The Chosen Read Online Free PDF Page B

springs she was a foot from them, yowling and swiping her claws.
    “Li Shou!”
one of them cried. Then they turned around and fled.
    “Almost too easy,” Chloe murmured. She retracted her claws and walked back to Brian, who suddenly looked a little too still. She knelt beside him and began stroking his hair. “Stay awake—you’ve got to stay awake ….”
    He groaned in response, but his mouth was moving like he was trying to say something.
    “Leave me”
he whispered.
“They’ll be back. It’s over… . ”
    “Not on your life, sweetie,” she said with a forced grin. “Help’s on the way.”
    “Chloe …”
His lips moved more, but nothing cameout. Chloe leaned closer. Then he fell back, unconscious. “Brian, no,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

    Ten minutes later Amy arrived in her brother’s old black station wagon. Chloe took most of Brian’s weight because of her superior strength but needed Amy to hold him straight and steady in case there was actually something wrong with his back.
    “Holy shit,” was all her friend said. They carefully laid him down in the backseat and, completely unconscious, he didn’t even groan. His skin was deathly white.
    “Sorry,” Chloe said, taking the driver’s seat. “The hideout’s kind of a secret, and you’re going to have to blindfold yourself somehow….”
    Amy looked a little piqued, but only for an instant. “No problem. As the loyal sidekick, I should expect to be put into ridiculous situations.” She leapt into shotgun and pulled a jacket over her head.
    Chloe burned rubber pulling out, and as she turned onto the street, a man-shaped shadow hugged the wall near the entrance to the alley, watching the car go. But
one
person couldn’t have done this to Brian. … It looked like he had been beaten from all sides at once. And it wasn’t like the Tenth Blade to skulk in the shadows: if they knew a Mai was there, they would have come out and tried to kill Chloe, too.
    She didn’t begin breathing normally until they were going over the bridge, shooting past the NationalGuard, who had been on her ass after the big duke-out with the Rogue.
    Ignoring the niceties of
road
and
right-of-way,
Chloe took the car off road the moment they turned onto the street that led to Firebird.
    “My brother’s going to
kill me
… ,” Amy muttered from under the jacket.
    Chloe drove around to the back of the estate and honked the horn, shouting, “It’s me!” as she barreled up to the gate, which the guard opened just in time for the car not to crash into it. On the old TV show the Batmobile came roaring through a discreetly hidden tunnel into Wayne Manor; Batman didn’t need Alfred to let him in.
    Must do something about that.
    She pulled up to the kitchen, or back entrance, door and jumped out. By the time she had jumped out, someone was already opening the door, curious about the late-night intrusion. When she saw who it was, the female Mai bowed her head. “You have come back, Leader.”
    “I need to get him into a bed or something,” Chloe ordered.
“Help me.”
    The woman opened her eyes and sniffed the air. “But he—and she—are
human!
”
    “Can I take this off yet?” Amy asked, still in the front seat under the jacket.
    “Please! I’m begging you!” Chloe cried, frustrated.
    “The One doesn’t need to beg,” the woman murmured. She called behind her in either Russian or Mai; Chloe wasn’t listening enough to be able to tell the difference.
    That’s Eleni,
Chloe thought distractedly as the woman hurried back over to the car to help her with Brian. Eleni was one of the Mai who had most recently come from Turkey, like Chloe’s biological family. “Just two more minutes,” Chloe told Amy.
    Among the other Mai who showed up—some blearyeyed, some wide awake—was Ellen, the kizekh who used to be Chloe’s sort-of bodyguard when she had lived with them full-time, just a short time ago. Her partner, Dmitry, wasn’t with her, which