Escape (14 page)

“It depends on what you're wearing,” Ed mumbled, leaning back in his chair and giving in to the question of where on earth Gaia had gone this time. She was obviously searching somehow for her father. Probably running from hospital to hospital across the city. Of course keeping Ed out of the loop completely.

Tatiana leaned closer to Ed and examined his eyes.

“Ed, I wish you didn't let Gaia's craziness hurt you so much, you know?”

“I know.”

“I mean, she is just Gaia. She has
so
many things going on in her life.”

Ed gave Tatiana his full attention. “What things?”

“Just. . .
things
, you know? She's just. . . out there somewhere, doing. . . whatever she is doing, and. . . You don't need to worry. Everything is going to work out between the two of you.”

Ed searched her eyes more closely. “Do you know where she is?”

“
No
. Of course not. When do I ever know where she is? I just wish you didn't have to go so crazy when she is off doing. . .
whatever
. I mean, she's not, you know. . . a
princess
. . . .”

“What are you
talking
about?” Ed sat up much straighter in his chair so that he and Tatiana were
face-to-face.

“
Nothing
.” Tatiana giggled, putting her hands on his shoulders and steadying him. “Oh my goodness,
nothing
, Ed. I'm just babbling. I'm speaking through my ass.”

“That must be why you're not making any sense.”

Tatiana laughed and dropped her head on Ed's shoulder. “Yes, exactly. I have learned English so well that I can now talk out of my ass. Please forgive me, okay? Forgive me.”

“I don't know what for.”

“I don't know, either.” She laughed again. “But forgive me, anyway.”

“No problem.” Ed sighed. “Forgiving people is what I do best.”

“Diner” Diner

“SHOULD WE LEAVE?” SAM UTTERED
through the side of his mouth.

The entire diner seemed to have looked up from their meals or their beers. Even the cook and the two waitresses seemed to be staring at Sam and Gaia
as if they had just stepped off the mother ship, ready to begin their deadly assault on earth.

Gaia had never seen this many fat leather-clad men sitting in one place. Normally she would have been delighted to finally be surrounded by “real” people instead of the parade of posers back in the city. But the looks on these faces suggested otherwise. The looks on these faces did not elicit delight, but rather suggested the need for a deep understanding of biker gang protocol. Which Gaia would have to pretend she had.

“No way,” Gaia said, grabbing Sam's wrist firmly and dragging him toward two open spots at the counter. “I'm hungry.”

Slowly but surely, the bikers returned to their meals as the waitress approached Sam and Gaia at the counter. The look on her face hovered somewhere between puzzled fascination and disdain. Gaia peeked down at her name tag.
Doris
. Even better than Mavis or Janette.

I want to be you, Doris.

Doris brought her pencil to her notepad but suddenly dropped it down at her side and just stared for a moment, sizing them up. “Okay, I just got one question,” she said. Her voice had obviously been ravaged by three packs a day for at least twenty years. “I got a bet going with the cook. Are you two supermodels or aliens?”

“He's a supermodel,” Gaia explained. “I'm an alien.”

Doris let out a large, infectious laugh. She pressed her pencil back to her pad with a smile. “Well, what do supermodels and aliens eat?”

“Cheeseburgers,” Gaia explained. “We only eat cheeseburgers. And coffee. We drink a lot of coffee.”

“Well, I'll start up a fresh pot, then,” Doris said. “Coming right up.”

Gaia smiled with complete sincerity. Something she rarely did in anyone but Ed Fargo's company. She wondered whether or not she should ask Doris for an application just in case she decided to come back and get a job right here at the
“Diner” diner.

So she hadn't been wrong after all. These
were
the kinds of people she'd hoped to find out here in the land of truck stop diners. Straightforward, funny, and unpretentious. She could see Sam start to breathe a little easier, too. Until the door opened again.

All heads turned toward the doorway with that exact same communal glance of death that had greeted Sam and Gaia. This was either the standard greeting for the folks at this particular diner, or, more likely, this was
the standard greeting for the nonregulars—something they clearly got very few of.

They must have been particularly troubled to see
two
nonregular arrivals in such a short period of time. And they weren't alone. Gaia found that coincidence a bit curious herself. She and Sam walked in. And then these two other random dudes walked in three minutes later? Could be meaningless. Could be a major problem. Especially since they were clearly criminals,
plain and simple.
Their faces were obscured by ugly aviator sunglasses. And their black clothes were entirely nondescript.

“You know what?” Sam said. “I'll be right back.”

He slid off his spinning stool, but Gaia grabbed his arm and held him close. “Where are you going?” she asked calmly, glancing back furtively at the two men, as they of course had to sit down at the booth directly behind her.

“Bathroom,” Sam explained. “I'll be back.”

“Okay.”

She let go of his arm and watched as he made his way to the rest room. Doris placed the coffees on the counter.

“Here you go. Two coffees. The burgers will be out in a sec.”

“Thanks.” Gaia had only enough time to bring the coffee to her lips before the worst-case scenario reared its ugly head. Why did her instincts always have to be so good in just this one category? Potential violence. She always seemed to get that right.

“Is someone sitting here?” the man asked, lowering his
aviator sunglasses to introduce Gaia to the hideously black circles under his eyes and the reek of his cigar breath.

“Yup,” Gaia replied, turning her eyes straight forward and focusing on the old milk shake machine. She sipped her coffee. This lunch could still come off without incident if he just took his brush-off cue. “Someone's sitting here,” she confirmed, “and you're sitting back there.”

“Well, maybe it should be the other way around,” he suggested, leaning an inch closer to her as he settled into Sam's seat. He seemed to have studied his stupid, loutish accent at thug finishing school.

Gaia rolled her eyes and then glanced down the hall toward the rest rooms. “No, I think it's good the way it is,” she said.

“Wait, are you saying that you would rather be with that. . . that skinny
kid
than
me
?” He leaned forward on the counter, trying to make eye contact.

If he wanted eye contact, he could have it. Gaia turned and stared him down over the tops of his serial-killer shades. “Yeah, that's what I'm saying.”

“Yeah.” The man chuckled dubiously, showing his yellowing excuses for teeth. “Yeah, he looks real tough, that kid.”

“Yeah, tough, right,” Gaia mumbled. “There's just nothing I love more than a ‘tough guy.' Nothing says ‘confidence' like a guy babbling about how tough he is.”

“Oh, you think I'm babbling? You don't think I'm tough enough?”

Oh, Jesus. Couldn't you keep it in check, Gaia
? Challenging an idiot's toughness was the equivalent of
flashing a banana in front of a caged monkey.

“You don't think I'm tough, bitch? How's this?” The next thing Gaia knew, the barrel of a gun was jammed against her head. “Is this tough?” he shouted. “Would you call this tough? Does your college boy ever cram a nine millimeter into your head? 'Cause maybe he should.”

Gaia barely even noticed the first round of screams and curses that echoed through the entire restaurant. She was too busy trying to plan her next move.

“Shut up!” the man howled. “Everybody shut up and get your asses down on the floor!”

The man's accomplice leapt up out of the booth and pulled his own gun, waving it wildly at all the bikers and truckers. “The
floor
, I said! Get down on the floor!”

Gaia could tell that a few of the bikers still wanted to be heroes. They were grumbling and making slight steps in Gaia's direction. Boy, had she pegged them wrong when she first came in.

“It's all right,” she assured them, basically ignoring the gun set against her right temple. “I'm fine. Just do what he says.”

Gaia's mind was racing through all of her options, given the spatial relationship of the two men.
Mark their positions. What's the distance from this stool to thug number two? It would take a leap, definitely. He'll
fire from the right, but if I go left, then thug number one has got me from behind. . . . Two guns, Gaia. You've got to shake yours, but you can't leave the other guy any time to fire on one of these people. . . .

And where the hell are you, Sam? You're telling me you can't hear this entire thing in the bathroom?

“Listen to the bitch,” the cigar-loving sicko shouted. “Do what I say! Everyone empty your pockets.
You,
” he screamed down to Doris, on the floor behind the counter. “Empty the register!”

Doris wobbled nervously over to the register as he knocked the barrel of the gun against Gaia's head again. He leaned in closer and whispered in her ear, “Now is where it gets good. Tony!” he called to his accomplice.

“Yeah?”

“Kill one of 'em.”

“Right.”

“
What
?” Gaia whipped her head around to look the deranged son of a bitch in the eye.

“Oh,
now
she's losing her cool.” He laughed.

“
Why
?” Gaia shouted.

Tony grabbed one of the truckers, hoisted him up off the floor, and placed the gun right against his stomach. Gaia could see the absolute terror in the poor man's eyes as sweat poured down his face. Tony seemed to enjoy it. “Guess you picked the wrong day to eat lunch here, my friend.”

“
Why
?” Gaia shouted again, staring down Cigar Breath. “They're doing everything you say! Everything. Why does he have to kill anyone?”

“You'll see,” he said with a disturbing smile.

“Adios, Mr. Dumb Trucker.” Tony dug the gun deeper into the man's stomach.

She had to move. She'd have to improvise. All that mattered now was that completely innocent man's life.
Move, Gaia, move! The stool. It's a spinning stool. . . .

Gaia dropped her hand down and tugged on the seat of Cigar Breath's stool with all her strength. The bastard's gut smacked into the counter and he bounced off onto the floor, but
Gaia had already taken to the air.

She grabbed onto Tony's neck, pulling him down to the floor as the gun fired up at the ceiling, smashing one of the fluorescent lights and sending the entire fixture crashing to the floor. Then all hell broke loose.

Tony began to rise up off the ground. Gaia clasped her hands behind his head and smashed his face back down against the floor, hearing the distinct crack of his nose as he cried out. He reached for his gun. Gaia kicked it to the other side of the room. She was about to dropkick his head back against a table, but before she even got the chance, a mass of bikers had converged on the two of them. It was Tony they were after. Without his gun, he was just one poor thug with a broken nose against ten or fifteen angry bikers. But Gaia was still in the way.

She got caught up in the melee and tried to work her way around their flailing fists and their loud angry shouts. She ducked their wild kicks and punches, searching for the daylight in this huge, vengeful brawl—searching for Sam. She somehow got turned around as she worked her way out of the crowd and the deafening noise. She ultimately had to back her way out of the pileup step by step.

But somehow, in spite of all the noise, she was able to hear it. The stupid loutish voice of that cigar-smoking son of a bitch. She heard him utter two simple words right behind her.

“Good-bye, Gaia. . . .”

Jesus, you're dead!
she howled at herself.
Move now
!

Thoughts dropped away, and so did sound, and so did light, and somehow. . . so did time. Gaia had never moved so quickly in her life. Faster than she'd even known she was capable of moving. Almost as if she'd found
the smallest little rip in time,
an invisible gap that left her just enough space to maneuver. She could almost see the gun at her back—hear it hovering behind her as the trigger was being pulled. . . . She shot out both of her arms and whipped her entire body around, slicing at the air until her fists made contact with gun, swatting it ten feet from his hand as it fired off into nowhere. She even had time to see his stunned expression as he watched her complete her backward spin and leave him empty-handed.

And then she laid into him. She pummeled his chest with a blur of jabs, cracked his chin back with an outstretched palm, and then rose up high into the air, spinning three hundred and sixty degrees. As she reached the peak of her leap, her foot snapped out against his jaw, nearly severing his head from his spine as his entire body careened into a row of chairs and tables. She came down on the floor with her fists cocked and ready for a counterattack. But it would never come.

He was out cold on the floor. Covered in ketchup, lettuce, and hamburger grease.

Gaia turned around to get her bearings again. The bikers had begun tying up the bruised and battered Tony, and now they were flying past Gaia with their rope and heading for Cigar Breath.