Nine Lives of Chloe King by Braswell Liz

Author:Braswell, Liz [Braswell, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2011-05-31T05:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

This was a different sort of dream, restless and real. It was daylight and silent; Chloe’s feet made no sounds in the harsh grass beneath her feet. The broad blades cut into her soles, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the hunt. She saw her quarry on a rolling hill below her, a familiar doe who paused to watch a plane overhead. There was something wrong with that, but through her thickened mind Chloe couldn’t figure it out.

With two powerful leaps she flew over yards of scrub, landing in the middle of the perfect road that separated her from the kill. The pavement was velvet black with solid yellow lines and seemed to focus all of the sun’s heat on her. She prepared to leap again.

The deer turned toward her, as if it had known she was there all along.

“Chloe,” it said, in an achingly familiar voice.

Chloe froze and screamed, but no sound came out.

* * *

She sat up suddenly in her bed—no, the couch. It was the middle of the night—no, she checked her clock and it was only seven thirty. Another nap, she realized. Chloe had drifted off to sleep again while she tried to plow through The History of the Mai It was Bible thick and combined all of the confusing names of a Russian novel and the deadly dullness of a badly translated history text. She fell asleep fairly easily these days; if she was full, warm, and not immediately occupied, it seemed like sleep was the inevitable next step.

Chloe rubbed her temples with her knuckles. The doe in her dream had spoken with her mother’s voice.

It was the scariest nightmare Chloe had ever had.

Just a few weeks ago she’d been fighting with her mom, making up, going to work, and hanging out with her friends. And now she was … not. She fingered the soft, richly colored velvet spread she had slept on. She squinched one eye shut, noticing how she could suddenly see all of the individual furry threads in different shades of ruby, like through a magnifying glass. Then they turned darker and matted down, sucked up into the weave of the fabric, as her tear was slowly absorbed by it.

She sat up again.

“I have to get out of here,” she said aloud. “I want…” She couldn’t quite figure out what she wanted. She ran a hand through her hair. A haircut? Some new vintage clothes? She leapt up and ran out of the room, suddenly terrified by the silence.

Out in the hall she slowed herself down, embarrassed by her behavior. Then she pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and turned it on. Technically she didn’t need to use it for this phone call—no one cared; in fact, they probably encouraged her speaking to Alyec. Only an eighth of a battery left and she had to talk to him now.

“’Alloo?” he asked, accented, as if he expected someone Russian to call.

“I need to go out,” she said without preamble.

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