Chase (12 page)

“This is not going well,” he said, focused on the computer.

Gaia's stomach turned. So much for that.

“Nothing, huh?” she asked, slumping farther down in her seat.

“I've been working all day . . . trying to get in touch with Loki's men,” he said, finally leaning back.

He let out a sigh and rubbed at his face with both
hands. When he looked at her, he blinked a few times as if he was trying to clear his sight. His eyes were glassy and rimmed with red, and his skin was the color of snow. Gaia looked around the desk and saw that there was nothing. No food wrappers, no glasses or plates—only
one single coffee cup.

“Have you been up here all day?” Gaia asked, her brow creasing.

“I haven't moved from in front of this thing,” Oliver said seriously. “I haven't even gone to the bathroom.”

Okay. That was an overshare
, Gaia thought. But still, she was impressed. Oliver was clearly determined to do everything he could to help her find her father. She allowed herself a slight smile. It was nice to have someone on her side. But he wasn't going to be doing anyone any good if he got himself sick through lack of food and . . . lack of bathroom runs.

“Maybe you should take a break.”

“I'm not going to stop until I find Tom,” Oliver said firmly, looking her in the eye with a suddenly clear and steady gaze. It was a tone that Gaia knew better than to argue with.

“Thank you,” she said. “But tomorrow morning I'm going to get you some food.”

Oliver smiled. “That would be good,” he said. He returned his attention to the computer and leaned his elbows on the table at either side of his keyboard. “I just wish I had more to go on.”

Gaia's mind instantly flashed to the key in the small pocket of her messenger bag. She pulled out the envelope and held it out to Oliver, her hand shaking ever so slightly. It was the only connection she had left to Tatiana and her father.

“I found this at our old apartment,” Gaia said. “The one I shared with the two women who took my dad.”

Oliver glanced at her and then took the envelope gingerly from her fingers. He dumped out the key and turned it over in his palm.

“It's old,” he said, tossing it up and catching it. “Heavy.”

“Look at what it says on the envelope,” Gaia instructed. “I think it stands for Alphabet City safe house.”

Oliver frowned at the scrawled letters. “A good assessment,” he said. He glanced at her and smiled wanly. “I'd say there's hope for you in the spy game yet.”

Gaia returned a wry smile. They both knew that she didn't want anything to do with the spy game, no matter how good she'd proved herself to be. It was outside forces that were always keeping her on the playing board.
She let out a long sigh.

“The problem is, my stellar assessment doesn't do us much good,” Gaia said, pushing her hands into her hair, then trailing them down her face. “It's not like I can go down there and try every single door in the neighborhood.”

“No,” Oliver said, clicking on a desk lamp and holding the key up to the light. “But that may not be necessary. With a key like this, there may be ways of narrowing down
the door it matches.” He slipped the key back into the envelope and placed it on the desk next to his mouse pad. “The Internet has been good for nothing all day, but this may prove to be an easier task,” he said, smiling at her again.

Gaia took a deep breath. It was still odd to be in the same room with this man. Whether he was Oliver or Loki, his hands were still the hands that had killed so many people—that had taken loved ones away from her. She knew that no one else could help her, but knowing that didn't stop her from wishing things were different. No matter how hard Oliver worked, no matter how hard he tried to prove himself to her, it was still very hard to trust him.
Almost impossible.

Look at him
, Gaia told herself as Oliver started to tap away at the keyboard.
He's exhausted and hungry and weak and he still won't stop. That has to count for something.

She walked over to the far wall, grabbed a dusty, rickety wooden chair, and joined Oliver at the computer. If he was going to be tireless, so was she.

Alphabet City

WALKING EAST ON HOUSTON STREET
, Jake pressed the note between two fingers in the pocket of his denim jacket. His palms were dry, his breath was normal, but
his heart was pounding just a little bit faster than usual. He wasn't nervous, just . . . intrigued. This was by no means the first time a girl had left a secret note in his locker, but he had a feeling that this wasn't just any run-of-the-mill “I have a crush on you” meeting. For one thing, Tatiana hadn't been in school for days. For another, he'd had to cut class to make this little rendezvous. And now he was headed to
Alphabet City
, a neighborhood about as far from the one Tatiana lived in—both literally and socially—as you could get and still be on the island.

Something was up. Jake could feel it.

He turned up Avenue B and spotted the tiny coffee shop, Café Mille Lucci, that Tatiana had described in her note. He approached the pink-tinted window and saw her sitting in a booth, her face partially obscured by the neon Hot Coffee sign that was suspended from the glass in front of him. Huh. She didn't look sick or anything. This was just getting
more and more bizarre.

Jake walked in and plopped down in the seat across from Tatiana's. Her face lit up when she saw him as if she hadn't spoken to another living soul in days.

“Jake! You came!” she said with a smile.

“Yeah,” he replied. He didn't remove his jacket, and when the waitress approached, he shook his head at her. He didn't want Tatiana to think that he was getting comfortable. “So what's with the cloak-and-dagger? Where have you been the last couple of days?
Megan and all her friends can't stop talking about how worried they are,” he added dryly.

It was true that Megan and her little friends hadn't stopped talking about Tatiana for the past two days, but he had a feeling they were less worried and more salivating for a scandal.

“I've just been . . . dealing with some family stuff,” Tatiana said, averting her gaze.

Jake got that. And he knew better than to ask questions. Family stuff either meant, “I don't want to talk about it,” or, “Ask me and I'll talk for days.” He didn't want to offend, and he also didn't want to spend the next hour listening to Tatiana purge. The cleanup of emotional spillage was not his area of expertise.

Although if
Gaia
had wanted to spill about her mother, I would have listened
, he realized, almost smiling. But Gaia was another story. Gaia was another
epic.

“So . . . why am I here?” Jake asked. He didn't want to be blunt, but it wasn't like he and Tatiana were good friends. Sure, he'd hung out with her in a group, but this was the longest mano-a-mano conversation they'd ever had.
Maybe she
did
have a crush on him.

“I was wondering if you'd do me a favor,” Tatiana said, her eyes unabashedly filled with hope.

“What's that?” Jake asked, lacing his fingers together on the table in a double fist.

“I need to see Gaia,” she said. “I was hoping you would help me set up a meeting with her.”

Okay, that was unexpected. Jake's face scrunched in confusion. “Don't you guys, like, live together?” he asked.

“Not anymore,” Tatiana replied. Jake couldn't put his finger on it, but something changed in her face when she said this. Like it put a bad taste in her mouth to even think about it.

“Well, can't you call her?” Jake asked.

“I can't do that,” Tatiana replied.

Jake sighed and rubbed his forehead. He was losing patience with this conversation. If all Tatiana wanted was a favor, why hadn't she just called one of her real friends? Like Megan or one of the girls? Of course, none of those chicks were friendly with Gaia, but neither was Jake . . . at least not until recently.

“What did she do, stain your favorite sweater or something?” Jake asked with a scoff. He'd been around for some major catfights in his time, but never one where the two parties asked someone to set up a meeting. He felt like he was
in the middle
of some kind of CIA movie. God. Girls could be so dramatic sometimes.

Tatiana's eyes flashed. “This is a little more serious than that,” she said. “It's life or death.”

Jake's stomach sent up a warning. She sounded fairly serious. “What do you mean, ‘life or death'?”

“I can't really explain,” Tatiana said, looking down at her lap. She pulled in a shaky breath, and when she looked up again, her eyes were filled with tears.

The hair on the back of Jake's neck stood on end.
Something was really wrong here. Tatiana put her hands on the table, and he saw that her fingers were trembling. Whatever was happening between Tatiana and Gaia, this girl was really scared. Jake felt the sudden urge to protect her—his urge to be the hero kicking in.

“But Gaia can help you?” Jake asked.

“She's the only one who can,” Tatiana answered, one tear spilling over.

“So what do you want me to do?” Jake asked.

“Just set up a meeting between the two of you and tell me where so that I can show up,” she said, leaning forward and looking him dead in the eye.

Jake froze. Suddenly his protective instincts were shattered and replaced by nothing but suspicion. Tatiana was still teary, but there was something else in her eyes. Something . . . fierce. What the hell was he getting himself into here?

“No way,” he said, sitting back in his vinyl seat, which let out a little hiss. He definitely didn't like the idea of setting Gaia up. Not when he had less than one clue as to what Tatiana was after. “I can't help you unless you tell me exactly what's going on.”

Tatiana's back straightened, and Jake was reminded of the way his old cat used to arch her back when threatened. She had the same sort of battle-ready look about her.

“I can't do that,” Tatiana said.

Jake stood up and hovered for a moment at the
end of the table. “Well, how 'bout you contact me when you can?” he said. He headed for the door but paused when he heard Tatiana's voice.

“If you change your mind, you can look for me in the evenings here,” she said.

Jake rolled his eyes and walked out of the tiny café without a backward glance.

Outside, Jake turned his footsteps toward school and realized his hair was still on end and the he had goose bumps down his arms. Suddenly he was very worried for Gaia. There was something about that Tatiana girl he didn't trust.
Something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Whatever was going on between those two girls, Jake didn't want to get in the middle of it.

When I was young, my mother used to read the classics to me at bedtime. I used to drift off listening to the melody of her comforting voice as she read the Russian translations of books like
The Wizard of Oz, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, and
The Story of Doctor Dolittle.
Then one night she tried to read to me from her favorite book,
The Secret Garden
, but after she read the first few chapters to me, I started to cry. I was inconsolable. My mother thought I was just overtired and put me to bed. She tried again the following night.

But when I saw the book the next night, I started to cry again. I wouldn't let her read it. I took it from her hands and threw it across the room. My mother didn't understand what was wrong with me. She held me until I stopped crying, then pushed my hair away from my face and smiled down at me.

“What is wrong, little one?”
she asked me. “Why the tears?”

I told her that I thought it was a horrible book and that I didn't want to hear any more. I asked her to read me anything but that. I would even sit through
Little Women
again, which I hated, if she would promise never to read
The Secret Garden
again.

My mother was confused. Why did I hate the book she loved so much?

“Her mother and father died and left her all alone in that house in India!” I told her, unable to believe that she didn't understand how horrible this was. “No one even cared about her or came looking for her. She was all alone!”

My mother laughed and hugged me and promised me that the story got happier after that. That it was full of hope and life. But I couldn't get the image out of my head. What if my mother died and left me all alone? There would be no one left to care about me. No one would ever find me.

So my mother put the book back on the shelf and started another. And she promised me that she would never leave me alone. Never. She would always be there to take care of me.

But now the tables have turned. Now it's me who needs to take care of her.

the sudden flip her heart executed when Jake tightened his grasp on her

In the Know

COMING OUT OF THE BATHROOM STALL
between sixth and seventh period, Gaia caught a glimpse of herself in the aging, scratched mirror that ran the length of the wall across the way. Dark circles had appeared under her eyes, her lips were chapped, and her skin was so pasty, she could have passed for a bottle of Elmer's. She sighed and put her bag down on the metal counter beneath the mirror. For once, though, her hair wasn't in knots.

Exhausted from the all-night Internet search, which had, at least, unearthed a few people in the lock-and-key trade who might be able to help her and Oliver, Gaia had spent the whole school day in a daze. This afternoon she was supposed to fight in that karate match, and she knew Jake was counting on her to help the team win. At this point she just hoped she didn't crawl onto the mat and pass out.