The Stolen (25 page)

“We knew where you were every minute. We tracked you on it.” Paul was camo-chic, in army pants and a tight-fitting camouflage windbreaker.

Chloe had a thousand questions: How had they all gotten to know each other? How had they gotten together? How had Amy and Paul reacted to Kim? How were Kim and Alyec getting along?

But most of all, she felt like sobbing in relief. All of her closest friends had come to help her out. To save her.

“Paul, Amy, go
home
!” Mrs. King ordered. “You too, Chloe. I don't know what the hell is going on, but you need to get out of here.”

“The deal was Chloe for you,” Whit said, pulling his attention away from the four new teenagers and back to Sergei. “We are prepared to let that deal continue, no questions asked, no blood, everyone goes home safely.”

“You're trading a woman's life for that of her own
daughter
?” Brian said bitterly. “I guess I should have seen that coming. After Mom … I should have known.”

“You shut up, Brian. I've had just about enough of your lip about your mother for this lifetime,” his dad growled. “You're unworthy to even speak her name.”

“Ah, father and son.” Sergei sighed. “I do so love the warmth in human families.”

“What would you know about that?” Richard demanded, jamming his gun into the side of Anna's face for emphasis. “Don't cats screw anything that moves and then move on?”

“You'd better muzzle the child, Whitney. Don't let him start what you can't finish,” Sergei said, waving his hand in the air. It was clawed. Chloe wasn't sure if Brian's dad understood what that meant: that he was just about ready to attack.

“
Finish?
Like when you
finished off
entire villages—”

“That was five thousand years ago,” Kim pointed
out as calmly as possible. She and Alyec had slowly put themselves in between Amy and Paul and the rest of the people there. Amy bobbed her head around so she could watch what was going on; Paul just looked confused.

“Um, yeah.” Chloe cleared her throat and spoke up. Just to let people know that she was still there. Wasn't she the reason everyone was here tonight?
No, I'm just an excuse
, she realized, looking at the fanatical faces around her. Both sides were itching for a fight, a real one, after years of uneasy sort-of truce in this country. Led by two middle-aged leaders who felt they had something to prove.

“Maybe we can talk about this,” Chloe's mother suggested, also as calmly as she could. “There seems to be a long-standing dispute between your two groups here.”

Chloe was horrified to see tears running down her mother's cheeks—of fear or pain as the gun was jabbed into her temple, she wasn't sure.
My mother
. Something inside Chloe finally snapped.

“Sir! Ramirez is down!” A young man wearing an outfit similar to Richard's came running forward with a gun, four neat lines of blood across his face. “We were attacked from behind—he's bleeding badly, sir. But we got one of them
good
.”

“A preemptive strike, Sergei?” Whit demanded, pulling a short, curved sword out of his coat.

With a snarl, the female kizekh who had been arguing with Kim leapt at the soldier.

Ellen, her name is Ellen
. Chloe had watched
Star Wars
with her just a few evenings before. She was completely Mai now, eyes slit and fangs bared and tearing into the young man like he was paper.

From then on everything happened in slow motion.

Silently, Richard took the gun from the side of Chloe's mom's head and pointed it at the lion woman. Almost in aftereffect, muffled blasts afflicted Chloe's ears, three bangs, one after the other.

Brian immediately made for Richard, a look of raw hatred on his face.

Amy and Paul looked at each other, confused, then Amy screamed ever so slowly; Chloe couldn't make out the words, but she and Paul began to run.

More Tenth Bladers came out of the night. Chloe was stunned by their numbers—at least a dozen; far more than the kizekh had thought. They must have been hiding downwind. Why had Brian's dad brought them all? It was just supposed to be her and him. Even the dickhead holding the gun to her mom's head was a surprise….

As in a bizarre instructional film about reproduction, each Tenth Blader found a Mai, each Mai found a Tenth Blader, and they all began throwing weapons or struggling in the dust. Even Kim and Alyec. The look on Kim's face—white-eyed horror turning to rage as
someone attacked her, as if she couldn't quite believe it. Alyec tried to shove her out of the way….

Chloe didn't know what to do.

She had come here to save her mother. And now what? What
could
she do?

No one was attacking her; the struggle was going on inches from her feet, the very one she'd been trying to prevent.

Sergei neatly avoided Whit's attack with the knife, moving far more agilely than a man of his age should have been able to. Before Brian could reach Richard, Sergei brought his square hand full of claws down like it was a giant paw and cuffed him squarely on the side of the face; Richard fell down instantly, and Sergei neatly retrieved the gun as he did.

“Nobody move!” Sergei demanded, spinning around and leveling the gun at Mrs. King. “Call off your men, Whit, or I'll shoot your captive.”

Chloe couldn't quite believe what was happening. It made sense—the Tenth Bladers would do anything to protect a human, but still … was he serious?

Paul and Amy froze; Mrs. King did, too.

Suddenly Chloe had a path, a thing to do.

She ran, sprinting for her mom. That was why she was there.

“No!” Brian screamed, and made for Sergei. “Leave her alone!”

And Sergei fired.

It could have been meant for Brian, or it could have been meant for her mom. Chloe would never know. All she was sure of was that this was her fault, her doing. She dug a claw into the ground and pushed herself forward.

There was very little pain when the bullet first entered her flesh.

But when it hit her heart, it was like her entire body caught on fire.

“Chloe! No!”

She had no idea who was screaming: it could have been male, female, or a number of people.

She crumpled to the ground.

Her heart was very loud in her ears, and the ground was very cold under her head. The rest of her was on fire, as though she were being burned alive.

She listened interestedly to the muted sounds around her and the slow thumping of her heart.

After a few more beats, it stopped entirely.

Blackness. Echoes.

The sounds of something distant that might have been water dropping, but thicker. Wind howled somewhere, but no breeze touched her face.

Chloe recognized where she was even before she opened her eyes.

She was farther back from the edge of the cliff than the first time, when she had come to this place after falling off Coit Tower. Far below was what looked like a pool of mercury that bubbled and rippled uncertainly.

She noticed things she hadn't before: directly overhead there were millions and millions of stars and galaxies and strange planets she couldn't have named, far more terrifying than the emptiness she had thought was there. It was like she was at the end of the universe, the end of everything.

Something screamed, low and insistent. When she squinted, Chloe could just make out shadowy forms flickering in and out of sight, just beyond her vision,
impossible to hold for more than a second. Like they weren't there—or like they were an optical illusion.

Chloe backed away to the edge of the cliff, putting as much distance between them and her as she could.

“Chloe.
Saht
.”

It was a whisper, a purr, and a growl all combined.

One shadow hovered closer than the rest, lingering.

“
Daughter
”

“M-mom?” Chloe asked, quavering. The shade had no recognizable form, slipping back and forth from something vaguely bestial to something upright.

“
Now you know your destiny.
Go back.”

“But wait—what is this?” Chloe asked desperately, trying to grasp at things she knew in her heart were fleeting and impermanent. “Where am I? What happened to you?”

The shadow wavered and shifted, like there was extremely hot air between them.

“
Return to your living mother. She is reality now—as I am, in your past
.”

Chloe didn't understand. She opened her mouth to ask something more, but a rush of hot air hit her on the chest like a fist. Chloe flew backward off the cliff, into the darkness below.

Life, when she returned to it, was pain. She reached into her chest with her claw and with an agonized groan pulled out the bullet that was lodged there. Blood
poured down her front and slowed to a trickle as she watched. Soon it stopped entirely, and she felt an itching where the skin and sinew began to knit.

Sounds began to make sense around her, not that she cared. Murmurs of, “She is the One!” and, “Why isn't she dead?” and just, “Chloe!” from the people who simply loved her. The fighting seemed to have stopped; several of the Mai were on their knees before her.

Her mother was beside her, making sure she was okay.

No, wait—her mother had carefully angled herself
between
Chloe and the Tenth Bladers, shielding her daughter with her body. Whit's men shifted hesitantly on their feet, starting to raise their guns and then dropping them, unsure what to do.

Shakily Chloe got to one knee and then rose from there. It hurt every part of her, but she stood.

“
Any
one,” she said, loudly and evenly so everyone could hear her, “human
or
Mai ever touches my mother again, I'll
kill
you. I will hunt you down and kill you. And I have seven lives left to do it in.”

Chloe put her hand to her side, which still burned. She leaned over a little to ease the pain, facing Whit and his remaining Tenth Bladers. “Listen to me: I did not kill the Rogue. He fell off the bridge when I was
trying to help him back up
. I have never hurt anyone. Neither has Alyec or Kim, or Paul or Amy.
Or my mom
. You can all leave us out of your little war.”

Amy and Alyec ran forward when she began to sway,
each throwing one of her arms over their shoulders. Paul and Kim followed.

“As for the Mai …” She looked directly at Sergei. There was no proof that he'd actually sent assassins after her mother, but he was the second person that evening to train a gun on her. “Home isn't Mai or human. Home is home. And I'm going home
now
.”

She put out her hand and her mom took it.

Clasped, unnoticed in her other hand, was her mother's silver earring, the one Brian had found. She looked back at those they left, the wounded, the dead, the respectful Mai, and the confused humans.

Brian was not among them.

Chloe, her four friends, and her mother walked quietly out into the night.

Two Mai and
two human teenagers sat in a booth at the Washington Diner, silently drinking coffee or hot chocolate, picking at a large order of cold, greasy fries topped with thick bright ketchup that reminded everyone there too much of blood. The fluorescent lights made everything harsh and lifeless. The late-night waitstaff was grumpy and standoffish, which was fine for the four gathered, who had no urge to socialize with strangers.

Alyec, Kim, Paul, and Amy sat uncomfortably, like distant cousins long separated at a family reunion told to go make friends with other kids their age. Kim had borrowed a scarf from Amy and wrapped her head with it like a babushka, hiding her ears. The waitress had just rolled her eyes—she was used to the late-night freaks who came in.

“So … ,” Paul said, playing with a fry. “What does this whole … being-the-One thing mean?”

Kim had her paws wrapped around a mug of hot
chocolate and was staring into the depths, looking spacey even for her.