Freak

Gaia

A Perfect Moment

Sam

The Hermit

Gaia

Time to Try

Jake

Trapped

The Bomb

Ed

The Explanation

Tom

Oliver

Guys like Him

Jake the Spy

Natasha

Nothing to Lose

Sam

Peaceful Silence

Gaia

Excerpt of ‘Samurai Girl: The Book of the Wind'

To Daniel Stokes

My
name is Gaia Moore, I'm seventeen years old, and for the first time I can remember, no one is trying to kill me.

I know what you're thinking: I'm a schizophrenic paranoid delusional. This is not a normal thing for a seventeen-year-old girl to say. But that's just it. I'm not a normal seventeen-year-old girl. I wasn't normal at fifteen or ten. The last time I remember knowing that I was safe was when I was about eight, making mud pies in the backyard in the Berkshires, my knees covered in Rugrats Band-Aids. But even then I wasn't safe—I just didn't know it yet.

I've never had a normal life, and that's all I ever wanted.

I wanted afternoons filled with soccer practice instead of tactical training. I wanted my mother to live long enough to hear about my first kiss. I wanted a father who was around to read me bedtime stories every
night instead of disappearing for days at a time. All I wanted was an existence that even vaguely resembled those of the well-adjusted ballerinas and spelling-bee champions and hopscotch experts around me.

But I could never have that. Someone in my family was always in danger. Someone was always trying to kidnap me or experiment on me or—you know—kill me. My mother was murdered. My father has been presumed dead more times than I can remember. I've had friends beaten and shot and stabbed. My first boyfriend almost died because of me.

Nothing was ever normal. Until now.

This is what normal feels like. I don't have to sit around wondering what Loki's going to do next, because he's gone—buried somewhere inside my uncle Oliver's subconscious. I don't have to spend my time trying to think like Natasha or Tatiana to figure out their strategy, because they're in
custody. We still don't know who kidnapped my dad and took him to Russia, but the CIA is working on it, and for now, he's home. With me. Me and Dad, living together, alone. Like we're supposed to be. Like a family.

So there's no reason to obsess. No reason to plan and plot and chase and spy. I don't even have to train. I don't
have
to do anything.

This is what normal feels like.

I don't know what to do with myself.

To:
Y

From:
X22

Subject:
Prisoner 352, Codename Abel

There has been a security breech in sub-sector K. Prisoner 352 is AWOL. Unconfirmed reports state that a young woman, believed to be Genesis, along with two men were instrumental in the liberation of 352/Abel. They are believed to be en route to the States, if not already there. We await your orders.

All is well,
Gaia thought, taking a deep breath. She almost didn't dare to believe it, but it was true.

“So, listen . . . ”

GAIA MOORE WAS HAVING A MOMENT
she'd probably remember forever. She was one of those rare people who had these burned-in-her-memory moments all the time, but this one was different.

This one was good.

Good memorable moments were atypical in Gaia's particularly screwed-up life. The awful ones, those came up all the time.

Like the moment she learned her mother was dead. The moment she realized that the man she had always thought was her father might actually be her evil uncle, Loki. The moment Mary passed away. The moment Sam was kidnapped. The moment that Loki operative fired shots at Ed. The list of gut-wrenching, miserable, devastating moments went on and on.

But these light, content, all-is-right-with-the-world moments? They were very few and very far between. And when she realized she was having one, instead of automatically thinking of the few things that were still wrong—things that could crap all over the moment like a giant pigeon—Gaia just smiled.

For once she was going to let herself be happy.

“I like this,” Jake Montone said, lying back next to her on the big mound of rock near the Columbus
Circle entrance to Central Park. “Who would've thought there was actually a place in this city where you could see stars? Actual ones, I mean. Famous people I've been seeing everywhere lately. It's like you get one warm day and they suddenly come out of hiding. I was almost nailed by Brad Pitt on Rollerblades this afternoon in Union Square.”

“Jake?” Gaia said, the back of her skull searching for a smooth bit of stone to rest on.

“Yeah?” he asked. He turned his head so he was looking at her profile.

“Shut up,” she said.

“Right.”

Ever since Gaia, Jake, and Oliver had returned from their little smash-and-grab job in the former Soviet Union (they'd smashed a fortress and grabbed Gaia's dad, Tom), Jake had been prone to these little fits of verbosity. Just every once in a while. Like he was a little kid that was still psyched up by a trip to an amusement park and couldn't contain his excitement. Gaia would never admit it, but somewhere deep down she kind of thought it was cute. In an irritating sort of way.

A jagged point bit into the back of her head and she moved again, sighing in frustration. Jake sat up, slipped out of his denim jacket, bunched it into a ball, and moved to prop it under the back of her head. For a split second Gaia thought about refusing, making a
crack about his chivalry and turning it into a joke, but she stopped herself. Instead she just lifted her head, then leaned back into the Jake-scented softness.

Ah. Pillow. Just one more thing to make the perfect moment last.

All is well,
Gaia reflected again, taking in another deep breath. She almost didn't dare to believe it, but it was true. Her father was home, safe and sound. Her uncle had been living for days now as good old normal Uncle Oliver with no signs of Loki-ness whatsoever. There was no one out there hunting her down, tracking her every move, plotting ways to take her out.

And to top it all off, she had a new friend. A real friend. Surprisingly enough Jake Montone had turned out to be, contrary to all snap judgments, a non-moron. He was, in fact, freakishly true. Supportive. Noble almost.

“I can't believe that guy actually gets to have sex with Jennifer Aniston,” he said suddenly, his brow furrowing beneath his tousled dark hair.

Okay, so he was also still a guy. But he had already saved Gaia's life, accepted her increasingly psychotic family situation with only pertinent questions asked,
and
dropped everything to come to Russia with her to save her father. In a short time he'd gone beyond the call of duty, friendship-wise. He'd gone beyond the call of duty for a damn guardian angel.

“So, anybody at school ask where you were for the past few days?” Jake asked.

“Not really. The teachers are used to me disappearing, and no one else in the world notices.”

Except Sam,
Gaia thought, her heart giving an extra-hard thump.
Sam noticed.
Sam had noticed to the tune of eight messages on her answering machine. Gaia had been more than a little surprised when she heard his voice over and over and over again on the tape. The last time she'd seen the guy he'd basically told her to get out of his life and stay out. By the time she was done listening to his messages it was fairly clear that he wanted the exact opposite.

I need to call him back,
Gaia thought. But even as her brain formed the suggestion, the rest of her felt exhausted by the mere thought. The last thing she wanted right now was to open a can of emotionally wrought worms. She'd much rather just stay where she was—lying on her back in the park, staring at the sky, with Jake's warmth next to her, keeping the goose bumps at bay.

“What about your dad?” Gaia asked. Jake had been staying with Oliver since their return from Russia. Oliver needed to make sure no one was watching Jake's building. There was no way Jake's father was still buying any “I'm just staying at a friend's/there's a last minute school trip/my dog ate my homework” excuses any longer.

“Luckily Dad had to go out of town for some physicians' conference,” Jake said. “He left before I got back and he doesn't even realize I haven't been home.” He pulled his tiny cell out of the front pocket of his jeans and checked the screen. “The beauty of the cell phone.”

“Nice,” Gaia said.

“Besides, Oliver says I can go back tonight,” Jake told her, replacing the phone after scrolling through a few text messages. “He gave the all clear.”

“I'm glad,” Gaia said sincerely.

“So, listen,” Jake said, propping himself up on his elbow and turning on his side.

Gaia swallowed and her stomach turned. It was a loaded “so listen.” The kind that was usually followed by either an unpleasant announcement like, “So, listen, I'm moving to Canada.” Or by an awkward-silence-inducing question like, “So, listen, do you want to go to the prom?” Not that Gaia had ever been asked to a prom before, but she could still identify the appropriate “so, listen.”

She stared at the sky and held her breath, waiting for the ax to fall, not sure of which ax would be the quicker, less painful one. Gaia had been getting the more-than-a-friend vibe from Jake for a few days now, but she'd chosen to ignore it. Mostly because acknowledging it would require acknowledging the fact that she was also attracted to him and Gaia was definitely not ready to go there.

Not just yet.

Whenever she allowed herself to admit she liked a guy, only anguish ensued.

“I was wondering if you might want to—”

Jake's question was interrupted by a sudden, blinding light that was directed right into his eyes. He held up his hand to shield himself and the beam moved to Gaia's face. She squinted against the stinging pain and sat up, her boots scraping against the grainy surface of the rock.

“What do you kids think you're doing out here at this hour?” an authoritative voice asked.

The light finally moved away and Gaia was able to distinguish the outlines of two NYC police officers through the pink dots that were floating across her vision.

“Just hanging out,” Jake said, pushing himself to his feet. He was slightly taller and more than slightly broader than either of the men in blue.

“Yeah, well, it's not the safest place to
just hang out
these days,” the chubbier of the two cops said, eyeing Gaia as she stood. He shone his light along the ground, looking for beer cans, crushed joints—anything that could allow him to give more than the usual amount of hassle to Jake and Gaia.

“We've had a number of attacks in this area of the park in the past few days,” Cop Number One said. “I suggest you two move it along, for your own safety.”

“Sure,” Jake said, leaning down to grab his jacket. “No problem, Officer.”

He used his jacket to nudge Gaia's arm and they turned and scrambled down the side of the boulder. Gaia sighed as she fought for her footing on the steep side of the rock. She appreciated what the cops were trying to do, but they'd obliterated her perfect moment. Of course, they may have also saved her from an awkward, embarrassing, tongue-tied conversation with Jake about his “so, listen.” Little did they know they'd just added “rescue from ill-fated romantic interludes” to their duties as New York's finest.

Gaia jumped the last few feet to the ground and landed next to Jake. He shoved his arms into his jacket and straightened the collar as they started to walk. For a few blissful seconds there was total silence—aside from the faint honking of car horns somewhere out on the streets that surrounded the park.

Then, Jake tried again. “So, anyway, as I was saying—”

“Hey! No! Help!
Help!”

It took Gaia a split second to realize that she wasn't hearing her own desperate get-me-out-of-here pleas, but actual shouts of panic.

“It's coming from over there,” Jake said, taking off.

Gaia was right at his heels, slicing through toward what sounded like a struggle. They suddenly emerged into a small clearing and saw not one, but two middle-aged women in jogging suits, flattened on their backs
by four men in jeans and do-rags. Two of the men were each holding a woman down and two of the men were yanking at each of their clothes.