Ordinary (Exceptional Book 3) (17 page)

“Go, go, go!” Joey yelled, watching the crowd carefully. “Drive over them if necessary.”

“I’m trying!” Ally screamed back at him.

She maneuvered the transport through the remaining crowd and soon they were driving out of the town. She didn’t stop driving for thirty minutes, and neither of them spoke. She finally pulled to the side of the road and took a few deep breaths.

“That was exciting,” Joey said, sounding almost happy about what had happened.

“That was insane. What is wrong with those people?” Ally nearly shrieked.

Joey let out a loud laugh. “They are crass, remember?”

“Crass? More like uncivilized!” she said. “That was New Eden all over again.”

Joey smirked. “And you still want to go there next?”

Ally closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. “Yes, I still want to go there.”

[ marnie ]

Marnie was continually amazed by Champaign.

The people, the homes, the unity. She could live here.

She wanted to live here.

Unfortunately, they weren’t staying. She had been given the choice but wanted to travel with Luke and Max. Hopefully they would be back to Champaign after intersecting the group traveling toward the City, if nothing major got in their way.

They had been in Champaign for just one night and then a full day. They were heading out at dark to get a better advantage on the group so they had spent the majority of the afternoon organizing supplies and getting the transport ready to go.

“Unless they are Exceptional or Rogue,” Luke had said. “Then there really is no advantage.”

Max had been practicing his abilities each night of their trip. Luke had spoken to Marnie about how they could best use her abilities, which was basically listening in on the group and trying to pinpoint who was in charge and what they were doing this far from home. According to the General’s assessment, they had been traveling from the far west of the country, where the land met a large body of water.

Evan was along for the ride, trained in combat. But he was still an Ordinary and Marnie worried about him. He remained quiet for the most part, as he had when they had first met. She had always thought it was because he didn’t have permission to speak to her, but now she realized it was part of his personality. No wonder they put him on prisoner detail.

Dusk was quickly approaching. They were all looking at a map that Luke had brought from Zone D, even though Marnie had no idea how to read it.

“This is where the General marked them last. That was days ago so they could almost be at the City, if they are not there. I think we should go to the western boundary of the City and move west from there.”

Max nodded. “I agree. My Uncle is refueling the transport for us, and then we can move on.”

Marnie hadn’t commented much on Max’s relationship with his Uncle. She had found it too easy to peek into his Uncle’s mind, despite her moral beliefs not to. It seemed that they had had a great relationship up until he left for the Southern City. Coming back Exceptional had taken a toll on Heath’s perception of his nephew.

“…if we can get lucky enough to intercept them here,” Luke was rambling through the plan again, “then we can use the river to our advantage.” He ran his fingers over a blue line in the map.

A resounding
Ally
sounded in his mind and Marnie tried to block out his inner voice.

“If they end up being hostile, I can use my abilities to raise the water and Max can freeze it into a wall, giving us time to either escape or counter attack, depending on the nature of the group. Marnie, this will give you a chance to assess their thoughts. Evan will be positioned nearby with his guns.”

If they could get close enough in secret, Marnie would hopefully be able to read their minds before the group even noticed them.

“We should get going,” Max said, looking at the sky.

The colors were quickly shifting from orange to red to purple. It was time to get moving. They would drive the transport straight north and to the City, where they would leave it with the Guards within the walls. From there, they would walk west.

“Can I ride up front?” Marnie asked.

She wanted to pick Luke’s brain, silently, while they drove. She also wanted a first look at the northern City.

“Sure,” Luke said, looking at Max for confirmation.

“I could go over strategy with Evan again,” Max offered up.

“Let’s go,” Luke said.

They put the last of the items into the transport and they were on their way. Marnie and Luke were silent for the first part of the short drive. Against her better judgement, Marnie just listened. Luke was thinking about Ally. All the time.

Was she doing well?

Was she alive?

How was their end of the mission working out?

Luke did a great job of putting on a calm face and Marnie believed it was solely based on the fact that he had been leading an entire City at one point. Technically, he still was the leader. But inside, Luke was freaking out. He couldn’t keep his mind on the task at hand
and
Ally, and his inability to truly focus worried Marnie in regard to their current task. If their confrontation with the group turned nasty, he needed to be able to fully concentrate.

“How did you and Ally meet?” she asked, trying to focus on listening to his words rather than the thoughts streaming through his mind.

Luke smiled, only one corner of his mouth pulling upwards. “Actually, you’ll get to see the place that we met soon. My friends and I had decided to scale the wall surrounding the city and explore the surrounding Wilderness. We had done it often, never really finding anything exciting other than random Ordinarys at work or Guards on duty. But this day was different. We had heard from a newly recruited Ordinary that some of the Ordinarys our age had this tradition where they would jump the boundary line, in their case the river, of their settlement. The river separates the settlements from the City, and it is illegal to cross over without permission. In some case the penalty is, well
was
, death.”

“So we decided to jump the boundary into the settlements, somewhat making fun of the Ordinarys. Saying it out loud, to you, makes me feel immature. It feels like so long ago.” He paused.

Marnie could relate. Living in her own Sector, with her mom, felt like years ago. How quickly life had changed, from working in the fields to traveling days away from Zone D.

Luke continued. “When we got to the river, there were two Ordinarys walking out of the brush. Stosh noticed us first. Ally was too determined to get to the river, really more of a creek, and jump. I could see the determination in her eyes from where I stood. Stosh grabbed her arm and whispered in her ear, bringing her attention to us. She didn’t back away in fear like most Ordinarys would have, but instead stared us down.”

“I didn’t even have to think about what I did next. I ran and leaped over the river, making it look as easy as a bird flying. I landed and glanced up at her, acting cocky. Really, I wanted to be closer to her. I wanted to see the details in her face. She never backed down, staring at me until I had disappeared into the woods. I watched her from afar, after she had thought we were long gone. She finally stepped back and got herself into a good enough run to jump the river, as well as an Ordinary could. She was so proud when she landed and she immediately turned around to face her brother.”

“That’s when the Guards appeared. They approached her and roughly threw her to the ground. I was so angry in that moment, watching them handle her that way, and I knew that she would be special to me. I had never felt that way about an Ordinary. I intervened, acting like I had known she was there all along, and telling them she was with me. The rest is…. history I guess.”

Marnie had read a few of the thoughts in Ally’s mind about her time in the northern City but nothing in depth. She would be interested to hear Ally’s perspective of her and Luke’s meeting.

They returned to silence, more thoughts of Ally running through Luke’s head. It felt like a story was being told to Marnie, and soon she closed her eyes, listening to the tale of Luke and Ally’s start.

At some point she must have dozed off because suddenly Luke was shaking her shoulder. She sat up quickly, rubbing her face where it had been pressed up against the cool window.

“We’re here,” he said.

Marnie gaped out the front window of the transport. They had pulled up to a large, towering stone wall. A metal gate sat directly in front of them and every so slowly it was opening. A Guard appearing in the small opening and came up to Luke’s window.

It took the man a moment.

“Lukin?” he said in disbelief.

Luke leaned out of the window and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Go tell everyone I’m back, and open up that gate.”

It took several minutes, but finally they pulled into a small courtyard within the gate. Luke turned off the transport and stepped out onto the stone ground, suddenly surrounding with Guards full of questions.

Luke held his hand up and they all silenced immediately. Just like that.

“I’ll answer questions in time. Right now, there is a situation we need to take care of.” Luke was in leadership mode now. Marnie shifted around to his side of the transport, wanting to listen to him. He stood taller somehow, his violet eyes brighter.

“There is a large group moving toward our City from the west. They could be close by now, close enough to be in the settlements. We need to assemble a small group to travel with us to intersect them.”

All of the Guards volunteered at once and Luke pointed out four.

“Marnie, can you take them to the back of the transport and have Max brief them on their positions.”

A dozen pairs of eyes fell on her and she leaned against the transport, jumping forward as the heat of the vehicle permeated her shirt.

“Um, yeah,” she said, turning away quickly. She hurried to the back of the transport and pulled the door open.

Max and Evan were waiting, guns at the ready. They relaxed when they saw it was just her.

“Luke has some men that are going to join us,” she motioned behind her, where the four Guards were gathering. She looked at Max. “Can you brief them?”

Max nodded and climbed out of the transport. Without a word Evan began lifting their packs into Marnie’s arms one by one until they were all in a pile on the ground. It was only a few minutes before Luke rejoined them. He closed the doors to the transport and banged his hand on the back. It started up and pulled forward, coming to a stop in the back corner of the courtyard.

“My Guards are prepared in case the group makes it past us,” he said.

Marnie knew what that really meant.

In case we are killed and cannot stop them.

At least it was possible that they would only be captured, which would still be bad, but not as bad as being killed.

“So we’re ready then?” Marnie asked.

Luke nodded. “Let’s move.”

They made it to the river Luke had pinpointed on the map. The same river where he had met Ally. He was right, it seem more like a creek. They had a river that ran through one of the fields in Sector 4. It was wide enough that they sometimes took crops across on a small boat. This ‘river’ Marnie could easily jump over.

“No sign of anyone,” Max said.

“But we have no idea at what point they’ll enter the settlements.”

Marnie stiffened. “Wait, we are just waiting for them to go through the settlements first?”

“Yes,” Luke answered. “We need the advantage of the water.”

Marnie felt the heat in her face. “You’d sacrifice all those innocent people? We should be going to the west of the settlements, protecting the Ordinarys. What would Ally think of you now?”

Luke raised an eyebrow and Max laughed.

“You didn’t tell them?” he asked Luke. Then he looked at Marnie. “Wait, you didn’t read it in his mind?”

Marnie looked back and forth between Luke and Max. “I try to stay out of people’s minds if I can help it. What?”

They were both smiling again.

Luke looked back over the river. “We evacuated the settlements weeks ago. The idea was to bring them back to the City on a permanent basis, but right now they are living in a safe town on the northwest side of the City. We couldn’t risk it with the Rogues running around. So many were lost when they invaded the City.”

Marnie looked at her feet, feeling stupid.

“Sorry,” she squeaked out.

“It isn’t your fault. You didn’t know,” Luke said. “I didn’t even think of how it might look.”

Marnie stepped toward the river. “I’m going to concentrate now.” That was partly true, but she also didn’t want any more stupid comments to come out of her mouth.

She sat on the ground running her fingers through the dirt and pebbles on the bank of the river. Despite it’s width, it still flowed quickly and would come up to her knees in the middle if she tried to cross. She could tell that in either direction it grew wider, and they were situated at the thinnest part.

She heard Luke send his Guards to different posts. She heard Luke tell Max that he had several other groups headed to different points on the boundary line, just in case the group showed up there. If spotted, each group had a runner that would meet Luke here. She heard Evan step away from the group and set himself up on a low branch in a tree.

Marnie closed her eyes and listened to the sounds around her. She could hear the river trickling by, the insects coming alive with the night, and a strange bird in the distance. She focused her ability out in front of her, sounding out the thoughts of the group with her. Nothing.

She opened her eyes and watched.

An hour passed.

Two.

Her mind felt exhausted. They had eaten some snacks, and chatted lightly, but mainly they were all on edge.

Then she heard it. It was subtle at first but it was there.

A voice. Then two. Then several more.

Not voices, thoughts.

She jumped up. She heard Luke stir behind her, and he was kicking at Max, who had been dozing off.

“I hear them,” she whispered.

“And?” he asked.

She covered her hand with her mouth. “Oh God…” and she took off at a run.