Twins

FRANCINE PASCAL

SIMON PULSE
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“Ed. That's the lamest fake snoring I've ever heard.”

Gaia raised her head up in the bed to get a better look at him. He opened his eyes and turned back to her. “What are you talking about? That's brilliant fake snoring.”

“You sound like a goat clearing his throat.”

“Yeah, well …”

Gaia examined the bump on his head, touching her index finger gently to the bruise. “Does it hurt?”

“It kills,” he said.

“I'll go get you some ice.” Gaia got one foot off the side of the bed before Ed grasped her arm.

“Don't go,” he said quietly. “Stay here, okay?”

Don't miss any books in this thrilling series:

FEARLESS
™

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1 Fearless

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2 Sam

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3 Run

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4 Twisted

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5 Kiss

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6 Payback

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7 Rebel

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8 Heat

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9 Blood

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10 Liar

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11 Trust

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12 Killer

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13 Bad

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14 Missing

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15 Tears

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16 Naked

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17 Flee

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18 Love

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19 Twins

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To Hilary Bloom

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Simon Pulse edition January 2002

Text copyright © 2002 by Francine Pascal

Cover copyright © 2002 by 17th Street Productions, an Alloy, Inc. company.

SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
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Produced by 17th Street Productions,
an Alloy, Inc. company
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New York, NY 10001

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

For information address 17th Street Productions, 151 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2001098568

ISBN: 0-7434-4397-7
eISBN-13: 978-0-743-45173-4

I've
never told anyone this before, but for the first five years of my life-before the specialists could figure out what the hell was wrong with me—my parents considered the possibility that I might be mentally challenged. You know, “slow.” See, I kept doing all these things that seemed extraordinarily stupid, and my parents couldn't figure out why. My mother had been top of her class at the university in Moscow. My father tested at the genius level. It wouldn't make sense for their only child to be a moron.

Of course, certain signs pointed to the fact that I was smarter than I acted. I picked up languages really quickly; I was doing algebra when most girls are debating whether or not to give up playing with dolls. It was my behavior that baffled them. Like when I was four, they took me to this hotel in Los Angeles. There was an Olympic-size swimming
pool. I took one look at it, and then I dove headfirst into the deep end. I didn't have the faintest inkling how to swim.

Needless to say, I almost drowned. But that wasn't the disturbing part. The problem was, I dove right back into the deep end the next day. And the next. I'll never forget the look on my father's face every time he fished me out of the warm turquoise water and wagged his long finger in my face with anxious fury. “What is the matter with you?” he kept yelling.

I couldn't answer him. I didn't know.

There were a lot of incidents like that: diving into giant swimming pools, running past the shark warnings into the ocean, walking into traffic, pedaling my tricycle for six miles with no idea how to get back home….

It wasn't until the Agency ran some tests on me that we all discovered that I was missing that
pesky little fear gene. Oh, happy day! My ludicrous behavior could finally be explained.

I wasn't stupid. I was fearless. They'd just confused the two, which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense. I understood what I was doing; I just didn't care about the consequences. So I kept making bad decisions. My ability to reason hadn't caught up with my instincts yet.

And that's really the problem. When you're fearless and you're only acting on instinct … you can do some pretty stupid things. I mean, think about it. How can you make the right choice when you don't fear the consequences of the wrong one? How can you even tell the difference between right and wrong, between sensible and idiotic?

Yes, there is a point I'm getting to here.

Three minutes ago I had to make a choice. A choice based entirely on instinct. Josh Kendall and Loki's thugs were
coming at me. (How Josh could have been there, given that I'd just seen him shot in the head a few hours earlier, is another story entirely-one I have yet to figure out and one that is simply too twisted and inexplicable for me to deal with right now. So I will stick to what I understand.) I was basically cornered. And then a car pulled up to the curb and a man opened the back door, begging me to jump into the car with him, where I'd be safe.

I looked at his face, and I had two seconds to decide…. Was that man my father or my uncle? There was no time for quizzes or close consideration. No time to reason. I looked deep in his eyes, and my gut told me that he was my father. So I got in the car, and we took off down the street.

But I just don't know.

I mean, someone actually capable of experiencing fear would know better than I would. Did I make the right choice or not?
Have my instincts improved with age, or did I just dive into the deep end again? Here I was, sitting in the backseat of the car with my father, and the same thought kept running through my head over and over again:

I should be afraid. I really wish I were afraid right now.

eyes

She wanted to be shouting, but her body was no longer capable of responding to her demands.

THE CHAOS AND CONFUSION ENDED
so suddenly. Gaia couldn't adapt to the serene white noise that took its place. Moments ago her world had been utter cacophony: the stomps of the enemy closing in on her, the screech of burning rubber tires on asphalt, the insistent voice of her father (or her uncle) shouting for her to get in the car. Now it was nothing but the cool, sterile interior of a black Mercedes.

But the silence made no difference. Gaia's head was still pounding—her confused thoughts wailing like a jumbo jet in a dizzying tailspin.

She glanced out the window. She hadn't even noticed they were on FDR Drive. The East River ran just beside the highway, but it was too dark to see by night, especially through the tinted window. The starless sky was as black as the water. Gaia pressed a button to open the window, allowing the dark glass to slide all the way down into the door. Then she leaned forward and closed her eyes, letting the wind pummel her face and eyelids. It roared thunderously in her ears. She hoped to numb her senses, to sandblast all the horrors of the last twenty-four hours. Maybe the harsh wind could just strip her away layer by layer until she could no longer feel that rotten crust of guilt and
disappointment that was hardening around her like a shell….

Yeah, right.
The Winds of Change.
When was the last time the wind had actually changed anything?

Nothing could alter the facts. Sam was dead. It was still basically her fault. And Ed was drifting farther away with every revolution of the car's wheels. If she'd made it into his building before the ambush, she would have asked him to leave with her. Tonight. Immediately. Not to'go anyplace specific, but just to
go.
Away from where they were. Not as boyfriend and girlfriend, but not exactly just friends. Just as … whatever they were. Or whatever they might become.

It doesn't matter now,
she told herself. That imaginary future had been yanked out from under her just as quickly as she'd conjured it up. It was just another dead issue to be tossed into the fire along with all of her other short-lived pipe dreams and useless bursts of optimism. Only her father knew where she was going now. And that was the problem.

He was sitting right beside her, his hands tightly on the wheel, and she had no idea what to say. In the past twenty-four hours she'd formed every conceivable opinion of him, directed every possible feeling toward him—from unadulterated hatred to desperate concern to utter confusion. His identity had changed in Gaia's mind literally from hour to hour, depending on which lies Loki was feeding her. He'd gone from neglectful
father to murder suspect to kidnapper to noble parent…. In fact, her perceptions had shifted so many times, she found she could barely trust any opinions or feelings. Even the good ones. She could hardly even bring herself to look at him.

But the longer she avoided him, the more questions she found piling up in her head. Sam was dead, but did her father know anything else? Or about Josh, who should have been dead himself but had somehow avoided giving Gaia the satisfaction? Maybe her father had been there when it happened—when Loki and Josh put an end to Sam's innocent life. Was anyone else there for Sam? Did anyone try to help him? Did he die completely alone?

Suddenly the image of Sam dropping to his knees from a gunshot darted through Gaia's mind. Her body tensed. She couldn't think about it. The guilt was simply too overwhelming. She forced herself to shake it off by leaning farther out the window. She opened her mouth as the wind scraped away at her lips and her throat. She couldn't ask her father about Sam. Not yet. It was still too fresh, too painful.

But she at least needed to know about her uncle. No one in that Chelsea loft had been able to tell her father and uncle apart—not George, not a gang of agents, not even Gaia herself. One of them had escaped, and one of them had been captured. And if her father was indeed driving, then her uncle—the man she
now knew was Loki—was the one they'd cuffed and sent back to jail.

“Where are we going?” she asked finally.

He glanced at her, a faint smile forming in the corner of his mouth. “Just be glad we made it, sweetheart,” he said. Slices of light flashed across his shadowy face from the passing streetlamps. “Don't worry. I'm taking you someplace safe.”