Betrayed

Normally
I'd be waxing philosophical right now. I'd be going off on some tangent about my childhood or some epiphany I had at Gray's Papaya about how seed-filled orange juice and raw hot dogs were somehow a metaphor for my tragic life.

But really, I'd just be stalling. Mentally stalling. Letting my mind get clouded up with dime-store self-analysis, self-pity, and a bunch of half-baked theories instead of using all that mental energy in a constructive way. Who knows, maybe even coming up with some kind of plan.

I know. This is something I should have figured out months ago. But it was the look on Tatiana's face tonight that finally woke me up. That numb, defeated expression drooping off her profile as our cab bumped and lurched its way over the potholes on Eighth Avenue, taking our exhausted remains back to the Seventy-second Street apartment. It was a look I've probably had on my own face a thousand times before. The look of total helplessness and futility that only
he
could induce.

Loki. The man who may very well be my father. He threatened Tatiana and me with every conceivable fate. He told her that her mother was dead. I could only infer that my father (at least the man I'd always thought was my father) was supposed to be dead, too.

Loki told me he didn't “need” me anymore, whatever that was supposed to mean, and then he left
us
for dead, setting his own medical lab—and probably his own entire building—on fire, all the time keeping that same maniacally calm glint in his crystal blue eyes. And what was our response? The only response we could have—to run away. To sulk in a filthy cab and make it back home to lick our wounds, grateful just to be alive.

But I could see it in Tatiana's eyes in the cab. I could see her doing exactly what I would have been doing, what I probably
was
doing at that moment. What I've done just about every time Loki punctured another gaping hole in my way-too-tattered life…

Nothing.
Nothing but sulking and pitying and hypothesizing and speculating, which are all a bunch of euphemisms for
nothing.

And for the first time, I was able to see someone else respond to getting the life sucked out of her inch by inch, to having everyone she loves get shot down like little tin figures in a cheap carnival shooting gallery.

And it woke me up. Because let's face it, I never understand anything when it's happening to me. I never understand all the sadomasochistic stuff I do to myself. But seeing someone else doing it to herself…it all becomes so damn
obvious,
doesn't it? Suddenly I can't understand how anyone in her right mind could miss it.

Now I can see it so clearly.
That
is what Loki does to people. That depressive devastation in Tatiana's eyes. That's how he wins. He
talks
people into submission. He buries people with plausible threats until they're almost six feet under.

And it's all lies.

Every single word out of his mouth is complete and utter crap. Tatiana needs to understand that. She can't let herself believe a word he says. And
I
should know. Because I've been letting him mislead me for months. I've bought into every one of his painfully intricate stories. It's so embarrassing, I almost feel like crawling even deeper into my own numbed-over depressive shell. But I'm not going to. Because seeing him start the same game all over again with a brand-new victim, a victim who is fast becoming the closest thing I've ever had to a sister, has finally brought me to my senses.

I won't let him start again with Tatiana. And I'm through letting him do it to me. The time for helplessness and self-pity is long gone. Sulking and stalling and philosophizing aren't going to do a goddamned thing. Someone needs to stop that poor bastard from lying. Someone needs to shut him up permanently. Whether he's my father or not, someone needs to put him out of his misery.

And yes, in case I'm not being clear, I'm nominating myself for the job.

I'll second the nomination, too, if it brings Loki any closer to dead.

GAIA HAD DONE EVERYTHING BUT
hold Tatiana's hand as she escorted her down the excessively mauve hallway to the oversized front door of their apartment. It was like walking someone home after some particularly painful surgery. Each one of Tatiana's steps seemed slower and more difficult than the last.

Maybe it was her imagination, but Gaia could have sworn that Tatiana hadn't blinked in the last forty-five minutes. Not since they'd made it clear of the burning building on Eighteenth Street. Not for the entire cab ride home. Her eyes seemed to stay fixed on one particular point somewhere in the distance. Sometimes a few tears would fall from the corners, and sometimes they looked as dry as dead leaves, but they never seemed to close.

Gaia had said it at least five times already, but she knew that she would need to repeat it as many times as necessary until it cut through the black fog that had obviously swallowed Tatiana whole.

“Will you listen to me?” Gaia begged. “Your mother is
not dead.
And neither is my father.” Once again Gaia needed a millisecond to convince herself of these facts, but she quickly overcame her doubts. If there was one thing she knew about her father, it was that he'd always been a survivor. And assuming he and Natasha were together wherever the hell they were, she knew he'd make damn sure that Natasha was surviving, too. Besides, now was not the time for Gaia to give in to her ever-growing list of questions about Natasha and her father. Now was the time to trust her instincts and be strong. For herself and for Tatiana. Tatiana was already devastated and confused enough for both of them. It gave Gaia something to fight against. And that was always when she was at her best.

“Can you open your mouth and make
words,
please?” Gaia insisted, trying to find Tatiana's eyes under her sweep of blond hair. “I'm telling you, he's
lying.
Everything he says is a lie.”

Tatiana was completely unresponsive. She stood frozen at the front door with her head tilted forward like a marionette with a broken string. Gaia wondered how long Tatiana would have stood there if she hadn't unlocked the door for her. She had to keep trying. Not just to talk some sense into the girl, but to fill in the much-too-depressing silence as they entered the empty apartment.

Empty couldn't even begin to explain it. It was emptier than empty. It was hollow. Tonight the lofty apartment seemed to echo like those filthy tunnels by the West Side Highway. And it was just as black as it was empty. Gaia jumped to the first available lamp and snapped it on, along with any other lamp in the way-too-spacious living room. This was an old ritual for her, part of a three-step plan to counter oppressive loneliness and fill in the silence and darkness. The first was to snap on as many lamps as possible (no overhead lights, since they were more depressing than absolute darkness). The second was to open all blinds, curtains, or shades (particularly at night—streetlights and store lights were far less depressing than sunshine). And the third was to turn on either the TV (preferably MTV, as this would make noise but require no attention) or the radio (a classical station would generally be the best choice since all song lyrics were potentially depressing).

She raced through the three steps, opting for a classical station on the radio, only to find that Tatiana was still standing by the doorway, staring into her own personal abyss. She leapt back to Tatiana's side and dragged her to the living-room couch, where she set her down. She then jogged to the kitchen for emergency supplies: Hostess assorted breakfast doughnuts, lime-flavored tortilla chips, and salsa. She dumped a pitcher of water and a mound of coffee into the coffeemaker, flipped it on, and then made her way back to the living room.

She wished she could simply hand over a piece of her emotional armor to Tatiana. If she could just crack off a piece of the old petrified crusty shell that she had formed from five long years of tragic deaths, sadistic lies, and kicks to the chest and head. But it couldn't be done. It went against all the laws of emotional physics. This was clearly Tatiana's first experience with pure unadulterated horror, and recovering from the first time was damn near impossible.

Gaia suddenly found herself flashing back to her own first time. She could hear the sound of gunshots echoing through her old kitchen. She could see the rivulet of blood trickling from her mother's open mouth as her father tried to lift her lifeless frame into his arms. Even then it had been Loki with the gun. It didn't matter if he'd been aiming for her father or not. Either way, one of Gaia's parents had been going to die that night five years ago. And Loki was the murderer. It was always Loki.

She could ward off the depression and anguish, but the anger…each additional thought was making it more difficult to keep the anger in check. Every memory, every image of Loki's face, so much like her father's and nothing like her father's. Unless, of course, he
was
her father.

Stay cool, Gaia,
she demanded of herself.
Keep your head cool.
She would get to him in due time. She knew that now. She would have to. She was giving in to simple logic. Loki had raised the stakes tonight. She could see it in his eyes as he stood there taunting her from behind a wall of Plexiglas in that eerie lab of his. Something had changed. Until tonight, Gaia had always sensed that Loki wanted something from her, that he had some kind of agenda. But tonight he hadn't seemed to want anything. Except to see her and Tatiana burned to a crisp. He had to be dealt with now. He had to be neutralized, even if only in self-defense.

One thing at a time,
she reminded herself. This moment was about Tatiana—about waking her up. Gaia sat down next to her, keeping as much distance as Tatiana seemed to need.

“I
know
him,” Gaia said, staring at Tatiana's cold profile. “Loki will say
anything.
He'll say whatever hurts the most. Whatever he's sure will leave you totally incapacitated. But it's all lies, Tatiana. All of it.”

“You don't know this,” Tatiana murmured, barely even opening her mouth. But at least she'd spoken. That was good. That was something. At least she was past clinical shock.

“I do,” Gaia insisted. “I know it. I know him.”

“You can't know it for sure.”

Gaia paused for a brief moment, because of course Tatiana was right. Especially considering Loki's shift in demeanor. Maybe he had moved past cleverness and deception now. Maybe murder was all that remained of his plan.

“You see?” Tatiana's voice cracked as tears began to flow again from the corners of her bloodshot eyes. “You don't know a damn thing, Gaia. Not a thing.”

Tatiana leaned her body into the corner of the couch, curling her entire frame into something resembling the fetal position as she gave in to her tears.

Gaia was at a complete loss. Yes, she and Tatiana had found some mutual respect, and they had begun to forge some kind of familial relationship—but the only thing Gaia could possibly do now would be to hold Tatiana. To cradle her somehow. And that just wasn't going to happen. For one thing, that kind of intimacy would have required removing the thick protective shell Gaia had worked so hard at creating. And for another thing, well…that just wasn't going to happen. Not with Tatiana. Not yet. Probably not for a few more years, if ever. But Gaia had to think of something to do for the poor girl.

“Look,” she said quietly as she debated what to do with her hands—the ones that should have been hugging Tatiana's shoulders. “Look, we'll…we'll
find
her.” Tatiana said nothing. She only wrapped her arms around herself, making Gaia feel even guiltier for not being able to provide any kind of physical affection herself. “We'll find them
both,
” Gaia promised. “
I'll
find them both.”

From out of absolute nowhere, Gaia suddenly felt a shock of emotions crash through her. How many times had she promised herself that she'd find someone—her father, Sam, Mary? How many times had she failed? How many times had she been too late? Tatiana's tears were beginning to break her will, and she knew it. Tatiana was one of the few people Gaia had ever met who actually seemed to have the same kind of strength as Gaia, the same kind of will. And here she was, curled up in the corner of the couch, crying like a baby. Gaia was beginning to get the horrid feeling that she just might be next.

Thank God for that ringing phone.

Both of their heads snapped toward the black phone on the dining table, mesmerized by its sudden shrill electronic ring. Tatiana leapt from the couch, stumbling over the coffee table and knocking over the chips and salsa as she flew for the phone on the other side of the room. Gaia held her breath and prayed. She prayed that it would be Natasha on that phone. If only to rescue Gaia from the impossible task of consoling Tatiana. Or maybe, just maybe, it could also be her father. Because a few moments more of this unbearable scene and Gaia wasn't sure she'd be able to console herself.