Escape (9 page)

That did not mean, however, that lying to Ed didn't make her feel violently ill and even guiltier than she already was, if that was possible. “It was a gift. . . from Natasha,” she said, forcing her eyes to stay glued to Ed's even though she was dying to crawl under the table. But Ed knew her too well. He would have picked
up on the slightest hitch in her speech, the slightest pause or aversion of the eyes. She had to stare him down on this one. It was her only hope. “Yeah,” she went on, “Natasha kind of freaked out after everything that's gone down in the past few weeks. . . and so she gave me this cell phone in order to check in with me. It's kind of a pain in the ass, but you know how it is—sometimes it's kind of hard to track me down. . . .”

“Oh, I know how it is,” Ed assured her with increasing sarcasm.

Go ahead, Ed. Just hate me. You might as well.

“Yeah, well. . . that was her calling,” Gaia muttered. In spite of all her guilt, she knew she needed to call Sam back. What if 457 had already broken down the door to her house? What if Sam was backed up against a wall, looking for a way out? She needed to call him back right now. “I should probably call Natasha back,” she went on. “You know. . . just to . . .” At this point Gaia felt so guilty about the date, she was practically looking to Ed for permission to make a phone call.

“Go ahead,” Ed encouraged her. “It might be entertaining to watch you play the role of the dutiful surrogate daughter.”

“But. . . I also need to use the bathroom,” Gaia added. This had to be her record for lying.

“Well, Gaia . . .” Ed stared blankly into her eyes. “You've gotta do what you've gotta do.”

Gaia had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
And she had a feeling that Ed didn't quite know, either. But she knew that his words were cold. And deliberate. And as harmless as it was, Ed's little comment somehow felt like the coldest thing he had ever said to her. Because it was the first time in their entire relationship that Ed had been cold to Gaia without Gaia being cold first. And that was a bad sign. That was a really, really bad sign.

“I'll be
right
back,” she promised.

One quick phone call to Sam and then she was going to come back and fix this entire relationship.

Runaway Psyche

HE MUST HAVE SAT THROUGH AT
least eight rings before he got transferred to some generic voicemail message.

Eight rings.
Eight rings.
What was she doing? What the hell were she and Ed doing that she couldn't stop for one second and just pick up the phone?

Sam instantly regretted his own question. He'd only invited in a series of images that he'd been working arduously to avoid.

The cell phone was probably nowhere near Gaia's
person. It was probably lying on the floor of a hallway in Ed's apartment. Inside a purse or maybe in the pocket of Gaia's pants. Which were probably crumpled up next to Ed's pants. Next to their shoes. And their socks. And their underwear. And whatever else they'd left in a long, haphazard trail as they crashed along the walls, kissing passionately on the way to Ed's bedroom. . .

Jesus, Sam, will you give it a rest!

Sam hurled the phone against the cushy chair and plopped down onto the bed. He had to get ahold of his completely inappropriate, totally immature,
runaway psyche.
The facts were the facts, life goes on, and whatever other clichés he wanted to throw in there. Gaia had every right to be on a date, and to love Ed, and to ignore a ringing cell phone. They weren't leaving until morning, and she could spend this evening however she needed to or wanted to. It was time for Sam to stop clock-watching and shove a stopper in all his nostalgic fantasies.

Sam grabbed the Walkman Gaia had given him and shoved the headphones into his ears, blasting Radiohead deep into his skull at top volume. He tried desperately to drive Gaia out of his head and focus on the images in the songs, but it didn't work. By the middle of the second track every song was about Sam and Gaia. Or, to be more specific, every song was about the fact that there was no Sam and Gaia.

Potential Horrors

GAIA SLAMMED THE DOOR OF THE
bathroom stall behind her and dropped down on the closed toilet. Her brain felt like mud as all the Ed-dumping-her scenarios mixed with all the Sam-and-her-father-in-danger scenarios. Being fearless didn't mean she couldn't recognize
a slew of potential horrors.
But as she'd learned long ago, she could only live her life one horror at a time. She had no choice in the matter. Step one: Call Sam and hear some kind of dreadful news. Step two: Go back and face Ed's cold and hateful stare. Step three: Surely something worse.

She tugged the despicable cell phone back out of her purse. First things first, she finally turned that goddamn ringer off. Once that was done, she punched the send button to call back her last missed call.

She waited through three long rings. No answer. She checked the number Sam had programmed again and tried dialing the full number.

Three rings. And then four. And then five. . . “Come
on
. . .” Muttered curses were falling from her mouth with each additional ring. “What the hell are you
doing,
Sam?” she whispered through nearly closed lips. “You
just
called me. . . .”

On the seventh and eighth rings Gaia's frustration began to skyrocket. This didn't make any sense. He
was supposed to be sitting alone in his room. How could he possibly not hear his phone ringing?

Unless the worst-case scenario was true. Someone had gotten in there, 457 or a whole goddamn army for all she knew. Someone had gotten to him, and all he'd had time to do was dial her number. . . .

Oh God, Sam, please pick up the phone. Please.

But the phone just kept ringing. And ringing.

Now the only sounds were their short, rapid breaths echoing off the pale, white walls.

Unbelievably Gorgeous

TATIANA'S EYES DARTED TOWARD THE
bedroom phone. She'd fallen into a half-sleep state in bed, sketching ideas for Heather's party. Her sketch pad had fallen onto the floor, and her pencil was still dangling in her hand. She nearly stabbed herself with it when the phone woke her.

She glimpsed the clock and saw that it was only about nine-thirty, though her lagging body and mind made it feel closer to four in the morning. She dropped the pencil to the floor and reached over to the bedside table to grab the phone.

“Hello. . .?”

She cleared the nap-induced frog from her throat to speak more clearly. . . but there was no one on the other end of the line.
Just a dial tone buzzing rudely in her ear.
She hung the phone back up and shook off the remains of her sleepy daze.

But the phone was still ringing.

As she finally came to her senses, she realized that the ring wasn't actually coming from her phone. It was, in fact, a very faint ring floating in from the hallway. She slipped off her bed and stepped out of her room, following the alien ring as she walked slowly down the hall.

She could hear the ring getting stronger and stronger, and as she neared the living room, it finally
reached its maximum volume. A shrill electronic ring buzzing in her left ear. It sounded like one of those offensively loud cell phone rings, but where on earth was it coming from?

She turned to her left and realized that the ring was coming from the obsolete maid's quarters. They barely used the room except for storage and some of their bulk supplies—toilet paper, paper towels, and whatnot. At this point the door had pretty much melded into the wall as far as Tatiana was concerned. But now. . .
the forgotten room was ringing.

Was Gaia using the room for privacy or something? Tatiana thought she'd earned more of Gaia's trust than that, though she could certainly understand the need for a private space. Tatiana sure as hell wouldn't have minded having her own room. But if it was Gaia's private hiding place, since when had she gotten a cell phone? That was so unlike Gaia.

Tatiana turned down the hall toward her mother's bedroom, wondering if she knew anything about Gaia using the room. But her mother wouldn't even be back for hours. She turned back to the door.

The phone wouldn't stop ringing. Whoever was calling seemed to refuse to give up. And Gaia seemed to refuse to answer. Unless Gaia wasn't currently
in
her private hiding place? Or. . . there were a couple of far more disturbing scenarios—a couple of people Tatiana would most certainly not want to see on the other side of that door.
But unfortunately, there was only one way to find out.

She tapped lightly on the door.

“Gaia?” she whispered.

No reply. And the phone kept ringing.

She brought her hand down to the knob and turned it gently. Locked? Since when did they lock a barely used storage room? It was a flimsy excuse for a lock, anyway. Just the usual indoor variety, easily jimmied open by the simplest of tools. Tatiana stepped over to the coat closet and grabbed a wire hanger, untwisting it quickly and slipping the straight end right into the keyhole. A few careful twists and the lock didn't just click open; it pretty much cracked open. Just one more busted old lock to go with the rest of the useless locks in the apartment.

She let the door fall open naturally, wielding the hanger before her as her sole weapon.

The ringing suddenly ended, filling the room with a loud, overwhelming silence. But Tatiana had already forgotten all about the ringing. The inexplicable sound had given way to a much more inexplicable vision.

There was an absolute stranger hunched over on the bed.

A reddish-brown-haired stranger in a gray T-shirt and boxer shorts was sitting comfortably in Tatiana's apartment, listening to a pair of blaring headphones as if he just. . .
lived
there. As if he were just the older brother Tatiana had never noticed she had.

She was at a complete loss. Her body and mind
stalled. Should she be frightened? Should she run from the strange dusty room and call the police or one of her mother's contacts? It didn't feel that way. The stranger looked so. . . casual, so completely nonthreatening. So
unbelievably gorgeous.

But looks could be deceiving.

He still hadn't noticed her standing there. His eyes were so tightly shut. He seemed so deeply ensconced in the music, she was almost afraid to wake him out of his trance. She crouched slightly, readied her hands and feet for trouble, and reached forward slowly with the hanger. She gave the stranger's shoulder one cautious prod. . . .

“JEE-sus!”
he bellowed, leaping back against the wall like the hanger was a high-powered stun gun. Tatiana let out a sudden scream of her own and slammed her back up against the door, thrusting her hanger forward defensively.

Their eyes locked as they faced each other across the tiny room.
Now the only sounds were their short, rapid breaths echoing off the pale, white walls.

His shoulders settled down slightly once he'd gotten a look at her, though his breaths were still coming in short spurts. His eyes drifted down the length of her body before jumping back up to eye level. Tatiana suddenly became very aware of the fact that she was wearing nothing but a stretchy white cotton nightie. She brought her left arm slowly across her chest and thrust the hanger forward again.

“Who are you?” she spat, trying to sound as threatening as anyone with a hanger and a white cotton nightie could. What exactly did she plan to do? Tickle him to death?

He stared at her blankly for a long beat. And then he finally ripped the headphones from his ears, throwing the Walkman down on the floor. “Sorry, what?”

“Who
are
you?” she repeated more harshly. “What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”

“Right,” he said, staying glued to the wall. “Right. . . I'm. . . I'm a friend of Gaia's.”

“Friend? What friend? I've never met you before.”

“Well, I've been—” He cut himself off and narrowed his eyes. “Wait, how did you get in here?”

She couldn't believe his gall. “How did
I
get in here? How did
I
get in here? This is
my
apartment!”

“I know, but I locked the—”

“Do you want me to call the police
now
? Or do you want to tell me what
friend
of Gaia's would be. . . be. . .
stoving away
in this little secret room?”

He raised his right eyebrow slightly as he stared at her. “I'm. . . I'm sorry, ‘stoving'?”

“
Stoving
!” she snapped, shaking her hanger. “A
stove-away
. Like on a boat. Hiding where you know you don't belong—”

“Oh,
stowing
. A
stowaway
. . .”

“Yes, this—whatever, you still have explained nothing.
Talk.”
?

“Okay.” He raised his hands in truce. “Just calm down, okay?” He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I'm Sam,” he said. “Sam Moon. I
am
a friend of Gaia's. And I'm guessing you're Tatiana. . . ?” He smiled cautiously.

God, homeless thief or not, he was still so ridiculously gorgeous. His face looked like some kind of
ancient Greek sculpture
depicting the ideal male. The more he spoke, the more she found herself giving way before his slim, perfect features and his curly brownish hair and his slightly gravelly voice. This simply wasn't the face of a killer, or even a stowaway. She began to relax in spite of herself. Without her even noticing, her hand dropped down and let go of the hanger.