured anthrax. Yet that had turned cold. Either that was a decoy or this was—or Loki had outwitted them again. Was it just another red herring, or was this real? At least the anthrax lead had seemed in the right camp. Biological warfare was consistent with the informant’s few bits of insider information.DNA. . . .

  But a retired Russian nuclear physicist in Chechnya?

  Bubbly New Airhead

  “PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE AFTER the beep,” Sam’s gruff, recorded voice commanded.

  Heather clutched the phone to her ear for a second, then slammed itdown on the hook. Her heart pounded. She couldn’t bring herself to speak.

  “Heather?” Mrs. Gannis called from downstairs. “Heather, honey! Dinner!”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” Heather mumbled, knowing very well her mother couldn’t hear her.

  “Don’t let it get cold!” her mom added. Her voice trilled.

  That goddamned cheerfulness.Heather’s jaw tightened. She preferred her mom the way she used to be— back when she was still panicked about money and Phoebe’s anorexia and all the rest of it.Yes, this bubbly new airhead was definitely worse.Not a moment passed without her mother’s euphoria breaking through. It was depressing. And alienating.And not real.It was like air freshener in a public bathroom; it only made the stench worse. Heather lay back on the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. There was no way that even in her darkest hours, even during the worst pits of hell she’d dragged herself through, she’d ever been quite this miserable.

  This was a record.

  Tears glittered in the corners of her eyes. She blinked them back. What was worse? Losing Ed or knowing that she deserved to lose him? A real tiebreaker, that one. Actually, the worst part of the whole thing was that Heather couldn’t talk to anybody about her problems. She had no one. None of herfriends had ever understood what she saw in Ed. . . nor had they known anything about her family troubles.And when it came right down to it, they didn’t really give a shit about anyone unless they were having fun.

  It was all ephemeral. There was no point in getting used to any of the feel-good vibrations permeating the Gannis home. Mom’s happy face wasn’t fooling Heather, nor was her father’s stellar new job. Heather knew all about superficial smiles.Underneath, they were ravaged. And yeah, Phoebe was home and “eating”—if you could call scarfing a few bits of radicchio eating—but how long would that last? Heather knew firsthand it could all be gone in an instant. Evenifher father really did have a great job and evenifPhoebe’s lettuce leaves signified a desire to live, it could all change with the weather. Here today, gone tomorrow. Like Ed. Like her friends.

  Heather punched redial. She hung up before the first ring. What the hell was she doing? Calling Sam Moon was justplain weird.Her ex-boyfriend. Gaia Moore’s boyfriend.Don’t think about her!Heather silently screamed. No, bringing Xena, Warrior Bitch into the equation wasn’t helping any. And besides, hideous as it was to contemplate, it wasn’t relevant. Sam could date anyone he liked. Because the truth of it was that Heather only wanted a shoulder tocry on. She only wanted to talk. And Sam Moon had always been a good listener.

  They had history together. That should count for something. Maybe he could give her some advice. On her family. He knew them well, and he would at least understand the tensions going on. And maybe enough time had elapsed since their bre
akup for him to be impartial about Ed.

  Nah, scrap that. That was pushing it. But her family. . . Sam would be sympathetic. He’d know the right thing to say, wouldn’t he?

  He’d help her figure out a game plan. Heather sniffed and hit the redial button one more time. There was only one way to find out.

  GAIA

  I’m a liar.

  It’s a description of me that I thought would never fit. But yesterday at the Botanical Gardens, I told Ed that things were over between me and Sam.

  Why would I lie?

  Maybe because I’m hoping Icanget over him. For the longest time I didn’t believe that Sam could really see anything in someone like me. But then for a brief, golden moment I stopped caring about the mechanics of our chemistry. And I realized that true chemistry is, in fact, alchemy: a magical blending of unknown properties that cannot be measured or even understood. It just happens. It’s a potion that intoxicates. We scoff, but when it happens to us, we suck it right down. Or at least, I did.

  But that was a long time ago. Or at least it feels like a long time ago.

  Sam tells me he loves me. It means nothing. Words deprived ofactions are just words. Take my father: he tells me he loves me, too. I have twenty pounds of letters he wrote to me over the years he was AWOL, letters filled with words likeloveandalwaysandforever.But it wears kind of thin when you find yourself alone. With nothing but a letter filled withloveandalwaysandforever,when what the letter really says is “good-bye.”

  Promises, promises. Dad and Sam. They’re so similar, they’re starting to blend together, a painful blur of words without action, sudden random disappearances, and absentee love. Then again, Dad is gone and Sam is still here, at least physically. Which does make me wonder if I shouldn’t at least try to salvage what’s left of me and Sam. After all, I’ve put so much into it. It would be nice to come away with more than squat. Especially since I can’t stop thinking about the guy.