The Chosen Read Online Free PDF

look like his neck or back were broken.
    He held his hands over the top of his stomach, just under his chest. When Chloe pushed them aside, warm, syrupy blood seeped out. His entire shirt was soaked, and slow rivers of it ran down his sides and congealed in the water. A knife wound. Of course it was a knife wound. While the Order of the Tenth Blade used nine daggers to kill all nine lives of a Pride Leader, it took only one dagger to kill a member of the Order who betrayed them.
    “You were supposed to run away—to disappear!” Chloe cried, trying not to panic.
    Brian tried to say something, but nothing came out. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. For a moment he saw her clearly—or at least the shape of her, since it was too dark for human vision—and smiled. Then he passed out again.
    “Fuck,”
Chloe swore. Where could she take him? If she brought him to a public hospital, he’d be a sitting duck for the Order to finish the job. She couldn’t protect him twenty-four/seven and had no idea how to go about hiring a bodyguard—especially one that didn’t work for Brian’s dad’s security company.
    There was home, where she had taken Alyec after Brian wounded
him
by the bridge. But as much as that thought appealed to her, Chloe had made a firm decision not to put her mom at risk again with her strange life. The Tenth Blade had already broken into their home once to kidnap Chloe’s mom; bringing a man there they wanted dead was just asking for trouble. Which left only one option: the Firebird mansion. The home base of the Mai.
    “Holy ironic justice, Batman,” she muttered as she knelt down to gather Brian up in her arms.
    Once again the similarities between Chloe and a real superhero ended when she realized that carrying him all the way to Sausalito would not only be impractical, it would be really slow. And there was no way she wasgoing to be able to get a cab that would be willing to pick up a girl with her bloody, injured boyfriend. Of course, the bus was out, too.
    She resorted to the only superweapon she had: her cell phone. She punched the numbers quickly. Alyec had a car, but only when he stole it. Which left …
    “’Sup?” Amy’s cheery voice came over the other end.
    “Amy, I need you—it’s an emergency. I found Brian—bleeding to death in an alley. I need to get him help.”
    “Ohmygod. Where are you?”
    “Somewhere near Chinatown.” She looked around, but the alley had no name. “Track me on your phone.” Amy had the other matching GPS cell phone so they could track each other; the only downside was that its screen wasn’t very big, and Amy had to look at it while driving.
    “I’ll be there ASAP.”
    With the little bubble of normal conversation over, Chloe became more aware of the loneliness of the alley and the silence of Brian. She couldn’t remember much of junior high first aid and hoped she was doing the right thing by tearing off the sleeves of her shirt and tying them around his wound. Apart from that and trying to keep him from rolling through the puddles—though even the dry part of the cobblestone lane wasn’t a particularly sterile environment—there was little Chloe could do besides comfort him and wait.
    “What’s going on here?”
    Chloe turned to look at the owner of the new voice. A pair of boys, too healthy to be street people, too confident to be scared of a lonely alley. Both were muscled. Asian. All in black …
gang
members.
    “You got a problem?” the other asked, smiling. Take away the attitude and the tattoos and it was obvious they were barely twenty. And actually pretty good-looking.
    This could go two ways,
Chloe realized. One of which was that they could turn out to be reasonably decent local guys who just wanted to help. But Chloe wasn’t going to wait around to see if it was the other—more likely—possibility.
    With a frightful hiss she leapt up, extending her hand and foot claws, making sure her slit eyes flashed in the light. In two