Who is Chloe O'Brian Chapter 8
Pulling his truck into her driveway, he hops out with his overnight bag. Lately, whenever she made dinner, they stayed up late into the night talking or watching a movie, so he began crashing in her guest room in the wee hours of the morning. After the first night, he started bringing an overnight bag with him. It saved time come morning so he didn’t have to run home to his apartment to shower and change.
Walking into the kitchen and dropping his bag on the floor, his senses are immediately overwhelmed by the delicious smells of dinner, and the sound of Chloe singing along to her IPod.
Grinning and sliding up behind her, he stops an arm’s length away from her before he speaks. After all, he was serious when he told her he had learned his lesson.
“Hey, whatcha makin?”
Grinning, she turns around and offers him a wooden spoon that she quickly blows her breath across to cool.
The flavor hits him instantly and simultaneously a moan escapes his lips as his stomach rumbles in approval.
“Risotto con gamberi e zucchini” She says
Peeking into the skillet on the stove, he whistles appreciatively. “Shrimp?”
Laughing, she nods “You’re learning”
He’s learned over the weeks that Chloe speaks not one, not two, not three but 4 languages. One of which is Italian, which also seems to be the one she slips into when angry or upset. The first time he had raised his eyebrows in amused confusion. She just looked at him and said “You haven’t read my file?” accusingly.
Not quite answering her question he had said “Everything I need to know, you’ll tell me”
This is exactly what he’s been doing over this time together; slowly learning all there is to absorb about her.
“So tell me what is in…uh…Risotto shrimp?”
Laughing she slowly says “Risotto con gamberi”
“Risotto con gambini” he says.
“Close enough” She says amused.
“Risotto which is rice, by the way, shrimp, zucchini and stock”
“It smells heavenly” He says as he leans over the pan and inhales deeply. Just as he rises up he hears glass breaking and feels a brush of air pass by his head. Dropping to the ground, he sees Chloe already on her hands and knees. Pulling his gun from his hip; “Chloe! He hisses” as he sees her crawling to the fridge.
“Hush!” She hisses back, reaching behind the fridge, he hears a rip of tape as she suddenly has a Glock in her hands. His eyes barely registering his surprise, they both rise up and return fire through the destroyed living room window.
Ducking back when the teakettle beside him explodes off the counter top, he notices Chloe is gone. Panic rising within him, he frantically searches the kitchen for her. Seeing her feet slide through the entranceway to the hallway, he breathes a sigh of relief and quickly follows her. Once in the safety of the hallway, they both stand.
Breathing heavily, he watches as she checks the clip of her gun. “I’ve got one in the chamber”. Checking his own he mutters a curse “I’m out.”
Falling back to her knees, she pulls him to her. “Bathroom, taped to the side of the tub; linen shelf, under the yellow towels, medicine cabinet.. pull it off the wall” She whispers urgently.
Blinking at her as she shoves him towards the bathroom, he looks back and sees her open the door to her garage before looking back at him, rolling her eyes, and hissing, “GO!”.
Pulling the cabinet off the wall, he sees a hole in the wall housing a small army bag. Lifting it, he notices the weight of it. Quickly moving to the tub, he grabs the gun taped to the bag of it. Moving to the linen shelf, he tosses the towels on the floor and grits his teeth as he pulls away with two knife sheaths. Running back to the hallway, Chloe is knelt by the garage door waiting for him. Waving him towards her with her hands, tossing a gun to her, they both move through the door together, guns raised.
With Chloe jumping into the driver’s seat, Jack has no choice but to throw himself into the back seat as she slams the car in reverse. With a squeal of wheels, Chloe floors the car straight through the garage door, jostling Jack in his crouched position.
Bullets rain through the back window, bringing a growl of anger to Jack. Quickly kicking out the broken window, he returns fire as Chloe speeds down the street. A quick turn onto the next and Jack sits up in the seat. Crawling into the passenger seat of the car, he looks over at Chloe, grimacing when he sees her formerly white blouse soaked in red blood, he grips her arm and demands, “Pull over”.
“I’m fine” she says through her clenched teeth.
“Chloe you’re hit, pull over!”
“Not yet.” She yanks her arm from his grip. Sitting back in his seat, he grabs her gun from the floorboard and shoves a reloaded clip into it. Doing the same with his, he wipes the sweat from his face as he looks back to study the woman behind the wheel.
“You were prepared” He lets out, amazement in his voice.
“Don’t be so surprised Jack” She says with the pain evident in her voice.
“I’m not. What I’m surprised about is exactly how prepared you were” He says, holding up the bag in his hand which now open he can see holds multiple back up weapons in addition to ammo and the knives he had tossed in there.
With a grimace, she looks at him as she pulls off the highway down a gravel road. “You should know Jack… even dead agents don’t stay dead.”