Missing (2 page)

My father killed my mother.

She shook her head. Today that thought was forbidden. Her father faded farther into the distance with every second the plane climbed higher in the air. Her uncle had saved her—from her father and from everything else.

As the plane broke past the thick layer of clouds that made New York City seem so dank and lifeless, a burst of golden sunlight and royal blue sky invaded Gaia's eyes. She had to smile. It was literally as if she were entering . . . well, heaven.
The only thing missing from the moment was some chorus of angelic sopranos singing in unison.
The past was officially behind her. She'd left it in the clouds. Uncle Oliver seemed to know it, too. The tension seemed to drop from his body, his entire posture relaxing as he sank comfortably into his chair and unbuttoned his jacket.

“We made it,” Gaia whispered, squeezing her uncle's arm. “Now we can chill.”

“I'm sorry,” he murmured. “I just wanted to get you safely on the plane and into the air.”

“I know, Uncle Oli—”

“No,” he interrupted, pulling off his sunglasses. “Gaia ...look at me. I didn't want to confuse you.”

Gaia looked into his eyes. Her heart seemed to freeze. Something wasn't right....

“I'm not Oliver,” he said gently.

Time thundered to a standstill.

He cupped his hand on her cheek, caressing her face lightly with his thumb.

“Gaia, it's me,” he said smiling, his translucent blue eyes clouding with tears. His voice began to crack. “It's . . .
me.
”

Horror prevented her from reacting. It was as if a cold steel rod had just been shoved down her spine, sending a ripple of pain through every limb. She could feel her face filling with blood, turning bright red, overheating—

Loki.

The man who killed her mother was touching her face. Electricity simmered in her veins. There was no fear, of course. Only rage. Pure rage.

“Look at me,” her father whispered gently.

Reflex took over. Gaia snapped her elbow into her father's face with the force of a sling blade, whipping back his head and bashing it into the airplane window. The blow instantly knocked him cold. She couldn't even begin to accept what was happening, but it didn't matter. Her brain had shut down. All she had now were strategic reflexes from years of combat training—ironically, training provided by the bastard she'd just pummeled.
Her only impulses were to punish her enemy and protect herself.
He'd taught her well. She leaped from her seat and ran
for the bathroom at the back of the plane, slamming the flimsy door behind her and locking it.

Some idiot stewardess started pounding on the door.

“Young lady,” she whined in a deep southern drawl, knocking away. “Please take your seat until the captain—”

Gaia's fury exploded from her, beyond her control— like that of a caged tiger. “Stay away from me!” she shrieked. She caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror and realized that tears were streaming down her face. She channeled her emotion into her hands as she ripped up everything in sight, toilet paper, seat covers, paper towels; she punched a huge dent into the chrome towel holder.

And then just as quickly, all the energy drained from her body.

She slid down to the floor, cramped in the small space between the sink and the toilet, her legs pushed up against the wall of the bathroom, her back leaning against the door.

She was trapped. She'd been duped.

What a huge steaming load of
bullshit.

“Why?” she heard herself asking as she lifted her head and pounded it back against the door. She wasn't talking to anyone in particular—not her father or her uncle Oliver. She was just shouting at Fate.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why can't you
help
me for once?”

 

Top Five Reasons I Should Kill My Father Right Now

1. It would be a good way to pass some time on the flight. (I saw the list of movies, and they all suck.)

2. The human race would be much better off without him.

3. In all likelihood, I would be taken back to New York and thrown in prison for the rest of my life—where I could really have some time to think and catch up on some reading and work out and make lifelong friends. Or maybe I'd be executed, in which case my miserable life would come to an end.

4. Killing my father would free up his in-flight dinner; I could get two desserts.

5. I would never mistake him for my uncle again.

Floating in this wackedout state, bathed in icy sweat, he could have sworn he'd heard Gaia Moore call to him.

 

“GAIA . . .”

Ed Fargo awoke to a shock of convulsions. He was only semiconscious. His arms and torso were shivering. He must have been buried up to his neck in ice cubes. Either that or thrashing from a blast of high-voltage electroshock treatment.
Floating in this wacked-out state, bathed in icy sweat, he could have sworn he'd heard Gaia Moore call to him.
But then he began to realize that wherever he was, Gaia was definitely
not
there with him. Nope. Ed was miles away from anyone or anyplace he knew.

And wherever it was, it was
white.
Very, very white.

“The shivering's quite normal, Ed,” a familiar voice assured him in a kind but deliberate tone. “You'll be warm in no time. Pam, let's get Ed another blanket.”

“Of course, Doctor,” a voice replied.

Dr. Feldman,
Ed thought. His brain was beginning to function again.
Yeah. I'm in the hospital. . . .

And then it hit him. He remembered the mask being placed over his nose and mouth and the needle piercing the vein of his arm, pumping him full of anesthesia. He remembered being asked to count
backward from a hundred, but he didn't even remember ninety-eight. Now, what seemed like only seconds later . . . he was here. So this could only be the recovery room. His surgery was done.

Ed's eyes began to make sense of his surroundings as they finally adjusted to the stark glare of the fluorescent lights.
Bleached white lab coats surrounded Ed's bed in a claustrophobic huddle, topped by a bizarre collection of pasty faces.
He sort of remembered the face of one of the doctors—Ramirez was his name, he thought. But the rest of them were just one big freak show.

Each doctor was scribbling his or her own notes . . . but no one was talking. Ed searched their faces anxiously.

Hello? People? Somebody say something. I'm freaking out here
—

Well. Their silence told Ed everything he needed to know. If no one was talking, that could only mean one thing. The surgery had to have been a failure. No one wanted to tell him that they'd gotten his hopes up for nothing. It was so ridiculous. Ed hadn't gotten his hopes up in the first place.
They
had. It had taken God knows how long, but Ed had come to accept the fact that he'd never walk again. He'd finally stopped fantasizing about running up a flight of stairs or stepping between two people on a crowded street
unnoticed.
He'd even overcome his yearning to be back on his board—to be “Shred”
again, floating on his skateboard down a ten-foot rail....

Dr. Feldman had tried to do this psych job on him. He'd offered up this new cutting-edge laser surgery, dangling the promise of working legs right in his face—and for what?
To inject a nice fresh batch of disappointment into his life?
Dr. Feldman had him right back where he started two years ago, with that same sickening stupid question he'd never wanted to ask again.

Will I walk or not?

Almost as if by instinct, Ed struggled forward in his bed and made a grab for his legs, desperate to see if they'd respond to an instruction from his brain to move. But the movement was met with a flash of pain. It shot through his body like a double-edged blade, snapping his torso back down on the bed.

Shit.

“Whoa, there!” Dr. Feldman warned with a laugh, placing his hand gently on Ed's chest to hold him down. “One day at a time, Tiger.”

“Sorry,” Ed croaked, wincing and hoarse from postsurgical dry mouth.

The nurse stepped in front of Dr. Feldman and placed another blanket over Ed. He clenched his teeth, trying to ride out the wave of pain. What fun.

“Well, the operation was a success,” Dr. Feldman announced matter-of-factly. He made some notes on Ed's chart.

A . . . what?

Ed's pain disappeared. Instantly. His eyes bulged. His vision was still blurry, but Dr. Feldman's uncommonly round head suddenly seemed like the most beautiful thing Ed had ever seen.

“It—it,” Ed stammered ecstatically, still croaking like some mafia guy in a grade-B mob movie. “It worked? You mean—”

“It doesn't necessarily mean anything,” Dr. Feldman interrupted in a more serious tone, swatting Ed's hopes right back at him. He came crashing back down to earth, back into his hospital bed—back into his wheelchair for life.
The forgotten pain returned at twice the strength.

“I—I don't . . .,” Ed stammered again. “I don't understand.”

Dr. Feldman grabbed the chair at the side of the bed and pulled it up next to Ed, taking a seat so that they were eye to eye. He placed Ed's chart on the bedside table. The pasty-faced crew took a half step away in unison.

“Here's the story,” Dr. Feldman said, clearly trying to keep things positive. “Your brain and your legs are connected again . . . they're just not on speaking terms. They need to get to know each other again, and they may not want to at this point. Does that make sense?”

Ed scowled. What was this,
Sesame Street
? He really didn't see the point of metaphor right now.

“Also,” the doctor continued, “your leg muscles have completely atrophied. And they may not want to come back.”

“So what are you saying?” Ed asked, desperate to drop the double-talk. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

“That's the right question, Ed,” Dr. Feldman replied. He sighed and looked Ed in the eye. “You're going to have to start physical therapy. It's going to involve a lot of pain and hard work—every day, for hours a day. Frankly, it will be grueling. But it's the only way we're going to get the strength back into those muscles.”

Ed nodded as emphatically as he could. He didn't care how hard he had to work. He didn't care how much it hurt. He was ready. “What else?” he asked.

Doctor Feldman offered a little half smile. “You have to have faith,” he stated.

“A lot of it.”

 

“OH, I THINK HE'S COMING TO,”
a disembodied voice announced.

Tom Moore's eyes fluttered open. He found himself staring at a host of concerned faces, hanging over the backs of their airline seats and hunched over him in
the aisle. A stewardess caked in makeup thrust an ice pack toward his head.

“I thought you might need this,” she cooed in a southern accent. “That's quite a boo-boo you've got there! Is your daughter a ninja or somethin'? You need peanuts and a diet Coke.”

“No. Thank you,” Tom managed to answer, as politely as he could. His head throbbed. He took the ice pack and raised his fingers to test out the swelling on his bruised cheekbone. The stinging was acute. “My goodness,” he said with a sudden smile.

The other passengers cocked their heads, gaping at him. Tom knew they must have all been a little thrown by his reaction to his injury. He hadn't smiled like this in a while—the unfettered smile of a proud father. What a wallop. Gaia's strength was undiminished. In all his days as an operative, thinking back through the countless covert missions he'd been assigned—even when he'd been forced to do battle with the most rigorously trained assassins—he couldn't remember being taken out with such a perfectly aimed, swift, and merciless blow.

But as soon as the smile appeared, it dropped from Tom's face.

She hated him. And he knew why. He'd abandoned her. In her mind, he'd betrayed her—in the worst possible way. Guilt swept through him, overpowering the physical pain, blotting it out. She still didn't know the truth....

“I tell you, the kids to
day
,” a woman with a Long Island accent shouted. Tom wasn't altogether sure why she was shouting. She was resting her arms on the seat back right in front of his, staring down at him, peanut crumbs falling from her lips. “
Juvenile delinquents.
Every one of 'em. I have a troubled teen of my
own
at
home . . .
well, not really at home, in
jail.
If they're not out drinkin' their twelve packs of beer and having unprotected sex, then they're out dropping their ecstasy at their rave parties and selling the
loco weed
to a bunch of fourth graders—”

“I don't think you understand,” Tom found himself interrupting.

The woman frowned.

He tore off his seat belt and stood, dropping the ice pack to the floor. He glanced around at the other passengers. They were all staring at him. He felt out of control, and it was an emotion he was ill equipped to handle. His life depended on control.

He turned to the stewardess with solemn determination. “Where's my daughter?”

She blinked, then pointed toward the bathrooms at the back of the plane.

Tom walked down the aisle to the locked bathroom and swung the curtain closed that divided the lavatories from the rest of the plane. It was the closest thing to privacy they'd have. He knocked gently on the door.