Betrayed (14 page)

EMPTY.

Tom's body went temporarily numb. He glimpsed his watch. 9:55. Whoever had sent him that memo had
promised
him Gaia would still be in Heather's room at
ten. Ten,
he'd said. Which had given Tom only thirty minutes to get all the way downtown. Tom had done it in twenty-five. So why was Heather's room empty? Where the hell was Heather Gannis? Where the hell was Gaia? Had Tom been crazy to take that anonymous tip seriously?

He was pounding on the window of the nurses' station before he'd even finished that thought. Why waste time thinking that question when he needed to be screaming it at one of the nurses?

The nurse jumped in her chair as Tom's fist nearly punched a hole in the Plexiglas wall of the nurses' station. He continued pounding until she stumbled out into the center of the hallway.

“Excuse me, sir,”
she squawked, staring at Tom like he was an escaped schizophrenic from one of the other floors. “
Excuse me,
but this is a
hospital—
”

“Where is Heather Gannis?” Tom demanded. “She was in room 305 just last night. And my daughter was supposed to be visiting her
.
Where is my
daughter?
”

“Sir, if you would just calm down for a minute—”

“Where is my daughter?”
Tom barked. “You've got ten seconds to tell me where she is.”

“Are you a member of the family—?”

“Yes,”
Tom snapped. “I'm counting down from ten. Ten, nine—”

“All right, all right,” she squeaked. “I only asked because I assumed you knew. Ms. Gannis is being taken to her private medical facility back home.”

“Her
what?
”

“Yes. They just took her downstairs to the ambulatory truck. Ms. Gannis and her sister, Ms. Moore.”

Tom felt both of his lungs collapse.

“Ms. Moore?”

“Yes,” she said. “Don't worry. Her private physician was here. Dr. Glenn oversaw the entire transfer. He's taking them both home for treatment, and I just assumed if you were a relative that—sir? Sir?”

Her voice disappeared in the background as Tom jumped entire flights of stairs to get back down to that street.

Her sister? What on earth went on in this hospital? The door, Tom. Just get to the door.

Tom snapped open his Blackberry and called for backup as he sprinted through the hospital lobby. But that call was utterly useless. Backup could take as much as twenty minutes. If he had any chance whatsoever, it would be gone in the next three. He drew his gun and burst out of the lobby, scanning Seventh Avenue from left to right.

And then he saw it.
The truck.
An ambulatory truck with a doctor stepping up inside.
In the middle of Seventh Avenue.
This was completely wrong. This wasn't where the ambulances loaded the patients. They didn't cart them out on the sidewalk before lifting them inside. And since when did the hospital's doctors hop into the ambulance for the trip?

Move, Tom. Move now.

He was already running.

“Gaia!” he shouted. But there was no response. He thrust his gun forward and ran for the ambulance. And as he got a few steps closer…he saw him. He could only see an off-balance glimpse, but he swore he'd seen
all
of them, in fact. Every single person in the world that he'd been trying to find for the last month, in the back of the same ambulance. His daughter, and Heather, and that son of a bitch kid who'd tried to kill Tatiana…

And finally his demented brother had revealed himself. Finally Tom's gun was where it had needed to be for the past month—maybe even the past twenty years.

Aimed at his brother's head.

But as he closed in with the gun, Tom could have sworn that his brother's only reaction…was to smile. He smiled the strangest, most inexplicable smile at Tom, and then he slowly disappeared from sight as his men began to close the back doors to the ambulance.

No. He won't just slip away. Not this time. Not again.

Tom knew he had only one chance. He was close enough. There was still enough room between the closing doors. He could jump it. He was sure. One well-planted leap and he'd be inside that ambulance, with a gun to Loki's head….

ED TOOK A SHARP TURN ON THE
corner of Twelfth Street and zipped onto Seventh Avenue right at the entrance to St. Vincent's. He was rolling for the front door when he saw it. Not it.
Him.
He saw
him.

It was one of those moments when the world suddenly spins at half its speed. The wheels of Ed's board seemed to break down into a slow-motion roll as the entire horrid scene unfolded before his eyes.

Gaia's uncle. Running down the block with a gun. Running toward an ambulance.

Thoughts blasted in and out of Ed's mind at hyper speed as he kicked his board up onto the sidewalk. Was Heather in that ambulance? Was Gaia? Was Gaia's uncle back just to finish the job on both of them? And then Ed remembered. He remembered what he had sworn to himself after seeing Heather lying in that hospital bed, after realizing that this was the man who'd sent out an order to have Ed shot. He swore that if he ever saw Gaia's uncle again, he would kill him. Or if not kill him, then at least put him out of commission for a long, long time.

And so, without even thinking, Ed poured on as much speed as he could pull out of his board and crouched down as low as he could get.

Aim for the legs, Ed. Out of commission. That's the goal
….

It was a full-on collision. Full powered. Fully fueled. Loud and painful and totally disconcerting. Gaia's uncle flew off his feet. His gun went tumbling onto the asphalt, and then they both followed, landing in a painful two-man pileup on the ground. Ed's face skidded against the rugged sidewalk. He could just barely hear her uncle screaming.

“No,”
he howled. Just “no.” That was all Ed heard before her uncle rolled across the sidewalk and smashed into the side of the building. There were other sounds in all the chaos. He heard the doors of that ambulance shutting. He heard the screech of the tires as the ambulance took off down Seventh like a rocket.

If you were in there, then you're safe now, Heather. You're safe.

But Ed wasn't done. The human collision had brought something out of him. It had brought out all the anger. Anger he didn't even know he had. This was the man who'd tried to kill him.
Kill.
Not just hurt him. Not just scare him.
Kill
him. As if he had the right to do that. As if he had the right to decide who lived or died.

Ed was up on his feet before he knew it, and he was charging at Gaia's uncle, who was still on the ground. All his rage was channeled into his legs as he began to kick and kick without the slightest concern for what or where he was kicking. He just kept pounding away.

“You sick twisted
ass
hole
,
” he spat, practically vomiting out every word from deep down in his gut. “Try to have me freakin'
killed?
What are you trying to do to us? Heather and Gaia and Tatiana and anyone else you can get your hands on. What kind of an uncle are you?”

“No,” the man growled again from the ground. “No, you don't—”

“What kind of an uncle does that to his own
family?
” Ed went on. He couldn't stop himself now. Nothing could stop him now. “Who
are
you? What kind of a sick—”

“No, you idiot!”

Suddenly Gaia's uncle took a swipe at Ed's legs, dropping him straight back down to the pavement. Before Ed could reorient himself, he felt the most agonizing pain he'd ever felt in his life, shooting through his neck and his spine, all the way down through his already weakened legs. It was some kind of torturous half nelson that left him completely contorted, driving the side of his face into the sidewalk.

“Enough!” her uncle screamed, grinding Ed to the ground with more and more pressure. “You
idiot!
You stupid, stupid
child!
I swear to God, I should break your idiot neck! I should just crack your—no, damn it…
Damn it
….”He took a long, deep breath and blew it out. “I am
not
Gaia's uncle, Ed. I am her
father.
Her
father,
Ed. Her
uncle
was the man in that ambulance, along with my daughter and Heather Gannis. The ambulance that is now speeding off to God knows where.” He finally released Ed from his torture.

Ed collapsed to the ground and stayed there, trying to regain the feeling in his entire body. But he wasn't sure he would ever want to get up again. Because he knew the man was telling the truth. He knew that this was in fact Gaia's father and that he had just made quite possibly the biggest mistake of his life. “I…I'm so…sorry. I thought—”

“No,” her father interrupted, jumping up off the ground and then lifting Ed quickly and powerfully back to his feet. “There's no
time
for that,” he barked, running a few steps ahead and swiping up his gun. “It was a
mistake.
That's all.” He double-checked that his gun was still fully loaded as he began backing quickly toward his car. “You were trying to be noble, and you made a mistake. I know all about that, Ed. So just put it out of your mind and move on. Because I need your help now.”

“Yeah,” Ed said desperately, still reeling from the guilt in spite of her father's words. “So what can I do? How can I help?”

“You get up to the Seventy-second Street apartment and tell Natasha and Tatiana that Loki has Gaia and that I'm going after her. I want you to stay there. You stay there and you protect them, you understand?”

“I understand,” Ed said.

“Go,” Gaia's father said one last time. He ripped open the door to his car and started shouting urgent orders into his phone. “I need air support. Anything we've got in the area. We've got a white ambulance, thick red stripes on the sides and roof, headed south on Seventh Avenue. We must track this vehicle. We
cannot
lose this vehicle, copy? I'm in pursuit, but there have been delays here….”

That was the last Ed could hear as Gaia's father slammed his car door and took off down Seventh Avenue, racing to catch up with the ambulance.

Delays,
Ed thought, slapping his hands over his head in shock and disgust, discovering all-new giant untapped wells of shame and guilt.
I'm the “delays.” I'm the goddamned idiot of the century.

Ed spun around three times before he even knew what direction he was going. He kicked his board up into his hand and ran for the subway uptown. He couldn't remember ever having despised himself more. He kept trying to remind himself of Gaia's father's words. They were so true. Ed had just been trying to be noble. And he'd made a mistake. A simple mistake.

But no matter how many times he told himself that, the same thoughts kept echoing over and over for the entire train ride up to Seventy-second Street and for every minute after that.

He has Gaia and Heather. He has them both. And I let him get away. No, I didn't just let him get away
…

I helped him get away.

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. GAIA WAS
finally awake enough to know how important it was for her to keep her eyes open. If she didn't keep them open, then she wouldn't be able to see the key details. She wouldn't be able to see who was being assaulted with Loki's maniacal shouting. Much more important, she wouldn't be able to see what had happened to Heather.

That was the most infuriating part of being drugged again in that ambulance. Aside from the agonizing sense of helplessness, she knew that it also meant losing track of Heather. She couldn't guard Heather if she wasn't awake.

You've already missed enough. You must keep your eyes open.

But once she stretched open her crusty eyelids, she almost wished she hadn't. The image before her was so stark and ugly. And above all,
sad.

Heather was strapped into a chair directly across from her. Her head was sagging off to the side, her eyelids half open and her lips parted, with an ugly white crust gathered at the dry corners of her mouth. There was no longer a trace of blood in her pale skin. The circles under her eyes were black. And after all the progress she had made the night before.

“Heather…,” Gaia whispered. “Heather, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

Answer me
…
. Come on, Heather, say something. Please
…

“Gaia?” Heather whimpered. Her hands jolted into contorted positions under the straps and then settled again. She was still a mess physically, but she was alive. Gaia hadn't failed her completely just yet.

Heather's head darted up like a wounded animal's, veering off in all directions, trying to locate Gaia. Tears instantly fell from her vacant eyes. “Gaia, I thought I was alone. I thought I was going to die alone here.”

“We're not going to die,” Gaia stated plainly.

The truth was, the girl had more fight in her than Gaia would have ever imagined. Her survival instinct was yet another shot of inspiration. It had given Gaia the slap in the face she needed to shake off the rest of her grogginess.

She was thinking clearly now. She was assessing the situation. She checked her own stiff limbs, which Loki had of course strapped to her chair as well. She wanted to see if she could locate any slack in the straps this time. But there was nothing. Not a stitch of room to move or maneuver.

“Gaia,” Heather whispered. “Is that your uncle screaming?”

“Yes.”

“What's going on?”

“I have no idea,” Gaia replied. She shifted her attention to her surroundings, examining the bare room around her as she tried to locate the origin of her uncle's incessant shouting.

The room was yet another indication that Loki had stepped way off the deep end. Gaia knew him. She knew how he'd always cared for the finer things, even if he was never excessive. When he took an apartment, it was always some spacious loft on some posh block in Chelsea or TriBeCa. Even the last time he'd managed to contain her, he'd kept her in some room filled with antiques and objets d'art and fine wooden furniture. But this place…

This place was an absolute dump. The floors were crumbling—probably from a termite infestation. The walls were only half painted. There were even big gaping holes and dents in the cheap drywall. There was basically no furniture—just the two chairs holding Gaia and Heather, another chair by the filthy windows, and a foldout table that was buckling from the giant crack at its center. Gaia ducked her head out the windows to see the entirety of the world outside, and she could see immediately that they weren't even in Manhattan. When you could see over the roof of every four-story building for miles, you knew you weren't in Manhattan. It was most likely Brooklyn. Maybe the Bronx. It was all so completely unlike Loki.

But it was easy enough for Gaia to do the math. She and Heather were strapped to chairs. He'd already tried to burn Gaia and Tatiana to a crisp. His only mistake there: leaving them the use of their feet so that they could escape. He'd made the necessary adjustment now, simple as it might have been. He'd eliminated potential escape from the scenario. At least, that was probably what he thought. Gaia was still working on it. Though she had to admit…it wasn't looking good.

Conclusion: He'd had no need for a pricey loft downtown—no need to fill this crap-hole with outrageously priced antiques. Because he wasn't planning to stay for very long. Just long enough to finish what he'd started.

Gaia twisted her head far enough behind her to see them. She could see Josh sitting in the far corner of the room…or was it Josh? It might very well be QR1. Gaia had noticed in both the hospital and the ambulance that QR1 seemed to have lost the patented Josh smile. And he seemed to be brooding over something or thinking something through.

Once she managed to turn her head to its absolute limit, she could finally see where all the shouting was coming from.

Loki and Dr. Glenn were face-to-face, and Loki was barking at the doctor like some enraged army general chastising his pathetic new recruit. With the exception, perhaps, of pictures of Charles Manson, Gaia had never seen more clear-cut insanity in a man's eyes.

“If you utter another word about that stupid counteragent,” Loki shouted, “I swear to you, I will take this gun from my pocket, place it down the center of your throat, and empty the damn
chamber.
Not another
word.
”

Counteragent.
She'd still never gotten a straight answer from Heather.
Was there a counteragent?
Was there an antidote to the drug they'd given her? But hearing that word fall from Loki's lips set off a whole other chain reaction of thoughts. Thoughts that culminated in one very simple equation of images.

Gaia's eyes drifted back over to Heather's hands. She watched as they jolted from side to side under the straps, contorting violently for a half second and then lying completely still again. And then Gaia turned back to Loki's hands.

His left hand was shaking like an instant replay of Heather's.

Gaia might be jumping to conclusions, but she didn't think so.
He took it, too. He took the drug. He took his own demented fearless serum.

That explained everything. The strange new twists in his body and his character suddenly made perfect sense.
Side effects.
Just like Heather. Loki had turned himself into a walking side effect. But if he'd injected himself with the same drug, then why were his tremors so much worse than Heather's? And more important, why couldn't
he
be the one who went blind?

Of course, none if those questions was the most important. The question in Gaia's mind now superseded all others. It was the same question she'd asked Heather in the hospital. Only now, judging from Loki's petulant screams at Dr. Glenn, she thought there was an answer to that question.

Was
there a counteragent for the drug that was slowly killing Heather? Yes. Apparently there was, and Dr. Glenn was pushing Loki to take it. So where the hell was it? And how was Gaia going to get her hands on it? Especially considering the fact that she couldn't even move her hands.

She looked back at Loki. He was so much worse now. So much worse than what she'd seen in her one waking moment in the ambulance. Now his entire body was riddled with the mild tremors and tics. His eyes, his shoulders, his arms, everything was shaking on and off. Except for his right arm. His right arm was no longer shaking at all but was now as stiff as a petrified rock and tucked to his chest as if it were in a sling. He reached carefully into his coat with his left hand and pulled out that bottle of pills again.

“Do you really think those are
helping
you?” the doctor squawked. “Look at you. It's progressing even faster than I thought. Look at your arm. It's already in the next stage of—”

“Shut your mouth!” Loki hollered, shoving his trembling face closer to the doctor's. He carefully brought the jar of pills up to his mouth and ripped off the cap with his teeth. He tried to pour a few pills into his mouth, but a quick tremor of his arm sent the entire bottle of pills flying from his hand, falling onto the floor as the pills rolled out into every little decrepit nook and cranny of the dried-up wood. “Now look what you've done! Never mind. I don't need them. They're just hampering my transformation.”

Loki's eyes drifted slightly, and he suddenly caught a glimpse of Gaia watching him. His eyes widened with excitement when he saw her. “Ah, you're awake. Good. Good.”

He shoved the doctor out of his way and approached Gaia in her chair. Gaia's entire body stiffened as he stepped within striking distance. Or rather, it would have been striking distance if she had been at all able to strike. Instead she could only stare. She shot daggers and cannonballs and arrows and A-bombs at him with her eyes. But in the end, it was still only staring. Trembling or not, Loki was still in complete control.

“Yes, I know,” he said, kneeling down so that he and Gaia were face-to-face. “You despise me. You'd love nothing more than to see me dead. You're probably thinking about how you'd do it right now.”

A swift kick right to your windpipe. Untie me and I'll give you a demonstration.

“Well, Gaia, you'll be happy to know that I've changed. I've had a few revelations since we last spoke.”

“You injected yourself with the drug, didn't you?” she asked him point-blank.

His eyes widened with surprise and perhaps even a little admiration. “You would have made a fine agent, Gaia,” he said as his eyes fluttered open and shut and his shoulders twitched. His use of the past tense wasn't at all comforting. “Yes, you're right,” he said. “I've put a piece of you back into me now. And now we're more similar than we ever would have been as father and daughter.” Gaia cringed again at the thought of it. With each word his eyes seemed to burn brighter and brighter with that disturbing maniacal glow. Not to mention the exponentially increasing tremors that were making him too hideous and demonic to look at. “You see, we're finally the
same,
Gaia. All this time you've been able to look me in the eye and wish me dead. I'm sure you've wished it countless times, haven't you? You've been more than ready for me to just disappear off the face of the earth permanently. Your own father. Well, Gaia, it's taken me a long, long while, but now
I
am ready. That is the entire point of today. Because today…
I
am ready for
you
to disappear.”

He reached his trembling hand into his coat pocket and slowly removed his gun. With Gaia unable to move or retaliate, he could take as much time as he needed. But that might have been too long.

The explosive thud at the door was so loud, even Heather knew where to turn. All heads turned toward the doorway just in time to see the shoddy front door of the apartment kicked in. Kicked
down,
actually. The entire door ripped from its rusty hinges and fell to the ground in a cloud of black dust.

And when he stepped through the door with his gun thrust out in front of him, Gaia wasn't even surprised. She was supremely elated, and relieved, and overjoyed…but not surprised.

Because she had always known that her father was a survivor.