Fearless (11 page)

“CHECKMATE.”

Sam glanced up in surprise. Zolov wasn’t looking at him with his usual winking smile of triumph. He was looking at him with pity.

He had lost? Already? How could that be?

Of course, he always lost to Zolov. In spite of his

insanity, Zolov was a truly great player. In his day the old guy had beaten or drawn many of the greatest chess players in the world. But usually Sam and Zolov fought their way through long, dramatic battles, masterful exchanges of material. Today it was six minutes and a pawn.

“Vhat happened to you?” Zolov asked.

Sam was watching the place across the park where Gaia’s back had been minutes before. “I don’t know,” he said absently. “I got distracted, I guess.”

“By zat geerl?”

Sam couldn’t breathe. He was choking. Was it possible to choke to death on your own saliva? “W-Who?”

“Za preetty vun. She’s smart, too, you know.”

“I—uh—I don’t know who you mean.”

Zolov was now smiling. “I teenk you do.”

Sam almost bit his tongue in annoyance. After two years of listening to Zolov theorize about the young man who sold sodas by the fountain (World War I Polish spy called Tuber), the social worker from the homeless coalition (malevolent alien from a whole other solar system), the old man picked quite a moment to be perceptive.

“I gotta go,” Sam said, standing. “Good game,” he lied, handing Zolov a five. “I’ll see you Thursday.”

“Sam?”

Sam turned around in amazement. Zolov called

him “boy” and “keed” and “you,” but he never called him “Sam.”

“Yeah?”

“You go get zat geerl and tell heer I vant my sandveech.”

“No way,” Sam muttered to himself. No way was he ever going anyplace near that kind of trouble again.

As
a child, I was a disaster. I had a terrible stammer, which made me shy and pitifully awkward. My teeth pointed in every direction, and my hair was so thick, it lay in a stack on my head.

It started early. I was a maladjusted baby. You may think all babies are at least a little bit cute, but I wasn’t. I didn’t walk till after I was two. I don’t think I learned to talk at all until I was four years old.

My stammer was triggered by everything but by nervousness most of all, and I was always nervous. It was your classic catch-22: My nervousness made me stammer, and the more I stammered, the more nervous I got. I even stammered in my thoughts.

I was badly isolated. I spent all my time either on the computer or playing chess. Or playing chess on the computer. I started playing in chess tournaments when I was about six. Even among chess geeks I was considered untouchable. Stop by a chess tournament sometime, and you will see how truly scary that is.

I have an older brother to remind me of all this, in case I ever forget.

When I was twelve, my parents started to worry about me in earnest. I suspect they were embarrassed to take me anyplace. I had a crash course in speech therapy. Several, to be honest. A vengeful orthodontist installed an aircraft carrier worth of metal in my mouth. My mom dragged me to a haircutter who cost about a thousand dollars. She outfitted me at the Gap.

By the time I returned to school for seventh grade, I was unrecognizable. I actually considered changing my name and just starting from scratch.

So I guess you could say life as I know it began when I was twelve. I was born that first day of junior high.

I’m fine now. Even good, according to a lot of people. I know how to dress. I know how to speak. And even so. I’m still good at chess.

I masquerade as one of the blessed. One of the normal, effortless joiners who believe, without thinking about it too deeply, that the world exists for people like us. It’s a lie, of course. I come from the other side. I know what it’s like over there.

There are still vestiges of dorkdom in me. (See my use of the word
vestiges
, for example.) They pop up all the time. They remind me that If I were born in another age, say, prehistory-before braces and speech therapy-I would be the dorkiest caveman who ever lived. And the person I was probably meant to be.

Her gaze swept over Sam’s still body, and she had an almost overwhelming need to go to him, to kneel over him and make sure he was breathing.

SHE WASN’T
THAT
PRETTY. OKAY, she was that pretty. But not pretty like Heather—the kind of pretty that everybody noticed right away. Gaia’s face, devoid of makeup or any expression meant to please, was unfortunately more mesmerizing to Sam every time he saw it. God, and those eyes. They haunted him. He couldn’t get a fix on them—one time they were the endless azure of a summer sky, another time the blue-violet of early evening, and still another the indescribable color of a typhoon.

He turned up LaGuardia. It was almost eight-thirty in the evening, and he wanted to get to the hospital to see Heather before visiting hours were up. He’d cut through the park. Just a corner of it.

But it wasn’t just the way Gaia looked. Was it because she was so unbelievably good at chess? Granted, that had really thrown him. But that couldn’t explain it fully, either.

He had every reason to dislike her. He
did
dislike her. No decent person would have treated Heather the way Gaia had. For a while he’d tried convincing himself that he was thinking about her so much because he disliked her, but it wasn’t working anymore.

Sam was a rational person. Overly rational,

if you listened to Heather, or his mother, or most of his friends. He wasn’t romantic. He wasn’t poetic. He wasn’t nostalgic. He wasn’t obsessive—until this week, anyway. What was wrong with him? What were the chances that she, Gaia, had thought about him even a minute for each hour he’d thought of her?

He was a rational person. He would figure this out, and maybe then he could make it go away, he assured himself as he glanced toward the chess tables, squinting through the darkness to see that none of the few shadowy figures was hers.

He didn’t see her, but he did see something strange. He moved closer.

He first recognized the hunched shape of Zolov swaying to get to his feet Another figure was hovering, bearing down on the old man. He heard a groan, first quiet, then it grew loud and terrifying. Sam was running before he was able to process what was happening.

“Zolov!” he shouted.

The old man was waving his arms, trying to defend himself from the attack. He shouted hoarsely in a language Sam didn’t understand.

It was a young man, Sam realized as he raced toward them, and he had a razor blade.

“Get away from him!” Sam shouted.

The young man turned his head and locked eyes with Sam for a millionth of a second. He was young, dark haired, intense, pumped up on adrenaline or

something else. Sam hated him. What kind of monster would attack a fragile, crazy old man? Sam watched in horror as he threw Zolov to the ground

Zolov cried out Sam saw blood on the old man’s face, flooding the crags and wrinkles. His heart was seized with panic. He threw himself at the attacker and shoved him as hard as he could. Thoughts were only fragments moving through his mind at uneven speeds. The attacker lost his balance, but only for a moment He steadied himself and came at Sam.

There was a fist, really big. Sam heard an awful-sounding crack, then saw the orange insides of his eyelids. He blinked his eyes open. He was still on his feet His cheekbone was blazing with pain. One eye was pounding, already swelling with blood.

The fist was coming again, but time was Oslow now. Slow enough for Sam to dodge the fist and to remember that he had never been in a fight before, that he was out of his league. He willed his hand to clench. He trained his good eye on the guy’s mouth. He swung as hard as he could.

His knuckles connected to soft flesh. The guy grunted. Sam felt a surge of energy so strong, it seemed to erase his memory, to blow out his consciousness. He swung again without thinking. He caught an ear this time, hard. The guy staggered to one side, caught his balance. He didn’t come back at Sam, as Sam was expecting. Instead he stepped

backward, putting several more feet between them.

“You’re dead,” he hissed at Sam through blubbery, swollen lips. ” I’m going to kill you.” And then he ran off.

Sam was almost instantly kneeling at Zolov’s side. The old man was groaning softly. Sam took his shirt and gently wiped away blood so he could determine the seriousness of the wound It appeared to be shallow and less than two inches in length but bleeding heavily. Zolov’s eyes fluttered open, then shut again. His breath was short and raspy. Sam was suddenly terrified the old man’s heart was going to stop. He hated to leave him, but he needed to get help.

“Zolov,” he whispered, cradling his head. “You’re gonna be okay, but I need to call an ambulance. I’ll be back as fast as I can.” He laid the gray, frizzled head on the soft ground He stood looking at him for another moment before he took off at a sprint for the public pay phone.

AS SOON AS GAIA HEARD THE NOISE the fine, light hair on her arms prickled and her skin was covered with bumps. She had the feeling sometimes that when she sensed danger, her vision and her hearing

became almost supernaturally acute. She could almost feel her muscles feasting on oxygen, preparing for action. She knew the muffled cries and moans were Zolov’s well before she actually saw him.

Zolov’s attacker broke away as Gaia flew to the old man’s side. She put her arms around the frail shoulders, examining the wound on his face. There was a certain amount of blood, but it was already thickening around the slash. That was a good sign. She clutched him gently. “You’re going to be fine,” she promised him, not wanting to leave him in his disoriented state.

But she had to because, amazingly, the demon who had attacked the old man was still within sight. Gaia ran like hell. In the darkness she saw nothing more than his silhouette.

The attacker sprinted toward the south edge of the park. Gaia flew after him, her rage undergoing nuclear fission as her feet pounded the pavement. What kind of monster would attack a helpless old man?

He was fast, but she was faster. She literally launched herself from the ground and tackled him from behind. He shouted in surprise. They rolled together across a grassy patch, limbs tangling. Strong arms circled her hips, pulling her down. They tumbled again before she managed to pin him under her. She secured his torso between her knees and shoved his

head to the ground. Her hands were tightening around his neck before she looked him in the face.

She closed her eyes in disbelief. When she opened them again, her heart changed places with her stomach.

It was Sam.

She was so astounded, she let go of him, and in an instant he’d flipped her over. Now he was kneeling over her, pressing her shoulders into the ground with his hands.

“Gaia,
what do you think you’re
doing?
” he bellowed at her.

She saw clearly now that one of his eyes was purple and almost swollen shut. Her mind was whizzing, trying to make sense of it.

“Zolov is hurt,” Sam yelled only inches from her ear. “He was slashed. I need to call for help!”

Her ears rang painfully. “Y-You,” she choked out. “I thought you—”

“You thought I what? I slashed him? Are you insane?” Sam’s eyes—or the one that was still open, anyway—were wild with adrenaline. Her waist was gripped too tightly between his knees. He was digging the heels of his hands into her chest

In a lightning-quick move she managed to get one hand around each of his arms and pulled them out from under him. His weight collapsed on top of her, and she quickly flipped him over again. She

drove her knee into his abdomen and held him steady with her forearms. “Then who did it?” she demanded.

He stared at her with a mixture of anger and disbelief. “Some asshole who’s going to get away if you don’t
get the hell off me!
” He wrapped his arms around her back in a bear hug and tried to roll her again, but this time she wasn’t budging.

He was holding her so tight, her face was buried in his neck. “Fine,” she said as well as she could, considering her lips were pressed against his skin. “Let me go, and I’ll let you go.” But neither of them moved.

“Fine. You let go first,” he demanded in her hair. His voice was strained by the presence of her knee in his stomach.

Gingerly, slowly, she let up the pressure from her knee.

“Whoa!” she called out as he threw her off him, fast and surprisingly hard. Her butt landed on the pavement. “Ouch,” she complained.

She was mad. She couldn’t help herself. As soon as he was on his feet she sprang to hers and shoved him. He reeled backward a couple of steps, then leaped at her and shoved her right back.

Her eyes widened in disbelief. As soon as she caught her balance, she stormed at him. He was a lot taller than she, so she had to jump to jab her shoulder into his solar plexus.

“Uff!” he grunted. She was satisfied to see she’d

nearly knocked the wind out of him. She put two hands on his stomach and pushed him to the ground.

With admirable speed he rolled toward her and hugged her ankles. “Oh!” she shouted in surprise as he pulled her legs out from under her. She fell directly on top of him.

In anger and confusion she grabbed the first thing she could—his hair, as it turned out. He grabbed hers right back She was lying on top of him, one arm around his neck. His legs were clasped around hers, his arm circling her waist.

Where had her great fighting prowess gone? She’d been baffled, confused, angered by this guy who wasn’t extraordinarily skilled or trained. And now she’d been reduced to pulling hair?

“There he is!” a voice shouted.

From their tangle on the grass they both looked up, mute.