Freak (2 page)

Gaia took one look at the tearstained and desperate face of the woman closest to her and felt her fingers curl into fists.

“Hey!” Jake shouted at the top of his lungs.

All four men stopped and whipped their heads around. At the instant of surprise, Jake and Gaia both launched themselves at the clothing-gropers and tackled them off their victims. As Gaia tumbled head over heels with her man, she saw the two women struggle to their feet.

“Go!” Gaia told them, flipping the assailant over and digging one knee into his back. A second guy wrapped his arm around her and yanked her off his friend. “Get out of here!” she screamed at the joggers.

The stunned, shaken women seemed to come to at that moment and they wisely ran. Gaia was thrown away from her second man and she had to fight for her balance. As soon as she found her footing again, she got her game face on. Jake was working his best
Matrix
-worthy moves on his two guys as Gaia's men circled, leering at her.

“We got the girl, Slick,” one of them said, punctuating his statement by spitting at her feet. “Aren't we lucky?”

Slick looked Gaia up and down slowly. “You said it, buddy.”

If you're feeling so lucky, come and get me,
Gaia thought.
Quit wasting my time.

Slick came at her then with a clumsy one-two punch, which she easily blocked. She thrust the heel of her hand up into his nose, waited for the satisfying crack and the spurt of blood, then turned around, hoisted him onto her back and over her shoulder. He landed on the ground in front of her, clutching his nose, rolling back and forth and groaning in pain.

Gaia looked up at his friend and lifted her eyebrows. “Ready?”

He let out a growl and ran at her. Gaia was about to throw a roundhouse at him when Jake shouted her name. She looked up at the last second and saw a third guy coming at her from her left. Glancing at their trajectories, Gaia quickly ducked, crouching as low to the ground as possible. She smiled when she heard the
thwack,
then stood up and slapped her hands together.

Both of the thugs were laid out on the ground, unconscious. They'd smacked heads coming at her and knocked themselves out. It was almost too easy.

“Amateurs,” Gaia said under her breath, stepping over one of the bodies.

“Nice work,” Jake told her, reaching out his hand. They high-fived and Gaia noticed that the fourth guy was also unconscious, crumpled into a seated position against a tree.

“You, too,” she said.

They looked up when they heard rustling in the dark and the huffing and puffing of approaching men. The two cops that had roused them from the boulder came skidding into the clearing, hands on their holsters. They took one look around at the men on the ground, then gazed at Gaia and Jake, stunned.

“What happened here?” Chubby Cop asked, looking impressed against his will. “I thought we told you two to move along.”

“And we did,” Jake said, opening his arms. “You're welcome.”

Cop Number Two shot Jake a wry smile as he knelt down to cuff Slick. “And now you can hang out while we get your statements, wise guy,” he said.

Gaia and Jake exchanged a quick smile and leaned back against a thick tree trunk to wait. The side of Gaia's shoulder pressed into the back of Jake's and she didn't move away.

“They're gonna take credit for this, aren't they?” Jake whispered.

“Probably,” Gaia replied.

“Figures. I feel like Batman. I keep kicking ass and there's no one I can tell about it,” Jake said. Then he smiled and nudged his shoulder back into hers. “ 'Cept you.”

Gaia felt the corners of her mouth tugging up slightly. What was wrong with her? Was she actually
enjoying
flirtation?

“So, Gray's Papaya after this?” Jake asked as the
cops roused the two knuckleheads that had run into each other.

Gaia's stomach grumbled. “Definitely.”

She tucked her chin and turned her face away from him, smiling for real. She'd been doing this forever—beating up toughs in the park, ducking from or dealing with cops, then going for a post-fight midnight snack. But she'd been doing it forever alone. And she'd always thought that was the way she liked it. Yes, actually. That was the way she
had
liked it.

But now. . . now she liked having someone there. She liked having Jake to share all this with. She liked having an . . . ally.

Huh. Maybe it's true,
Gaia thought, an evening breeze tickling a few strands of her long blond hair against her face.
Maybe things
can
change.

Venom

TOM MOORE SAT AT THE SMOOTH
metal table and glared across at the prisoners. His spine was straight, his fingers clasped into a knot, his elbows just slightly off the edge of the table-top. He breathed in and out deliberately, maintaining his composure—maintaining his calm.

Just another set of criminals. Just another day.

“Are you going to say anything?” Natasha asked.

“I'll ask the questions,” Tom spat back instantly. He could taste the venom in his own mouth.

Just another set of criminals. Just another day.

Tatiana blinked but remained otherwise impassive. She looked small and wan, her light skin translucent and green in her bright orange jumpsuit. The monstrous cuffs circling her tiny wrists were almost comical. Even though it was impossibly cold in the interrogation room, there was a line of sweat visible above her upper lip. It was taking a lot more effort for Tatiana to remain composed after days of stony, obstinate silence in her cell. Far more effort than her more experienced, more world-weary, more spy-game-weary mother.

Tom shifted his gaze to Natasha again. Her dark hair was pulled back in a low braid that hung heavy and smooth down her back. She wore an amused smirk on her face. The face he had once held, once kissed, once touched with the tenderness that he'd formerly reserved only for his wife—his one true love.

An acidic bitterness shot through his stomach. He could only hope his nausea couldn't be detected by the detainees.

“That's fine,” Natasha said finally, shifting slightly in her iron chair. “It's just that you're not. Asking questions, that is.”

“For whom were you working?” Tom asked flatly.

The smirk deepened. “You don't want to know that, Tom.”

“Don't say my name,” he snapped. “You don't have that right.”

Maddeningly, the smirk turned into a smile.

“For whom were you working?” he repeated.

“Everything is connected, Tom,” Natasha said lightly. “It's all coming full circle.”

“Oh, so now we're being cryptic,” Tom snapped.

“You have to see the bigger picture. You have to look to the past to clearly see the future.”

Tom clenched his teeth. She was trying to make him think about Katia, trying to make him crack. But Katia was not just his past. She was his past, his present, his future. Why he'd ever let himself lose sight of that, he had no idea.

“For whom were you working?” Tom repeated once again, glaring at her.

“I want to talk about a deal,” she said.

Tom got up and threw his chair across the room, the noise slicing his eardrums as it clattered and crashed. Tatiana flinched as he leaned his knuckles into the table and got right in Natasha's face.

“You tried to kill my daughter! You tried to
kill
Gaia! And you have the audacity . . . the unmitigated
gall
to sit here and talk to me about a
deal!?”
he shouted, his eyes so wide they felt about to burst.

She didn't move. She didn't blink. And suddenly
Tom Moore knew. He knew that he was going to grab her. He saw his hands around her throat. Saw himself choking the life out of her. Who would blame him if he did it? The woman was sitting here talking in code, making up riddles, and she'd tried to murder the only family he had left. She deserved to die.

“Agent Moore!”

The door to the cinderblock-walled room flew open and Director Vance stood on the threshold, his intimidating former-Navy Seal, former-NCAA basketball player frame blocking out the light from the hallway. He pressed his full lips together into a thin line.

“That's enough, Agent Moore,” Vance said in his rumbling baritone.

Tom didn't move. His knuckles turned white against the table as he continued to glare into Natasha's unwavering eyes.

I told this person I loved her. I thought I was going to be with her forever,
he thought. The visions he'd had of himself and Natasha together—of making a family with their daughters—flitted through his mind, whirling together in a sickening tornado of colors.

“Agent Moore, I'm not going to ask you again,” Vance said, stepping into the room.

The whirlwind suddenly stopped. Tom swallowed hard and struggled to focus on Vance. Ever so slowly, some semblance of balance returned to his mind and he realized what he was doing. He was letting Natasha
get the upper hand. He was letting her have the whole game. He smoothed down the front of his blue suit jacket, hoping to regain some shred of dignity.

But when he glanced at her again it was clear from the expression of triumph on her face that all was lost. He couldn't handle being around her. And he'd just proven it.

Tom turned and followed his director out of the room and into the monitoring space just beyond. A couple of agents stood in front of the one-way glass that looked over the interrogation room and they averted their eyes when Tom entered. The second the door was shut behind him, Vance turned on Tom, his dark eyes livid, his deep brown skin flushed with anger.

“Moore, don't you
ever
let me see you lose your cool like that with a prisoner again, you understand me?” Vance spat, leaning in over Tom. “You know what you were in that room? You were that prisoner's bitch!”

Tom pulled his head back slightly, unaccustomed to such severe scolding after his glorious tenure in the CIA. Still, he knew on some level that Vance was right. There wasn't much he could say.

“I'm sorry, sir,” he said, swallowing his pride. “It won't happen again.”

“Damn right it won't. Because you're going home,” Vance said through his teeth.

It took Tom more time than absolutely necessary to process this. The man couldn't be suggesting that he
was being taken off this case. Didn't Vance know how invested in this he was? He had to find out who had kidnapped him, who had ordered his daughter to be killed. He had to find out for sure whether or not his brother, Oliver, was involved as he so highly suspected.

“What?” Tom spat out finally. “No! Sir, I—”

“You heard me, Moore,” Vance said. “These particular prisoners obviously have you more than a little on edge.” He paused for a breath and looked at Tom sorrowfully, almost pityingly. “You're taking a little time off,” he added, causing Tom's heart to sink with the finality of it all. “Starting now.”

Out with the Old . . .

GAIA OPENED THE DOOR TO THE
72nd Street apartment on Friday after school and immediately went on alert. There was a crash coming from Natasha's—no, her
father's
—bedroom. She and Jake looked at each other. There was someone else there.

Her first instinct was to call her father's name and see if it was him. But what if it was an intruder? Then she'd just end up calling attention to herself and Jake. Gaia tiptoed toward the living room, her
rubber-soled boots soundless on the hardwood floor.

Footsteps approached, confident and loud and not remotely trying to be stealthy. Gaia flattened herself against the nearest wall, around the corner from the hallway. That was when her father emerged into the room, all smiles.

“Hey, honey!” he said, shuffling a few envelopes in his hands. His dress shirt was unbuttoned at the top and the sleeves were rolled up above his wrists. “I didn't hear you come in!”

His eyes flicked to Jake, who was now standing outside the door to the kitchen, his muscles visibly slackening.

“Hello, Jake,” Tom said as Gaia forced her fingers and her jaw to unclench.

Her father breezed by her and sat down at the head of the dining room table where there were dozens of neatly arranged piles of bills and papers. He started pulling papers out of the envelopes, sorting them, and tossing the envelopes into the kitchen garbage can.

Gaia eyed her father. This was all very weird. Not only was he home in the middle of the day, but he was doing paperwork—something she hadn't seen him do . . . ever. When her mom was alive, that was her territory, and since then her father had never been around for enough days in a row to even know that there
were
bills.

On top of it all, there was an odd air about him. He was humming. His knee was bouncing under the
table. Her father was normally cool, aloof, sometimes intense, but always in a quiet way. Just then he was acting, well, hyper.

“Dad?” Gaia asked, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Everything okay?”

“Fine. Great, actually,” he said, glancing up at her for a split second before returning his attention to the papers.

Jake moved into the room, stuffing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and giving Tom a wide berth. Gaia could tell that Jake sensed something was up.

“I heard a crash in the bedroom,” Gaia said, sitting down in a chair across from her father. She pulled her messenger bag off over her head and laid it on the floor.

“Right, I broke a lamp,” her father said. “I'll clean it up later.”

Gaia looked at Jake and he tilted his head, giving her a look that said,
“He's
your
father.”

“Okay, so what are you doing home?” Gaia asked, glancing at her black plastic watch. “It's four o'clock.”