by Liz Braswell
“Sure! Can you meet me before work, at the café near there, on the other side of the street?”
“You can’t get out earlier?”
Chloe raised an eyebrow, “I’m in high school, remember? Not the ‘real world.’ Getting out early means calls to Mom and consequences”
“Oh. Right. Okay, then, two-fifteen?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Chloe promised. She put the phone back into her pocket.
“Hey, Chloe!” Alyec was waving at her. She smiled and sauntered over, swinging her hips in a half-cowboy-with-spurs, half-sexy walk. “Nice vest. So Keira says you’re a complete slut. Is that true?”
Chloe’s mouth opened—and then just hung there. She was too stunned to speak. Keira’s closest friends were in earshot, listening rapdy. Alyec was excellendy maintaining a straight face, the still-foreign aspect of his expressions never too revealing.
Then Chloe laughed.
It was such a perfect, stupid high school moment, as far away from murdering psychos, supernatural powers, and mysterious fears as one could get. A complete breath of fresh air.
Alyec smiled, pleased to see her reaction.
“I hear you actually have to have sex to be one,” she answered loudly. “You should talk to Scott LeFevre and Jason Buttrick and—well, the whole soccer team. Ask them about Keira.”
The girl’s two friends sped away like little bluebirds of unhappiness, eager to tell.
“You look so down,” Alyec said, running a hand sexily through her hair. She pushed her head up into it, enjoying the feeling. I hope I don’t start purring or anything like that.
“I… didn’t sleep well last night.”
“You should have called me. I would have come over, and after that,” he said, grinning devilishly, “you would have slept like a baby.”
“You’re a complete ass,” she said, genuinely meaning it.
“You love it, baby.” He leaned forward as if to kiss her but stopped just before, so there was a barely a millimeter between them, and just stood there.
Chloe could smell his skin, clean and warm. It felt like she had just swallowed a double shot of cheap whiskey: burning coursed through her stomach and the rest of her body. She turned her face slighdy to move her lips along his cheek—still not touching—almost overwhelmed by heat and desire. But she held back.
Alyec finally pulled himself away. “Whew, strong medicine,” he said hoarsely.
“Catch you later, lover boy,” Chloe said over her shoulder as she walked away.
This is way too much fun.
She saw Amy in the hall a couple of times. They didn’t look at each other. Amy made a big deal of looking away. Chloe rolled her eyes. With friends like this, who needs blade-wielding murderers?
When the final bell rang, she jogged to the café, making sure she was on the side of the street with the most pedestrians, slowing down to tag along in groups, speeding up to pass on to others.
She breathlessly threw herself into the chair opposite Brian, where he was sitting, brooding, over a cup of something and a biscotti. He was looking even less goth than usual, with creased khakis and shined boots and a black hoodie with the number 10 in red across the front. His kitty cat hat was nowhere to be found.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi.”
That was it for a few minutes while she ordered and they waited for her coffee to be brought over. It was tense; Chloe almost tapped her feet in impatience. When they were finally alone, Brian looked at her for a long minute, his brown eyes troubled. He absendy fingered the scar on his cheek.
“I think you should stop seeing Alyec.”
Chloe blinked.
She thought back to their brief telephone conversation, how serious he’d sounded and troubled… and realized that the last time he had seen her was with Alyec. It had nothing to do with him being another cat person….
“Brian, I thought we already talked about this—” Then she stopped, thinking about what he’d just said. These days nothing strange or out of the ordinary—no matter how small—could be dismissed anymore as harmless. “How do you know his name?” she asked quiedy.
“What?” Brian asked, flustered, not having expected that response.
“How did you know Alyec’s name?” Chloe repeated, standing up. “Have you been following me? Stalking me?” she demanded.
He looked around, nervous at her loud accusations.
“Chloe, listen to me,” he begged. “You really shouldn’t see him. He’s not… safe.”
“I cannot believe you, you … freak!” she said, slamming her fist down on the table. “You won’t commit to anything like a real relationship, and after only a few dates you start accusing other guys of being dangerous? That’s pathetic” she spat. “Not safe? What would you know about safe? Someone tried to kill me last night and you’re worried about a goofy foreign sixteen-year-old?”
Brian’s face went white. “Someone… attacked you?”
“Yeah! I could have been killed. I spent the whole night terrified—he knew stuff about me too, Brian. I only have room in my life for one crazy stalker.”
“Are you okay?” he finally asked.
“Barely!” She took the vest and pulled it and her T-shirt aside. The deep gouge was clean but ugly. “Mofo had daggers and throwing stars and all sorts of weird stuff.” She was furious but still owed him thanks. “If it weren’t for the moves you taught me the other night, I’d be dead,” she said grudgingly.
“That I taught you?” he asked, confused.
Oh no…
“You didn’t… the other night…? Come on, this is serious. Mease—”
But he shook his head, shrugging.
When she realized he really meant it, Chloe was almost overcome with despair. Here she’d thought she finally had an answer to the insanity around her: not only was Brian a great guy, but he would have been someone who could teach her, who could protect her, who could tell her what she was.
And he’d turned out to be none of the above. Just some possessive, crazy freak.
“I have to go now,” she said, pushing her chair in.
“No, Chloe… don’t! Wait—”
But she was already out the door.
Seventeen
She Stamped Outside and stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. The longer she stayed there, the more time Brian would have to pay the bill and work up the courage to go after her. Which was the last thing she wanted. For a moment, just a moment, she sobbed, feeling utterly lost.
Then she concentrated on what was she had left: the fact that Brian was a complete jerk. She was so angry, she could spit. She started walking—she had to do something with all of the rage inside her. Since it was almost time to go to work, she headed in that direction.
She balled her hands into fists and clenched and unclenched her hands, feeling the claws come in and out. It wasn’t exacdy soothing, but it made her feel better. Her shoulders felt tight, and Chloe wished she could run like the tiger on those gasoline (or was it oil?) commercials, stretching out with her front legs, leaping, springing off on her back ones. Then she thought about the mountain lions in LA—which made her think about Brian, which made her get all angry again.
“Hey, Chloe,” a voice called from in front of her, waking her out of her thoughts. It was Keira, in something that looked like an actual tennis dress, complete with pom-pom socks. But she wore it over a pair of Mavi jeans. Even the other girl’s smell made Chloe ill: it stank of seething hormones and irritation and, well, Keira.
She stood in front of Chloe casually, as if just to talk.
“Who exacdy were you calling a whore today? In the hall?”
“Go away” Chloe said, trying to step around her. Like I need this on top of everything else. She felt like the fuse in her was half a centimeter from the pipe bomb.
“No, I’m really interested.” Keira tossed her hair to the side, exhibiting all of its shades, roots, and layers. “Were you implying
that I slept with Jason and Scott— and the whole soccer team?”
The bomb ignited.
Chloe turned, eyes flashing. She opened her mouth. A sound came out of it, deep and guttural and raw, from the bottom of her throat. Not exacdy human. A warning.
Keira’s face went white and she took a step backward.
Chloe walked around her, continuing to Pateena’s. She was close to clawing the next person who tried to talk to her.
I’m going to pay for that later, though. As soon as she recovered, Keira would get on the phone to everyone and tell them what a freak Chloe King was, besides being a gossiping, lying rumormonger. But Chloe was pretty sure she wouldn’t use die actual word rumormonger. It was several syllables too long for the field hockey star’s vocabulary.
Chloe managed to calm down enough by the time she got to the store to punch in civilly and grab one of the doughnuts Marisol had thoughtfully brought in for them, even remembering to thank her. They were Halloween-themed ones from Dunkin’ Donuts, covered in little black and orange candy bats and pumpkins. Chloe had forgotten about the holiday coming up; it was Amy’s favorite.
She felt the urge to growl again.
Trapped within the store, die smell of recently dry-cleaned and bleached cotton and polyester enclosing her, Chloe found her thoughts similarly trapped. She still knew nothing about her attacker or the other cat person. She had no new way of protecting herself and her mom. She had no intention of telling her mother about the attack, either, which meant she was already violating the agreement between them. She had no one to talk to. Not anymore.
Chloe found herself attaching labels with the punch gun harder than she had to, putting holes in more than a few pairs of pants.
And this is where I met Brian.
“Awww. Is the little high-school girl all PMS about something?” Lania asked, pouting out her lip and looking down at her. “Whatsa matter, didn’t get elected prom queen?”
Chloe considered how Lania’s looks would improve with the addition of a plastic tag permanendy fixed to her lower lip.
“Leave me alone,” she muttered. It was almost a plea; why was it that when everything was at its suckiest, people like Lania and Keira suddenly decided it was their day for free torture? She didn’t want to lose her temper again. Several people were in the store, and a leonine roar would certainly be noticed.
Lania shrugged, kicking Chloe’s pile of jeans out of the way as she left.
Chloe took a deep breath, picked up another pair, and aimed the gun at it—but she was gripping too tightly and it misfired, jamming. Without thinking, Chloe raised it above her head to dash it against the floor—but stopped herself just in time.
She had to get out of here. Her mood was not improving.
Chloe carefully restacked the jeans, reset the gun, and found Marisol in the back.
“Uh.” She coughed. Would she stick to her new honesty policy? “Marisol, I don’t think I can keep working here today.”
The older woman looked up at her, eyes narrowed, maybe searching for physical signs of illness, the only fathomable reason an employee would say such a thing.
“Are you okay?” she finally asked.
“Not… really,” Chloe didn’t give any further explanation. Ask me no questions….
“Okay,” Marisol said grudgingly. Her eyes flicked to a couple of black-and-white monitors that were linked to security cameras in the store. Chloe realized she was trying to tell her that she had seen the way she had been behaving. “I like you, Chloe. But I don’t have time for crazy teenagers. This is a business I have to run, not day care.”
“I understand,” Chloe mumbled. If only she knewwhat was going on
“I think we’ll be okay; it hasn’t been that busy. Take the rest of the week. But I expect to see you back on Wednesday—if not, don’t bother ever coming back.”
“Thank you,” Chloe said with all her heart.
“All right. See you next Wednesday.” The woman turned her back; their discussion was over. Chloe grabbed her jacket and ran outside, rejoicing in the clean, fresh feeling of the sun on her.
But she still wanted to pound something. Where could she go? What could she do to shake this foul mood, this incredible rage?
Alyec.
He might not be the best conversationalist, but he would definitely take her mind off things. But where would he be? She had never seen him with a cell phone, wouldn’t know his number if he did have one. She checked her watch—it was only three-twenty; there was a good chance he was still hanging out with his usual crowd of friends somewhere in or near the school.
Chloe ran all the way back and paused outside the main exit. Sniffing. Before she knew what she was doing, she had her nose in the air, trying to catch his scent…. There! Was that it? She waited as the breeze shifted direction, closing her eyes. A thousand different… not images exacdy, but feelings and suppositions filtered through: Was that a cat? Was someone angry? Someone hadn’t bathed in a while Something alien, animal, small… Squirrel? Rat? She couldn’t name the scents; there was no vocabulary for them. But they were recognizable and learnable, like faces and sounds. She could have stayed there for much longer, letting these things fill her—like a dog, she realized, sticking its head out the window, or even that dumb little shih tzu, who always smelled up and down her arm before letting her pet him, as if to see where she had been and who she had seen that day.
There again! That was him! like the smell of his skin this morning, masculine and unmistakably Alyec. She followed it, finding it hard not to also follow her instinct and move her head around against the building and even along the ground to follow the trail. But, there were still students around, and her reputation for weird-ness had already been established enough that day.
Chloe paused at an intersection, checked the scent, and was rewarded for her guess: it led to the smaller basketball gym. She slowed down at the last minute, hearing other voices, smelling mixed signals, male and female.
She strolled in, like she had just been walking by, knocking on the door as she went.
Alyec sat like a benevolent king among his admirers and friends. Everyone was gathered around and below him, on lower risers, talking and laughing and tossing a basketball. Alyec was trying to learn how to spin it on one finger like the other Americans, causing a lot of giggles. Keira wasn’t there. Thank God.
He saw her come in. There was no hesitation: he rose with the ease of a reasonably graceful human, tossed the ball to some cute little girl thing, and jumped down, slapping hands and giving high fives as he went.
“Gotta go, catch you all later.”
Someone began singing, “Alyec and Chloe, sitting in a tree….” It wasn’t even mean, but it annoyed Chloe nonetheless. Who were these little people who just commented and talked about her life like that?
“Hey, beautiful.” He didn’t kiss her perfunctorily like other boyfriends might have—like Brian should have, like all of their interactions, it was as if such a gesture was too banal for the two of them. He just raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“I want to do something bad” she said, half joking.
He looked at her, trying to evaluate her mood. Then he took her hand. For a moment Chloe was afraid he’d taken what she’d said the wrong way; the last thing in the world she wanted was friendly physical contact. Right now the idea left her nauseated.
Alyec began striding down the hallway, pulling her behind him. “We’ll blow your steam off,” he said as she hurried to keep up with him. “I promise.”
He took her to the tiny parking lot in the back of the school, to the even tinier seniors’ parking section. The nearing-sunset light was extraordinary, both softening and carefully outiining every shape and color; its heat caused the smell of decaying leaves, tar, and dusty metal to slowly seep into the air. He led her to a tiny hatchback the color of dull copper, old and rusting.
“This is yours?” Chloe asked, surprised. “You’re not a senior—”
“Is a great car,” he said, lapsing into broken English in his excitement. “Rebuilt with eight-cylinder engine. Standard shift. Very pure.”
“It’s yours?” she asked again, noticing he hadn’t answered.
“I have always loved the old hatchbacks,” he said, taking out a key and opening the driver’s side door. “There are a few problems, of course. Like, a few keys will open almost all models.” He stuck his leg out of the car for balance and leaned in, fiddling with something underneath the steering wheel. “But you can get in and tinker and really know what you’re doing, you know? No computers or that kind of crap.”
There were a few short and unpromising-sounding clicks and growls, then something caught and the engine started. He leaned over and unlocked the passenger door.
Chloe opened it, having to pull harder than she thought; it might be a tiny car, but it felt like it was made completely out of lead, and the door didn’t swing too easily. She fell down into the low seat, which still retained most of its original—leather? Vinyl? —cover, patched here and there with duct tape.
She looked at Alyec.
“This isn’t your car, is it?”
He smiled at her and backed them out of the parking lot.
Chloe didn’t know the first thing about cars and very little about actual driving—her mom had let her practice in the Passat once in a while, and she was signing up for driver’s ed that spring. But even so, two things were apparent even to her: the little car was accelerating much harder and faster than it should have been able to, and Alyec had obviously not learned to drive in America.
They bounced forcibly up and down in the car; other than springs in the actual seats themselves, there didn’t seem to be any form of suspension. She opened the window and grabbed the sill for support and found herself laughing. Bonnie and Clyde! Stolen car, infinite anger, open road. This was exacdy what she needed.
She didn’t bother asking where they were going; he seemed to have an agenda. They swung around comers so hard Chloe could have sworn that die two outside wheels lifted up, and while they didn’t actually run any red lights, she saw them turn as they passed underneath.