by Liz Braswell
“No!” Brian shouted. “Chloe!”
But someone leapt at Brian, arms wide and claws extended. Chloe got a glimpse of furious ice blue eyes and a shock of honey hair before the two tumbled into an angry, kicking struggle on the ground.
Alyec. Alyec was the other cat person. She had misread all of the clues about both of them. Somehow she should have known….
“I’ve got him,” Alyec yelled. “Get that motherfucker…!”
Chloe felt new strength within her. This was her partner; he had her back. Now it was up to her. She turned to face the Rogue.
His turdeneck was torn to shreds on the right half of his body; black tatters and blood flowed down his skin. There was a strange tattoo on his arm, but she couldn’t quite make it out. Blood dripped from the comer of his mouth, probably from his head hitting the ground. He wiped at it and spat out more.
She waited for him to say something profound, like in the movies, but instead he suddenly began throwing what seemed like dozens of throwing stars at her that appeared at his fingertips like roses from a magician’s.
She danced and leapt and did handsprings and managed to avoid most of the shuriken.
“Another of my Order has come to watch and help with the cause!” He threw them harder and harder.
Chloe twisted and fell as a throwing star buried itself in her side.
“You thought he was your what—boyfriend? He was hunting you, just like I was.” He laughed.
As Chloe struggled to get up, he reached down to the side of his pants and pulled out something that was smaller than a machete but larger than his previous blades. The pain in her side was like fire; every time she moved, it felt like her body was ripping apart.
He began advancing on her.
The wind whisded in Chloe’s hair. She watched him come at her slowly, pain masking sound and thought. She could vaguely hear Brian and Alyec shouting obscenities at each other and the occasional muffled thump as one of them landed a blow.
There really was a very good chance that if no one helped her, she was going to die.
And then something inside her snapped.
How dare you?
“How dare you!” she screamed. Chloe ripped the shuriken out of her side and threw it to the ground, wincing at the pain. “What the hell did I ever do to you? Or anyone? I didn’t ask for any of this!”
And she ran at him, blind rage eclipsing the pain.
He swung his blade down, but she lunged to the side and swiped her hand against his arm, raking her claws down it. He cried out, forced to switch the knife to his left hand. Chloe hadn’t finished moving, though. She spun and kicked him on the back of his neck with her toes, smashing the Kevlar collar into his flesh.
“Fuck you,” she screamed. “Get out of my life!”
The hot, blind rage was cooling, replaced with something much more cold and logical. She saw clearly ahead of time every punch, kick, and swipe—and followed up with an immediate counterattack. She never gave him time to draw another blade.
He backed up slowly until he was up against the rail. “How—many—others—have—you—killed?” With each word, she sent another kick into his stomach.
At the last minute he managed to launch himself so he was over the rail, keeping it between them.
“You fucking psycho,” Chloe spat into his face.
Battered and bloody, he still managed a smile. “I do service for the Lord. His will be done.”
“Yeah, well, tell that to the—”
And then he slipped.
Chloe was thrown off for a moment; this was something she hadn’t expected.
“Chloe! Don’t kill him!” Brian yelled. He tried to run over to stop her, but Alyec pulled him down to the ground again.
She leaned over, watching her assassin sway in the winds, struggling to hang on.
Finish him! Every part of her wanted to step on his fingers, to claw his face, to watch and smile as he slowly lost strength, slipped, and fell.
He tried to kill you! He hunted you down, like you were prey!
Even the human side of her agreed: this was a psycho who was better off not in the collective gene pool.
Then she offered him her hand.
I can’t. Fighting is one thing—I can’t kill someone in cold blood.
“You. On the bridge. Step away from the rail.”
The electronically loud bullhorn noise made everyone spin. A helicopter rose up from below, aiming its spodight along the bridge.
Chloe looked up as well—
And the Rogue fell.
Twenty-one
“No!” She Cried, trying to grab after him. But there was only air.
“They’re coming,” Brian said, to no one in particular.
Chloe was still leaning over the rail, looking at the water in shock and disbelief. She doubted that he would come back the way she had from her own fall. It was like a book had suddenly closed and she would never be able to open it and read it again—find out why he was filled with hate. Instead of relief she felt a lack of closure, even a little loss.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Alyec said, grabbing Chloe’s arm and pulling her away.
The two of them ran.
Although she was exhausted from the fight and felt some of her strength bleeding out of the wound in her side, Chloe still found a joy in running. When she leapt onto the handrail at the end to jump down off the bridge, tightrope running along its slick metal surface, Alyec was right behind her.
She chose to go up to the Marin Headlands; she leapt in between passing cars, up and over fences like she was flying. Alyec was beside her. He kept up with her, scrambling up the hill, jumping over rocks with an extremely familiar feline grace.
When she looked over at him, he grinned.
The other cat person.
A friend.
They crested the hill and started down the other side. The sky in the west was still its cartoon pink and orange; couples and families dotted the headlands watching it, cuddled in blankets and sipping from thermoses.
They had long outpaced the National Guard on foot, but the helicopter swept down the bridge and over the water, looking for trouble. The whole thing had Amy and Paul written all over it—still trying to save her after she’d made them go.
Chloe leapt. It didn’t matter. The helicopter wouldn’t be able to track her and Alyec. They were too fast. She felt like screaming with joy.
Alyec screamed instead—in pain—and went down on one knee, tumbling into the dirt.
Chloe stopped immediately and ran over to see him. He held his leg; a throwing star stuck out of it.
“Shit,” he grunted, pulling it out and wincing.
“What the—?” Chloe turned around, looking for the attacker.
Brian stood twenty feet behind them, another star in his hand.
He began running toward them.
“That bastardi” Alyec growled, standing up with some difficulty.
Chloe put herself in front of him, between him and Brian. “Who is he? Why does he want to kill me?”
“He’s a member of the Order of the Tenth Blade,” Alyec spat. “I should have guessed before, the first time I saw him.”
“Wait—Chloe—” Brian caught up to them. Chloe tensed, ready to spring.
“Coming to finish me off?” she demanded.
“I wasn’t trying to kill you!” Brian protested. “I was trying to get Alexander!”
“Uh-huh,” Chloe sneered. But… she really wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that someone so close to her so quickly couldn’t be capable of hunting her down and killing her. “And what about Alyec? Is he one of my ‘race’ that your.. .friend and you want to destroy?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I had to stop you.”
“Didn’t mean to…?” Alyec demanded, pointing at the blood running down his leg.
“I had to stop you,” Brian reiterated. His brown eyes were wide, begging her to believe him. “If you keep heading down to
the water… there are others, at least a dozen or more of… us, waiting for you, in case you do escape. Some with more… conventional weapons.”
“Who the hell is the Tenth Blade?” Chloe demanded. “And what do you have to do with them?”
“Their only purpose is to kill people like us,” Alyec said.
“Not all of you; that’s not true”
“Tell that to the Rogue.”
“Only the dangerous ones!”
“And what is Chloe? Dangerous?” Alyec growled and leapt at Brian, pushing past Chloe. His claws were fully extended; they were shorter and thicker than Chloe’s. He was aiming for Brian’s neck.
“STOP,” Chloe said, pushing him out of the way and planting a firm hand on Alyec’s shoulder to stop him. But he was angry, raging, out of control.
Without thinking, she took her hand and cuffed him on the side of the head to snap him out of it.
Like a cat cuffs her kittens, she realized after she did it.
Alyec shook his head, dazed, but stumbled back.
“Is that why you hung out with me?” Chloe demanded. “To keep tabs on me so they could kill me?” She looked Brian in the eye. So mudi made sense now—and it was a thousand times worse than she’d ever thought.
“No! I mean, I was supposed to keep track of you, learn about you, talk to you. Become … friends.” They held each other’s eyes for a moment; it was obvious he meant something else entirely. He hung his head. “Then I found out the Rogue was after you, and I wanted to stay by you and protect you—when I couldn’t convince them to call him off.”
“Don’t believe him! Stupid monkey,” Alyec said.
“I’m here talking to you, aren’t I?” Brian shouted at him. “Why would I lie rumi”
“I can’t believe it.” Chloe backed away from him. “I can’t believe you’re part of a group that wants me dead”
“It’s more complicated than that, +Chloe,” Brian said tiredly. “Even Alyec can tell you that.”
“Why did you warn me to stay away from him?” Chloe demanded. “Because you didn’t want me learning the truth?”
“No. Alyec is a known … troublemaker. I didn’t want you drawing attention to yourself, falling in with the wrong crowd.”
“Looks like I fell in with the right crowd,” Chloe said disgustedly. “Finally.” She ducked down and put Alyec’s arm around her shoulders to help him walk. “A couple of years of working out in the ‘real world’ so you could be a zoology major?”
Brian flushed with shame. “Chloe, I really liked—I really like you.”
“Whatever,” Chloe said, leading Alyec away.
Epilogue
Alyec lay On her couch, his injured leg raised. It wasn’t that large a cut, but the shuriken had sliced through tendon, making it impossible for him to walk. Chloe’s own wound on her side had stopped bleeding but continued to ache.
Dazed, exhausted from the fight, and unsure what else to do, Chloe took some taquitos from the freezer and put them in the microwave. She had maybe an hour before her mom came home and serious explanations began if Alyec wasn’t gone.
“This sucks.” Alyec swore, looking at the cut.
Leaning against the stove, Chloe put her hands to her face and finally began to cry.
“Hey, don’t do that,” Alyec said, pushing himself up and hobbling over to her. He put an arm around Chloe. “It’s very confusing, I know…. But don’t worry! Everything will be explained. There’s so much you need to know—about who you are and where you came from. And you will be safe, I promise. There are these people you should meet now; I think you’ll like them….”
Chloe gave Alyec a small smile. Somehow she knew he didn’t mean any of his friends from school. And that was fine by her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LIZ BRASWELL was born in Birmingham, England, and now splits her time between Vermont and New York. Her major at Brown was Egyptology and yes, she can write your name in hieroglyphs. She then produced video games for the next decade, which was the coolest job ever. She likes skiing, sitting third row center at the movies, planting trees, her sister’s excellent black boots, and Nutella.
