The Stolen (19 page)

“This is Brian. Brian, Amy,” Chloe introduced formally, feeling a little ridiculous.

“
This
is Brian?” her friend said incredulously. She looked him over, up and down so carefully that he began to fidget under her gaze. “You are
way
hotter than Alyec.”

Chloe shook her head with impatience. “Where's Paul?”

“He's coming. The, uh, you know”—she mimicked taking a drag from a cigarette—“slow him down.”

“That and managing to skip every gym class since the dawn of time,” Chloe muttered. Now was not the time to have people separated. The Tenth Blade “patrols” might have let them pass for now, but what if they were just waiting for more orders? And what if the Mai noticed she was missing and thought Brian was trying to abduct her? “We've got to find my mom.”

“Absolutely,” Amy agreed, still panting. “Where do you think she went?”

“Now, wait a moment … ,” Brian began, putting his hand up to Chloe's friend.

“I don't think she
went
anywhere. I think she was taken.” Chloe pointed to the bowl.

“Hey.” Paul came in, trying not to huff, his face turning red as a result. For the first time ever, he actually looked healthy, with pink cheeks.

“
This
is Brian,” Amy said, grabbing Paul's arm.

“Hey,” Paul said again, waving and still trying to breathe normally. It was amazing, Chloe reflected. His clothes were still perfect. Of course, Puma originally made athletic gear, but still …

“Chloe's mom has definitely been kidnapped,” Amy said, catching him up on things. “We're working out how to find her.”

“
We
aren't doing any such thing,” Brian said, exasperated. Suddenly he seemed a lot more than just a couple of years older than Chloe and her friends. “
You two
are now officially done with this part of the story. I thought I made that clear in my answer to that e-mail you so unwisely sent me.”

“Oh, suddenly Mr. Studmuffin here is charge of everything,” Amy snapped, putting her hands on her hips and sticking her chin out at him. “Where the hell did you come from, anyway?
‘We two'
have been friends with her forever.”

“I appreciate that,” Brian said through clenched teeth, “but this is very. Dangerous. Stuff. Your friend has
been involved in what might be considered a murder. A group of people are out for her blood. Another group of people are out to protect her at all costs. And now her mom is gone. Hello? Not the safest avenue for you two.”

“I'm right
here
, people,” Chloe muttered.

“What makes
you
so qualified for the role of detective and bodyguard?” Amy had come closer to Brian and, even though she was a head shorter, pressed her nose up as far as it would go. Paul was still trying to catch his breath, watching without saying anything.

“He is … was … is?” Chloe said, looking at Brian uncertainly. “A member of the Order of the Tenth Blade.”

“The kooks who are trying to kill you?” Paul asked, amazed, finally able to speak.

“Yeah, but he saved me on the bridge….”

“How do you know he's not a double agent or something?” Amy demanded.

“I'm not,” Brian said.

“I don't,” Chloe added.

“He doesn't seem like it,” Paul offered.

“Well,
you've
taken a sudden switch,” Amy said, rounding on her boyfriend. “I thought
Alyec
was the one you trusted.”

“Okay, everyone,
stop
,” Chloe finally said. Brian obviously knew what he was doing and had a pretty good idea of what was best for everyone, but it was also crystal clear that her friends weren't going to listen to
him. “Arguing here, the four of us, from three different factions, isn't going to help anything. And it's just keeping all of us nice and neatly in the same spot for
someone
to come along and pick off.”

“What faction are we?” Paul asked.

“Innocent,” Chloe said, gritting her teeth. Amy started to say something, but Chloe interrupted her. “No, shut up, it's true. There's no reason to put your lives in danger. But from what I understand, the Tenth Blade won't hurt humans, and I don't think the Mai like attracting too much attention to themselves. You're in a perfect position to help on the detective side. Like the home base people.” Amy and Paul looked at her blankly. “Like Oracle in
Batman
” she said desperately. “Like Willow in
Buffy
. Before the whole witch-powers thing. Like Pete in
Smallville
.”

“Oh, cool,” Paul said, relaxing and suddenly looking into it. Amy looked doubtful but nodded.

It
is
kind of a lame-ass cop-out
, Chloe realized, but she hoped it sounded good and that her friends would accept it. She wasn't going to be responsible for more people she loved getting hurt because of her.

“We can do other things,” Amy protested weakly.

“You aren't trained like the Order, and you don't have the abilities of the Mai,” Brian pointed out. “If you got involved in an actual fight, you'd be seriously injured or killed. I hate to sound clichéd, but this isn't a game.”

“Do a search of all of the newspapers for the last two
weeks,” Chloe suggested quickly before Amy yelled at Brian again.
He has such a habit of coming off as well meaning but a little high and mighty
. She wondered if his father was like that and, if so, how he managed to retain control of his organization. “We need to see if there's anything,
anything
about a missing person, a body, someone in the hospital….” She didn't
say
“the morgue,” but Chloe could tell by the look on Amy's face that it was understood.

“Do we have any
idea
who kidnapped her?” Paul asked.

Chloe looked at Brian helplessly.

“It could be either the Mai or the Order at this point,” he answered, shrugging. “Both have a motive.”

“Why would it be the Mai?” Chloe demanded. “What would they want with my mother?”

“Chloe, she's your biggest connection to the world of humans.” Brian
knew
this was a touchy thing to say in front of her two best friends, but he had to say it anyway. “If they thought you would completely go over to their side—”

“What do you mean,
over
? I live with them—they're my race and my family and want to get to know me and protect me from people—
humans
—who want to kill me!”

“I'm just saying we should keep it open as a possibility,” Brian said as calmly as he could. “As you said, they are extremely
protective
of their race.”

“But what you're saying still doesn't make sense,
Brian,” Amy said unexpectedly, before Chloe could speak. “The Mai have no reason to
take
Mrs. King. What would they do with her? Why not just”—she glanced at Chloe, having a hard time saying it—“why not just have her turn up dead on the news? Then Chloe would have nowhere to turn, and she would have to stay with them.”

“They would never do that,” Chloe said slowly. “And they may want me to stay, but they've been nothing besides supportive and—” She didn't know what to call it.

There was something about having a guy like a father play chess with her and eat pizza, about having a group of people who she could just lounge with instantly accept her, not act pissed off or angry—or date her other best friend. They accepted her without conditions. Once she'd appeared, she was just there, part of the Mai, like she had always been and always would be.

Plus—and here was the bit she wasn't going to reveal to anyone present yet—the Mai made
perfect
bloodhounds. As soon as she got back, she planned on telling Sergei about what had happened. Even if he was reluctant, Chloe bet she could wheedle a couple of kizekh out of him to help track down her mom. And deal with her captors, if necessary.

“All right …,” Paul said, obviously not entirely convinced, but enough to not press it. Brian's face was carefully neutral. “She hasn't turned up dead yet, and whatever this was, it happened a while ago. But …” he
paused. “There doesn't seem to be a logical reason for
either
side to delay your finding out about it. Is there anyone else we should know about? Someone else who might have taken your mother for some different reason? Who might not have anything to do with any of this at all?”

“Yeah, sure,” Amy said, making a face. “Because
two
obvious secret organizations with hidden agendas aren't convincing enough for you, Paul?”

“Well, I mean, what if it was someone else close to you, Chloe—another interested party, with a totally different x factor?” Paul suggested.

“Like
who
?”

Amy's eyes suddenly widened with realization of who fit the bill perfectly. “Like … your dad, Chloe?”

“No way.” Paul shook his head. “That's not what I meant at all. Why would he come back after all these years and do something like this? I don't remember him being that kind of psycho—and my parents don't talk about him that way.”

“Yeah, I'm afraid I'm going to have to vote negatory on that, too, Ames,” Chloe said, physically shaking her head free of all the different theories. She checked her cell phone. “Okay, look, I gotta go. I'm going to have to keep this off—it's got
no
juice left.”

“Now, that's something I
can
help you with,” Amy said, grinning. She dug into her enormous pink coat pocket and triumphantly pulled out a rugged but shiny
techno-gadget. “And it has a charger. Here.” She handed that over, too.

“What are you, Q from
James Bond
?” Chloe asked. “What is this?”

“A walkie-talkie,” Amy explained proudly. “We've got one, too. Keep it on, and we'll always be in contact—untraceably.”

“Wow. This must have been expensive….”

“That's a nice model,” Brian said approvingly, looking over her shoulder. “It's a newer one than my dad sells. Hey, doesn't it have—?”

Paul kicked him. Chloe blushed, wondering how much it must have cost her friends.

“Thanks, guys,” she said, trying not to cry again. “You really
are
my support team. Even if,” she added, with a grin at Amy, “you dress like a pimp.”

Chloe made Brian
stop following her after they got to the other side of the bridge, not wanting to lead him to Sergei's house—although the way he didn't question where she'd gone made her wonder if maybe the Order of the Tenth Blade knew more about the Mai and their whereabouts than they were letting on. But Brian was a man of his word, and even though she paused often to scent the wind and listen for his footsteps, she found no trace of him. At one point she ran back and trailed
him
to see if her senses were correct, and they were: he had wandered back over the bridge. He'd stopped halfway across and looked back, maybe hoping for a sign of her. Finally he stuck his hands in his pockets and continued the rest of the way hunched over, looking at the ground. Not a silent, highly trained soldier of an elite order, but rather a failing hero—as though nothing good was going to happen if he wasn't there to protect her.

Something burned in the pit of her stomach when
she saw him like that. Chloe had to fight back an almost overwhelming urge to chase back after him and grab him. She could just see it:
He would hug her and lift her high off the ground. And when he put her down, he'd put his hand under her chin and kiss her
—But that was when the dream broke off.

That could never happen. That
would
never happen.

But watching him walk away from her toward San Francisco, she knew he could never be just a friend, either.

I love you, Chloe
.

She let herself savor Brian's words one more time before heading back to Sergei's house.

Sergei was in his office with Igor, Olga, and some of the other higher-ranking Mai at Firebird.

“Sergei?” Chloe flashed an apologetic look to everyone else in the room, but it wasn't really heartfelt.

“Hello, Chloe,” he said amicably. “We're a
little
busy right now….”

“My mom is gone.”

Everyone on the other side of the desk shifted and looked at each other in surprise. Sergei raised his eyebrows.

“I snuck out,” Chloe said, coming farther into the room. She was slightly ashamed, but honesty really was the best policy in this case. Here was an army of people already on her side who could help her, trained with techniques and abilities specifically geared toward hunting and finding people. “I went to go see my friends,
Amy and Paul—they were worried about me.” She tried not to look at Sergei's face, terrified of the disappointment she might find there. “They told me they thought she might be missing—our house didn't seem lived in, and she wasn't answering phone calls. So I went home—” There were some sharp intakes of breath from everyone around her. “She's obviously been taken, or kidnapped, or something. Days ago. Maybe right after I came here.”