Naked (17 page)

The smiles on the faces of Paul and his mother began to fade.

But Oliver simply laughed again. “I was hoping we could talk somewhere privately for a moment.” He glanced at the Mosses. “Again, I'm sorry. I won't be long. I promise.”

Both Paul and Mrs. Moss looked expectantly at Gaia.

“Okay,” Gaia murmured. She had to hand it to him: coming here was a brilliant move on his part—to trap her someplace where she'd feel safe.
Where she
wouldn't try to run and where she couldn't kill him.
Without another word, Gaia turned and marched back to Mary's bedroom. Oliver followed a few paces behind her. Only in a cold and sweaty nightmare could Gaia have imagined being in this house with. . .
him.
With Loki. Yes, she could no longer think of him as her uncle Oliver. The notion of being related to him was too sickening.

She threw open the door and marched to the window.

For several long seconds neither of them spoke. Loki closed the door behind him. “You look stunning,” he said, standing by the foot of the bed.

Gaia kept her gaze fixed to the glass, to the winking lights of the East Side, across the park. Somehow it made such perfect sense that he was there—like a vulture that had just been waiting to swoop in
once the carnage of her life was complete.
How had he timed his entrance so perfectly?

“Say what you have to say and leave,” she hissed.

Loki breathed out a small sigh. “My God, he really has totally brainwashed you. I want you to know I have people looking for him right now, Gaia. He's going to pay for what he's done, I promise you.”

Gaia rolled her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Gaia, look at me, please,” he begged. “I can't talk to you like this. I can't stand what he's done to you. Please, look at me.”

She shook her head but turned to him—if for no other reason than just to shut him up and get on with this. But when she met his gaze, she realized that she wasn't in danger of losing her temper. She was far more in danger of succumbing to the sadness she'd been desperately trying to keep at bay for the last forty-eight hours. Because as repellent as Loki was to her, he had the same eyes as her father. Only the love there was false. Just as her father's had been.

“Just tell me why you're here,” she said deliberately, “and leave.”

“I'm here because I love you, Gaia,” he said. “I'm here because my brother has told you some horrible lies. I have to set the record straight, if only for myself. To be honest, I don't know if you're capable of believing the truth at this point or not.”

Believe. Truth. Honest.
These were not words that Gaia had any desire to hear again today. She was so tired of trying to discern the truth. Too tired.

“I don't want to do this,” she murmured.

“Gaia, just hear me out, please. Don't you see what Tom's doing? Do you even know where he is right now? Did he even tell you where—”

“I don't want to talk about him,” Gaia interrupted, straining every muscle in her body to maintain her composure.

“He's in Germany. I had him followed. He's not who he claims to be, Gaia. He's meeting with some
very frightening people. Why wouldn't he tell you where he was going? Why wouldn't he have contacted you once? Because he doesn't want you to know. You can see the logic.”

“Doesn't want me to know what?” Gaia snapped.

“He doesn't want you to know that he is Loki.”

Gaia's eyes narrowed. She didn't know whether to laugh or to scream—or to rip that phony, pleading look from his face with her bare hands and leave him in a bloody heap on the floor.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

He nodded. “You have to let me protect you.”

“I can protect myself,” she shot back.

“Not from Loki, you can't.”

“I'm doing a pretty good job right now, aren't I?” she asked, folding her arms in front of her. “Try something. Go ahead. Just try something. You'll be very sorry...
Loki.
”

“I'm not—”

“Shut up!” she shouted, her eyes blazing. “You're Loki. I know you are!”

But her uncle just shook his head, very sadly. “That's what my brother wants you to believe. He's been passing himself off as the ‘good' brother. He's been playing the part of me to throw people off his trail—to throw you off his trail. He's tried to convince you that I'm him—that I'm Loki so that you won't trust me, so that I can't protect you. Don't you understand?”

Gaia fell silent. The truth of the matter was that she didn't understand and that she was no longer interested in
trying
to understand.
Her mind could no longer process what she was hearing.
She was simply an empty vessel through which words passed.

Her uncle moved a step closer. “Gaia, think back now,” he pleaded quietly. “Please. Think back through everything that's happened. I tried to take you away with me to Europe—to save you from all this, to save you from him, and what did he do? He tricked you into getting on a plane with him. And he had me put in jail just to be sure I couldn't get to you. He probably tried to convince you that I killed Katia, but if you only knew . . .” His voice quavered. He reached for the handkerchief tucked in his jacket and dabbed his eyes with it.

Gaia stared at him. She felt nauseated. This display of emotion was extremely disturbing, to say the least.
If he was faking this, he was an extremely gifted actor.
Not that she should be surprised. If there was one thing she was truly certain of, it was that people had a tremendous capacity for lying.

“I loved your mother so dearly,” he went on. He sniffed and folded the handkerchief. “I did everything in my power to protect her from your father. I tried so many times to warn her. But I failed. He took her from
us both, Gaia. . . . And then he fled, that coward. Don't you see? You've got to put the pieces together yourself. Don't waste your time trying to figure out which one of us is more credible. That's impossible. Given all the emotional complications, you'd drive yourself insane trying to determine the truth that way.”

In spite of the venom coursing through Gaia's veins, she found she couldn't argue with him. It was the truest thing she had heard anyone say in days. She yearned to be coldhearted again. To feel nothing again. To make her decisions based entirely on facts and reason and give her heart a long and much needed rest. Maybe even a permanent rest. But right now her heart was still in overdrive, beating too much and then too little, and then not at all, and then too much again.
And Oliver was only feeding the flame.
Gaia had not a clue where her alliances were anymore. Not a clue.

“Please just consider this,” he said softly. “If our track records can count for anything, consider the facts. Tom has abandoned you twice. Disappeared into thin air with no warning, no concern whatsoever for your welfare. I have now come back for you twice—to rescue you. And I'm asking you once more. Let me protect you. Let me take you to Europe, as we'd planned before. Let me take you away from Loki. I've seen what he could do to his wife. I can't sit back and watch him do it to his daughter as well.” His voice
hardened, and he stuffed his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. “I will not allow that to happen.”

Gaia hung her head. She was too weak to respond. Every sentence was another debilitating blow. He was a skilled martial artist—so skilled, he only needed to use words to render her useless. The fight had gone out of her.

“I can see that your surrogate family here is wonderful,” he said, with a warm smile. “You don't know how grateful I am to them for taking care of you. But you deserve a real family. A family that wants you. That is the most precious gift in the world. There's no substitute for that. Because you and I are the same, Gaia. You and me and your mother. We've all been victims of Tom. But if we leave here together, we won't have to be victims anymore. I know you want that as badly as I do—to stop being a victim.”

“Yes.” Gaia was hardly aware that she had spoken. The word seemed to appear magically before her,
hovering there between them like a miniature star.
She
did
want to stop being a victim. The problem was, she had no idea who was doing the victimizing anymore. Loki or Tom or Oliver. . . they were all the same. They all abused her, in one form or another—whether they had intended to or not.

“I've said too much,” he offered gently. “I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone now.” He walked toward the door but stopped himself and looked calmly at her, his eyes
still reddish. “I'd never try to decide anything for you. Only you know what you truly believe. But know this. Know that you have a real family. One that would never abandon you. One that would always try to protect you.”

He reached into his front coat pocket and pulled out a card, which he placed on the bureau beside the mirror. “You can reach me at that number anytime.”

Gaia stared at the floor.
Just go now,
she pleaded silently.
Now, before I make an ass of myself and start crying. Please.

“Thank you for hearing me out,” he said. “Whether you believe me or not. . . I love you, Gaia. I know it's true even if you don't. Good night.”

He closed the door behind him. Gaia listened as he said good-bye to the Mosses and left the apartment. She didn't move—not for a very, very long time. She stood perfectly still. Because she was pretty sure that whichever foot she used to take the first step would be the wrong one.

I
can hardly comprehend the extent to which my life has come full circle. I mean, I'm literally right back where I started. It's like my entire relationship with Sam and the entire reunion with my father were just little shadow plays to amuse me while I continued my descent into the underworld. That's where I reside now. That's where my proverbial ship has landed.


You know what it's like? It's like Sam and my father turned to stone. Like the Greek myth of Medusa. I always thought Medusa was so cool, what with snakes for hair, but apparently she was just so ugly that she turned people to stone. And that's what it feels like with Sam and my father. First, of course, I turned them into my heroes. They became the two biggest figures in my life, golden gods, models of true love and true family and perfection.


And then something went terribly
wrong. I don't really understand where or how it happened—or what even caused the trouble. But the next thing I knew. . . my heroes had turned to stone. That's all they are to me now. Just these oversized lifeless white statues. Reminders of heroes past. Hollow, brittle tributes to what I thought they were. What they were supposed to be.


And that's not the worst of it. Because they didn't just turn to stone. . . they crumbled, falling down all over me in an avalanche of arms and noses and legs. Now I'm submerged in the rubble. Buried under all their bullshit. Trying to pry my way out.


I miss Ed. I wish I could talk to Ed. But maybe Ed isn't real, either. Maybe he's just a shell, too. Or an actor who was just pretending to be in a wheelchair. That's how it felt. It felt like he had been my favorite character in my favorite movie—and then
the actor who played him walked into school, and I knew it was the same guy, but it just wasn't the same guy.


I'm starting to sound like a bona fide lunatic. I know that. I've been watching it get worse and worse. But I swear to God, I'm sane. It's my life that's insane: a surreal tapestry made up of lies and phantoms and shadows and hollow statues.


And looking out from under all the rubble, I can't help thinking. . .


Maybe my uncle Oliver is the only thing that's real.


It's
a strange thing about choices. People always like to think they're making them, when in fact they are not. They like to think they're deciding which movie to see, or which orange juice to buy, or where they'll be taking their next vacation. And they are truly unaware that pages and pages of demographic studies, and tests, and focus groups have predetermined their “choices” long before they even get to the stage where they can decide. They are blissfully ignorant of being manipulated by a machine much, much larger than they.


Of course, I think that in some part of their subconscious mind, they have an awareness of the fact that they're being “helpfully guided” through life by powers far superior to them. I think they need that guidance. I think they'd feel completely lost at sea without it.


Gaia needs my guidance right now. Just as she needs to feel
that she has chosen to seek it out. She'll make her choice as to whether or not she's going to join me abroad, not understanding that the choice has already been made. All according to a plan.


Control. There are so many misconceptions about it. All this foolishness about how there's no such thing. People love to convince themselves that they have some kind of free will and that this free will plays any roll in their choices. It's really quite ridiculous. But I am eternally grateful for the illusion.


Because the illusion of free will is the one essential element in maintaining complete control.


I'm
considering giving up chess. As in never playing again. Not even in Washington Square Park with Mr. Haq or Zolov or Rennie. Definitely not with Sam. Not with anybody. The fact of the matter is that I
can't
play anymore. I've lost my edge. The game confuses me. The last few times I played, I couldn't strategize. I was losing left and right. And for a grand master, that's humiliating.