The Stolen (21 page)

Kim leaned over, saw the picture, and cleared her throat.

“That's the girl who would have been your sister. If we are correct about your parentage.”

“My
sister?
” Chloe held the picture closer. The girl was darker than Chloe and older; the date on the back indicated that it had been taken a few years ago, and she already looked like she was sixteen or seventeen. Her hair was the same as Chloe's, and there was a shape to her eyes that was similar; her nose was smaller, too. She had two fingers up in a V behind her friend's head.

Kim's exact words suddenly sank into her mind.

“What do you mean, ‘would have been'?”

“She was the one I told you about who was killed by
the Tenth Blade. The pride leader's daughter. That would make you her sister,” Kim said patiently, making Chloe feel like more of an idiot. “It happened several months ago. We think it was the Rogue.”

“My
sister,”
Chloe said again, feeling it on her tongue. Again she felt nothing in particular when she looked at the photo, but the word brought a swirl of emotions.

“Why … ?” she began. Tears sprang up in her eyes. It wasn't
fair
. She'd wanted a brother or sister
all her life
and it turned out that she'd had one
all along
and she'd been taken from Chloe, scant months before they would have found each other. It was so wretchedly, horrifically unfair.

“I understand she was a lot like you, actually. Or you if you had been raised Mai,” Kim added thoughtfully. “I heard that she went out a lot by herself, doing a lot of things strictly among humans, and after her mother was killed, she was sent to live with her relatives, who were members of the New England Pride.”

“There's a pride in New England?” Chloe asked. She remembered Kim mentioning the Pride of New Orleans, but colonial houses, white Christmases, and freaky cat people roaming quaint cobblestoned streets struck Chloe as strange.
I guess that's all relative these days, though,
she thought.

Kim just nodded, without explaining further. “I didn't know her very well. She was killed by herself, far away from her home, at night.”

“Picked off because she was by herself,” Chloe said
grimly. But something seemed familiar about what Kim had said—almost déjà vu. A dream she'd had, maybe: something about a girl running, panicked, in dark city streets. Being caught and having her throat slit.

“Yes … although the fact that it might have been the Rogue lends an interesting spin to the whole thing,” Kim said, looking at the picture again. “To send someone like that out after her means they were pretty serious about
getting
her, which means they somehow knew she was the daughter of a previous pride leader.”

“Do you think they know about me?” Chloe asked in a small voice.

“We still have no actual proof you are who we think you are,” Kim said carefully. “So I would assume they have even less of an idea.”

She imagined the man who'd attacked her running after this other girl, in probably the same fashion, running her down—without an Alyec or Brian to help save her. Maybe without so much of a fighting instinct. Killed by whirring throwing stars and tiny silver daggers.

“Why are they called the Tenth Blade, anyway?” Chloe asked.

“Because a pride leader has nine lives,” Kim answered. “It takes nine blades to kill the One. The
tenth
is for the Tenth Blader if he fails.”

After she and
Kim had made some preliminary plans for searching her house the next night, Chloe finally crawled off to bed, a thousand different thoughts and ideas crowding themselves into her brain. She had just drifted off, the pictures of her possible mother and sister laid out on the quilt in front of her, when Alyec showed up.

“Pssst! Chloe?” He knocked lightly on the door as he opened it.

Chloe blinked awake, then immediately sat up.
“Where were you?”

“What?” Alyec asked, the eagerness on his face changing to dismay.

“I've been trying to call you. I tried calling you at home—”

“I was at a party,” he mumbled, a little shamefaced about having fun while she was stuck here.

“Why don't you have a cell phone?” Chloe snapped.

“I do. Have one.
Had
one. Too many people started
calling, so I don't use it much anymore,” Alyec said defensively.

“My mom—she's been taken. Kidnapped. Killed, I don't know.” She sank back on her bed, trying to hold back the quiver in her voice.

He came over and sat on the bed next to Chloe and put his arm around her. “I'm sure that's not true.”

“It is,” Chloe answered dully. “I went to meet Amy and Paul—” She knew she should have said
and Brian
but couldn't deal with it right then. “And they told me no one had been home in a while. I went, and there's no sign she's been there for at least a week. She must have disappeared right after I came here.”

Alyec hugged her to him, waiting a careful moment before asking the potentially inflammatory: “You went back home? After the last time you were attacked?”

“What would you have done if it was
your
mom?”

“I would go to Sergei and we would instantly round up a posse and—”

“Sergei won't do anything. Because she's
human.”

“Oh.” Alyec seemed surprised by this. “What a dick-head.”

Maybe this racial hatred thing is generational,
Chloe thought. She hoped it was so.

“Why didn't you take me along?” he asked quietly. “I would have gone with you. You know how much I love breaking rules.”

“It was something I had to do myself.”
And it would
have been pretty uncool for you to tag along while I was seeing my other boyfriend
. “Alyec,” she said, sighing, “you get to go to school every day and do normal things with normal people in the outside world. I'm stuck here
all
day.
Every
day. Away from my mom and my friends and everything. I'm being …
cloistered
here.” She gave herself points for the SAT word.

“Kim seems to be okay about it,” Alyec said, a smile on his lips.

“I love her dearly, but she really is a bit of a freak, you know?” Chloe ran her hand through Alyec's thick blond hair. “She said she would go back to the house with me and look for evidence or something.”

“I will go with you, too,” he said, kissing her on the side of her head, above her ear. “Screw Sergei. She's your mom. Hey,” he said brightly, suddenly sitting back and looking at her, “this is the most naked I've ever seen you!”

Chloe caught herself looking down, forgetting what she had on. It was
completely
unsexy: a pair of blue-striped boxers Olga swore were new and an oversized, comfy, Old Navy men's T-shirt. The neck was so big it hung off one of her shoulders. Except for that little bit of
Flashdance,
Chloe didn't think she looked very naked at all.

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” she said, holding her hand against his head to stop him as he reached for her. “I look like a frump.”

“A
sexy
frump. A college girl, taking a break from her studies,” Alyec said, evading her hand and kissing Chloe
on her belly. “A librarian at home. You don't have any glasses, do you?”

“Alyec, shut
up
. Stop it!” She tried not to giggle. Her mom was gone, she had two boyfriends, she couldn't trust anyone…. “We're being
serious
.”

“As a good librarian should be. Chloe, tonight the area will be crawling with Tenth Bladers because you were probably seen. No—definitely seen. You, me, and the freak will go tomorrow night and figure out what happened. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed grudgingly.

He lifted the shirt up over her belly and pulled her boxers just the slightest bit down. Chloe was zinging all over as he brought his lips to her skin, both fearing and expectantly awaiting of his next move.

Which was to suddenly suck down over her belly button like a fish and blow air out the sides, making a ridiculous
thirbrrrrty
sound.

“Alyec!” She cracked up, hitting him over the head with a pillow.

“Chloe,” he said, more seriously, kissing her. “everything's going to be all right. I
promise
.”

Then he
really
kissed her. It was even better than their little time-out in the janitor's closet. He pulled her closer to him, sliding his hand up under her shirt. She felt the tips of his claws come out and pressed back into him.

“Al-yec!” came a booming male voice, pronouncing the name as Russianly as possible. Sergei stood in the
doorway, hands on his hips, a growl on his face. He looked extremely leonine. “Do I have to establish a curfew in my own home?”

“Hey, she's part of this, too,” Alyec said mock whiningly, sliding up and away from her in one quick movement.

Chloe wasn't sure whether to scream, cry, or giggle. This was such a classic situation—one that she had never been in before. Besides being scary and embarrassing, it felt sort of warm and nostalgic.

“Get
out,
Alyec Ilychovich,” Sergei said, raising an eyebrow. There was a little bit of tired amusement in his voice as well. Chloe got the feeling that this was somehow not as bad as the whole sneaking-out thing. It was
bad
, but not unexpected, and not out of the realm of the legal.

Alyec slunk out after giving a brave salute to Sergei and blowing a kiss to Chloe. When he was gone, Sergei let out a sigh, a breath he must have held the entire time.

“That boy is a menace,” he said wearily.

Chloe covered her mouth, pretending to scratch her nose, desperately trying not to giggle.

“I just came by to apologize,” the older man said more gently, coming in and sitting on the edge of her bed. “I truly
am
sorry we cannot help your mother more. We should do everything we can for the woman who adopted you and brought you up and helped make you the wonderful girl you are.” He put his square, stubby hand somewhat clumsily on her own. “But these
are tough times … and the Tenth Blade is in strange agitation over you. I do not wish to risk lives—there are so few of us. Do you understand?”

When he looked at her with those large, white-blue eyes and that childish, hopeful expression, Chloe just wanted to hug him and tell him everything was all right. She
wanted
everything to be all right. She
wanted
him to have her best interests at heart.

But … Kim doesn't like him. What are her reasons?
Chloe once again wondered. Actually, Alyec didn't really like him either. Olga was carefully neutral on the subject. The only person Chloe knew who admired him completely was Igor, Sergei's sort-of protégé.

He's not my real father,
Chloe reminded herself.
Where the hell was Sergei when I needed to learn how to ride my bike or couldn't figure out how to multiply fractions or when Scott Shannon turned me down for the dance and asked Liz Braswell right in front of me?

“I understand,” she said, and it was sort of true. “I'm just sad. And I feel helpless.”

“I know.” He kissed Chloe on her forehead. “But remember, the Tenth Blade doesn't usually hurt humans. If they've taken her, she's probably fine, just a little shaken up. They're trying to lure you out, not hurt her.”

She nodded, for some reason suddenly almost overcome with the urge to cry.

“Good.” He patted her on the knee and stood up. “Are we on for a game of chess tomorrow? Lunch, maybe?”

“How about Scrabble?” Chloe suggested instead.

Sergei groaned. “Oh, good. A game designed for knowledge of English words. You just want to win for once, Chloe King. Okay, Scrabble it is.” He grinned and left, his surprisingly thick and stubby legs rocking him out of the room. From the back he almost looked like some sort of alien from
Star Trek
.

As Chloe settled back down into her covers, she suddenly noticed the photos that she had left out on her bed. Had Sergei seen them? Would he care? Should she be worried?

Questions kept her awake for a long time before she finally fell asleep.