If Looks Could Kill (15 page)

“You disgusting piece of—” Caylin began.

“Oh, spare me, Caylin,” Lucien snapped, grabbing a fresh clip for his gun. “People expect way too much from leaders. They need to think for themselves.” He chuckled humorlessly. “No one was ever around to help
me
.”

“It shows,” Caylin replied stiffly.

Lucien smiled and hefted the clip. “Good-bye, beautiful Caylin.”

Just as Lucien was about to shove the fresh clip into the gun, the doorway behind the Spy Girls exploded with slaves.

They poured through the opening, aiming all their pent-up rage at the man in the boat. The man responsible for their slavery. For the torture and the inhuman living conditions. For
everything.

Lucien couldn't get the gun loaded fast enough. And even if he did, he never would have had enough bullets. They stormed the boat and beat him down, tearing the gun away and tossing it into the water. They ripped at his clothes and hair. Blood poured from his nose, and finally Luscious Lucien West screamed in true fear. He went into a fetal position and waited for the bitter end.

“We can't let them do it,” Jo whispered. “As much as he deserves it. As much as
they
deserve it. We can't let it happen.”

Caylin glanced at Theresa, who nodded. Unfortunately Jo was right.

The Spy Girls ran forward and began pulling the slaves from Lucien. They held them back and explained that he must go to jail. It was only right. They explained that if they killed Lucien, then they would be no better than Lucien. The Kinh-Sanh government couldn't and wouldn't protect him. The government was in as much trouble for conspiring with him.

“But what do we have if we let him live?” asked one freed slave in broken English.

“Your freedom,” Theresa explained.

“That's lame,” Caylin said. She reached under the tarp and pulled out one of Lucien's infamous cash cubes. All U.S. hundred-dollar bills. “How about your freedom . . . and a big hunk of money!”

The people cheered, and Caylin started handing out thick wads of bills. The people grabbed the money, pouncing and fondling it like a belated Christmas gift. Ben Franklins fluttered everywhere, and the joyous workers scrambled for the dropped cash as if they were on a game show.

“Well, I feel a lot better,” Jo said. She nudged Lucien with her elbow. “How about you?”

“Leave me alone,” Lucien mumbled, trying to hold back the blood from his nose.

“Hey, Jo,” Caylin said. “You say this is one of the fastest boats on the water?”

“You know it,” Jo said.

Caylin smiled. “Well, then fire the puppy up!”

“No!” Theresa piped up. “No way! She is not driving this thing. I almost got squashed by a truck because of her driving.
I'll
drive.”

“You?”
Jo asked. “You couldn't find the ignition switch in this rig. And it was your fat rear end that kept me from being able to swing around that truck!”

“Yo, Spy Girls, chill your engines,” Caylin said. “Let's just get out of this cave. I'm getting claustrophobic.”

Jo fired up the twin engines and slowly guided the Furious Shepherd into the harbor. The sun was just rising over the eastern horizon, bathing them in a warm orange light.

That's when Jo floored it.

•  •  •

“That's far enough,” Caylin said.

Jo cut the engines. The bow of the monster boat slowly
returned to the surface of the water. They had run out to the middle of the harbor, about a mile from shore.

Jo shut down the engines completely. All they heard was the lapping of the waves and the cries of seabirds.

After a few minutes Lucien looked up at them. “Are you going to kill me?”

Jo laughed.

“Nope,” Caylin said. “Not to say that you don't deserve it.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” he asked, mopping blood from his upper lip.

Suddenly a huge disturbance in the water made the boat rock.

“
That's
what we're waiting for,” Theresa said.

She grabbed the nearest railing. “Better hold on tight, Luscious.”

The sea churned all around them, bubbling and roaring as if Godzilla himself was coming up.

But it wasn't Godzilla. In seconds they saw a huge black shape rise up not far off their starboard side. Then something slammed the boat from underneath. Something
huge.

It lifted the boat clear out of the water. The craft pitched to one side and came to rest on the deck of a long, black sea monster. A steel sea monster known as the U.S.S.
Manhattan,
a nuclear submarine.

Soon the waves settled as the sub surfaced completely. All was calm around them. Then they heard a familiar voice come over the sub's loudspeaker.

“Welcome aboard, Spy Girls,” Uncle Sam declared. “Mission accomplished!”

I can't believe you're actually wearing that,” Theresa scolded Jo as she paraded shamelessly around the Kinh-Sanh flat. It was their last day in the country, after a long and boring debriefing.

“Why not?” Jo asked, modeling one of the obnoxious designer knockoffs she'd bought at the street market. “It's fabu.”

“I knew it!” Theresa exclaimed. “You are such a liar. You said it was a clue, and that was it. You said you wouldn't be caught wearing it at your own funeral, remember?”

“Shut up, T.,” Jo warned, holding up a finger.

“In fact,” Theresa continued, marching forward, “you said you wouldn't be caught dead wearing it—”

“Theresa, shut up!” Jo said.

“At Mike Schaeffer's funeral!”
Theresa finished, getting in Jo's face.

“Who's Mike Schaeffer?” Caylin asked, guzzling a soda.

“An old flame, apparently,” Theresa teased. “I couldn't get it out of her.”

“Jo, how interesting,” Caylin said, playing with her straw. “Tell me more.”

“Since when do you care about my love life?” Jo grumbled.

Caylin shrugged and smiled. “Since it makes you so uncomfortable.”

The Spy Girls were understandably punchy. The week following Lucien's capture had been one long meeting after another. The scam they had uncovered reached all the way to the prime minister of Kinh-Sanh himself. Upon the country's learning of the scandal, he was immediately arrested. The capital city exploded in celebration at the news. It was like one long Mardi Gras that the Spy Girls couldn't enjoy because they were telling so many bureaucrats exactly what had happened. Ugh, how utterly boring.

“Do you know that I've shampooed twice a day for a week, and I still smell cigar smoke in my hair?” Jo grumbled, holding a few strands in front of her face for inspection. “It's amazing. I told you it would happen. I'm going to have to carry this around with me like luggage. No guy will ever want to come near me.”

“Enough about the cigar smoke!” Caylin bellowed, holding up her hands. “I've had it up to here with the cigar smoke!”

Jo grabbed up her own soda and sipped it. “If you have something better to talk about, Cay, let's hear it.”

“How about Mike Schaeffer?” Theresa asked, arching an eyebrow.

“
Except
Mike Schaeffer,” Jo warned.

“How about our next mission?” Caylin suggested, kicking aside one of the throw pillows. “All the stupid meetings are over. World peace reigns once again. What's our next move?”

“Sammy hasn't said anything,” Theresa replied. “Maybe we're just heading back home for now.”

“Good. I could use the sleep,” Jo muttered, massaging her temples.

“Not so fast, Spy Girls,” came Sammy's familiar voice.

Caylin jumped up from the sea of pillows. “I
hate
when you do that, Uncle Sam,” she bristled, shaking her fist at the ceiling. “How long have you been listening to us?”

“Long enough to know I don't want to know a thing about Mike Schaeffer.”

“You're the only one,” Jo commented.

“So what's the deal, Sammy?” Theresa asked, glancing around the room. “Where are we off to this time?”

Sammy chuckled. “Well, Spy Girls, you handled yourselves so well on this mission, we've come up with something even more interesting.”

“Is world peace in danger?” Theresa asked hopefully.

“Definitely,” Sam answered.

“Is it in an exotic foreign land?” Caylin asked.

“Absolutely.”

Jo mugged at her partners mischievously. “Will there be cute guys to stare at?”

Theresa and Caylin moaned and threw pillows at her.

“Can't you keep your mind out of the gutter for ten seconds?” Caylin asked.

“Oh, like you weren't thinking it,” Jo replied, shoving pillows away. “I mean, really. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who tells it like it is around here.”

“Excuse me, girls,” Sam interrupted. “Should I come back later?”

“Of course not,” Theresa replied. “If Jo would shut up long enough for you to talk.”

Jo tossed a pillow back at Theresa but didn't reply.

“Very well,” Sam continued. “You would like to know the location of your next mission?”

“Yes,” they said simultaneously.

Uncle Sam chuckled. “Okay, Spy Girls. Your wish is my command. Hang on to your socks because you're off to . . .”

GAIA MOORE IS BRILLIANT AND BEAUTIFUL. SHE'S TRAINED IN THREE KINDS OF MARTIAL ARTS, HAS A REFLEX SPEED THAT'S OFF THE CHARTS, AND CAN BREAK CODES IN FOUR DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.

SHE'S ALSO MISSING THE FEAR GENE.

TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT
FEARLESS
BY FRANCINE PASCAL.

Losers with no imagination say that if you start a new school, there has to be a first day. How come they haven't figured out how to beat that? Just think existentially. All you do is take what's supposed to be the first day and bury it someplace in the next month. By the time you get around to it a month later, who cares?

When I first heard the word
existential
, I didn't know what it meant, so I never used it. But then I found out that no one knows what it means, so now I use it all the time.

Since I just moved to New York last week, tomorrow would have been my first day at the new school, but I existentialized
it, and now I've got a good thirty days before I have to deal with it. So, like, it'll be just a regular day, and I'll just grab my usual school stuff, jeans and a T-shirt, and throw them on. Then just like I always do, I'll take them off and throw on about eighteen different T-shirts and four different pairs of jeans before I find the right ones that hide my diesel arms and thunder thighs. Not good things on a girl, but no one else seems to see them like I do.

I won't bother to clean up when I'm done. I don't want to trick my new cohabitants, George and Ella, into thinking that I'm neat or considerate or anything. Why set them up for disappointment? I made that mistake with my old cohabitants and . . . well, I'm not living with them anymore, am I?

George Niven was my dad's mentor in the CIA. He's old. Like fifty or something. His wife, Ella is much younger. Maybe thirty. I don't know. And you certainly can't tell from the way she dresses. Middle of winter she finds a way to show her belly button. And she's got four hundred of these little elastic bands that can only pass for a skirt if you never move your legs. Top that with this unbelievable iridescent red hair and you've got one hot seventeen-year-old. At least that's what
she thinks. We all live cozy together in Greenwich Village in a brownstone—that's what they call row houses in New York City. Don't ask me why, because it isn't brown, but we'll let that go for now.

I'm not sure how this transfer of me and my pathetic possessions was arranged. Not by my dad, He is Out of the Picture. No letters. No birthday cards. He didn't even contact me in the hospital last year when I almost fractured my skull. (And no, I didn't almost fracture my skull to test my dad, as a certain asshole suggested.) I haven't seen him since I was twelve, since . . . since—I guess it's time to back up a little. My name is Gaia. Guy. Uh. Yes, it's a weird name. No, I don't feel like explaining it right now.

I am seventeen. The good thing about seventeen is that you're not sixteen. Sixteen goes with the word sweet, and I am so far from sweet. I've got a black belt in kung fu and I've trained in karate, judo, jujitsu, and
muay thai
—which is basically kick boxing. I've got a reflex speed that's off the charts. I'm a near perfect shot. I can climb mountains, box, wrestle, break codes in four languages. I can throw a 175-pound man over my shoulders, which accounts for my disgusting shoulders. I
can kick just about anybody's ass. I'm not bragging. I wish I were. I wish my dad hadn't made me into the . . . thing I am.

I have blond hair. Not yellow, fairy-tale blond. But blond enough to stick me in the category. You know, so guys expect you to expect them to hit on you. So teachers set your default grade at B-minus. C-plus if you happen to have big breasts, which I don't particularly. My friend from before, Ivy, had this equation between grades and cup size, but I'll spare you that.