Fake (3 page)

Gaia was someplace close, he could feel it. But he had no idea how to get to her. He was like a rat in a maze of dead ends, and a fragrant block of cheese was sitting just beyond the walls.

Gaia, please,
he urged silently, straining to seek out her mind through the walls of the nearby buildings.
Please just answer my messages. Call me. Before it's too late.

This
probably never happens to real undercover operatives. Or at least it shouldn't–not to the good ones, anyway.

I know how it's supposed to unfold. I grew up watching the spy serials. All those stories of daring rescue and intrigue, where the hero saves the world in a thousand-dollar suit. I just knew that could be me someday, disarming the bad guys and knocking them senseless. Then carrying the hot blond to safety only seconds before a bomb exploded in a supernova of fire and smoke. Obviously I'm not cut out for this after all, since I seem to have all the spy instincts of a garden slug.

Oliver is counting on me to find Gaia. Gaia needs me. And I'm letting them down.

I never realized just how freaking hard this spy stuff is. Where are the scared informants whispering vital information to me from out of the shadows?
Where are the clues? A book bag or scuffed tennis shoe or some other Gaia-like debris pointing the way to her hideaway? I could use a cryptic SOS message on my answering machine or a taunting riddle from the baddies—anything to use as a starting place in this whole screwed-up cat-and-mouse game.

James Bond never made mistakes. He never burst into someone's lair only to find a group of women playing mah-jongg–“Very sorry. Pardon me. Please carry on”–or nabbed an innocent bystander or aimlessly wandered the city streets for hours.

And Oliver would never be stuck in neutral like this. He'd have located Gaia in under ten minutes. I know he wants me to do it because Gaia's still freaked into thinking he's Loki again, but obviously I don't deserve his faith in me.

So I'll make a deal with the cosmos. Forget my earlier dreams. I don't need to be a big hero.
I'll just settle for this: to find Gaia in one piece before anything awful happens. The rest you can take from there.

John continued to pelt her with bricks, laughing as if he were playing a two-dollar carnival game.

Anchor

GAIA WOKE UP TO THE EARTHY
, smoky smell of fresh coffee being brewed. The rectangle of glass between the curtains revealed putty-colored clouds hanging over the nearby buildings, the view oddly distorted by the film of grimy rainwater on the window.

She took a deep breath and stretched her arms up as high as they could go without rapping against the mahogany headboard. Then she rolled over.

The bed was still warm where Skyler had lain next to her. Even her waist still felt warm and weighty, the ghost of his arm anchoring her down to the bed all night. Gaia smiled. She could hear him in the kitchen, singing something. A Coldplay song.
God give me style and give me grace. . . .
She closed her eyes and followed the melody, the clattering sounds of cups, and the whoosh of cars passing on the slick streets below.

After a minute she felt the bed shimmy. Skyler crept over the mattress and lay down beside her, his arm returning to its spot across her belly.

“Good morning,” he sang into her ear. “How did you sleep?”

She opened her eyes. “Good,” she said with a grin.

“I'm glad.” He smiled his toothy, glow-in-the-dark smile. “See? I knew it. All you needed was to take a break from it all and relax. Do you feel better?”

“Yeah. Just . . . tired.”

“You should go back to sleep,” he said, patting the curve of her waist before pulling his arm away.

Gaia reflexively put her own arm in the spot he vacated. She didn't want to tell him that she wasn't sleepy. Instead she was tired in that post-trauma kind of way–the collapsing sense of relief you feel after a great pressure had been lifted. But he'd been right about one thing. Staying over had helped. She felt two hundred percent better than she had the night before. It was just so nice and simple being here—just her and Skyler hiding out from the rest of the world.

A new thought occurred to her. “Is your roommate here?” she asked, peeking through the crack in the doorway to the living room beyond.

“Relax. It's just us.” He placed his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back against the mattress. “Carl left a note. He's gone upstate to visit his parents this weekend.”

“Oh,” she said, settling back into the bedcovers. She was glad it was just the two of them. Things were perfect—better than they had been in a while. Adding someone else to the mix would only upset the beautiful whatever she had going here.

“I made coffee.” Skyler slid out of bed and ran his fingers through his unkempt blond hair. “But you don't have to get up. It rained all last night and it's still drizzling. Good morning to sleep in.”

She turned back toward the window. “There'll be rainbows in the puddles,” she said distractedly.

“What's that? Rainbows?”

“In the puddles,” she finished. She glanced at Skyler and gave a bashful shrug. “It's nothing. Just this thing I used to do when I was a weird little kid.”

“What? Tell me.” He sat on the edge of the bed, watching her with a bemused expression.

“It's stupid.”

He put his hand on her calf, shaking it gently. “Come on. I really want to know.”

Gaia raised herself up on her elbows and tilted back her head as if sunning on a virtual beach. She shut her eyes and remembered herself as a knobby-jointed five-year-old. “After it rained at our old house,” she began, “I used to love to go out to the nearby road and look at the puddles in the potholes.”

“And splash in them?”

“Well, yeah. But I loved the way there would be this ring of color in the center of the puddle, like each one had its own rainbow. I thought it was beautiful. It wasn't until I was a little older that my dad explained how toxic chemicals from the car engines made that design—not rainbows.”

Gaia could see her father's face swimming before her, gently reprimanding her for playing in the noxious water. Then her mother, shaking her head and making that disapproving clicking sound, barely
hiding her amusement. Before she could descend into grief, Gaia opened her eyes. Skyler was smiling at her.

It was the kindest smile she'd seen in a long time. An adoring smile.

“That's beautiful,” he said. “I'm glad you told me that. I want to hear more. I want to know everything about you.”

Lukewarm tears—happy or sad, she couldn't tell—collected in the corners of her eyes. It was too late to bully them back into her ducts. Instead she gave an enormous fake yawn and rubbed the renegade drops with the back of her hands.

“You should go back to sleep.” Skyler gave her leg another friendly pat and got to his feet. “Maybe later you can tell me more. Right now I'm going to take a quick shower.”

“Okay,” she said, settling back against the pillows.

“You going to be all right?” he asked, unbuttoning his shirt.

“Yeah.”

Gaia hugged a pillow and watched as he slid off his shirt and tossed it into a nearby wicker hamper. His trademark Rodke-smooth skin glimmered in the feeble light. His chest was muscular—but in a rough-cut, choppy way, different from the sloping curves of Jake's strapping build. It was as if Jake had been carefully molded from clay while Skyler had been chiseled out of cool marble.

He met her gaze and grinned. “Get some rest. I'll be in here if you need anything.” He stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Soon she could hear the water come on and Skyler began humming the Coldplay song again.

An intense feeling of gratitude came over her. If it wasn't for Skyler, she'd be waking up in her bare, depressing little room back at Collingwood, spiraling down the big despair drain again. She was glad he'd made her stay. It was like he knew just what she needed. He gave her space, yet he held her all night—as if he somehow understood she needed an anchor.

Not just anyone would take in a wretched, depressing blob of a girl. She wished she could do something to show her thanks, maybe even get him some sort of gift. But what? Like all the Rodkes, Skyler had everything. All he truly needed was water, oxygen, and the regular intake of nutrients.

Wait. That's it.
Gaia sat up straight. The guy needed food, right? So why not get him breakfast? She couldn't cook—at least, she shouldn't if she wanted to reward the guy—but she
could
surprise him with a bagel tray.

She hopped out of bed and headed into the living room to find her shoes. Yes. That's exactly what she'd do. She'd go down the street, pick up some bagels, and hopefully be back before he came out of the shower.

Gaia grabbed her jacket and practically skipped
out the door. She couldn't wait. Skyler was going to be
so
surprised.

Bad–Girl Facade

JAKE TRUDGED UP THE PORCH STEPS
of the Collingwood boarding-house and caught a dim reflection of himself in the front window. He could have been cast as a mysterious drifter in a movie. His dark wavy hair looked like a mess of blown wires after being drenched with rain and dried in the breeze. His eyes were slightly sunken, and a crop of whiskers had overtaken the lower half of his face. All he needed was the moth-eaten knit cap and he could have been featured on those home security system flyers that came in the mail: PROTECT YOUR HOME FROM THIS MAN.

He made a halfhearted attempt to tame his hair and then rang the buzzer. He could hear it echo inside the house, followed by the iambic rhythm of someone bounding down the stairs.
Please, please, please let it be Gaia,
he prayed silently.

The door creaked open and a girl's face leaned into the crack. “Oh, hey,” she said, now opening the door just enough to reveal the rest of her.

It wasn't Gaia. Zan, Gaia's spacey housemate, leaned lazily against the door frame. She looked out of place. A night creature caught in the light of morning.

Her eyes peered up at him between thick streaks of eyeliner, and her long dirt-blond hair hung in near dreds, spilling over the shoulders of her black Mickey Mouse T-shirt.

“Can I please speak with Gaia?” Jake asked.

“She's not here,” Zan replied, a wry smile curling her red, bloodstained-looking lips. “In fact,” she added, watching Jake closely, “she hasn't been here all night.” She curled her left leg around the doorway, her stockinged foot tracing figure-eight patterns on the porch planks.

So she's still with Skyler.
A white-hot rage welled up inside him, but he somehow managed to steady his features. He had been hoping, even praying that Gaia would be here, but deep down, he'd known she wouldn't be. So far it had been his only instinct that proved right.

“Do you know where she is? Did she leave a number?” he asked, wincing at the chime of desperation in his voice.

Zan grinned. Impish sparks glimmered behind her bloodshot eyes. “I don't know anything. But then, sometimes people don't want to be found, right?”

Jake didn't answer. His jaw clenched reflexively.

“But you're welcome to hang out with me.” She crossed the threshold onto the porch, her hands toying
with the doorknob behind her back. “I know some cool places. And I can get some great stuff.” She reached out her foot and slid her toes up his shin. “I could make you forget about Gaia.”

“No. Uh, thanks anyway,” Jake said, resisting the urge to kick her foot away.

For a split second Zan's sultry bad-girl facade fell away, revealing the face of a pouty child. Even the thick black makeup couldn't hide it. She looked like a doll someone had kicked around and colored on.

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the look was gone. The sullen teenager returned, even more sullen than before. “Whatever,” she snapped. “Your loss.” She headed back into the house.

“Wait,” Jake called.

Zan turned back, a glimmer of anticipation in her eyes.

“If you see Gaia, would you tell her to call me?” he asked. Watching her features harden, he smiled and added, “Please?”

“We'll see.” She flashed one last ironic grin and then shut the door in his face.

Jake descended the steps and looked down the awakening street. His worst fears had now been confirmed—Gaia was still gone. Still off frolicking with the King of Face Creams. And he was still left with no leads. His cosmic bargaining didn't seem to be working out.

He took a deep breath of muggy morning air and slowly massaged his temples. His stomach churned with a frothy brew of emotions, made even more bitter by lack of sleep. Could he have brought this on himself? Maybe this was punishment for something terrible he'd done. If only he could remember what it was.

If he ever saw Gaia again . . . No,
when
he saw Gaia again, he would hold her close and promise to listen to her—even her paranoid delusions about Oliver turning evil. He would be the most attentive, least argumentative, best boyfriend on the planet.

That or he'd kick her ass.

Snakelike Tentacles

POST-RAIN NEW YORK WAS SMELLIER
than usual, but it wasn't without its charms. The foliage looked fresh and dewy. The sidewalks gleamed as if freshly waxed. And the buildings seemed stripped of a layer of grime, their graffiti shining bright and colorful.

No rainbows today, though. On a whim Gaia had glanced into a nearby puddle, but all she saw was mud.

She was walking briskly down the street, toward
the corner where she was pretty sure she'd seen a bakery, when all of a sudden she felt something grab at her ankle. Gaia hopped sideways and shook her leg. Glancing down, she realized it was only her shoelaces flapping about her leg.