Woohoo! My second one shot for Nine Lives! I had a lot of fun writing this one. It's not a sequal to my last one, but someday I will write that. OK, here's the 411 for this story. I was listening to my ipod on the 11 hour car ride to my grandparents house, and I was trying to think of a good plot for a new one shot. Then one of my favorite songs came on. Think Twice by Eve 6. This story isn't actually a songfic. Instead it kinda follows the song but it has its own plot and not everything follows the song completly. If you've never heard the song I highly recommend it. Now, I would also like to take this time to answer a common question from my last oneshot 'Whispers in the Wind'. No, Chloe did NOT hear Alek. Cuz if she had, I'm sure there would have been moreto the story. Also, I will not be adding another chapter to it. That is a one-shot. What I will do is write other stories that mention things I explained in it. This one does not have that, but I will fit it into other stories. OK so I think I've rambled on long enough. Enjoy the story! Oh and I don't own The nine lives of Chloe king. How sad... :( But I do have fun writing for it.
"Block. Block. Block. Very good. Now, go on offensive." I swiftly moved my body to the side as the foot almost collided with my head. Ducking low to the ground I struck out my leg and swept it underneath the blonde's legs. With a thud she fell back onto the grass below us.
Quickly I stood back up and looked down at her. "All right you win. Happy now?" she asked me. With a smirk I held out my hand to help her to her feet.
"Yes I am. You're improving on your fighting skills Chloe," I told her.
"Great. So, um, can we call it quits for the day? I have somewhere to be." I cocked an eyebrow at her, waiting for an explanation. "I'm going to a movie with Brian tonight." I could have sworn I felt my stomach drop as I heard the name of that useless human. For some reason Chloe had this weird attraction to him. At night I could sometimes hear her mutter his name in her sleep. It's not that I was actually listening to her. Personally I would rather not hear about Chloe's pathetic attempt of a love life, but the supersonic hearing makes it hard to avoid.
Feeling a blow hit my arm made me turn my attention back to Chloe. She scowled slightly at me, like I was some big jerk for not listening to her. Well, OK, maybe I was, but hearing her blab on about Brian drove me up the wall. "Well, since you're clearly too busy staring into space I'll see you tomorrow," Chloe muttered. She picked up her bag from the park bench and walked down the cobblestone trail towards her house.
Behind me there was a slight thud and Jasmine walked over to me. Since I knew she had been there for the past ten minutes I didn't feel the need to turn to face her. "You really need to do something about those two," she said to me.
"Like what? I already told her that one of them will get hurt, but she didn't listen to me. Not that she normally listens to me. Why don't you talk to her about it? You're a girl after all."
Jasmine frowned ever so slightly. "Really? I'm a girl? I had no idea about that. Thank you so much Captain Obvious."
"Any time Sergeant Sarcastic. But seriously, she might actually listen to you since you are a girl, and girls like to talk to other girls about guys and love and shoes and all that crap. Right?"
"She doesn't talk to me about Brian that much. Besides, you trust her don't you? She's not going to make the same mistake she did with that other boy." I nodded, agreeing with her. I did trust Chloe to not make the same mistake again. I completely trusted her. It's that Brian guy. I just didn't like seeing him with her.
"It's him I don't trust him. Every time I see him with Chloe, I get this feeling that she's going to end up hurt. It drives me completely mad sometimes."
"Well then Romeo. Why don't you do something about it?" I snapped my head in her direction to protest, but Jasmine was already gone. The only sign that she had ever been there were a few stray leaves floating down to me from a nearby tree. Romeo? What did she know? I most certainly did not have feelings for Chloe King. That was ridiculous. I kicked a small pebble with my sneaker and watched as it flew across the field and landed in a bush.
As my mind began to wander, something it rarely did, a thought crossed my mind that I would have loved for that pebble to be Brian's head. For goodness sake, what was so special about that guy anyways? I mean, there was no way he could protect her from Order assassins. He was just a weak and pathetic human that was completely ordinary in every way possible. I mean, they couldn't even kiss each other! Well, unless he wanted to die. That would be the best way to go.
"Snap out of it!" I yelled out loud. I was letting thought of Chloe distract me. But she was letting thought of Brian distract her. In a temporary loss of self control I lashed out at the nearest thing—a brick wall. A small wave of pain erupted through my arm and I pulled away slowly. Sure enough, my knuckles were bleeding and there was a dent in the brick where my fist made contact. Cursing, I stretched out my hand and waited for the pain to subside.
For the first time in days I wasn't in charge of watching Chloe, so I walked down random streets. I tried to clear my thoughts but nothing was helping. Then, on the other side of the street I saw them. Chloe and that big shot college guy. The uncontrolled side of me wanted to take over then, but I was able to restrain myself. Barely. That's when I saw that slimeball snake his arm around Chloe's waist as they walked down the road. For a brief moment Chloe let it stay there, but then she moved out of physical contact. That had been my breaking point. No one touches Chloe without her being OK with it.
Right then and there I would have crossed the street, ripped his head off, and drop kick it into the bay. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to because just as I took my first step, a firm hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. Stern brown eyes gazed into my own and I stuttered out, "Va-va-Valentia."
"Control yourself Alek. You've had enough training to settle down your impulses," Valentina hissed softly She released her grip on my shoulder and gazed down the street to where Chloe was walking.
"You told me to protect her. I was just doing my job," I said back.
"I told you to protect her from the Order. Not from some human boy. I think she can handle one human." I didn't answer her; instead I looked down at my shoes and waited for her to continue. "Alek, I know you care for her, but there is only so much you can protect her from. You want to keep her from getting her heart hurt, I understand that. But you have to let her do this on her own. She can't grow stronger if you are always the one to keep her from getting into trouble. Now, why don't you go home? Jasmine is going to watch her tonight. I want you to get some rest."
With a nod to my leader I began the long walk back to the loft. Well, it wasn't really that long of a walk. But I took my time and tried to let Valentina's words sink in. When I finally got back I went straight to my room and fell back onto my bed. What was wrong with me? I mean, why did I care this much about what Chloe did in her personal life? As long as she wasn't reckless with her remaining lives I really shouldn't care all that much. But I do. Now it's driving me crazy.
And to make matters worse, she was reckless with her lives. Then I have to be the one to save her. She tried to stop a freaking drug deal! All because she felt guilty about killing that one kid. I guess I can't completely blame her though. After all, she only did what she did because she cared. She seems to be really into that—caring about innocent people that have no real effect in her life. She just spreads around this whole love everyone around her vibe, and I end up getting stuck in the middle of it as well. Not that I hate it, per say, I just get worried that one of these days she's going to get herself into trouble and I won't be able to save her.
While I thought about Chloe, my eyelids began to feel heavy. I hadn't gotten much sleep the past few nights, and I didn't have the energy to fight this wave of exhaustion. As I slipped into sleep, I knew my dreams would be filled with the blonde haired girl who smelled of vanilla.
The counter melodic beeping of my alarm clock woke me up the next morning. With a groan I felt around my end table for my clock. It took me a good thirty seconds to actually find the stupid thing, and when I did I picked it up and threw it across the room. After one final crash, it was silent. "Alek did you throw your clock again?" Jasmine yelled from the other side of my door. My door creaked open and Jasmine stuck her head inside the room. "Come on Alek, you need to get up. Training in twenty." She barely got her head out the door before my pillow slammed into the wall.
True to Jasmine's internal clock, twenty minutes later we were on our way to Chloe's house. I was still in a bad mood from the day before and every time I looked at my cut up hand I was reminded of how mad I had been. When we got to her house, Chloe was already sitting up on her roof.
"Morning," she called cheerfully. Jasmine smiled and tossed a bamboo stick at her. Today we were going to work more on switching from defensive to offensive fighting. I nodded at Chloe, but didn't really say anything. Chloe set down the bamboo stick and looked at me curiously. I could practically feel her eyes staring right into my scraped up hand.
Quickly, I shoved my hand into my pocket and tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. "Alek what happened?" Chloe asked. I shrugged, trying to pass it off as nothing. Chloe looked over at Jasmine. I figured they were using that weird, unspoken girl communication they seem to have.
"Are we here to stare awkwardly at each other? Or are we here to train?" I asked. With a frown, Chloe nodded and looked away from Jasmine. The three of us made our way to the park where we would continue our training.
Later that afternoon, while we were just wrapping up our training, Chloe pulled out her phone and began reading a text. As her eyes scanned the screen I saw them light up with joy. The sinking feeling in my stomach came back and I found myself crossing my fingers pleading that it wasn't who I thought it was. "It's Brian," Chloe said happily. Crap. That's what I was afraid of.
I covered up my annoyance with a teasing smirk. "So you're going to go have some fun with Brian then?" I asked. With a frown Chloe threw the bamboo stick at me, which I caught, and walked away. Passing the stick over to Jasmine, I followed Chloe down the path.
"Where are you going?" Jasmine called after me. I paused for a moment and turned back to face her.
"To do my job. It's my job to protect her and I'm going to do it." I then continued after Chloe, keeping a fair distance so she didn't know I was following her. At some point she crossed the street and I wasn't able to cross with her. By the time I made it across the street, she was out of my sight. I cursed and tried to listen to the sound of her footsteps. Mai always walk lighter than normal humans and have a very distinct sound to their walk.
"What are you doing?" a voice from behind me asked. Chloe. I turned around to see her standing very close behind me, glaring. "See? You're not the only one that can sneak up on people."
"I'm just doing my job. Watching you. But, you make it annoyingly difficult," I retorted.
"Well I really don't need a babysitter right now. You said so yourself, I'm improving on my training. Besides, I'm just going to go get some dinner. How much danger could I get into?"
"More than you know," I whispered. Chloe scowled, but didn't say anything. She shook her head at me, and turned around. I stood there until she was gone, and I felt worse than ever.
Since I was never one too actually to the orders of others, I ended up following her anyway. She made her way to a small, crowded café called Topsy Turvy. It was a weird little place—where all the paintings were hanging at an angle and it had stuff like table nailed to the ceiling. It was supposed to have a fun house feel. Personally, I thought it was stupid and going in there made me dizzy.
In one of the window seats I saw Chloe sitting, texting on her phone. She occasionally looked over her shoulder, but I wasn't sure if it was because she was looking for something or just checking her surroundings. My money was on the first one. "Well," I muttered. "I might as well make this interesting." I entered the café and made my way over to her table. "Fancy running into you here Chloe."
"Alek?" Chloe snapped. "What are you doing here?" I could see the fury rage through her eyes as she stared me down.
"Oh Chloe, is this a friend of yours?" From the corner of my eye I saw a guy standing there with dark hair. It was Brian. "Hey dude, I'm Brian." He reached out his hand, which I tentatively shook.
"Alek. And yeah, I guess you could call me a friend of Chloe's," I said. I forced a smile on my face and tried to look pleasant. In actuality, I was fighting every urge to pick up a nearby fork and stabbing him in the eyeball. My dashing smile didn't faze Chloe though.
"Yeah. We go to the same school. But he just came here to ask me a history question. And now he has to go," she said with ice in her voice.
"Oh well, if you have somewhere to go I guess I'll see you around later," Brian said to me with this happy grin. Overly cheery git.
With a short nod to him, I turned my attention to Chloe and muttered, "See you at school." I walked away from the table, out the door, across the street and didn't stop until I got to my house. When I reached the door, I threw it open and almost knocked it off the hinges. Jasmine was curled up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and a book.
I flopped down next to her and waited for her to set down her dumb book. "What happened now?" she asked as she set her book on the table.
"Nothing. Look, just go watch Chloe tonight OK? I need some time to think about some stuff."
"Forget it. I had my shift. It's your turn. Whatever feelings you need to sort through you can figure out from Chloe's roof. Plus, after what happened tonight I think you need to go talk to Chloe."
"How do you know about…?" I cut myself off as Jasmine held up her cell phone. "Right." I knew that I wouldn't win an argument with Jasmine so I got up and left the apartment.
I made sure to keep my distance from Chloe as she finished her 'date' with Brian. She wasn't very good at paying attention to her surroundings, and while that may typically be a bad thing, it was very beneficial to me. At this point I had a feeling that if she saw me she would try to claw my eyes out. Not that she would actually be able to, but it wouldn't stop her from trying. Eventually Brian drove her back to her house, and before waiting to see if she got into her house he was halfway down the street. "What a creep," I mumbled to myself.
Once Chloe was inside, I scaled the fire escape on the next house and jumped over to her roof. By the time that I reached my normal sitting place, Chloe was already sitting there. And boy did she look pissed. "I hope you're pleased with yourself," Chloe snapped at me.
"Well what did you want me to do?" I asked back. I could feel anger slowly rising up from the pit of my stomach, and I knew that this conversation could end very badly.
"I wanted you to just leave me alone. I don't care if you have to do your job and protect me. Was coming into the café really necessary? What was the point of doing that?"
"I-I don't know," I admitted. That was actually the truth. I had no idea why I did what I did. There was no real reason for it. "It's my job to protect you and…"
"Yeah I know. You never let me forget it Alek. I know you want to keep me safe but I think that if Brian was a member of the Order and was sent to kill me he would have tried by now. So why can't you just let me be happy with him?"
"Because if you stay with him, you won't end up happy!" I yelled. Chloe's face softened at the harshness in my voice. "You know you can't be with him. If you are, you'll end up killing him. I'm just trying to keep you from getting hurt. It's my job to protect you, and for me that doesn't mean just from the Order." I watched as Chloe took a slow, deep breath. Deep down I felt bad for snapping at her like that, but she needed to hear what I told her.
"You're right," she finally whispered. Wait a minute. Rewind that moment and pause it. I was right? Well, I mean I knew I was all along but I never expected her to admit it. "Brian and I can never be together. I know that. It's just, when I'm around him I feel…normal. I don't feel like some real life Cat Woman. I can just be me. Not Chloe the Mai, not Chloe the Uniter. I can just be Chloe King, the sixteen year old girl."
"Chloe, you'll never be a normal teenage girl ever again. None of us are normal. You just have to get used to it," I said a little more gently. I could understand how she felt. Making the transformation was difficult, and she had to do it alone. When I got my powers I had Valentina to guide me though everything. I sat down next to her on the rooftop and looked across the city at all the lights.
For a few minutes the two of us sat in silence. Occasionally Chloe would open her mouth as if to say something, but she never did. Finally I decided to break the silence. "So, how was the rest of your date?" I asked casually. Not that I actually cared. I just wanted Chloe to feel better.
"It was nice. Really nice. He asked me if you were like my body guard or something. I felt bad for lying, but I knew that the more I talked about you the more questions he would ask. And that wouldn't have ended well." I nodded, acknowledging that I was listening to her. "Well, I think I'm going to bed now. Your stupid training program completely wore me out. Night." Chloe stood up and stretched. Just as she was about to climb through her window I realized there was something I had to say to her.
"Chloe, wait!" I went to the edge of her window and sat as she stuck her head back out. "Do me a favor. Tell Brian that if he ever touches you again, I'll rip his organs out and throw them off the top of the Golden Gate Bridge." For most people that would have been a joke, but I was completely serious.
For a moment Chloe stared at me. "Don't tell me. You saw him put his arm around me didn't you?" I opened my mouth to tell her yes, but she held up her hand. "No, I said don't tell me. I won't tell him that Alek because he will think that you really are my bodyguard. If you don't trust me in anything else, trust me when I say that I can take care of myself around Brian. OK? Now I'd really appreciate it if you stopped threatening my friends. Goodnight Alek." With a defiant thud, she shut her window and pulled the curtains closed. Slightly satisfied I returned to my normal roof perch and resumed staring out at the city lights.
"Oh Chloe, when will you learn?" I asked out loud. "I'm horrible at following orders." I smirked, knowing that if Brian ever touched Chloe again the two of us would have to have a little chat. I'll make him think twice about touching Chloe. Maybe running into him wouldn't be all that bad…
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