Gone (17 page)

“Well, why are we all standing here?” Tracee finally asked. “I mean, we should go say hello.”

“Yeah,” Megan agreed, still not moving. “We definitely should.” She turned back to Melanie. “Do we have to wait in the line?”

“I don't know,” Melanie said, pondering the question.

Slowly but surely the girls began to split off from each other one by one. And they got in line. Megan was the last to follow. She watched as the girls got lost in the huge crowd of Heather's delighted royal subjects.

Megan still felt like a princess. She did. She reminded herself that she
was
one. Or at least… she looked like one. They were all princesses—every one of them. But Heather…

Heather was most definitely the queen.

THERE WASN'T ONE STAR IN THE desolate New York sky. It was like stepping out into a gaping black hole. Like the entire building was floating in darkness. It somehow made the roof even more claustrophobic than Skyler's apartment. What could he possibly do to her up here? Up in this empty void? Gaia couldn't think of a thing. And that was shaking her confidence for the first time “Come on,” he said. “Over here.”

He walked ahead of her to the edge of the roof and placed the wine and food down on the waist-high ledge. Gaia found herself staying put at the center of the roof, by the brick partition under the water tank. It wasn't that she was scared to walk farther. It was just that she was wary. She needed to watch her back now, and the edge of the roof felt way too exposed from all sides. She couldn't help but wonder if there were sniperS out there in the black fog—somewhere in the shadows of one of the adjacent roofs or aiming from one of the hundreds of darkened windows that surrounded them.

“Gaia” Skyler laughed. “
Over here.
Come on.” He refilled her glass with wine and held it out for her. She could hardly make out his face. He was just a gray figure in the shadow, barely lit in silhouette by the city lights below.

“Right. I'm just… a little afraid of heights,” she lied.

“Well, don't worry,” he said. “I won't let you fall.”

She had no choice. She had to keep bluffing until they showed their cards. No attempted murder meant no arrest. And that meant that the Rodkes would continue to roam free. Free to keep finding new and inventive ways to exploit her and destroy her. She'd already been through the cycle enough times with Loki to know: Her enemies never gave up unless they were dead or behind bars. As long as they were free, she never would be. And that was no longer acceptable. This time she had to wipe the slate clean.

She bit the bullet and gave up her position, walking out to him to accept her wine. She took a quick sip and then placed her glass back down on the ledge. She wanted to be sure to have both hands free at all times. Skyler put his glass down, too, and then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and breathed in the air.

“Isn't it beautiful up here?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” Gaia replied. She looked out across the sea of black tar roofs and water tanks and chimneys. In a way, she supposed it was sort of beautiful. Beautiful in its supreme stillness and desolation. An entire cityscape done in charcoal—everything in various shades of black and gray.

But any beauty she'd found in this ugly moment was immediately ripped away. Skyler suddenly dropped his hand from her shoulder and clamped down on her
arms with brute force. He was so much faster than she'd expected. He'd literally caught her off balance, sending her stumbling back toward the edge of the roof. She quickly clamped her hands on the ledge and glued her feet to the ground as Skyler forced his body against hers, digging the stone ledge harder and harder into the base of her spine. She couldn't even tell what he was trying to do. Was he trying to throw her off the roof, or was he trying to kiss her? She wasn't even sure which fate would be worse.

But it was neither.

The first hint of a noise sent Gaia's eyes darting over Skyler's shoulder, zeroing in on the brick partition at the center of the roof. There was something behind that wall, and it was moving. They weren't alone.

“They won't hurt you,” Skyler whispered. “It'll be quick and painless.”

Suddenly they were pouring out of the darkness like a pack of white ghosts. All these men—huge, ugly men in white hospital scrubs—storming out from behind the brick partition, careening toward her. They were each holding something. What were they holding? Guns? Knives? It was so dark. They halted just behind Skyler and waited with anticipation. It was like they were waiting for him to give the order. Gaia could finally see their hands. She could see what they were holding. Not guns or knives…

Syringes. Needles the size of daggers in every
hand—their thumbs pressed to the plungers and ready. Lethal injection? Was that the plan?

“They just need to give you a little shot,” Skyler said. “It won't hurt a bit. So, don't be scared, okay?”

Scared? Any other girl in the world would have known instantly that she was doomed. There were so many of them. At least ten massive sons of bitches ready to shoot her up with poison. Any other girl would have just leaned back and let herself plummet from that roof rather than face the slow death of a lethal injection and the dissection of her corpse that would follow. But Gaia wasn't any other girl. And she was thinking something very different….

Finally,
she celebrated. It's
about freaking time.

The Rodkes had finally shown their cards. And Gaia wasn't remotely impressed with their hand. The fact that they hadn't even come with real weapons of any kind was insulting enough, but worse than that, these big, strapping meatheads looked like orderlies.
Scared?
She turned back to Skyler and looked him dead in the eyes.

“See, the thing is…” She leaned her mouth to his ear as if she were telling him a secret. Which she was. A secret that she had been patiently waiting for the right time to reveal. “I'm not scared,” she whispered. “I'm not scared at all.”

God,
how long had she been waiting for this moment? She grabbed Skyler's wrist, jabbed her elbow
deep into his ribs, and then hurled him over her back, watching his body sail to the ground and skid across the tar and gravel. The orderlies didn't skip a beat. The second they saw their boss get thrown to the ground, they stormed in for the attack.

Gaia whirled around to face them, and her mind instantly snapped into combat mode. It was the most crystal-clear state of consciousness, a glorious mix of electric energy and pure relaxation. Only now did she realize how very much she had missed this feeling while it was away. This feeling was who she was. This feeling defined her.

But enough about feelings. A syringe was sailing for her arm. She twirled in the air with a high-flying roundhouse kick that knocked the syringe right out of her assailant's hand. She followed instantly with a scissor kick to his fat face that snapped his neck back and knocked him unconscious. The moment she landed, she dropped to her knees, ducking another swing, and then she shot out her leg with a whip-fast sweeping kick that knocked two more of them on their asses.

She popped back to her feet, her knees bent and ready for more. She
wanted
more. She needed it.

Two of them converged on her from either side. She ducked down again and let their heads collide with the most hideous cracking noise. They were down for the count.

The more she saw of those white scrubs, the more
she began to flash back to her days in that hellhole hi Florida. She grew more vengeful with every blow. The next one went for her leg, but she zeroed in on his windpipe and snapped a high kick to his neck that sent him crashing to the ground, gurgling as he gasped for air. He would pass out in a few more seconds.

Six down, four to go. God, she wished there were more of them.

Three more barreled toward her clumsily. She pinpointed the left one's wrist as he swung toward her, and she grabbed it on the way down, rocking him completely off balance and dislocating his arm in the process. He howled with pain as she used all of his clumsy momentum to hurl him over her shoulder and send him flying into the other two like a three-hundred-pound cannonball.

That left only one, and she wanted to make it count. He growled as he ran toward her, as if his war cry would somehow increase his power. He aimed his syringe for the center of her chest. Gaia let out a deep guttural shout of her own, straight from her center, just as her father had taught her. She ran for the edge of the roof, using the ledge as a springboard that shot her back toward him with twice the speed and twice the power. She sailed through the air and let out a deep, cathartic grunt as her foot connected with his face. The blow sent his entire body sailing backward. His head was the first thing to hit the
ground. It smacked the gravel with a deadly thud.

And then there were none.

Gaia landed squarely on her feet and took in a deep breath. Then she turned around, looking past all the white-clad bodies on the ground, and she fixed her eyes on Skyler Rodke. He was sitting comfortably with his back against the ledge and his arms draped over his knees, as if he'd just been hanging out and watching a really good kung fu movie.

“Wow.” He shook his head with amazement. “That was just… Godd
amn,
that was impressive.”

“Was that
it?
” Gaia scoffed, staring at him in the dark. “Was that the whole plan, right there?” She wanted to stare him down. She wanted to stare him down until he begged for mercy just from looking into her vengeful eyes. She wanted to walk straight up to him and kick him square in the face. The only problem was… she was having more and more trouble seeing him. Because she was beginning to brown out. Her limbs suddenly felt like tissue paper blowing in the wind.

Jesus. It had been so long. It had been so long since a fight like this. She'd been so anxious to do battle, she'd completely neglected to consider the aftermath.
The postbattle blackout.
She hadn't used her fuel like this in so long, and now that she was done fighting, her tank was flat-out empty. Not an ounce of gas left. She had to drop down to one knee just to balance herself. Her head suddenly felt like a hollow
rock-empty, but heavy as hell. Sounds began to pop in and out. But she could hear Skyler's footsteps approaching.

Get up. Get up off the ground.

She could have howled at herself for hours; it wouldn't have made a difference. No amount of selfimposed orders could change a thing. She was suddenly so weak, she could barely even hear her own thoughts.

Skyler knelt down next to her and raised her chin up with his finger to see her face. “Actually, Gaia,” he said. “This right here…
this
was the plan.” He smiled.

“What are you talking about?” she breathed. Even her own voice sounded far away—flying off into the dead air.

“I
know
you're not scared,” he said. “I was counting on it.”

She focused every ounce of her remaining energy into making a fist. If she could just make a fist for one last knockout blow to his repugnant face…

But her hand just sat there on the ground like a stone, barely propping her up on her knee. Her body would no longer listen.

“When… ?” she uttered. Forming words was becoming a herculean task. She was fading fast. Everything was fading. “When did you know…?”

Skyler smiled. “Oh, there were a couple of weird moments in the past few days, but I couldn't quite be
sure. That thing with the TV—that was a pretty big one. I mean, who just sits perfectly still when machine guns are suddenly going off in their house? Anyway, we had to be sure, so here was your test Congratulations. You passed.” He gave her a hard pat on the back and she fell like a leaf, collapsing flat on the ground. She stared at the sky, unable to move. It was all getting so dark, so far away. His voice was only an echo now.

“You look kind of tired,” she heard him say, his voice dripping with irony. “We figured your treatment would wear off. We just couldn't be sure when it would happen. But it obviously did. So we were really counting on you
not
being afraid tonight. We wanted you to really fight your ass off. ‘Cause we know what happens to you after a fight. Now you're so much more manageable.”

They'd set a trap, and she'd fallen right into it. She couldn't predict their next move, and now she'd lost the game.

“It was a beautiful fight, Gaia,” he added. “It really was. You should be proud. It's a great way to go out. Fighting. Like a hero.”

Keep your eyes open. The only thing on earth you need to do right now is keep them open. If you dose your eyes…

Skyler's face leaned into view above her, hovering under the dark black void. He was growing dimmer and dimmer, melding into the sky.

“I'll tell you a little secret,” he whispered. “Just
between you and me… I'm going to miss you.” He planted his hands on either side of her head, lowered his face down over hers, and gave her a long slow kiss, dipping his tongue between her lips.

And there was nothing she could do to stop him. She would have paid any price on earth to break his neck at that exact moment, but there was nothing she could do now. She couldn't even stay awake for her own ending.

“Good night, Gaia,” he said.

Stay awake. You need to stay awake.
She wouldn't close her eyes. She focused every ounce of her will on her eyes—to keep them open, to prolong her consciousness, to prolong her life for a few more seconds. It couldn't end like this. She
refused
to close her eyes.

But Skyler pressed his palm down on her eyelids. And he closed them for her.

Gaia's spine dropped to subzero temperatures. The name hovered in the air like poison gas. If she breathed it in, she would surely die.