Chloe Frazer

The Chosen Ones of the North -- a dumb name, even for a dumb cult, Chloe has to agree with Coop on that one -- have stopped sending her threatening letters. A normal person would probably be relieved, she thinks, to no longer have their bullshit dangling over them, but Chloe's a more suspicious person than that. The last letter they'd sent nearly two months ago, had alluded to October being a month of change, had listed all the ways in which she had failed to satisfy the group's demands, had directly threatened Nate as a way to punish her for that failure, and had assured her it would be the last time she heard from them until the time of blood and renewal.

Chloe doesn't quite know what that means, but she has to assume it's not good. At least Nate's no longer in their line of fire.

She doesn't give it much thought until October rolls around and even then, she doesn't dwell on it. The first few weeks come and go, nothing happens, and Chloe forgets about it again, doing her best to just keep up with the life she has here. It's not until she hears from her buyer that the compass has been stolen from his personal collection that she really takes interest again. The compass she had nearly died getting him. The compass the Chosen Ones of the North have been so obsessed with.

The same day she gets home to find a note stuck under the door of her flat. It simply reads, Nate's gone. Therese isn't.

Chloe goes without giving herself time to think. She gets her pistol and her knife, then grabs her phone and texts Coop on her way to Therese's flat. He'd asked her not to go off half-cocked, so she's not. She's checking on Therese first, making sure the threat to legitimate before she goes flying off to their hideout.

Therese isn't home, though. And the deadbolt on her apartment door is broken, the wood jamb shattered from the impact of the blow that had forced it open. She enters the apartment and does a careful sweep, but it's empty, and she's heading back to her car, calling Coop at the same time, telling him to meet her downstairs. She makes jokes and she teases him, but when it comes to something like this, there are few people she trusts as completely.

"They took Therese," she tells him once he's in the car with her. She wastes no time pulling away from the curb. "And they stole the compass back. The buyer is pissed." It's clear she doesn't care about the buyer at all. Her concern is all for Therese.

The problem with Nathan Drake -- one of the many, really -- is the way he's complicating Chloe's life in ways she had long ago sworn not to let him complicate things any further.

Once, she had been willing to leave with him. They had never truly promised each other anything, they'd never made so clear a commitment as the one he'd made to Elena, but there had still been a plan. Find the Cintimani Stone, sell the damn thing, give Harry his share of the pay and then take off. Together. It's as close as she's ever come to making that sort of promise to anyone and when Nate had gone back on it, Chloe had promised herself that was it. That would be the last time.

She's stuck with it, too. Charlie was a really good man, the sort she knows a woman like her could have gotten on with for a long time. He was a thief, like her, smart and attractive, he'd been kind and he'd challenged her and he'd been rather incredible in bed, but even still she'd refused to define what they were to one another. She'd let him believe she didn't care enough to do so because it was easier than risking what Nate had done to her.

And now here she is, wrapped up in him all over again, even if neither of them have said as much. In the weeks following the Purge, they've stuck close to one another and it's usually under the pretense of work, but not always. There have been nights, too, when it's just the two of them and a few bottles of beer and the television. That it feels so comfortable just serves to annoy her further.

She's been letting him distract her and so today, she's sworn to herself not to let it happen again. The compass isn't going to find itself and she's en route to a second hand store where the owner claims to know what she's looking for when she spots Therese, who is conveniently carrying her camera. It might not be the smartest thing in the world to drag her into this, especially when Chloe is unwilling to share all the details of what she's looking for, but she also knows she hasn't been paying her nearly enough attention lately.

So she smiles and waves, then motions for Therese to join her, one single finger curled in a beckoning gesture.