Missing (18 page)

Josh just laughed—that same, easygoing laugh that had been music to Sam's ears from the start. “You're just drunk, my friend. Just drunk.”

 

THEY HAD GAIA'S ARMS PINNED
to the cold concrete, the stark white light of the street lantern blinding her almost completely. She could barely see who would strike next or from which side.
It was torture
—
like being locked in an interrogation room with some sadistic military commanders.
A hard kick struck her ribs. Another pounded her thigh. Then they started dragging her along the ground, scraping the skin she'd been brave enough to expose in her dress.

Gaia didn't care about the pain, though. She didn't care about the bruises or the cuts or the scrapes. It was just the sheer frustration of losing that was killing her inside. Sure, it took
eight men
to subdue her. But that was no consolation. She'd lost—

No. Not yet. It's not over till I'm dead.

She still had her feet to work with, right? And she used them for all they were worth. When she glimpsed a pair of legs, she trapped them with her own like scissors, toppling one of the bastards to the ground. When she saw an available shin, she cracked her heel into it—as if there were a bull's-eye painted
right in the center of it. She did every ounce of damage she could do....

But the cold fact remained: There were simply too many of them. She'd always been able to take down three men easy. Four, even five with only a few bruises to show for it. But
eight?

That was the sickest and most sinister part of this whole operation.
The cold strategic planning of a gang rape.
Gaia had never witnessed anything this sordid in New York City. And she'd certainly seen her fair share of scum. How many times had they pulled this off? How many women had been forced to suffer through this torture? The thought of it sent another surge of animal aggression through her legs as she kicked at anything within a four-foot radius, puncturing flesh, flipping any one of them that was off balance. But about four hands reached out at once, and after a few seconds' worth of struggle they managed to control her legs as well.

“Foutez-la sur la table!”
Philipe commanded.
Throw her on the table!

He was clearly the leader. The general.
The Napoleon of the gang rapists.
Gaia couldn't believe that this pink-shirt-wearing, frilly ponytailed ball of black fur could possibly be their leader. But then, of course, he
was
the most repulsive.

With two men securing each of her legs, they picked up Gaia's writhing body and slammed her back
down on the iron café table. Thierry stood behind her head. He turned it up toward Philipe—making sure she could see him standing between her outstretched legs, grinning triumphantly.

“I swear to God, I'll crack every one of those goddamn teeth!” Gaia screamed, seething with a rage she'd never felt. It was the rage of a caged animal.
The rage of somebody who had no way out.
The rage of a girl ...who was trapped.

“Bouclez-la gueulle à cette salope!”
Philipe ordered.
Shut that bitch's mouth!

Thierry slapped his hand over Gaia's mouth. She tried to bite it, but he was holding her head still with his other hand. That was it. Now she could only strike with her eyes. She glared at Philipe's hideous face.

“Bloquez-la,”
he said.
Hold her down.

If I could feel fear,
Gaia thought,
this would be the time to feel it.

Philipe slapped his hands down on Gaia's thighs and pulled her closer to him, pushing up her skirt. He reached down and unzipped his pants, and then he spoke to her in English.

“You are going to love thees,” he promised with his repulsive grin.

Gaia felt no fear. But instead a desperate wave of sadness fell over her, bringing a rush of tears to her eyes. It was the sadness of knowing she would lose her virginity
here.
In this awful place. She wasn't
going to share it with Sam. They'd decided to wait until she came back from her trip.
To wait for that glorious moment.
Now she regretted that decision with all her heart. That was all she could think about . . . all she could think about as she stared at Philipe's smile.

But then the smile suddenly vanished.

His head snapped down on the edge of the metal table as if a sledgehammer had just slammed it from behind.

And then rearing up in the shadows, Gaia saw a blur of a figure. The most wonderful blur she had ever seen.

Dad.

Before she could even process what was going on, her father had shoved his knee into the gut of another one of her captors, then slammed the base of his hand directly into another's nose. Blood gushed all over Gaia's dress. She hardly noticed. One of her legs was free. The mob was confused, disoriented. That was all she needed.

In a matter of seconds she unleashed a series of lightning swift kicks, ramming her heel into skull after skull. Three bodies toppled to the ground.
Every ounce of rage she'd ever felt had been crammed into those kicks.
Then, with a deft arch of her back, she sprang off the table and onto the ground, readying herself for battle. A smile spread
across her face. Ah, yes. She was back in control. And nothing readied her for battle like the need for absolute vengeance.

Forget about quality. It was time to kick ass for
quantity.

Every face, every body that was within her peripheral vision . . . they became nothing but moving targets.
Gaia had transformed herself into a whirling dervish of various martial arts:
kung fu, karate, jujitsu.

Two of the three she'd kicked to the ground approached. Gaia ducked under them both. She thrust her shoulders under their stomachs and flipped them onto their backs with a thud.

Another two came at her. She clamped her hands onto a table and kicked with both legs simultaneously, lashing out with her heels and striking each of their foreheads with pinpoint accuracy. They dropped to the ground.

She stood up in a combat stance. Her breath came fast. She was ready for more fighting, more vengeance . . .
more.
But there was no need. Her father was delivering a flawless roundhouse kick to Philipe's head. And Philipe was the only one left standing—the only one stupid enough to hang around. The few that weren't unconscious were already disappearing back into the alley, their footsteps fading into silence.

Philipe keeled over.

He didn't move. Nobody moved.

Gaia smiled. She was panting. It was strange, though. Even though she and her father had won, Gaia could still feel Thierry's hand over her mouth—
a phantom of the crime she'd almost suffered. . . .

The distinct two-note sound of a European siren began to ring in the distance. Someone must have finally called the cops. Her dad, no doubt.

Gaia stepped over to Thierry. His inhuman face was smeared with blood. His breath came in short gasps. She straddled him and clamped her hand over his mouth. His eyes widened in terror.

“Do you know what it feels like to be held down like that?” she whispered.
“Tu sauras en prison.” You'll find out in jail. “Tu sauras
—
”

“Gaia?” her father called.

She turned to answer him—but at that moment the shadows on the boulevard seemed to rise up and tackle her down into a sweet, black sleep.

 

Can
someone give me one good reason to get out of this bed? I can't think of one. No point in doing my physical therapy. Who am I supposed to walk for? Brian, the wrestling physical therapist? Brian will be just fine whether I walk or not. Am I supposed to walk for Heather? Heather doesn't want me to walk. Am I supposed to walk for Gaia? Gaia doesn't care. For all Gaia knows, I could be rolling around in some Mexican whorehouse.

Am I supposed to walk for my family? Not as long as my sister is a member.

Am I supposed to walk for
me
?

I don't even know anymore.

You know what I wish? I wish I'd never had the surgery in the first place, that's what I wish. All this time I've been dreaming about going back in time. But I went back too far. I don't want to go back a few years. I just want to go back a few months. Back to when a good time was a
couple of solid eleven P.M. milkshakes and a phone conversation with Gaia. That's what I miss the most. Gaia.

Can you believe that? I miss Gaia more than walking.

But there's no point in going to school. She's not there. And Heather is. And I don't want to talk to Heather.

So, to sum up.

I don't want the distant past. I can't have the recent past. I
hate
the present. And I'm dreading the future.

Who wouldn't want to be me right now?

His emotions were still floating somewhere underneath the river of alcohol in his veins.

 

SAM TRIED TO KEEP HIS ROOM
from spinning, but it was no use. The entire dorm seemed to be tilted on a forty-five-degree angle, rotating around him at a slow and even speed. He sat hunched over on his desk chair in the center of the floor. He was quite sure that he was sitting in silence, but a loud buzzing drone pulsed in his ears like the rumbling hum of a power plant.

The taste of blood and tequila was a foul mixture, but Sam had still been uninspired to wash the blood from his face or to rinse out his mouth. He hadn't even changed his filthy clothes . . . or looked over his wounds.

He wasn't motivated to do much of anything.
His emotions were still floating somewhere underneath the river of alcohol in his veins.
So he sat there. Thinking numbly of the nature of life in prison, with nothing to look at but dank gray walls. Nothing to do but sit in an eight-by-eight cell and yearn for Gaia, wondering what she was doing, whom she was with out there in the free world, envying whomever that might be madly—

Josh came barging into his room.

Sam barely looked up.

“Oh, man,” Josh groaned with a mocking giggle.
“Have you just been sitting in that chair since I left you?”

Josh seemed to be speaking and moving at such a higher speed than normal,
like a turntable's spinning too fast.
Every reaction of Sam's came at a two-second delay.

“Yes . . . ?” Sam finally replied, not sure he'd even remembered what the question was.

“Well, I've got something to change your mood, my friend,” Josh whispered. He was panting. He snapped a piece of paper right in front of Sam's nose.

“That's good,” Sam said in a dull monotone, unable to focus on anything.

“Didn't I tell you I'd take care of everything?” Josh asked, slapping Sam's bruised shoulder, almost knocking him off his chair.

“Hey!” Sam barked.
That
was enough to get some feeling going inside him . . . but then that faded, too.
It was only pain.
Only physical. Only fleeting.

“Sorry, sorry,” Josh mumbled with an impatient laugh, still flapping the paper in front of Sam's face. “Just
check it out!
”

Finally Sam's eyes zeroed in on the page.

Then he stopped breathing. He instantly saw it for what it was: a slightly forged sign-in sheet from the chemistry lab, dated the night that Mike was killed. And there was a nice empty slot placed in the center of the list.
Josh didn't need to explain a
thing to him.
The paper said it all. Somehow Josh had gotten hold of this . . . and all Sam had to do was sign in his name. Sign himself out for the end of the night.

“It's so simple,” Josh whispered, “but it's the
perfect alibi.
”

For a moment Sam couldn't speak. His mouth was very dry. The implications of this . . . well, he didn't even want to consider them.

“Bu-But I already told those cops I was at a movie,” he croaked. He felt like he was listening to somebody else. “I told them I was at the Angelika—”

“No big deal. You just went to the movie
after
the chem lab. The problem is
solved.
” Josh slapped the sign-in sheet down on a book from the floor, placing it on Sam's lap. Then he pulled a pen out of his pocket and thrust it into Sam's hand. “All you have to do is
sign,
dude.”

Sam's wits were barely functioning. He didn't even know if this was
real.
In the depths of his hang-over everything had a terrible, hallucinatory quality.
Why create a lie when in truth he was innocent?

Then again, who was going to buy the truth of his innocence? All indications thus far seemed to answer that question.
Absolutely no one.
No one except Josh. And even Josh seemed to think that he needed a lie to get out of this. But still, he wasn't placing the pen on the
paper. With his emotions shot and his reason out the window, he could only act on some distant instinct in his cloudy brain. And again he felt that dread uncertainty, that same fleeting sensation he'd experienced earlier tonight . . . if Josh was supposed to be an RA, then why was he encouraging Sam to break the rules?

“Sam,” Josh said. All at once his tone was far more serious and concerned. “Who's gotten you through this thing so far?”