Sex by Francine Pascal Page A

willed them to stay planted to the ground.
    The bigger Guido swung next, and Gaia was barely prepared. She just managed to sidestep to her right and crouch low to the ground. Even her eyes were locking up on her. It was harder to see the angles, harder to pick her moments. She wished she’d met up with these losers before fear had been introduced into her life. They were amateurs. She should have had them flat on the ground twenty seconds ago. But everything was taking longer with all her heart palpitations and hesitation. She was moving too slowly to win.
    Finally the angle came clear to her and the best combination presented itself. Gaia worked quickly and desperately before she could manage to screw herself with all this sweaty hesitation. Staying low to the ground, she launched a sweeping kick to the legs of the biggest thug, sending him toppling straight into the knife of his leather-clad twin. He let out a throaty scream that terrified both his partners and sent them running at full speed.
    Thank God,
she groaned to herself. She knew she hadn’t had much left. If that move hadn’t worked, this pathetically fearful fight might very well have been her last.
    After a few more seconds of writhing around, the remaining thug finally lumbered his way off the ground, trying to grab at the minor wound on his back as he turned and followed his buddies.
    Of course, Mr. Streaks and Tips shouted out a bunch of vengeful yammering as he ran, employing the word
bitch
at least twenty more times. But Gaia was so relieved to be alive, she barely even noticed. And fearful or not, she’d still managed to plant the seed in his mind that his “bitch ass” wasn’t so invincible. That was something.
    More important, the girl in black was alive and still fully clothed. Whatever he’d hoped to do to her tonight, he’d failed. Gaia walked back to the girl, trying to catch her breath as her heart rate finally beganto return to normal and the knots in her stomach began to untangle.
    Even the aftereffects of this fear thing were a pain in the ass. Obviously she needed to understand it a hell of a lot better than she thought she had. Was her uncle’s injection for real or not? Given that she had no idea how to reach her uncle
or
her father, that was something of a moot question, wasn’t it? She didn’t want to think about it, anyway. What was the point of trying to figure something out when there was no way you could get the answer?
Don’t think.
That was still the new policy.
    â€œAre you okay?” she asked, crouching next to the girl, who was still sitting on the rock.
    â€œYeah,” the girl said, sighing with frustration. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. That was some serious
Karate Kid Five
shit. Where’d you learn that?”
    â€œI just watch a lot of Bruce Lee movies,” Gaia muttered.
    â€œYeah, well, you gotta teach me that flip thing sometime. That shit would
really
come in handy.” She pulled out a pack of Marlboros and popped one in her mouth, offering the pack to Gaia. “I’m Genevieve,” she said. “But no one calls me Genevieve.” The girl was awfully relaxed for someone who’d just almost gotten raped. In fact, she seemed more pissed off than upset.
    â€œGaia,” she replied, trying to catch her breath. “Idon’t smoke,” she added. “What
do
they call you?”
    â€œGen” the girl replied.
“Gaia?
What the hell kind of a name is—”
    â€œDon’t ask,” Gaia muttered.
    Gen shrugged and shoved the pack back in her pocket. She leaned her face closer to Gaia’s. “Hey… are
you
okay?”
    â€œYeah, I’m fine,” Gaia said, breathing heavily, trying not to feel quite so woozy. Throwing fear into the mix had made the fight a hell of a lot more exhausting, even if it had only lasted a minute. But something about this Gen girl had already made Gaia not want to appear weak in