The Nine Lives of Chloe King (12 page)

—Brian 415-555-0554

She smiled. He was just so … perfect. It was almost like he could sense she was lonely and sent this. She called him but got his answering machine.

“Hi, this is Whit Rezza—if you’re looking for Peter Rezza, you can reach him on his cell, 415-555-1412. Leave a message, thanks!”

“Hey, Brian, it’s Chloe. I’d
love
to go out on Saturday—not a huge fan of ska, but I like it enough. Just going to have to figure out what to tell my mom first; she’s not big on me and guys. So this is a possible ’yes,’ and …”

The electronic sound of a door opening came from her computer. She looked over; Alyec was online. A second later there was a
beep
as he accepted her invite.

“And I’ll call you or e-mail you later, okay? Bye!”

She would have to remember to call before her mom came home; on the home phone bill it would only appear as a local call, but on her cell phone the bill listed every number. And her mom went through the bill
very
carefully each month, demanding to know what unrecognizable phone numbers were. She said it was for budget reasons …
ha!

Chloe spun back in her chair so she was facing the computer. There was already a message from Alyec.

She giggled.

Chloe flushed. She had felt a lot of his body—fully clothed—in the closet. She wished it was summer so they could go to the beach and she could rub oil all over his broad shoulders. Or that they could date like normal people.
Too bad I’m not normal,
she thought for the second time in a week.

The phone rang.

“King residence,” she answered.

“Hey—uh—Chloe—was that you who called?” Brian’s voice came from the other end. “My dad has caller ID and callback on this thing.”

“Yeah, it was me.” She was still flushed, thinking about Alyec and his body and the closet, and suddenly found herself thinking about Brian. More specifically, her on top of Brian, holding him down while she kissed him.
I’ll bet I could do that with my new strength, too. …

He must have heard something funny in her voice.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“Oh. You just sounded—never mind. So, you still want that pattern?”

No, I want
you,
you dillhole.

There was a beep from the computer:

Or Alyec. I want Alyec, too.
It was funny right this moment, the two guys on two different means of communication. But soon, if her life was anything like TV—or even real life—it would all get very complicated without a decision.
But not yet. Not just yet!

“Yeah. Should we try for Saturday?”

“Uh, sure. That’s fine. I mean, it’s great!” There was a long pause. “Chloe? I, uh …”

“Yeah?” She waited to hear him say that she was too young for him, that they had to break up, that he didn’t find her attractive. She sucked in her breath.
So much for
me
making a decision.

“Uh, nothing. I just think you’re cool, that’s all.”

“Oh.” She grinned. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, so call me about Saturday, okay?”

“Absolutely.”

There was another beep from the computer.

“All right, then, bye.”

He hung up sounding excited, pleased, and embarrassed. Chloe ran back to the keyboard.

Chloe froze. Now would be a good time to say something.

They typed back and forth furiously for several hours, taking breaks to go get drinks, or more bathroom breaks, or to IM other people. Alyec told her that Jean Mehala was just asking him if he had any desire to join the Junior UN.
I am the junior UN!
And Lotetia wanted him on the dance committee, which he might just do; most of the music at the dances sucked.

There was a noise behind Chloe, the slightest scratch of a throat. She jumped and spun around, expecting a murderer or something awful.

It was worse. It was her mom.

“Who is that you’re talking to?” Mrs. King demanded. She was wearing her driving glasses and looked stem and real mommish for once. Her gray eyes narrowed, and she gripped her attaché like an ax.

“How long were you standing there?” Chloe demanded.

“What was it you two
did
at school today that was so exciting?” From the set of her lips it was obvious that she had a pretty good idea already. She must have been standing there for quite a while. How had Chloe not heard her?

“Nothing,” Chloe said dully.

“Making out in a
janitor’s closet?
During
class?”

“It was only gym. And besides—it’s not like you let me go out on actual
dates.”

“This is precisely why!” Her mother hit the computer screen violently enough to make it ring. “You are
grounded,
young lady! For the next week at least!”

“That’s so unfair!” Normally Chloe would have been thinking about how badly she’d screwed up right then and doing whatever she could to make up for it—lie, apologize, finish out the normal teenage fight, and act good for the next week—but real anger was growing inside her, and she found she couldn’t think. “Everyone else
dates
—and I have to lie and sneak around, even with
nice
guys like Brian. …”

“Who’s
Brian?”
her mother demanded. Her hands shook with rage.

“What does it matter? He’s totally great, but you won’t let me date
him,
either!”

“It seems like you’re doing well enough, whoring around like—“She fell silent.

Chloe just looked at her, eyes like coals. She couldn’t hear; rushes of blood and fury rose in her. For the first time since she was a child, she had the almost overwhelming urge to hit her mother.

“Take. That. Back.”

Mrs. King bit her lip.

“I’m—sorry. I didn’t mean—that was way too harsh. I apologize. I shouldn’t speak to you like that.” She played with the hammered silver earring on her left ear, tugging at it.

“You’re going to give me the whole ’how hard it is to be a single mom’ speech now, aren’t you?” Chloe spat.

“No, I—”

“Are you going to ’keep me’ from dating when I’m in college? Jesus Christ, Mom, I’m
sixteen.
I have a job. I get good grades. What psycho-pop book did you get this ’no dating’ bullshit out of?”

“It wasn’t a book!” Mrs. King said, her voice rising again. Then she fell back on her heels, suddenly tired, all energy and anger drained from her face. “It was the last thing your father said before he disappeared. He made me promise to never let you date.”

Chloe’s jaw dropped, but she had nothing to say. The man she had been glorifying and missing for twelve years was the one responsible for this?

“This is
bullshit,”
Chloe growled. She spun on her heels and pushed past her mother.

“Chloe, wait—”

She ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.

“FUCK!” she screamed. She clenched her fists, fingers aching painfully. She pulled back to punch the door.

And then she stopped.

There were claws where her nails had been. White and sharp and curved and beautiful, just like a cat’s.

Eleven

She sat on
the top of a chain-link fence, staring at the moon.

It was easy now, sitting like that on the balls of her feet with her hands just touching the rail. Now that she
knew
she was different.

“He made me promise to never let you date. …”

Why? Did he know something? Did it have to do with the claws?

Chloe lifted one hand and looked at it, trying to will them back. She bent her knuckles. She tried to remember the rage she’d felt.
What was it that she said that set me off?

“Whoring around like—“

Sslt.

With the slightest of noises, the claws came out. They seemed to spring right from the bone, strong and sturdy as an extension of her hand. They didn’t bend when she touched them, and the tips were razor sharp.

Xavier.

Maybe she’d scratched him with the tips. Maybe they were poisoned. Maybe they came out when she was all hot as well as enraged.
Is that why Dad didn’t want me to date? Because I can accidentally kill people?

She thought about what Brian had said at the zoo.

“Even the friendly ones … don’t know their own strength compared to humans. They can accidentally kill a zookeeper while trying to play with him. …”

What if she had been face-to-face with her mom when she got that angry? Would she have lost control and tried to hit her? Would the claws have come out, scarring or killing her mother?

Suddenly her new powers didn’t feel like fun anymore. They felt lethal.

So I can’t make out with guys? But Alyec was fine. …
It didn’t make any sense.

A thousand mysteries, none of which were easily solved. Chloe felt an incredible surge of loneliness envelop her. Who could she talk to? Who could help her? Who would tell her that everything would be okay?

How can I even have a boyfriend?

Either he’d have to be
awfully
accepting and tightlipped, or she would have to constantly hide things from him.

She stood up on the fence with ease: the trick was not to think about what she was doing and let her body just do it, she discovered. The roof of a nearby apartment complex hung just within reach. She leapt.

The sheer power in her body was phenomenal—as her legs flexed, she felt the way racehorses looked, all muscle and speed, no wasted movement or flesh. Her powerful thighs arced her easily over the gutter.

Landing was a little harder.

Chloe pitched forward, forgetting to compensate for momentum. She threw her arm out and managed to grab the base of an old antenna to keep herself from rolling off the roof. She lay against the tar tiles a moment, panting, scared to move, her feet dangling down. When she finally calmed down enough to think straight, she swung her left leg up and, bending her knee so she looked like a frog, pushed herself up onto the apex of the roof and swung her right leg over the other side so that she straddled it.

Not quite perfect.

Above her the stars glittered coldly in the dark blue sky. She looked out over the other roofs, the strange landscape with shingles and tiles for grass and chimneys and antennae for bushes and trees. Like the canopy layer in a rain forest, it was a whole area of the world she had never really noticed before.
Not before Coit Tower, at least.
And now it lay open to her. Some of the chimneys really were organic looking, like that kind of lumpy one—

Which was waving to her.

She stared harder. Chloe’d had better-than-perfect vision from birth, but, as on the night with the mugger, she realized she could see things far more clearly under the dim moonlight and night sky than she really should. She waited and everything lightened, like in the viewfinder of a digital camera. She could see individual bricks and the mortar separating them.

The “chimney” elongated and straightened as the person stood up—balancing perfectly on the short wall that divided the roof space of one apartment building from the next. Then it crouched down, like a frog—
or a cat
—and leapt over the gap to the next building, landing so his—by the silhouette it looked more like a “his”—right hand came down onto the roof at the same time as his feet, ending in the same sort of crouch.

Oh, that’s what I should have done,
Chloe thought idly.
Spread my weight out across my legs
and
my hands so that …