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You can do this, she told herself. You've done it literally hundreds of times. Chances are, all you'll need to do is put a scare in them, anyway
.

She realized that her palms were clenched tightly and that she was sweating profusely.
Thank you, fear
.

She forced herself to work it out: all she had to do, she knew, was take out the big dude. Once he was overpowered, his sad little cronies would surely fall into line. And since they had their backs to her and were infinitely consumed with their work, she had the element of surprise working in her favor, in addition to her years of training. She willed her trembling limbs to steady and thought back to this afternoon, how she'd been able to break up the mugging with relatively little difficulty. It didn't matter that she was terror girl these days. Frightened or not, she still had to bust a little ass kicking.

Don't miss any books in this thrilling series:

FEARLESS
™

#1 Fearless

#2 Sam

#3 Run

#4 Twisted

#5 Kiss

#6 Payback

#7 Rebel

#8 Heat

#9 Blood

#10 Liar

#11 Trust

#12 Killer

#13 Bad

#14 Missing

#15 Tears

#16 Naked

#17 Flee

#18 Love

#19 Twins

#20 Sex

#21 Blind

#22 Alone

#23 Fear

#24 Betrayed

#25 Lost

#26 Escape

#27 Shock

#28 Chase

#29 Lust

#30 Freak

#31 Normal

#32 Terror

#33 Wired

Super Edition #1: Before Gaia

Super Edition #2: Gaia Abducted

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Simon Pulse edition May 2004

Copyright © 2004 by Francine Pascal

Cover copyright © 2004 by 17th Street Productions, an Alloy company.

SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
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Produced by 17th Street Productions,
an Alloy company
151 West 26th Street
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All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

For information address 17th Street Productions, 151 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001.

Fearless™ is a trademark of Francine Pascal.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004100271

ISBN: 0-689-86916-9

eISBN-13: 978-1-439-12112-2

To Kelty O'Brien

God wasn't interested. He had other things on his mind.

WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK WASN'T really the place to be at twilight. Not by a long shot.

In the daytime it was pleasant enough. Bright, sunny, and manageable in size, the park was generally populated by a fresh cross section of skate punks, middle-aged hippies, NYU students, would-be actresses walking their dogs, and older folk drinking coffee by the fountain that lay squarely at the park's midpoint.

But even the brightest blaze of sunshine, the most unmarred of blue skies couldn't fully hide the way the idyllic scene tended to unravel at the edges. Burnt-out stoner types leered from against lush trees, on the lookout to score a deal for pot or sometimes coke or even harder stuff. Homeless people camped on benches, deterring locals from perching for any extended period. The less savory the activity, the more likely one was to find it at night. Once the sun receded, the cover of darkness provided shadow enough for the criminal element, rendering the park less than safe for anyone unschooled in the art of self-protection. And though many New Yorkers operated under a false sense
of security, a notion that they could take care of themselves, they were, by and large, wrong. All the martial arts classes in the world weren't really going to do a person much good against a man with a gun.

Case in point: In a far corner of the park, to the right of the miniature Arc de Triomphe and just beyond the now-abandoned dog run, a young girl struggled against a band of male hoods. They had the upper hand, but she was slipping through their fingers. It was obvious even to the casual observer that she was a trained fighter. Whatever they were trying to do to her—and it was unclear, from this distance—she was going to escape. Even if only by a hair.

It was no matter. God wasn't interested. He had other things on his mind.

God had arrived in the park earlier to give the people what they wanted. To pass along his magic so that human beings could fulfill their fantasies of being invincible. Though if the hoods in the distance were any indication, some dreams were an inch or two shy of being attainable. Invincibility was beyond some people's reach. But hope springs eternal.

And God could bring them closer. His medicine could bring them closer to invincibility, immortality. And for the right price, he was happy to help.

A scuffle against the pavement told him that
someone was coming up the walkway. He turned to see two uniformed policemen, the taller of the two swinging a flashlight down the asphalt path. God rearranged his features in an emulation of innocence as the flashlight's beam cut across his face.

“Hello,” he called. It was almost a question. As if to imply that should the police be looking toward him for any relevant information, they'd be barking up the wrong tree. He squinted plaintively, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his long gray coat.

“Have you seen anything unusual around here?” Taller called out, somewhat out of breath. “Tonight, that is?”

“Not really. I just got here,” God protested. “Was out for a quick walk and a smoke.” He held up his cigarette out of his pocket by way of demonstration.

The policemen no longer seemed suspicious of him, only curious. “So, do you, uh, walk in the park often?” Tall wanted to know. “Can't be so safe.”

“Most nights. It helps clear my head.”

“Have you seen any suspicious characters lately?”

“Are you looking for someone specific? Maybe if you described him or her?” God asked.

“That's just it,” the smaller one chimed in. “We don't know exactly what he looks like. But there's a new player in the park, goes by the name of God. We think he's been peddling a new drug called Invince. Makes people feel invincible, like. Hasn't been approved by any
drug company, of course… and it isn't going to be anytime soon. Dangerous stuff.”

“Is it like Ecstasy?” God wanted to know.

“Worse. It has a lot of the same effects on the body—drains it of anything good, that is—but it riles people up. Makes them very aggressive.” It was obvious that the officers were aiming for intimidation. Little did they have any clue who they were dealing with.

God shrugged. “I'm sorry, but I really haven't seen anything. You know, nothing worse than your garden-variety freaks and weirdos.”

Taller clapped him on the back. “That's all right, son. But consider yourself warned: Invince is bad news, and so are the people who are on it. You see anything, anything at all unusual going on around here, you avoid it. You get the hell out of the park. Better yet, you come down to the station and tell one of us about it. So far, all we've heard are rumors. If we want to stop the wave of violence, we're gonna have to get to the source. The person who's selling. This God guy. Assuming he exists—drug addicts aren't always the most reliable witnesses. Anyway, you come to us.”

God nodded. “I sure will, Officers. You know, if I see anything,”

God stubbed out his cigarette with the heel of his boot, turned, and stalked off into the night, deeper into the cover of the park.

There's
a reason that a cliché becomes a cliché, right? I mean, these phrases aren't chosen as part of everyone's daily rotation based on one loser's decision. It's because people, day in and day out, find truth in these expressions.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
. Yeah, I know that one. For instance, when I look in the mirror, I see a hulking freak show of a girl with gangly muscles and a total lack of fashion sense. But given that Ed, Sam, and Jake—three empirically hot guys in their own right—seem to find me reasonably attractive, I can assume that maybe—just maybe—they see something when they look at me that I can't see in myself. Some kernel of normal girlness. Something girlfriendworthy. And the fact that any of them showed the slightest bit of faith in my ability to be like other girls makes me believe that the possibility exists.

Curiosity killed the cat
. So I
heard about the possibility of gene therapy, and I thought,
Why not?
After all, being born without a fear gene is one of the primary causes of my social ineptitude: I am fearless, ergo, I am utterly unfeminine and unable to relate to my peers. So logic would dictate that by introducing a fear gene into my system through the wonders of science, I'd bring myself one step closer to understanding the typical adolescent experience.

Normal is as normal does
. Who was I kidding? “Normal” is more than just the absence or presence of fear. Normal is for girls who have a traditional nuclear family instead of a mother who was killed by her father's evil twin and an MIA secret agent man for a father. Girls who don't have to worry that any of their friends will be targeted by dangerous forces, hunted down, and possibly killed. “Normal” girls don't wander into Washington Square Park at night, looking to pick a fight. Girl
power is all well and good, but normal girls have a sense of self-preservation that I, even with my brand-spanking-new fear gene, seem to lack. Other people take their cues from fear, but since I am so new to this full range of human emotions, I am crippled by my own. Like a moron, I went after a thug, and like a victim, I was attacked. Like a normal girl, I am tearing down the street, fleeing from the scene… terrified. And though my reaction is entirely normal, I know in my heart that a
truly
normal girl wouldn't have gone to the park at all. In the delicate karmic balance of my own biochemistry, the acquisition of a fear gene must be canceled out through the immediate removal of the common sense gene. Who cares if, with all of my GI training, I could have taken those guys out?
I shouldn't have tried
. It's scary, and it's that simple.