Ordinary (Exceptional Book 3) (13 page)

[ marnie ]

As soon as the swerving started, Evan had jumped up and was digging through the packs in the corner. Marnie had found a handhold and was clinging to it for dear life. She was fearful that if she let go she would be thrown across the vehicle. Evan had managed to keep his balance despite the wild movements. He was pulling on his gear when the gun shots started.

Marnie screamed.

“The transport is bulletproof,” Evan yelled.

She had never heard him yell before.

The swerving continued and Evan fell to the side, rolling toward the back of the transport. Marnie reached to help him without thinking and went tumbling with him. They ended up in a tangle of limbs at the back door.

“Sorry,” she mumbled under the weight of his body. His chest was smashed into her face.

He pushed himself off of her. “No problem.” His mouth was a breath away from hers. “I have to finish getting my gear on. I have to help.”

He crawled back toward the front and Marnie dragged herself to the nearest handheld. Had Evan been about to kiss her? She watched him pull his gear on and grab a gun. With one foot on the bench, he pushed up on the hatch in the ceiling, forcing it to pop open. He grabbed the side and pulled himself up with just the strength in his arms.

She heard a few more gunshots and squeezed her eyes shut. Hopefully Evan was okay. The transport stopped swerving in a few moments and the speed returned to normal. Marnie breathed a sigh of relief. She knew they had to almost be to the Sector, it wasn’t that long of a trip. She hadn’t known that rebels attacked this frequently but after hearing about Ally’s experience with them when she arrived in the City, perhaps they were just angrier than ever.

A transport honked. It was close enough that it had to be hers. She heard Evan yelling. Luke yelling. And Max yelling…

At least, she thought is was Max.

There was a squeal of tires and a screech. Evan came flying back through the hatch in the ceiling just as the transport made a severe turn, one that surely would have thrown him off the roof. The transport stopped dead and Marnie heard more yelling. She focused in on it with her Exceptional hearing.

“Keep moving,” a male voice she didn’t recognize yelled.

“I NEED TO HELP…” Luke sputtered out.

“We’ve got it handled,” the male yelled. “Head to the Sector. The soldiers are waiting and ready. GO BEFORE I SHOOT YOU.”

“Not if I shoot you first,” Max yelled back.

There was gunfire but it wasn’t close enough to be inside the cab of the transport. More voices joined outside.

Rebels.

“MOVE. NOW.” The male voice yelled.

The transport lurched forward and swerved to the left and then to the right. It picked up speed for a minute or two and then skidded to the stop. Marnie heard the sound of a gate opening.

“We’re there,” she told Evan, realizing he had no idea what was going on outside. Despite her Exceptional hearing, she didn’t really know what was going on outside.

The transport moved slowly and she heard the sound of the gate closing again. That was quick. Had everyone made it inside? The transport stopped and clicked off. Evan stood and ran to the back doors, unlatching them and pushing them open. Marnie scrambled to her feet and followed behind him, letting him grasp her waist to lower her from the transport.

Luke was marching wildly toward the gate.

“I need to get back out there,” he yelled at no one in particular.

Max was trying to keep up. Marnie jogged to his side, Evan close behind her.

“What happened back there?” she asked.

“The rebels attacked the transports. It looked like we were clear of them but then one used a running car to slam into the side of Ally’s transport. It was chaos. Rebels exploded from the buildings and the first transport with the soldiers opened fire on them. Ally’s transport was thrown to the side and then disappeared down an alley. I don’t even know where. Luke stopped to help but the soldiers waved him on.”

Marnie absorbed Max’s words and looked around. They were the only transport within the gate.

“Where’s Ally?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”

They reached the gate where Luke was already arguing with one of the soldiers. “If you don’t let me out there you aren’t going to like what happens.”

His violet eyes were glowing but Marnie noticed that no one had removed his cuffs yet. Neither he nor Max could do much of anything.

The soldier didn’t seem intimidated. “I have orders not to open the gate.”

“The General said we aren’t prisoners,” Luke responded. “You have to let me out.”
The soldier shook his head. “The rebels are too close. I cannot risk the lives of all the Exceptionals in this Sector because you want out. You will have to wait until we are given the all-clear.”

Luke let out a frustrated groan. “How long will that be?”

The soldier didn’t move. “Hours maybe, could be minutes. We never know.”

“It may be too late then,” Luke said through gritted teeth.

Max touched his shoulder. “Luke, if it is going to be too late, it already is. We have no idea where Ally drove to. She may find her way back here, or at least get herself to a safe place. You wouldn’t know where to start.”

Luke backed down. Marnie had gotten the idea that these two didn’t particularly enjoy each other but right now they seemed like friends. They seemed like they respected each other.

The soldier nodded. “The soldiers who radioed ahead said they were scaring off the rebels and then going after the AWOL transport. They’ll find them and bring them back.”

Luke turned and headed back toward the transport, running his fingers roughly through his short hair.

“So what, we just wait?” Marnie asked Evan.

He nodded. “We just wait.”

Two hours later the gate creaked open. Luke jumped up, as did Max. Curious Exceptionals had gotten as close to the gate as the Guards would allow. Marnie’s mom stood on the outskirts for a few minutes and then disappeared back into the crowd. They were brought food but only Marnie and Evan had taken a few bites, while Luke and Max had paced laps around their lone transport.

A transport pulled through the gate slowly. Marnie could see right away that a soldier was driving, and that another soldier sat next to him, but that didn’t mean Ally and the others weren’t in the back.

The transport stopped once inside and a soldier climbed down from the transport. His face was unreadable as he approached their group, Luke at the lead. Marnie wasn’t too worried just yet, the majority of the soldiers in Zone D looked aggravated one hundred percent of the time. The four of them gathered around the soldier in a semi-circle.

“We were not able to regroup with Transport B once we had cleared the rebels from our path. The good news is, our tracker shows that the transport managed to pick it’s way through the Outer Zone and is now outside and traveling east.”

Luke ran his hands through his hair. “Are we able to communicate with them? What if they were hijacked by rebels? What if they are injured?”

The soldier shook his head slowly. “We tried but it seems as though the crash caused their communicator to malfunction. All we can get is static.”

Luke turned to Max. “We have to go after them. If there is a tracker, we can catch up.”

“What good would that do?” Marnie said. “We were planning to split off eventually. If they were hurt, the transport would be stopped. Same thing if rebels had taken it. The rebels would have left by now if they could.”

“She has a point,” Max said. “If they already have a head start, it could be a day or two before we catch up with them. I think we need to stick with the plan. It’s what Ally would want.”

Luke look poised to argue but finally bit the side of his mouth and marched off. Max looked longingly at the gate for a moment and then followed suit. Evan, who had been standing at Marnie’s side, looked after them.

“They didn’t get to say goodbye,” he said.

Marnie nodded, a frown on her face. “They didn’t get to say goodbye.”

[ ally ]

The transport skidded to a stop in a grass clearing, dust and dirt kicking up into a cloud around them. Ally’s heart pounded in her ears, and her hands ached from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. She didn’t know what to do, she couldn’t even comprehend what had happened. Before she knew it, she was crying.

When was the last time she had really cried?

It was moments before her door was open and Stosh was pulling her down and into his arms.

“What happened, Ally?” he asked.

Sabine was by her side. “Did someone die? Oh God, who died… Ally!”

Ally stepped back and wiped at her eyes. “No… no one died. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Stosh looked around. “We didn’t make it to Sector 4, did we?”

Ally shook her head and told them what had happened, starting with the crash.

“I was somehow able to straighten the transport out and I just started driving down the first alley I saw. Halfway down, another group of rebels appeared and two of them jumped on my hood, while the other one opened fire. I….” she paused and took a deep breath. “I ran over the rebel with the gun, and the other two fell off when I went around a corner at the end of the street. I just kept driving, trying to get away, and by the time I had time to think about it, I realized I had no idea how to get back to where we left the others. I tried to use the radio but it wouldn’t work. I tried to drive in as straight of a line as possible and this is where I ended up.”

Ally took some deep breaths, coming down from the adrenaline high she was on. All she had thought about while driving was that they had come too far to be killed by a few Rebels.

Sabine leaned against the transport. “Should we attempt to go back and find the Sector?”

Stosh put his arm around Ally. “Yeah right! I’m sure the Rebels are crawling all over the streets right now. Both times we’ve been outside Zone D they’ve been nothing but a problem. At least the soldiers knew where they were going, but we don’t have a clue. We could be driving around until our gas runs out.”

Sabine sighed. “What about the others, Ally? Could you tell if they made it?”

Ally shook her head. “I couldn’t see anything in the chaos. I think we were the only ones to be hit, so hopefully they were able to make it to the Sector. They had the transport full of soldiers to help them.”

“What do we do now?” Sabine asked. “We don’t even know where we are in relation to our maps, and we are now down a few men since we didn’t get to pick up the Exceptionals who were going to join our team. I know we don’t have much of a choice, but I really hate that we have to move on like this.”

Ally nodded. “I hate it too, Sabine. Give me a minute to think.”

She removed herself from Stosh’s side and began to pace back and forth beside the transport. Somehow she had managed to perfect wearing paths into perfectly good surfaces over the last few weeks, but it was how she did her best thinking.

Stosh and Sabine talked privately by the transport, their fingers interlocked. A new problem dawned on Ally, one that was minuscule in the grand scheme of things, but important to her personally. She hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to Luke, or to Max. She hadn’t left her status with either of them as anything definitive, and somehow that felt worse. She could feel the warmth of tears welling up in her eyes and she tried to brush them away.

She stopped walking. “We’ll drive until we find a town, or a sign, anything that will tell us where we are on the map. Finding out our location is most important right now so that we can make our way to the towns that the General had marked as friendly.”

“If they still are,” Sabine pointed out. “It doesn’t seem like the General or his soldiers travel outside of Zone D very often.”

Ally shrugged. “I trust him, for the most part. It is all we have to go on.”

She was having trouble feeling okay about not getting to say goodbye to Luke or Max, and her emotions kept trying to bubble to the surface. Even then she could feel her bottom lip at the start of a tremble.

“Ally, what’s wrong?” Sabine asked. She ran up and put her hands on Ally’s arms, rubbing them up and down.

“It’s stupid, but I didn’t get to say goodbye,” she sniffed.

Sabine’s mouth popped open and then she pulled Ally into a hug. “Oh Ally, I’m sorry. I would be upset too.”

Ally just nodded into Sabine’s shoulder, letting her tears roll down her cheeks and into the fabric of Sabine’s shirt. They stood like that for a few minutes until Ally finally pulled away. She wiped the wetness from her cheeks and ran her fingers through her hair.

“We should get moving while we still have a lot of daylight left. Who knows how long it will take to find something, anything, that will tell us where we are,” Ally said at she walked back to the transport.

“How about we all sit up front this time, I think we can all easily fit. I was trying to organize the packs and the storage a bit better, but that was a lost cause once we started swerving,” Sabine said. “And this way we can all be together.”
“I’d like that,” Ally said.

It took them only five minutes to find a road, but three hours to find a town that they could find on the map. They had driven through several towns on the road they were traveling, but none had anything they could find on the maps, and all of the signs were either fallen or the words had completely worn off. This town seemed larger than the others they had driven through.

“This almost seems like a city,” Sabine had said as they drove in. “See that larger building in the distance. But it is nowhere near as big as the others.”

Ally nodded. “There’s a sign. Let’s pull over and look on the map.”

They unrolled the map and set it on Sabine’s lap, since she was seated in the middle. They found Zone D and then searched around it.

“Okay, a city that starts with an O. O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A. It looks like there is something that comes after it, but at least that is a start.” Ally ran her finger west of Zone D but didn’t come across anything that seemed close.

“Here it is,” Stosh said. He had been moving his finger north. “Oklahoma City.”

“Of course we went north,” Ally laughed. It was as though she was being pulled back to the northern City, back home.

“Where is your reference map from the General, the one with the occupied towns,” Sabine asked.

Ally unrolled it and placed it near the other one, quickly finding this new city. “It looks like we passed three of the towns on the way here. If this big road is the one we were on, then we drove through one of them.”

Sabine nodded. “The people could live on the outskirts. Or could have been hiding, or maybe they are gone. Who knows. Do you want to go back?”

Ally nodded. “I know it seems counterproductive, but I really want a chance to talk with all of the leaders from these towns. This won’t work if we don’t get everyone on board.”

“Then let’s do it,” Stosh said. “This one looks the furthest south. We can go there first, then circle back around to these other two.”

“That should work,” Ally said. “But first, let’s eat something. We should be able to be at the first town by night fall. We can camp just outside and approach in the morning. I imagine they’ll receive us better in the light.”

They all agreed and climbed into the back of the transport to eat. The General had supplied them with eight large barrels of gas for their trip, which he said would fill up their tank twice each. Looking at them, Ally realized just how bad their crash could have been. She didn’t have much experience with gas exploding until she had watched movies with Luke, but she knew that it wasn’t a pretty sight and didn’t leave those involved with much of a chance of living.

They had a small meal of dried beef and crackers even though they were all pretty hungry. Ally wanted to make sure they had enough food for a long trip. It was clear that they would need to end their journey in the northern City no matter what. Eventually they would need more supplies and she had no plans for going back through the Rebels any time soon.

It took them a little over two hours to get to their destination. Now that they knew where they were, they could use the General’s detailed map to get them to the first town with ease. His map included some of the blocked roads they had gone around earlier, and showed them easier routes. Ally estimated that it was around dinner time when they were within a few miles.

“Let’s eat and set up camp. We can head into town in the morning,” she said.

They made a small fire in a clearing and set up the large tent that the General had given them. He had actually given them three but they felt safer with all of them together. It was making Ally anxious to know that they were out here with out any Exceptionals, and possibly Rogues wandering around. She hadn’t dwelled on the thought too much yet, but now that they had stopped and she could take a few moments to let her mind settle, it was weighing heavily on her.

“What are you thinking?” Stosh asked.

“Huh?” Ally responded.

“You are stabbing the wood in that fire with a vengeance. I know you have something on your mind,” he said. He had managed to catch two rabbits in the woods and was currently skinning them on the ground. With pots, gallons of water, and some fresh veggies from Zone D… they were going to cook a stew.

“Every time we’ve traveled in the Wilderness we’ve had an Exceptional with us. Our first trip we had me, and this most recent trip we had Luke. Now we have no one. What happens if Rogues come after us? We may have weapons, including the darts with the cure in them, but they all have powerful abilities.”

Stosh had finished skinning the rabbit and was beginning to cut out the meat.

“We have yet to see any Rogues this far south, so let’s hope most of them have been killed off, or just aren’t headed in this direction. If they do come, I say we put up a hell of a fight.”

Ally laughed. “I don’t plan to do anything else.”

Sabine screamed in the transport and they both stopped their work abruptly. Stosh dropped the rabbit in the dirt and took off running, Ally close behind him. Stosh made an almost Exceptional leap into the back of the truck. Sabine was on her knees on the floor of the transport, clutching her hand.

“What happened?” Ally yelled as she slid to Sabine’s side.

Sabine seemed to be in shock. She wasn't speaking, crying, or doing much of anything except staring at her seemingly healthy hand with wide eye.

“Ally.” Stosh said in almost a whisper.

She looked over at Stosh, who had bent down to pick a box off the floor. He held it up and Ally felt her stomach drop to the floor.

“Luke must have put that in a pack as a last resort,” she said to no one in particular.

In Stosh’s hand was was a box that, last Ally had seen it, had held syringes filled with a serum used to turn people Exceptional. The same serum that had turned Max. The same serum that had killed Lilla. Sabine must have poked herself with the injector.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Ally said to Sabine. “You’ll be just fine. I promise.”

Sabine’s shock broke. “Don’t promise me that. You can’t. You would have promised Lilla the same had you known.”

Ally didn’t respond. Sabine was right. She noticed the syringe on the floor, sitting up against the wall. She picked it up.

“It didn’t inject all of the serum. That could be a good thing,” Ally said.

“Or bad,” Sabine responded.

“Stop.” Stosh said abruptly. “We aren’t doing this. Not now.”

Ally took the box from him and placed the syringe back in. It should have been secure, but the box must have opened and the syringe must have fallen out during their crash.

Sabine still sat on her knees, holding her hand.

Stosh leaned his forehead against the side of the transport, on the verge of losing it.

Ally didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to say.

Nothing.

She climbed out of the transport quietly and headed back toward the fire, kneeling down to brush the dirt off the rabbit and continue on the stew. They had to continue on, there was no other choice.