Fearless: No. 2 - Sam (Fearless) Read Online Free Page A

eyes. He would know. He had a great gift for detecting fear.
    Gaia was indeed everything he had heard about her. All the more reason why he could not accept another ridiculous close call like this one.
    He glanced at the next picture. The boy was leaning in closer, his face clenched as he prepared to pull the trigger.
    "Keep that boy and his stupid friends away from her," he barked at Ella.
    "Yes," she mumbled.
    "He will not get that gun anywhere near Gaia!"
    "Yes, sir."
    He glared at Ella with withering eyes. "Hear me now, Ella. If
anyone
kills Gaia Moore, it will be me."
    Ella's gaze was cast to the ground.
    He studied the next picture in the pile. This one showed Gaia standing in all her ferocious glory, flipping that pitiful boy over her shoulder. Her face was wonderfully alert, intense. She was magnificent. More than he could have hoped for.
    No, Gaia didn't resemble Katia, he decided as he studied the lovely face in the picture. Gaia resembled him.

LIKE A DRUG
    SHE PROBABLY WOULDN'T EVEN BE there. Why would she? She'd be avoiding him if she had any sense.
    Sam Moon hurried into Washington Square Park with his physics textbook tucked under his arm. Then again, if
he
had any sense, he'd be avoiding
her
. Instead he was darting around the park at all hours like some kind of timid stalker, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
    He approached the shaded area where the chess tables sat, surveying them almost hungrily. No. She wasn't there. It verged on ridiculous, the physical feeling of disappointment that radiated through his abdomen.
    He kept his distance, reviewing his options. He didn't want to plunge right into chess world because then all his cohorts would see him and he'd be stuck for at least a game or two. And he'd found out the hard way that when Gaia was on his mind (and when wasn't she?), he was a lot worse at chess.
    Maybe she had come and gone already. Maybe she'd caught sight of him from a distance and taken off. Maybe she really did hate him --
    "Moon?"
    Sam practically leaped right out of his clothes. He spun around. "Jesus, Renny, you scared the crap out of me."
    Renny smiled in his open, friendly way. He was a wiry-looking, barely adolescent Puerto Rican kid who was quickly becoming a lethal chess player. "You looking for Gaia?"
    Sam's face fell. Was his head made of glass? Was his romantic torment, which he believed to be totally private and unique, available for public display? Was everybody who knew him talking and snickering about it? Even the chess nerds, who wouldn't ordinarily notice if you'd had one of your legs amputated?
    "No," Sam lied defensively. "Why?"
    "I figure you're getting tired of whipping the rest of us. Gaia could probably get a game off you, huh?"
    Sam studied Renny's face for signs of cleverness or mockery. No. Renny wasn't being a wise guy. He wasn't suddenly Miss Lonely Hearts. Renny was thinking the same way he always thought, like a chess player.
    Sam let out a breath. He tried to relax the crackling nerve synapses in his neck and shoulders. There was a word for this:
paranoia
.
    "Yeah," Sam said in a way he hoped was nonchalant. "Maybe one or two. If she was on her game."
    "Yeah," Renny said, "she's unbelievable." Renny's eyes got a little glassy, but Sam could tell he was fantasizing about Gaia's stunning end play, not about her lips or her eyes.
    Unlike Sam.
    "Yeah," Sam repeated awkwardly.
    "See you." Renny clapped him on the back agreeably and waded into chess world. Sam watched Renny take the first open seat across from Mr. Haq, whose taxicab was predictably parked (illegally) at the nearest curb. That was the downside of playing Mr. Haq. If the cops came, he abandoned the game and put his cab back into action. And no matter how badly you were creaming him, Mr. Haq would always refer to it afterward as "an undecided match."
    Sam found his way to a nearby bench with a good view of the chess area. He opened his physics book, lame prop that it was.
    What had happened to his