Lust (10 page)

“We're going to hit it just at dawn. I want you to study the maps I gave you on the train. The two of you are going to sneak into the camp at this location, here, where there's a blind spot that the guards can't see, caused by the rock formations. It's a serious weak spot. I assume they never thought anyone would attempt a rescue.”

“They didn't know who they were dealing with, did they?” Jake asked.

“Good,” Gaia said. “So we sneak in. Any idea where he's being held?”

“I'm going to guess in here, the innermost tower,” Oliver said. “You'll have to figure out a way to enter undetected. Gaia, cover your hair with this cap, and try to walk like a man.”

“According to the girls at school, I already do that,” she said.

“Well . . . good, then, I suppose. For now.” Oliver moved on. “Now, if you're discovered—and chances are you will be—I want you to use this.” He pulled out a nasty-looking pistol.

“You need to show me how to use this,” Gaia said, eyeing it doubtfully. “I'm not that into guns.”

“It's not really a gun. It shoots flares. Shoot it into the air when you want to signal that you're leaving the prison yard. Then Jake can find you at a designated meeting area.”

“Is it going to hurt anyone?”

“Not really.” Oliver shook his head. Gaia eyed him dubiously.

“Seriously,” she said. “Those prisoners have nothing to do with my dad. I don't want them hurt.”

“Gaia, I know what you're thinking. This isn't a Loki trick. Just aim the gun toward the sky and no one will get hurt. It's just to get you out of there safely. I promise.”

A promise made by an old enemy, now a new friend. It was the best offer Gaia had at the moment. She would have to take it.

“Fine,” she said. “Now show me which way to go.”

The path shone pale in the deepening twilight. “I'll set up camp here,” Oliver said. “We're far enough away that we can rest and let Tom recover if they've mistreated him in any way. Then we can start back.”

“Jake should stay,” Gaia pointed out. “He's injured. And he shouldn't be on the front lines.”

“They'll recognize me,” he pointed out. “I'm the exact twin of their most precious prisoner. I can't be seen in there.”

“All right.” Gaia gazed down the path, toward the lights and barracks that held her father. “I'm ready. Jake, you?”

“I'm good,” he said, replacing his goggles. “Oliver, you're sure you'll be okay up here?”

“By the time you get back, I'll practically have a hotel built,” he promised. “Get going.”

Gaia and Jake slid down the mountain as the darkness gathered. The night would only last a few hours, and they had to hit the prison just before daylight. There was no time to lose.

Dad!
Can you hear me? I'm out here.

Shouldn't he be able to tell I'm coming for him? In all those corny TV movies, fathers and daughters seem to know everything about each other with one wink. They sense all sorts of things, as if a telephone wire connects them at the heart.

Then again, in all those Shakespeare plays, the daughter dresses like a boy and her dad doesn't realize it's her. I don't know what kind of dumb dads were running around in the seventeenth century, but it's right there in the plays. So maybe he can't tell I'm coming. Maybe with my hair under this watch cap, he won't know it's me. I'll be like Viola or Rosalind, and in the end I'll get everything I want.

I think I can see the rock formation Oliver was talking about. Off to the side there—yeah. The maps were really good. I don't know how he did it. Must have
been satellite photos or something.

I can't believe it, but everything he comes up with keeps checking out. No matter how suspicious I am of him—and I'm not sure I'll ever be one hundred percent convinced of his sincerity—he keeps coming through. I couldn't have gotten this far without him. And now I'm within spitting distance of my dad. It's so odd. But no odder than the plot of a play where twins end up finding each other on the streets of Verona, thirty years after they lost each other at sea. I guess stranger things have happened.

Of course, that was fiction.

Riot

AS INSTRUCTED, GAIA AND JAKE
parked their snowmobiles. Under the cover of darkness they built a makeshift fort to camouflage the vehicles and keep them protected. It took a while, and Gaia could feel the darkness starting to wane, hinting at gray around the edges.

“Are you ready for this?” she asked Jake.

“Yeah. I'm going to go in there and set off a series of explosions. The guards are going to assume they came from some of the inmates trying to cause a distraction so they can escape.”

“You've got those fireworks?” Gaia asked.

“I've got everything, and it's all still dry. With any luck, the guards will be so disorganized, they'll split up in too many directions to notice us,” Jake said as he dug a stake into the ground to anchor the fort.

“Right. And the inmates—they'll either start fighting amongst themselves or take advantage of the confusion to try to escape themselves.” Gaia kicked her stake to make sure it was stable.

“And that's when we bust your dad out.”

Gaia grinned. “Yeah. That's when we bust my dad out.”

“You excited?”

“What do you think?” Gaia packed away her grin and gave a deep breath. “Okay. Let's do this thing.”

Jake nodded. Gaia could just make out the outline
of his head in the inky blackness. Together they used their Oliver-issued night-vision goggles to find their way through the snow to the rocky outcropping that would give them access to the prison. They entered easily. Just as Oliver had told them, there was a fissure in the wall that gave them access to the main yard. Gaia ran across the yard to the tower.

Her heart raced as she entered the building. She knew she was close. She could sense her father's presence. She entered the building and ran up the dank stairs. He was sure to be at the top; that was the most difficult place to escape from, because it could be seen from everywhere in the prison.

Rounding the last flight, she saw a cell at the end of a hallway. Inside it was a figure in a gray uniform, head bowed. It couldn't be so easy. But apparently it was. There, right before her eyes—

“Dad!”

The head came up. In an instant, Gaia saw the face that was so much like Oliver's, but now instantly recognizable as her father's. She had found him. After what seemed like a lifetime of wondering, thousands of miles crossed, and an immeasurable amount of worry, she'd found him. Her father, Tom Moore. Her heart bloomed in her chest till it almost choked her with emotion.

Except something was wrong.

“Dad?”

Yes, technically, Gaia was standing in front of her father, Tom Moore. But he didn't know it yet Gaia's heart broke when she saw what had been done to him. He'd been beaten, she could see that immediately. But there was something worse. He looked defeated, and he blinked at her as though he thought he might be hallucinating.

“I wish you were real,” he said in a low voice.

The words pressed into her heart like a red-hot cattle brand. He didn't even recognize that she was real? What was going on?

“I
am
real, Dad! It's me!”

Forcing herself to act instead of worry, she ran forward and yanked on the door. She jimmied a crowbar between the bars and snapped them open, reaching through to grab him and break through whatever dream state he was in.

“Dad,” she said.

His eyes peered out at her, red-rimmed and haggard. She shook his collar. He jerked back, as though he hadn't expected her to actually reach out and touch him. To Gaia, it felt like she'd been slapped. She threw her arms around him and squeezed.

“Come back,” she begged. “Come back. It's me. It's Gaia. I'm really here.” Her voice broke and she fought back tears. “Dad, don't do this.” She pulled back, smoothing her hands across his face. He studied her with a puzzled expression.

“Come on,” she moaned. “Hey!” She shook him a
little. Finally, his eyes widened. A spark entered them. Relief flooded Gaia's veins as their eyes connected for real.

“Gaia,” he said, his voice husky and harsh. He hugged her back, crushing her in a desperate embrace. She waited to hear him say something, ask how she got there, tell her he loved her.

“Behind you,”
he whispered. Without needing to think before she reacted, Gaia turned with her foot already in the air and caught a guard straight in the gut. The guy fell backward into his partner, who ran yelling down the stairs.

“Jake!”
she shouted, knowing he was just outside in the yard. In response, she heard a whoosh and a pop, then smelled acrid smoke. Immediately, shouts filled the courtyard.

The prison riot was on.

Wiping out at seventy-five miles per hour would turn them both into red smudges in the white snow.

Face-to-Face

TOM MOORE WATCHED IN AMAZEMENT
as he realized his hallucination was real. His daughter was here; she had appeared out of nowhere, as if his mind had created her out of the raw material around him. She beat both guards, the ones who had beaten him, and then she turned around to where he was standing, still, in the opened prison cell.

“Dad.
Dad.
Come on. We've got to go.”

“I'm groggy,” he explained. “Some sort of drug. Knocked me out.”

“Well, the air's cold enough to wake you up.” She took off her own coat and put it on him. He followed her out.

“How?” he asked. “I can't figure out how.”

“I'll explain later. Right now, we've just got to get out of here.”

They hurried down the stairs. Tom felt like an old man. He was trained to handle harsh conditions, but this prison had been the most brutal place he'd ever experienced. Even in the short time he'd been here, the cold had sunk into his muscles, robbing them of strength. He'd barely been fed at all. And his lungs felt weak. He was embarrassed to be seen like this.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped Gaia. “Be careful,” he said. “Those guards have a supervisor, a
doctor. He's a brutal man—and he has some sort of interest in keeping me here.”

“I'll watch for him. Right now, we need to head across the yard there. Do you see where we got in? There was a fault in the wall and we broke through.”

The yard looked like a scene from a war movie. Men dressed in the thick, burlaplike uniform of the prison had broken en masse from their barracks, panicked by the acrid smoke, and were running in all different directions. Tom could see that a group of them had ganged up on some of the guards, repaying them in kind for the cruelty they'd been shown. There were fistfights going on all around them, and bricks were flying through the air like concrete-colored missiles. It was hard to see through the smoke and chaos. But the noise helped jar him out of his grogginess and his mind started to focus.

“I see it,” answered Tom.

“I need to find Jake in all this mess. Wow.”

“We can't look for your friend now,” he said. “We need to get out of here ourselves. If you planned this properly, he'll know to meet us on the outside if we can't be found.”

“Hang on,” Gaia said, scanning the early dawn sky. Was she waiting for a helicopter? Tom didn't see how that would work. Where would it land? Suddenly there was a loud popping sound, and a flare shot up into the air. Gaia's eyes followed it to its source and she grinned.

“I can't believe that worked,” Gaia said, shoving Tom
in the direction of the exit. For the next few moments, he knew nothing but the need to run, as he avoided flying fists, bricks, and even bodies. A few others had found the broken wall and were piling out. They only had a few moments before the guards discovered it, too, and began shooting at anyone trying to escape.

Once outside the walls, they ran straight toward the woods, where they were joined by a young man Tom didn't know. “You did this?” he asked the boy. “You're Gaia's age. How did this happen? What's going on?”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Moore,” the young man said. “I'm Jake Montone.” He turned to Gaia. “We need to get the snowmobiles and get back to Oliver. I don't like how this thing is going down,” Jake said, as he departed for the makeshift fort.

“Oliver?” Tom gasped. He wheeled around, yanking his arm out of Gaia's grasp. “Please don't tell me you're working with my brother. Is that who brought you here?”

Gaia looked at her father, horrified that Jake had let the secret slip so soon. He would have had to find out sooner or later, but she'd thought she'd have the trip up the mountain to soften the blow. “Dad, this isn't the time. Let's just get up the—”

“What kind of a deal did you make? Do you have any idea how much danger we are in right now?”

“Yeah, Dad. There's a riot going on and—you hear that? Those are gunshots. We need to get on the snowmobiles now.”

“I'm safer inside that compound than out here with Loki. He's using you, can't you see that? He must have lost control of my abduction, and he used to you get me back—now he's going to kill all of us.”

“It's not like that,” Gaia shouted over the increasing noise of the riot. “He was in a coma. He had some kind of brain conversion while he was under. Sometimes when people suffer loss of oxygen to the brain they emerge from their comas a gentler version of their former selves. In this case, Loki just went back to his Oliver personality. He helped us put this trip together—he put it together for us. Dad, I know it's hard to believe, but he's really sorry.”

“Sorry?” Tom asked, with an incredulous stare at his daughter. She almost withered under its heat. He didn't raise his voice, but his body language was unmistakable. He was furious.