Lost (9 page)

She was here somewhere. Somewhere within these walls. And even though it wasn't safe to be here, even though they'd undoubtedly look for him here, he couldn't make himself leave. He just wanted to see her. That was all he wanted in the world.

Still, he forced his feet to move toward the front door. They were out there somewhere. They were still after him. If they found him here, who knew what they would do to him.

He paused at the end of the hallway that led to the stairs that led to the door that led to the street and the crowds and anonymity. It couldn't be that much
longer until the bell rang. She was here somewhere. Somewhere here.

A door slam reverberated through the halls and shook him out of his trance. Enough was enough. He had to move. He turned and ran down the steps as quickly as his tired legs would move. He would see her soon enough. All he had to do was stay alive long enough for that to happen. She would come to him.

Smelly Rag

AFTER SITTING THROUGH AN ENTIRE
boring, rudimentary math class smelling herself, Gaia decided it was time to find a new shirt. She'd shed her sweater earlier, but she hadn't changed out of the already rank T-shirt underneath. And after that sweat-inducing fight with Jake, she was now worthy of New Jersey's most pungent trash heap. Besides, it was practically covered in blood. She shoved through the masses of moving students to get to her locker, ignoring their wrinkling noses and looks of disdain, just hoping she'd stuffed something semiclean in there at some point during the year.

Gaia spun her lock distractedly, thinking of Jake and the fight and his moves. If he weren't such a
flaming egomaniac, she would have asked him how he'd tossed her so easily over his shoulder. It was pretty intense and wholly unexpected. It had to have something to do with the grip. . . . But she would never give him the satisfaction. Almost losing to him had been bad enough. Gaia yanked at her locker door, and it didn't give. She scoffed at herself and started her combination over again, this time actually concentrating.

When she popped open the door seconds later, a small piece of white paper, folded into a tight square, fell out and hit the floor at her feet. It had slid from the top of the pile of crap that started at the floor of her locker and came up to almost waist height. Gaia looked at the little square, surprised, then glanced around before stooping to pick it up. The last thing she wanted was for one of the FOHs or one of the jocks to notice that she had a secret note in her locker. She would be old and gray before she'd ever hear the end of it. If, of course, she lived that long.

It's probably from Ed,
Gaia told herself as she unfolded the page. It was really kind of cool the way he managed to make her feel special without going for all the flowers and candy that most idiot guys went for. Not that anyone had ever done that for Gaia, but she'd heard about it somewhere.

As soon as she saw the writing, however, she knew it wasn't from Ed. In big, awkward block letters it read
simply,
Meet me at the Seventy-second Street entrance to the West Side Highway. Make sure you're not followed.

Okay. What the hell was this about?

Gaia looked around cautiously, searching for anything odd, out of the ordinary. Anyone who didn't belong. A few freshmen girls exchanged notes down the hall, and the guy who'd had the locker next to hers all year was chatting up some chick right next to her. People moved along the hallway in both directions, shouting and laughing and pushing each other around. The same old same old. Gaia's brow furrowed as she read the note again, but there wasn't much to read into it. It was a pretty straightforward demand. But who had sent it? Loki? Was he out of the coma already? Had he already come back?

Gaia folded the note up into a square even tinier than before and shoved it into the back pocket of her cords. If it
was
from Loki, she would gladly meet him anywhere and promptly hand him his spleen.

She yanked an oversized black T-shirt out of the bottom of her locker and pulled it over her head. Then she reached up under it and easily ripped the thin material of the gray one underneath. She pulled the smelly rag out of the bottom of the black tee and balled it up.
Might as well be semiclean if I'm seeing my uncle today.

Of course, she knew that this meeting could definitely be a trap, but she didn't care in the slightest. She
was bored and stir-crazy sitting in her classes, and besides, she had nothing to lose. And if Loki or his men were waiting for her on the corner of Seventy-second and the West Side Highway, then maybe she could find out what was going on with her father. Find out who was actually behind all this.

Gaia slammed her locker door and headed for the street.

Ramrod Straight

THE LADIES AT THE DOG RUN KEPT
shooting him looks. He wasn't used to looks like these—paranoid, a bit disturbed. He was used to looks of appreciation. Looks of admiration. He'd never had much of an ego, but he knew that he was pleasing to the female eye—and in the Village to many a male eye.

But these women were a little afraid of him. And why not? He was dressed like a degenerate who fished his clothes out of a Dumpster, and he probably looked like a druggie. He hadn't eaten since he'd downed the truck driver's Snickers bar early that morning, and he was definitely weakening. He was probably pale and dirty and sweaty and bloodshot. He knew he
should turn away and let the women watch their frolicking dogs in peace, but he couldn't do it. It was too soothing, watching the little beagle and the golden retriever cavorting with each other, sniffing each other, letting out the occasional playful bark. It was too normal. He couldn't tear himself away.

God, he loved the city. There were so many people, so much life. So many cars and bikes and buses and dogs and pigeons and vendors and horses and skateboards and Rollerblades and babies. This was a place where he could get lost. This was a place they'd never find him.

Out of nowhere an arm circled him from behind and dragged him back, scaring his optimism right out of him. He kicked out his legs as he was yanked away from the fence. He tried to turn his head, but his assailant's head was right behind his, blocking his movement.

“Hey! What the . . . Help!” he shouted, struggling to no avail, his pulse pounding in his ears. His fingers gripped the forearm that held him, trying to tear it away, but it was too strong. No. This wasn't happening. Not when he was so close. Not when she was on her way to him.

“Help! Do something!” he shouted in vain.

He looked at the women, his eyes wild, but the older one put her hand on the younger one's back and moved her away slightly, checking over her shoulder in
fear. They weren't going to help. How could they? He was going to have to help himself.

He pulled his right arm forward and brought his elbow back as hard as he could into the stomach of the man who held him. The guy let out an, “Oooof!” and released the fugitive. He spun around and looked right into the beady eyes of 457.

The truck driver,
he thought instantly.
The truck driver is dead.

But apparently he'd done his damage before he went. The guard's left eye was ballooned shut by a purple bruise. A fresh cut ran down the right side of his jaw, and his lip had puffed up to twice its normal size. He looked like a reject from the set of a monster movie.

“Didn't think you'd be seeing me again, did you?” 457 said with an awkward sneer, straightening himself up. He really was immense. Impressively intimidating, even with the sling, even with the pummeled face. And he'd killed a man this morning. An innocent man who'd done nothing wrong except leave his truck in a gas station parking lot.

The fugitive swallowed back a thick chunk of sorrowful guilt and jumped back as 457 lunged at him. Before he could even give it a second thought, the fugitive turned and started to run.

It was drizzling, and there weren't that many people loitering around Riverside Park, with the chill in
the air and the wind and the wetness. His legs carried him with great speed down the sidewalk and over the awkwardly spaced stairs that led to the water. He could hear 457 grunting as he sprinted after him. All the fugitive knew was that he had to get away. He had to lose this guy somehow, or he was done for.

That and the fact that his legs were working surprisingly well under the circumstances.

He came around a blind bend, blocked by a large bush, and almost ran headlong into a scrawny man on a racing bike. The fugitive dodged with millimeters to spare and kept right on running even as the biker spouted epithets. Seconds later he heard a cacophonous crash and knew that 457 had collided with the biker. He didn't look back. He merely hoped that it would take a while for the two men to extricate themselves from each other.

The fugitive ran until his lungs felt like they would explode. He ran until sweat stung his eyes. He ran until his thigh muscles quivered like Jell-O and the soles of his feet cried out in pain. When he finally stopped, doubling over and gasping for breath, he was just feet from the water, separated only by a low fence and a slight drop-off. The river's ripples lapped peacefully at the shore below him as his breathing started to slow. A woman jogged by him, ramrod straight, listening to her Walkman in her perfectly coordinated running outfit. She didn't even give him a second glance.

When he finally stood up again, he looked around—listened—but there was no trace of 457. What was he supposed to do now? He was dozens of blocks from his meeting point, but he couldn't go back. The guard might be waiting for him. He could be hiding anywhere.

He took a deep breath, his lungs protesting in pain, and let the drizzle bat away at his face for a moment, cooling him as he thought things through to their logical conclusion. And the logical conclusion was this: He
had
to go back. All that mattered was seeing her. Making things right. It was all that had mattered for so, so long.

Ever so slowly the fugitive started to move, his legs shaking beneath him. He retraced his steps along the jogging path, pausing at every blind corner, peeking around every bush, every parked car, sure that at any moment he was going to be ambushed. But each cautious peek yielded nothing. Had 457 actually bugged out? Had he finally given up? Nah. Not possible. Maybe something had happened to him. This was, after all, New York. Perhaps the guy on the bike had beaten the crap out of him and left him for dead.

Stranger things had happened.

By the time the fugitive arrived again at the tip of Riverside Park, at the corner of Seventy-second and the West Side Highway or Joe DiMaggio Highway or
whatever the hell they'd renamed it in his absence, he was feeling quite comfortable. Whatever had happened to 457, he didn't care. All that mattered was that the guy was clearly gone.

Somehow, miraculously, the fugitive was finally safe.

A homeless man sat on the step that surrounded the monument at the entrance to the park. The fugitive sat next to him to wait, suddenly exhausted beyond belief, sighing a relieved sigh. Any second she would be here, and nothing else would matter.

That was when he felt the hard, cold barrel of a gun against the back of his head. He stopped breathing.

“You know, kid, I was going to bring you back, but I've changed my mind,” 457's gruff voice growled. “I think I'm just gonna kill you.”

He said a prayer, ruminated for a moment on the tragedy of how close he'd come, and closed his eyes. He was too exhausted to fight anymore. His arms weighed four thousand pounds apiece, his legs even more. He wondered, in a detached way, if he would even hear the firing of the gun before he died.

Then the strangest thing happened. The homeless man's arm shot out and whacked the gun right out of 457's hand. It went tumbling end over end, arcing slowly through the air, and landed on the other side of the dog run fence, where the golden retriever promptly picked it up in his mouth and ran.

For a split second everyone froze in place, stunned. The homeless man, with his toothless mouth hanging open. The fugitive, with his life still flashing before his eyes. The guard, who looked like he was about to shake apart with fury. The two female dog owners, who seemed about ready to move out of New York.

“You idiot!” 457 shouted.

“Serves you right for mugging a homeless kid,” the homeless man said.

The guard let out a guttural roar and tackled the fugitive from behind, sending him to the ground. His face scraped against the brick surface of the park's entryway and he skidded along, wincing in pain. Then 457 flipped him over and straddled him, pinning his head to the ground with his forearm to the neck. The pain was excruciating. The fugitive couldn't move, he couldn't breathe. He could feel the wind on his face, but the air was gone.

“I don't need a gun to finish you,” 457 spat, saliva spattering against the fugitive's face, hitting him in the eye.

The world started to swim before his eyes, and suddenly he knew he was going to die. Before he saw her again. He'd failed. He'd failed. He'd failed. His arms reached up, but it was no use. It was almost over. The blackness was coming on.

Soon it would all be over.

Meat Grinder

AS GAIA SPEED-WALKED DOWN
Seventy-second Street, heading for Riverside Drive, one huge droplet of rain smacked right into her forehead. Then she felt nothing for thirty seconds. Then another one hit her shoulder. The wind on Seventy-second Street was fierce, and that morning's summerlike conditions were rapidly giving way to April-like showers. The sky was one big sheet of gray. She tucked her hands under her arms and bent into the wind. At least her movement was keeping her warm.

The light at Seventy-second and West End turned yellow, and the Don't Walk sign flared red, but Gaia ignored it. She was dying to find out who was waiting for her near the entrance of the highway. Dying to find out if Loki were somehow free or if his men were still after her. She jogged across four lanes of road and was nearly nicked by the bent fender of a bagel truck. One inch from becoming roadkill.