Nine Lives of Chloe King

  “Yes,” she answered evenly. “And they’re going to try to find out who my parents are, too. What happened to my biological family.” Why am I telling him this stuff? Why do I still want him to know about my life? About me?

  “Oh.” There was another pause. Chloe was a little disappointed, but after all, he couldn’t really say, “That’s nice,” or “Good for you,” when the people involved were outright enemies of his organization. Whatever his personal beliefs were, the group he belonged to had only one intention: to wipe out the Mai or keep them under control. It was still hard for Chloe to understand.

  “Chloe, I really was trying to help you on the bridge.”

  “Really? By almost cutting Alyec’s hamstring in half?”

  “I told you,” he said impatiently. “If you two had kept running that way, you would have wound up right in the middle of an outpost. And believe me, there may not be many members as psychotic as the Rogue, but there are more than enough members of the Tenth Blade who wouldn’t think twice about taking down a pair of Mai. Especially one that was somehow involved in the death of the Rogue.”

  “I didn’t …” But she trailed off when she realized what he’d actually said. He hadn’t said that she had killed him. He hadn’t even said that she was responsible for his death. “Well, you had no trouble targeting Alyec. Why weren’t you able to get the Rogue in the throat?”

  “Chloe,” he said a little pleadingly, a little sadly. “Do you think it’s easy to just kill another person? Even if they’re doing something awful? Especially if he’s a … friend of the family?”

  Chloe didn’t want to listen to this. He should have just wanted to save her and not given a thought to anything else. That was what she wanted—or at least that was what she wanted to hear.

  “Even you weren’t ready to let him die,” he said quietly. “I saw you give him your hand.”

  He had a good point. Why had she tried to help save her own assassin? Because it seemed like the right thing to do. So why did she blame Brian for not automatically coming to her aid and killing for her?

  “I have never killed anyone,” he added. “Not human, not Mai, not anyone. And I don’t want to start.”

  “You could have done something,” Chloe muttered, feeling childish and not knowing why.

  “It looked like you were doing a pretty good job yourself.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice, beyond the sadness. For just an instant, she wished she could see him. She could just imagine him reaching over and stroking her cheek at that point or touching her hand. …

  And suddenly she realized something.

  “I know why you didn’t want to kiss me,” she said slowly, not caring that it had nothing to do with what they were just talking about. She remembered her conversation with Sergei that morning and with Alyec, days ago, when he’d first seen her with Brian.

  “You haven’t done anything with him.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah? How would you know?”

  “He’s still alive.” Alyec grinned at her. “You would tear a boy like that up and spit him back out when you were done.”

  He had been deadly serious, not speaking metaphorically at all. She thought about what had happened to Xavier and the time Brian had almost thrown her away from him when she was trying to steal a kiss.

  No wonder Alyec wasn’t jealous of Brian! He knew there was no future in it.

  “I’m sorry. I really did want to. I mean …” He paused. “I do.”

  “Was it all an act?” she whispered. “Just so you could keep an eye on me?”

  “No, Chloe, I swear it wasn’t,” he said desperately. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you.”

  And there it was, hanging in the air. He sort of choked out the last bit quickly, at the end, as if he hadn’t meant to say it, as if it had just come out of nowhere.

  Chloe opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came. Her ears twitched; familiar footsteps came stomping down the hall.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “I—“He seemed to know that now was not the time to push. “I’ll talk to you later. Be careful, okay? You’re a … wanted woman these days.”

  Chloe smiled at the double entendre.

  “I will.”

  She flipped the phone closed just as Alyec barged into the room.

  “Chloe! Love of my life!” he cried, flinging his arms open dramatically. Chloe flinched; this was a poor time for him to be throwing words like that around.

  “Hey, who were you talking to? Paul? Amy?”

  Hearing their names come out of his mouth was strange. Their weird double date a couple of weeks ago aside, the four of them had never really hung out. They weren’t two couples, or four friends, or anything like that. Paul had the comics thing with Alyec, but Amy absolutely hated him. Chloe wondered if he even knew how she felt about him.

  As Alyec put his notebook and books down on a chair, Chloe couldn’t help staring at his perfect body. Not too muscled, but broad shouldered and well defined. It was like he might fall into a fashion magazine without even realizing it. Alyec was probably the hottest guy in her school. But Alyec’s bodily perfection so soon after a talk with Brian was only distracting and even a little upsetting.

  He noticed her mood immediately.

  “Talking to a secret lover, maybe?” he asked, grinning. He cocked his head knowingly at her, coming close as if to take her in for a kiss. Then he grabbed the phone from her.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Give it!”

  He laughed and danced around her, holding it high above his head, at least two feet out of her reach. She jumped and leapt in a completely human fashion, pulling at his arms and forgetting all of the cat training he had led her through on that mysterious night when Chloe first learned what she could do as a Mai.

  “Let’s find out who you were calling … if you have another boyfriend. …” Just as he flipped it open and started hitting the menu keys, Chloe made one last desperate leap to stop him. The phone was almost in her grasp….

  “Hey! Catch!” he shouted suddenly to Igor and Valerie, who were walking by. As Alyec tossed the phone, Igor reached out and caught it gracefully. Catlike reflexes, Chloe thought. He and Valerie smiled at the other couple. Chloe ran at them. Igor spun and tossed the phone back to Alyec seconds before Chloe reached him. Valerie laughed and they walked on.

  “Give it,” Chloe growled, beginning to lose her temper.

  Alyec responded by flipping open her phone and looking through the incoming calls list. He danced away as she frantically tried to throw herself against him. But when he saw Brian’s name, he hesitated. Then he closed the phone and handed it back to Chloe, trying to maintain a cheerful, playful look on his face. But Chloe hadn’t missed the moment of hurt.

  “I wasn’t telling him where I was or where your secret base camp is,” she said defensively.

  “I didn’t think you did,” he said, a little sadly. Silence hung between them for a moment. “I’m hungry. Let’s go see what’s around,” he said, trying to muster up a little bravado. He picked up his books again. “You really should call Paul and Amy,” he added quietly. “They’re worried about you.”

  There it was again, those two names out of his mouth. Like he really was a close member of her life now, someone who had met her mom, taken her out on dates, and fed her chocolate during her period, and not someone she had done everything to keep her mom from meeting, who had taught her how to extend her claws, to climb trees, and run on rooftops at night.

  Chloe put the phone in her back pocket and followed him out of the room.

  Seven

  Paul was happy just staring at Amy.

  They were at Café Eland, and his girlfriend was animatedly talking about her day. He never really got over how she sparkled. Chloe was pretty, too, but different. Sort of reserved, held closely inward. Though she would be the last to admit it, Chloe King was an introspective person, prone to occasional insight and
moody sulks, which was why her semi-disappearance from his and Amy’s life—before her real disappearance three days ago—didn’t surprise or upset him as much as it did Amy.

  But with Amy, what you saw was what you got. If she was feeling something, no matter what it was, you knew it immediately. There was no guessing her moods or mind games. And even if some of her ideas and leanings were passing beyond the border of eccentric and well into the country of the insane, at least she had amazing amounts of energy to put into it.

  Her dark red hair—almost back to its natural color, Paul noted—was framing her face and bouncing gently as she waved her hands around and spoke excitedly. He looked deep into her beautiful marble blue eyes, smiling, his harelip scar barely tugging his skin.

  “And then he put his hand over my mouth and dragged me into the room!”

  She said this so loudly that not only did Paul come to, but half of the café stopped for a moment to listen.

  “Wait, what?” He shook his head. He knew he should have been listening, but Amy talked a lot. All the time, in fact. He couldn’t help tuning out once in a while.

  “Alyec!” she repeated with exasperation. “When I told him that he had better not have hurt Chloe. He grabbed me and dragged me into the music theory room.”

  “Why did you do that? Why would you do that?”

  “Blame the victim, why don’t you?” Amy huffed. “Typical male.”

  Even though he was confused and impatient to find out exactly what had happened, Paul thought over his next words carefully. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No,” Amy admitted grudgingly. “But he grabbed my arm and put his hand over my mouth!”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “Yes!”

  Paul waited, staring steadily at her with his dark brown eyes, raising one of his perfectly rectangular eyebrows.

  “No,” Amy finally said under his scrutiny, looking down at her coffee and kicking the table leg like a little girl. “But he might have. If there hadn’t been other people nearby.”

  “So wait—you accused him of doing something to Chloe in the hall in front of other people?”

  “No, I’m not an idiot. There were just some band geeks walking by.”

  Paul sat back and stirred his tea slowly, not wanting to look her in the face while he digested everything. Paul could be enigmatic, but sometimes he was just so stunned by what Amy said or did that it took a moment for him to adjust.

  “But he knows something about what’s going on,” Amy said desperately, unable to bear his silence. “When I told him what we saw on the bridge, he got all surprised and weird and stuff.”

  Paul reached for the zipper under his neck and loosened it a little, playing with the tag as if it were a tie. It was his new Puma running jacket, sleek, with red stripes going down the sides. When he wore it, he fit in perfectly with the older, “real” DJs at the clubs he liked. It was like his personal superhero costume.

  “Amy,” he finally said, “you shouldn’t have done that. If he’s innocent—and let me remind you that you still don’t have any real proof of anything—then it was crazy and mean. And if he is involved somehow, how is confronting him like that going to help?”

  Amy frowned. “I told him if he hurt Chloe, I would kill him.”

  Paul tried not to smile. “Very John Constantine of you.”

  “You’re a jerk,” Amy said, so distracted she sucked hot coffee up through the stirrer. She tried not to react, maintaining her dignity. Paul sighed inwardly, knowing he would just have to wait it out. We have time for what, one, maybe two more mood swings tonight? While it occurred to him that this was a little tiresome sometimes, he wasn’t sure he’d have it any other way. For now he would stay. They would talk. And later they would make up.

  Eight

  Chloe and Alyec had Firebird’s lounge to themselves that night. Sergei had made it very clear that there were to be no boys anywhere near Chloe’s bedroom, and she knew that meant Alyec especially. So the lounge was as private as they could get.

  The lights were dimmed, candles were lit, and she and Alyec were lying on the floor, eating some post-make-out Chinese.

  “It’s better than going to a restaurant,” Alyec said, delicately stuffing his face with lo mein. His skill with chopsticks was extraordinary. “No one else is here, and we can do whatever we want.”

  Chloe was clumsier with her own set of chopsticks and had to resort to tipping the mostly empty carton of fried rice into her mouth while digging at the bottom with a single stick, making it fall in great clumps into her mouth.

  He sucked up a last noodle as lasciviously as he could without getting soy sauce all over everything. Then he leaned forward and kissed her, briefly licking her teeth with the tip of his salty tongue.

  She rolled over to him and kissed him more, holding the back of his head so he couldn’t pull away. He didn’t try. He mouthed his way off her lips and down to her neck; as he traced the delicate veins on her skin there, she felt her claws extend. She threw her head back, enjoying it.

  “Chloe,” he whispered, pulling back and smiling gently at her. “I have to go.”

  “Tease!” she said, only half pretending to be upset. She felt her claws retract again.

  “Mom’s giving me a ride home,” he said apologetically. “I should go find her unless you want to keep making out and have her walk in on us. …”

  “No, I understand.” Chloe sat up, sighing. “It’s just that I don’t really get to see you anymore. Now that I don’t go to school—I mean, I used to see you at least off and on all day.”

  “I know,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “It was one of the few reasons I looked forward to going.”

  “How long were you interested in me? I mean, before we really talked?” Chloe asked, her face brightening.

  “A long time before I knew you were Mai.”

  “If I was human, what would you have done?”

  “The same thing I did with Keira Hendelson. And Halley Dietrich. Nothing. Not that I wanted to!” he added quickly when she raised her hand to hit him.

  Chloe backed down and began to pick at the fried rice again, trying to make the two chopsticks work. “Do you hate humans? The way Sergei seems to?”

  Alyec shrugged. “It’s hard to hate six billion people all at once. Sometimes it is difficult being in both worlds. Like …” He shifted position as he really thought about it. Chloe tried to remain as casual and silent as she could; this was the most he had ever really talked about his feelings. “Like I’ll be listening to music or whatever at my locker, slapping hands with someone, and that will all be fine—but at night, you know, when the sun sets, I get that urge to run, explore the night, chase after something. For a while I can be tricked into thinking I am completely human, but there is no denying that other, completely different world we inhabit.”

  “Why aren’t you in danger going to school like this? By yourself? Won’t the Tenth Blade try to kill you?”

  Alyec shook his head and stuffed another dumpling into his mouth, the moment of reflection over.

  “We’re at kind of a stalemate. If they out-and-out killed me, it would mean instant retribution from the Mai. War. Newbies, prideless Mai, don’t count—like you before we got you. Because technically you are not under any protection. In this ’modern’ world, the Tenth Blade doesn’t tend to attack members of a pride unless they hurt or kill a human.”

  “It all seems a little …” Chloe looked for a word, thinking of The Godfather. “Archaic.”

  Alyec shrugged. “How is this fantastic bedroom of yours I’m not allowed to see?”

  He wasn’t changing the subject because it made him uncomfortable; he was really just done with it and moving on to other things.

  “Oh, it’s pretty cool. Usually after everyone’s gone to sleep, all the girls come over in their skimpy jammies and we have pillow fights until we’re all basically naked.”

  Alyec’s eyes lit up for a moment, and then his fac
e fell. “You’re lying,” he realized.

  “You think?” She popped another dumpling into her mouth. It was scallion and vegetable, and she was secretly relieved she still liked that kind. Chloe had been experiencing a quiet but growing fear that she would become a complete carnivore the more time she spent with the Mai. “Sergei wanted to give me a real room, like with a four-poster bed and all this wonderful stuff, but I asked to stay in the first room. You know, the little gable they let me nap in. I love it. Everything is sort of dusty pink and green. It’s the bedroom I’ve always dreamed of,” she said shyly. “Kind of like living in my own version of a Gothic novel.”

  “Like The Scarlet Letter?”

  It was what they had been reading in English when Chloe was forced to disappear. She felt a brief pang of sadness as she thought of Mr. Mingrone sketching little A’s on the blackboard.

  “No, more like, I don’t know, Wuthering Heights or something.”

  “Oh. I think we have to read that next year.” He gathered up his garbage neatly and stuffed it into one of the plastic bags the delivery came in, making sure to put lids back on the little dishes of soy sauce so they wouldn’t spill. Chloe watched him, amused. When he was through, Alyec leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. “Goodbye, Chloe King. I’ll see you the evening after tomorrow?”

  “What’s tomorrow? A prom committee meeting?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” He winked and kissed her again. He squeezed her hand and left.

  Chloe sighed, watching him go, then began to blow out all the candles. Her evening of romance—her couple of hours of normalcy—were over. She gathered up the bags of garbage and went in search of the kitchenette to throw them out. For a moment she happily imagined that this was what college life would be like: a hard day of classes, a cheap date in the dorm’s common room, and then borrowing incense from a next-door stoner to refresh the place after complaints from vegan neighbors.