Terror (14 page)

Gaia's face lit up a little. “Nothing worse than the ‘omas.'”

Ed lifted his arm to reveal his bandaged hand. “Oh, and I broke my pinky.”

“Awww,” Gaia said. But Ed could see that she was smiling, biting her lip to keep it from overtaking her face.

“It's okay, you can laugh,” Ed said. “A broken pinky's funny, I have to admit.”

Ed looked at her. Gaia wasn't laughing. She was digging through her bag. “Well, I guess with an injury like that…” She pulled out a Pez dispenser and a bag full of candy refills. “You'll need some assistance with this.”

“Oh, you shouldn't have,” Ed said.

“I know,” Gaia said. She took a few steps toward him. For a split second Ed sensed that she was going to hug him. She started to hand him the gift, hesitated for an awkward moment, then placed it on the night stand. Whatever social ice had melted in the last half minute or so, Ed sensed that it had just instantly refrozen. Gaia backed away from the bed. She seemed so awkward and uncomfortable. Totally out of her element. What was her deal? Ed racked his brain for clues that
would explain Gaia's behavior. The last time they'd talked, she had been very serious and had asked him some vague question about whether or not she should make a permanent life adjustment. He'd encouraged her blindly. Hmmm. He didn't have time to think it through, though, because if he didn't throw out some nugget of conversation quick, the ball of nerves that Gaia had become would clearly bounce right out of here.

Ed craned his neck to look at the Pez dispenser. “Aquaman, huh? You know, I never understood what his powers were. He just sent out those rings into the water.”

“The rings controlled all the aquatic animals,” Gaia deadpanned.

“It was a joke, Gaia. I was just kidding.”

“Oh. Right.”

Ed stared at her a second, trying to think of some other detail that might explain what was going on. A light went on in his brain—dim, but a light no less. The last time Heather had called, she'd asked him to relay an urgent message to Gaia.

“Gaia, I know we already talked about this, and you didn't seem too concerned, but I wanted to bring it up once more just in case.”

“What's that?”

“Remember the two fake CIA guys I told you about who visited Heather?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I was just wondering… did anything ever come of that?”

“Uh…” Gaia shrugged. “No.”

Terse answers. Withheld information.
This suggested that he was on to something. “Are you worried about them at all? Have you had any strange interactions recently?”

Gaia pursed her lips and wiggled her head. “Not really. Not that I know of.”

Ed decided to push it a tad further. “I mean, is it possible that there's some sort of link between us getting attacked and Heather's visit from those shady CIA guys?”

Gaia shot him a contemptuous look. “I don't see how. Did I imply that in any way?”

“You didn't imply
anything,”
Ed said. “Per usual.”

“So anyway,” Gaia said, “how did it happen?”

Vague question. Change of topic.
He was definitely getting somewhere here. “Excuse me?” Ed asked.

“I mean, when you and Kai were attacked… how did it happen?”

“Oh,” Ed said. “Well, to be honest, that's still a little fuzzy. We were kind of just walking along, laughing about something, when—pow!—we were just flat-out ambushed. It was one of the more chaotic fights I've ever been in. These guys were just so jazzed up on something. People at school have been telling Kai that it's some new wonder dr—”

“How many of them were there?” Gaia asked.

“Two, I think,” Ed said. “Those guys were so amped up. Their pupils were the size of quarters. I've never seen anything like it.”

Gaia was looking at the ground, but Ed could see that what he had said had meant something to her. But whatever it was, she obviously didn't intend to let him in on it.

“They steal anything?” she asked.

“No, didn't even try. Actually, that freaked me out even more. I figured they must have been planning to rape Kai, which is why I took them on and probably why the fight escalated. It almost seemed like they were fighting just for the rush of kicking some random guy's ass.”

“Right,” Gaia said. “Interesting.”

Ed looked at her. The eerie thing was, Gaia was almost acting like a normal, insecure teenage everygirl. Was it possible that her relationship with Jake had triggered this? He was a hard-core guy's guy, so maybe his masculinity had brought out a feminine side she'd never before tapped into. Ed shook off this potential bout of jealousy before it blossomed into something problematic. He focused instead on Gaia, who seemed to be locked into an extremely worrisome train of thought.

“Are you okay?” Ed said. “You look a little bugged out.”

“I'm fine. And I'm glad to see you're doing better.”

“Gaia,” Ed said. “Are you sure you're o—?”

“it was really great seeing you,” Gaia interrupted. “Hope you get out of here soon. Enjoy your Pez dispenser.”

“Thanks.” Ed nodded. He knew the sudden exit meant he had dug too deep. Gaia's attempts to hide were always more transparent than she presumed.

“Okay… well…” Gaia gave a little wave, hesitated, and then approached Ed. She stopped in her tracks and tapped his hospital bed with her hand. “Bye. Get well.”

“Bye, Gaia,” Ed said. “See you when I see you.”

He hoped this oblique good-bye would elicit some reaction, a flirty look or something, but Gaia was, as he should have guessed, gone.

Was she destined to turn into a complete and utter wussy girl, one who ran from every fight and avoided New York parks late at night?

GAIA

On
the way home from the hospital (in between freaked-out paranoid glances behind me, checking for Loki or a gang of IV-heads or some random attacker), I came to the conclusion that I had to get a grip on this fear thing. So the second I stepped into my room and double-bolted the door, I went online and started researching fear. A lot of the Web sites were useless for my particular problem, like fearofphysics.com and the Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR) home page, but then I found some pretty useful quotes and ideas….

Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.
—Bodhi

I came across the above quote from some Buddhist guy, and it got me thinking. First of all, it made me realize that fear creates self-fulfilling prophecies. As in, if you're afraid that your boyfriend will cheat on you, then there is a decent chance that the
thought will become reality and he
will
cheat on you. Or if you're constantly worried that people are following you, then when you look behind you, evidence can be found that people are indeed following you. Or on a more global scale, if you are, say, afraid that you will never be able to have a normal, committed, happy relationship, you may just find yourself sabotaging a relationship before it has time to come to fruition. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now, whether the initial catalyst for the fear is internal (your own thoughts) or external (something your uncle or a not-so-close friend told you) is immaterial. What matters is once the thought is there, it has a life and energy of its own. It has the potential to affect reality, be it in a conscious or a subconscious way.

More specifically, in terms of the hesitation element of fear, I thought about how my hesitation
to fight-while it seemed to save me momentarily-ultimately resulted in Ed's injuries. I then thought of that moment, right after Jake and I had been attacked. Instead of fighting back, my instincts were to just kind of roll into a ball and play possum in hopes that the stinky punk would magically leave me alone. While it's kind of an amusing thought now, if that guy had pulled a knife, it wouldn't have been so amusing, because I would be either badly injured or dead. Which brings me to this next quote.

We must get rid of Fear.—Thomas Carlyle

See, my primary motivation for wanting to feel fear was to get all the predators off my back. But now that I am no longer fearless, it remains to be seen whether or not this tactic has worked. I think, ultimately, that it will. But with new solutions come new problems. And my present problem is to learn how to do
what most other people (I think) spend much of their lives doing: getting rid of their fears.

It's a simple-minded thought, I know. But I need to find a way to use the good parts of feeling fear to my advantage—to help fully experience my relationships, to feel sympathy for others, and to be a normal, warmhearted human. But I also have to teach myself how to flip the fear switch off somewhat, to rechannel the ol' fearlessness again. Because I think I've discovered that fear is a choice you make—not an entirely conscious one, sure, but a choice nonetheless. It's a conditioned response—part chemistry, part thought process—that, like other responses, can be controlled.

I was looking into how psychologists cure phobias using a process called desensitization, and I think this would be a good way for me to start controlling my fears. It basically entails exposing yourself to whatever you're afraid of until that thing
no longer makes you afraid. Considering that I'm new to this fear thing, I plan to start small and move my way up.

A peculiar kind of fear they call courage.
—Charles Rann Kennedy

That's an exciting thought. My whole life, whenever someone called me brave for, say, fighting some guy twice my size, I always felt a little guilty. Whether I was sticking up to Loki or staying calm while being attacked by an armed gang, I knew bravery had nothing to do with it. See, bravery entails that you have normal human fears that you are able to transcend. Which, of course, I never did. But now, for the first time, if I can find some way to control this response… if I can feel the fear and actually get scared but still be able to act in the “brave” manner that has always been my nature, then I could conquer my lifelong problem. I could have the best of all worlds, by ridding myself of the predators
after me because of my fearlessness, get all the emotional benefits of being able to feel fear, yet have the ability to cast fears aside when I need to.

Fearful fearlessness. It sounds absurd, but that's what it's got to be.

AT THE SOUND OF THE DOORBELL, Gaia's body jerked so hard that her pen made a long, spastic scribble down the middle of her diary page.
This desensitization project might take a little patience,
she thought as she stood up from her desk. In the five-foot walk from the desk to the door, Gaia employed all of her mental discipline to not fret about whoever was on the other side of that door.
It's probably just the UPS man again. It's probably Zan on Ecstasy, wanting to chat. Definitely not a “CIA” agent. Maybe someone's got the wrong room….

Even though she badly wanted to be able to open the door without checking the peephole, Gaia simply couldn't help herself. Baby Steps. She leaned in and, squinting into the peephole, saw a surreal walleyed profile of a smiling Asian woman.
Suko,
she thought, letting out an exhale of relief.
It's just Suko.
Gaia undid the double bolts and opened the door.

“Oh, hey, Suko,” Gaia said, feigning surprise. “It's you.”

“Gaia,” Suko said flatly, bowing slightly. She was wearing black silk drawstring pants, slippers, and a burgundy camisole. “The exterminator will be coming early Friday morning.”

“No problem,” Gaia said. “Thanks a lot.”

“Tell me, how are you doing?”

The way Suko said it, it wasn't like, “Hey, wassup?” It was more like a command.

“I'm okay,” Gaia said.

Suko didn't say anything, but it was clear she wasn't buying whatever Gaia was trying to sell.

“It's been a long day, that's all,” Gaia added.

“We must talk,” Suko said. Her tone was insistent.

Gaia felt like she didn't have a choice in the matter. “Sure,” she said. “Come in.”

“Thank you.”

Suko walked inside and Gaia shut the door behind her. As she entered, Suko took a quick glance around the room but said nothing. It made Gaia self-conscious about how un—guest ready the place was. For reasons she couldn't explain, she wanted to please Suko, to say and do the right thing.

“Sit anywhere you like,” Gaia said. “There's the bed or… the bed.”

“I hope you aren't finding your accommodations here too confining,” Suko said. “I know how permissive parents are with their children these days. Personally, I think structure and discipline are key to raising children in a proper manner.”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Gaia said. “I didn't mean to complain. I just felt bad, you know, to not be able to offer—”

“That's fine,” Suko said, raising her hand almost as if to shut Gaia up. Suko was nothing if not all business.

“Your father told me to keep an eye on you, and I
can't help noticing things. Gaia, I'm seeing a destructive pattern of behavior.”

Okaaay…Ã Gaia felt a pang of annoyance. This sounded like a standard prelecture intro. Was this strange woman claiming she cared for Gaia or just wanting to reprimand her?

“You came home after curfew last night,” Suko started.

Last night,
Gaia thought.
The night of the attack. Wow. She's good.

“And then one of the other boarders expressed concern about you,” Suko said. “Now, I won't name names, and I know no one likes to be talked about, but these people seemed genuinely concerned that you were acting out of sorts, isolated, perhaps even in danger.”

Gaia furrowed her brow. There were only two other boarders. Zan? Alexa? Great. What should she have expected, living in a building full of spy spawn?