Betrayed (9 page)

TOM DOUBLED HIS SPEED AS HE
saw the man in black reach the end of the long hallway and duck into the master bedroom. He was about to run out of space in the apartment, and then Tom would have him cornered. He jumped into the master bedroom and flipped on the light. He had just enough time to spot the masked man crouched up on the windowsill of one of the oversized windows. That was it. Nowhere else to run.

But an opposing thought had just begun to enter Tom's mind as the man brought back his leg and smashed a huge, jagged hole in the center of the window. The deafening sound of exploding glass filled the room as a rush of cold wind and shattered glass blew up against Tom's face.

Fire escape. He's still got a fire escape.

He must have known. The bastard must have known his escape route the entire time. This little revelation lost Tom the extra millisecond he'd needed. He thrust the gun forward and started firing through the shattered glass, but the masked man had already ducked through the window and out onto the iron platform.

Tom ran to the window and leapt through the jagged hole, looking down through the iron slats for a target, but when he took his next shot, the faint click of the trigger was all he heard.

Empty. Bad timing. Terrible, terrible timing.

He shoved his gun back in its holster and peered over the banister, hoping to spot the masked man in the increasing darkness of the building's back lot. He could hear the urgent tapping of shoes against metal, headed toward the next level down. The man was moving so damned fast. Tom knew he'd never catch him at this rate. He had to do something drastic. Something that could make up for the lost time…

A jump. A full one-story jump down to the next landing to cut him off. It was the only choice. But Tom knew he wasn't his daughter. He'd kept himself in top condition, of course. An agent of his caliber had to. But top condition for a man in his forties…

No time for doubt. Tom grabbed onto the edge of the fire escape and swung his entire body over the banister in one swift move, feeling the cold wind and the gravity take hold of him and tug him down to the next level. He knew his feet wouldn't hit the platform first. He wasn't going to land on the platform. He was going to
fall
onto it. But if he stayed focused, he would have the perfect thing to break his fall: a man in a black mask who was running way too quickly.

“Oompf.”

Tom's body was bombarded from head to toe by every conceivable surface. Cold black iron, muscular flesh, the wool of a sweater, the rock-hard bones of a knee and an elbow. The two rather sizable men had clashed and rolled up against the edge of the fire escape in a painful heap. For all Tom knew, he'd broken both his legs. Pain was spreading out indiscriminately to every one of his appendages. And the man was already slipping out from under him, as though this world-class collision had barely fazed him. He tugged slowly but surely out of Tom's grip, until all Tom had left to hold on to were his clothes. Tom's hands were just about the only things that were fully functioning right now, so he used them to grip the bloody black ski mask and rip it from the man's face before he broke free.

I've seen this face before,
Tom realized. The square, chiseled jaw, the spiky jet-black hair, eyes that were so blue, they were almost purple, and that sickening grin—he'd flashed that disgusting smile the moment Tom had gotten the mask off. Tom never forgot a face. Never. That was something of a prerequisite for the Agency. The only problem was…it was the face of a dead man.

Tom flashed back to that nearly fatal evening at Loki's Chelsea loft. The night Gaia had learned of Sam Moon's death. The night Tom's brother had held a gun to his head and nearly pulled the trigger. He distinctly remembered Loki
killing
this man. He remembered him putting a bullet right through the center of his head. So how exactly could he have survived? How was that possible?

“You're getting way too old for this, Tom,”the boy said, flashing his wicked grin. Despite how desperately Tom wanted to punch him in his fatuous face, he couldn't possibly have agreed more. He
was
getting too old for this. He was sick and tired of this game. So sick and so tired…

Tom struggled to peel himself off the cold iron, but his limbs were shot. He slipped back down onto his hands and knees. “You tell Loki, if he wants to kill Tatiana, he'll have to send someone better than you.”

“Jesus, you're pathetic,” the boy said with a horrid chuckle, watching joyfully as Tom struggled with his throbbing legs. “You think this is some freaking movie of the week? This whole thing is over, Tom. It's
done.
Gaia will be dead by ten o'clock tomorrow morning.”

Tom's eyes shot up to meet the boy's. His statement sounded so definitive, so absolute, that Tom couldn't even hide the fact that it had shaken him to the core. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, raiding the youth's vacant eyes for the truth. “Where's Gaia? What has he done with her?”

“It's not what he's done,” he replied. “It's what he's
going
to do.”

“Where is she?”
Tom growled.

“Why don't you ask your buddy George?” he said with a grin. “Or no, I have a better idea. Why don't we have another race, Tom? Let's see who gets to her first. No, I'm kidding. I think we know who's going to get to her first.”

Tom couldn't take another word of his taunting. He lunged forward for the boy's legs, but with one swift step back, the boy had Tom grabbing at nothing. Tom could only watch through the iron slats of the fire escape as the boy took off down the steps, heading for the back exit of the building.

“Ready, set, go, Tom,” his voice echoed through the dark windy lot. “Last one to Gaia is a rotten egg….”

Tom smashed his hand against the cold iron and sat back against the steps to catch his breath. It was too much information. It was too much horrible information…yet no information at all. Where was Gaia? What on earth was going to happen tomorrow at ten o' clock? And what did George know about it?

George
…
my oldest “friend” in the world.

Tom winced at his own sarcasm.

You son of a bitch, George. You traitor. You and I need to talk. It's a talk I've been anxiously awaiting ever since I got my first punch in that torture chamber in the Caymans. And you had better have some answers, George. Gaia's life depends on it.

LOKI REREAD THE MEMO AT LEAST
three times, his frustration increasing with each read. He could not believe that he was
still
dealing with a living, breathing brother. He could not fathom his organization's pathetic inability to dispose of Tom and Natasha in the Cayman Islands, after all their concerted efforts. And once again he was compelled to take the blame.

The only feasible explanation for Tom's survival in the Caymans was that Loki had not yet injected himself with the phobosan. He simply had not been as enlightened as he was now—still too attached to his ego-induced fears and anxieties. If Tom wasn't gone, that could only be because, on some deep and tragically weak subconscious level, Loki had not been truly ready for him to go. Some useless leftover “inner child” must have been
afraid
to let him go. But that was just fearful emotional trash left over from when they were little children. Now he was more than ready to say good-bye. God knew he was ready now.

And how could he have underestimated Gaia's young accomplice so completely? What match could that Tatiana girl have possibly been for QR2? How had a complete innocent put up a fight against a qualified replicant with Loki's own personal training and Josh Kendall's supremely conditioned physique?

It had to be Tom. Tom and his usual dumb, ignorant luck. Tom and Natasha must have arrived at that apartment just in time and taken on QR2 together. That was the only feasible explanation.
Tom.
Always Tom, biting pathetic little holes in Loki's progress, like a nagging infestation. Nothing but a living, breathing obstacle. Year after year, making it his life's goal to keep Loki's happiness to the bare minimum…

Loki's clenched fist suddenly came pounding down on the foldout table he was using for a desk. He assaulted the table with such an inhuman amount of force that his punch actually left a crack all the way down the center, nearly splitting the entire table in two. His violent gesture had taken him by complete surprise, as had the degree of his rage toward Tom. Without the slightest bit of emotional repression left to hold him back, he was finally beginning to understand just how pure a death wish he'd developed for his brother.

Apparently he was so incensed that the violent impulse couldn't even leave his hand. The hand continued to shake long after he had intended. In fact, it was more than just a shake. The shaking had suddenly become so violent that it was growing into something more like a tremor.

Loki quickly latched onto his trembling right hand and tried to soothe it with his left. Maybe it was something muscular. A muscle cramp in the hand, perhaps from all his recent work at the computer. He worked at it strenuously, massaging the hand for two full minutes before the trembling finally began to subside. Or rather, not the “trembling,” but the “cramp.” That was surely all it was. Just a cramp.

“MOM?”

Heather jolted up slightly from her bed before a shot of excruciating pain forced her to fall flat on her back.

“Mom?” she called again, keeping her neck as stiff as possible on the pillow to avoid the throbbing pain. “Mom, my back hurts…and my neck…. Mom?”

Her mother wouldn't answer. Why wouldn't she answer?

Because she's gone. Heather, wake up, you're asleep. No. You were asleep. Now you're awake. Fix your back. Your spine is cracking.

“No.” Heather jolted in her bed and reached down for something to hold on to. The bed. She could hold on to the bed. She pressed her palms down on the bed and caressed the sheets. She could feel the sheets. That helped. It helped to feel the sheets. Maybe she was ready to feel around for the light switch.

A light switch won't help, Heather. Stop pretending you don't remember what's wrong with you. What time is it?

“I don't know,” Heather uttered aloud. But she was awake enough now. She knew what she was doing. She was conversing with her own brain.

What do you mean, you don't know? Open your eyes and look at your watch.

“They
are
open.
Shhh.
” She needed to stop talking to herself.

The pieces were starting to fall back together now. All the crumbling little pieces. Her eyes were open now; she was sure of it. But she couldn't know whether the light was on or off. And she couldn't know what time it was because she couldn't see a clock. And she had no way of knowing if her mother was sitting right next to her asleep or if the room was completely empty.

“Mom?”
She strained to make the loudest sound she could. “Mom, are you asleep?”

The silence was like no silence she'd ever heard. Because it was mixed with the black, black darkness. Not dark like nighttime. Not dark like a room with the lights off. In the nighttime, you still had some sense of where the sky was. In a dark room, you had some sense of the walls. But this was so different. This kind of dark just kept going. It just traveled out on all sides for miles and miles. It was like floating in outer space…but without the stars. Just pitch black space. No sound and no light. And barely any weight.

Mom already left. Don't you remember? They all left. The nurse said you were going to sleep, and the family went home. But how long ago was that? Two minutes? Two hours? It doesn't really matter, does it? Either way
…
you're alone in here.

She rubbed her hands over the sheets again. God, she wished there was something else to hold. Anything. The family could have left her with something. A stuffed animal. A pillow that at least smelled like home. She should have made her mother stay. Why didn't she make her stay?

“Shhh,”she scolded herself. “It's okay. You're okay. Shhh.”

She'll be back. She'll be back in the morning, and she'll talk to you. And maybe Carrie will come in the morning. And Megan and Laura and Ed. And they'll talk to you. In the morning. How long can that be from now?

It could be hours, for all she knew. Or…maybe it
was
morning?

A sound! Finally a sound. What's that sound?

A sound had come from across the room. At last she could give the room a shape again. She'd forgotten where the walls were. But what was the sound? Two more seconds and she was sure. It was a door. A creaking door. A visitor! Maybe it really was morning?
Please, please let it be morning.

“Mom?” she called out, feeling her voice strengthen. “Ed?”

“Shhh,”
a voice insisted. Was it a man or a woman?

“Who is it?”

“It's okay,” the voice whispered. It was a man's whisper. Whoever he was, he was coming closer. “You've got to stay quiet, okay?”

“Who is it?” Heather asked again. She could feel him standing at her bedside now.

“Heather, it's me,” he said quietly.

Heather felt a wave of warm and gorgeous relief pass over her entire body. All her excruciating back and neck pain suddenly seemed to slip down to totally bearable levels. Her thoughts started to clear up again. The darkness became far less frightening. Because now he was close enough for Heather to hear him. Now, without the whispering, she could hear the deep and perfect tone of his voice. Now she noticed that his voice was just as stunningly handsome as his perfect jaw and his bluer-than-blue eyes….

“Josh?”
she squealed.

“Shhh,”Josh warned her again. “We've got to stay quiet, Heather, okay? Can you do that for me? Because visiting hours just ended, and they'll kick me out if they hear.”

“I'll stay quiet,” Heather whispered with a joyful grin. “I promise.”

“Good.”

“Where have you been?” she groaned through a smile. “I've been waiting forever. Everything got so crazy at my house, I wasn't even sure what
happened
to you. God, I was so worried. And everything just got so blurry after a while, my thoughts, and…I just don't remember every—”

“Heather,”
Josh interrupted, sounding frustrated. “I'm really serious about the quiet thing,
okay?
”

“Okay, I'm sorry,” she whispered, placing her hand over her mouth with a smile. “I just…I'm so happy you're here. Everything hurts so bad, Josh. My back and my neck, and I can't think straight—I can't even tell when I'm talking or thinking. And I can't breathe so well—”

“I know,” Josh said. “Don't worry. We're going to end all that right now.”

“I just needed you here,” she said, feeling overwhelmingly weepy all of a sudden. In all the darkness, her emotions had developed a mind of their own. “I'm sorry. I just…I needed another voice in the room.”

“Well, I'm here,” Josh said, “but Heather, I need you to be
superquiet
now, okay? We don't want the doctors coming in while I give you this.”

“Give me what?”

“Just relax.”

Heather suddenly felt Josh's hand grab onto her wrist and hold down her arm. And then she felt a sting on the inside of her elbow as he pulled something out of her vein. The IV.

“
Ow.
Josh, what are you doing?”

“It's okay,” he said. “I'm going to give you something that'll end this miserable state you're in. Just stay quiet and don't move.”

“Wait.” Heather jolted slightly and grasped onto his hand, tugging to pull it off her wrist. She didn't like him holding down her arm. She didn't like how tight his grip was.

“
Heather,
just be cool, sweetie. Five seconds. I just need five seconds.”

“No, wait,” Heather whined. “Josh, I don't like it. Can we just—”

“Okay, just
shut up.
”

“I don't like it!” Heather howled quite suddenly. “I don't like it!” She couldn't even believe her own volume as her hands and arms began to jolt and spasm and flail to break free of Josh's grip.

“Stop it,”
he demanded in a strained whisper.

“I'm scared, Josh. I'm
scared.
” She swiped her nails at his hands again and again as he battled to keep hold of her wrist. “What is it? What are you giving me?
What are you giving—
”

His strong hand clamped down over her mouth. It gripped the entire lower half of her face firmly, crushing her jaw with the pressure. She couldn't utter a sound.

“I said
shut up,
” he spat in a cold and vicious whisper. “Just keep your goddamn mouth shut so we can get this over with.”