Ordinary (Exceptional Book 3) (9 page)

[ ally ]

In the morning light, Ally knew that Stosh’s wound was definitely infected. The red skin stretched out toward his stomach, and the stitches were a mixture of purple and green.

“I could freeze the infection,” Max offered.

“That would most likely kill him,” Luke responded.

Luke and Max had practiced for hours the night before. They had worked on freezing things in a controlled manner. A two foot section of grass, the trunk of a tree, and at one point he even froze the fire. Sabine had muttered under her breath as she worked to build them a new one.

“Luke and I will take turns supporting Stosh on the walk,” Max said. “Can you girls handle the supply bags?”

Ally and Sabine shouldered the bags and they started the walk into the city. They walked together in a line, only breaking to go around debris. The closer they got to the buildings, the more they had to avoid. Chunks of concrete, skeletons of cars, broken roads. It was almost an hour before they were walking through the shadows of the tall buildings.

“This reminds me so much of home,” Luke said. “Except for the lack of the wall and the people.”

“Definitely,” Sabine agreed with him.

They took a break on the lower level of an abandoned building around mid-morning. There was no straight shot through the City with all the debris, so they found themselves trying to navigate the side streets and sometimes going in complete circles.

“I don’t even know what direction the lights are in anymore,” Ally shoved the map back into one of the supply bags.

“When we walked into the city, there was a red picture on the side of one of those buildings. If we can catch sight of that, it could help us get back on track,” Luke said.

“Good idea,” Max responded. “Two of us should go scout it out. No need for all of us to wander the city, especially with Stosh.”

Ally nodded. “Luke and I will go. You can stay here and protect the supplies, and the others.”

Max looked like he might argue, but then he relented. He armed himself with a gun and positioned himself at the only entrance to where they had been hiding. Luke and Ally headed out into the open and paused in the main street.

“I think I know what we need to do.” Luke looked over at her. “We need to get up high.”

Ally sighed. “I was afraid you might say that.”

“This way,” Luke said.

He took off at a jog down the street. They went six blocks back the way they had walked in and stopped in front of a tall building. All of the windows were blown out, and some of the concrete was crumbling, so it was easy to find an entry point on the lower level. Once inside, it wasn’t hard to find the stairs, since the rest of the space was emptied out.

“What do you think did all of this?” Ally asked as they made their way toward the stairwell. “Do you think people cleared the floors out? Or do you think time and weather did?”

Luke was a step ahead of her, opening the door to the stairwell. “Probably a combination of both. My grandfather told me that it didn’t take long for the world to erupt into chaos. People were stealing from stores and homes, people were killing each other and themselves. My guess is that most of the stuff was taken.”

Ally shivered. They made it up three stories before they ran into a roadblock. A section of the stairs had collapsed directly in their path.

“I could probably make the jump.” Luke looked back at Ally. “Do you want me to go on? Throw you?”

Ally looked at the gap. “Go ahead. I’ll see if I can find another way.”

Luke nodded and crouched down. It was still amazing to see the height he could get with a jump, even if Ally had been able to do the same at one time. He looked down at her from the landing.

“Race you to the top?” he asked with a smile.

“Not fair at all!” Ally pointed at him.

He disappeared from sight and she looked around. There was a door hanging off it’s hinges and with a few pulls, she was able to pull it completely off. She stepped onto another barren floor and jogged through the open space. She figured a building this big had to have more than one way up. Ally reached the other side of the room and started opening doors, amazed they were all still hanging straight. The first two were closets, but the third was another stairwell.

“I swear I saw them go up the east stairs.” A male voice rang across the room.

Ally froze. Where had the voices come from?

“Hey! Stop!” the male yelled.

Ally spun her head and saw three men running onto the floor from the stairs she and Luke had just climbed. She turned and took off for the second set of stairs. Hopefully these were intact. She climbed them two at a time, and it wasn’t long before she heard the pounding of feet behind her. She climbed level after level, not slowing down despite the burn in her legs. Each time she thought the men were getting closer, she pushed herself a little harder.

Ally wasn’t sure how many floors she had gone, but suddenly there was a gap in front of her. She cursed silently and ran through the open doorway to the right. The men would come to the same gap and know she stopped on this floor, so she needed to get moving. Already their footsteps sounded just one floor down.

She started across the floor and stopped when she saw the jagged opening across the middle. There was no way to cross to the stairwell. By now Luke was at the top, and even with his hearing, the men would be on her before he could get down. She did the next thing that came to her mind, she ran toward the blown out windows in the front of the building. A large part of the building across the street had fallen into the building she was in, and a few of the beams were close enough that she could climb across them.

“She’s over there!” a man yelled behind her.

They were on the same floor as her now, and if they had weapons, she was in trouble. Ally didn’t have time to think about it, she ran for the nearest beam and jumped. She landed on her stomach with her legs dangling, and the impact made her grunt.

“She jumped. I can’t believe she jumped!”

Ally hoisted herself onto the beam carefully. She situated herself on her knees and gripped either side of the beam with her hands. It swayed slightly under her weight and she closed her eyes for a moment.

Do not look down. Do not look down.

“Signal Ben to get into that building,” a man yelled.

Ally was starting to think her escape was hopeless, but she wasn’t about to give up. Slowly, she moved her way across the beam, careful to look straight ahead. The distance seemed far, but with patience, she made it to the other building safely. She jumped through the broken window and found the stairs. If she got to the roof, she could at least yell across to Luke.

This stairwell was intact and she reached the roof in minutes. She burst out of the door and bent over, trying to catch her breath. She considered herself in pretty good shape, but the adrenaline from the chase was wearing off and she suddenly felt exhausted.

She ran to the ledge and shielded her eyes from the sun. Across the way, Luke stood leaning against the edge.

“Are you okay?” he yelled.

Of course he would know that she would be there. He must have heard the entire chase, and figured out exactly what she was doing and when.

She nodded. “There are more coming,” she said softer since he could hear easily. “They are sending men to this building.”

“I’ll be right...” Shots rang out in the air and Luke ducked.

It took Ally a moment to realize that they were coming from a completely different building.

“Luke!” she yelled.

More shots and he stumbled backward, falling back over the ledge. He caught the top with his hands and now hung perilously over the ground.... twenty stories up. This wouldn’t be a problem if he had his abilities.

“LUKE!” Ally yelled again. She looked around the roof, trying to think of a way to save him, but there was nothing.

The door on the roof she stood on burst open.

“She’s up here!” someone yelled.

Ally’s heart pounded in her ears. Adrenaline began to pump through her veins again.

She felt afraid and alive all the same time.

She hadn’t felt this way since the Warehouse. The night she became...

“Luke!” she yelled over the edge.

He had managed to pull himself back onto the ledge. His head whipped back and forth, looking for the source of the shots.

“We need to jump!” she said.

His eyes were wide. “What!?”

“JUMP” she yelled again.

“Over there?”

She shook her head. “Meet me in the middle!”

“What? Ally... no!” he yelled.

She was already moving back. Three men were running across the roof toward her. She took off at a run, used the ledge as leverage, and took a leap off the building.

For a moment she was flying. The wind pushed her hair behind her and her too large shirt from New Eden flapped underneath her arms. And then just as fast, she was falling.

A body slammed into her as she spiraled through the air.

Luke.

“You’re crazy!” he yelled out, her ears barely catching the words before the wind carried them away.

They were falling rapidly, their bodies twisting around and around.

“Luke, you need to do something!” she yelled. “We’re going to die.”

Luke let out a frustrated yell. Then that yell turned into a roar. The ground was drawing closer. They were a few stories away.

Ally screamed.

And suddenly the world around them froze. They were floating a few feet above the ground, rocks and debris floated around her.

She set her forehead against Luke’s.

“You did it. I knew you could,” she said.

He laughed and his warm breath hit her cheeks. “You have way too much faith in me.”

Before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Softly at first, and then with more intensity. Luke wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him. His tongue parted her lips and a moan rumbled in his throat.

“I hate to interrupt, but we need to get off the streets.”

They broke apart and suddenly their bodies were falling to the ground below. In moments, Luke had Ally up and behind him. He held his hands out.

“Don’t do anything crazy, now,” a man said.

He had a long drawl to his words.

Now that Luke had control of his abilities again, they were unstoppable.

The man made a show of holding up his gun and then setting it on the ground. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

“Oh really,” Luke snapped at him. “You call shooting at me
not
hurting me?”

“That wasn’t us,” the man said.

Now that Ally thought about it, the men in the buildings had appeared gruff and weathered. They kind of looked like her group did, with dirty clothes and knotted hair. This man was dressed in a green uniform, and he looked as though he’d seen a real shower in the past twenty-four hours.

“If you’ll come with us we can take you into Zone D, and out of harm’s way. My men are holding off the rebels while they can, but more will come,” the man told them.

“We have friends, in a building two blocks away. My brother is hurt pretty bad.” Ally said over Luke’s shoulder.

“Show me the way,” the man said.

He leaned his face toward his shoulder and squeezed a black box built into the strap. “I have a group of outsiders coming in. I think they are the ones we were waiting for. At least one Exceptional. Meet me in Zone E with a transport. Over.”

Someone responded to the man but Ally wasn’t paying attention.

They had done it. They had reached the southern city, and there were people here. Nice people that wanted to help.

Ordinarys.

Possibly Exceptionals.

She threw her arms around Luke and squeezed him tight.

“We did it,” she said through tears. “We made it to the southern city.”

[ marnie ]

Marnie sat on her bed, playing the only card game she knew how to play by herself. She hadn’t had much else to do besides go to the General’s interrogations. She was able to coerce Voice to get her a TV, something she had only heard wild stories about back home. Voice also supplied her with a rotation of movies, but there was only so much time she could spend watching the TV.

“Marnie,” Voice piped into the room.

“Voice,” she responded with a sigh.

Voice only initiated contact with her when she was expected at an interrogation.

“Sergeant Nickols is requesting entrance,” Voice said.

Marnie sat up straighter. Normally he didn’t arrive in such a formal way.

“Um, yeah. Sure,” she said. So much for not acting confused.

The door slid open and Evan stepped into the room. Marnie smiled up at him as she shuffled the deck of cards.

“Want to play?” she asked.

“They found a large group from the north...”

“The ones coming from the north city, the one on the verge of a war?” Marnie swung her legs over the bed and stood up. Just last week she had met with the General and the man from up north, Kemp, and confirmed his story.

The General hadn’t used her for interrogations since then, saying that he needed to work on figuring out what all of Kemp’s stories meant. It was nice to have some time off, but really it just meant that Marnie was entirely bored. There was only so much that she could do in the courtyard and Voice only supplied her with a limited selection of movies, all of which she had watched twice already.

Evan nodded. “They brought them in yesterday and they’ve been in the med ward since, but the General is ready to ask them some questions.”

“They might give you answers without me,” Marnie said.

Evan shrugged. “The General is getting used to having you around.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Marnie responded.

“Ready to go?” He didn’t comment on her worries.

“Well, I have something really important scheduled in about ten minutes, can it wait?” She threw as much sarcasm into her voice as possible.

Evan smiled. “Follow me.”

“Hey Griff,” she said to the large Guard by the main door. On her first day down he had terrified her. Now she knew that his name was Griff, and that he had a special lady and two little ones at home.

“Marnie,” Griff responded.

Evan escorted her to the interrogation room. Since he was with her full time now the General had dismissed the soldiers that normally sat with her and allowed him to come along. He took a seat by her side, pushing a paper and pencil toward her. She had been trying hard to learn how to use the mini port but she still would rather write it all down. He used his key card to deactivate her cuffs and she blocked the wave of thoughts before they even entered

The General walked into the room.

“Marnie. Sergeant Nickols.” He had taken to addressing Marnie by her name now, rather than her Exceptional I.D. number. He probably wouldn’t admit it but Marnie thought he may have taken a liking to her.

“We’re bringing in three of them together. Two Exceptional boys, and an Ordinary girl.” He briefed Marnie on the group.

“Exceptionals?” Marnie asked.

She hadn’t seen another Exceptional in the city before. The fact that there were two traveling with this group made Kemp’s story even more validated. The General had argued that Kemp was so crazy that Marnie was misreading his thoughts, but she could always find the truth hidden in the lies.

“Two of them,” the General responded.

Two minutes later, two soldiers escorted the group into the room. Marnie took them in as quickly as she could. The boys were her age, and cute. Very cute. The one was tall and lean, with brown hair and violet eyes. The other boy was a little shorter, and had a wider muscular build, but also had dark hair and violet eyes. Both wore cuffs. The girl was on the taller side, and thin. The kind of thin someone got from lack of food. Travel in the Wilderness had taken its toll on this group. The girl had long, dark hair that hung almost to her waist, and large, green eyes that stood out on her pretty face. Marnie was immediately jealous of her, and the obvious closeness she had with these Exceptionals, even though it was stupid to feel that way in this moment. The three of them moved as one, looking at each other as they took a seat.

The General stepped into the room and took a seat.

“I’m the General here in Zone D,” he started with his usual speech. “I’ll be asking you several questions today. Names?”

They started from Marnie’s visual left.

Max. Ally. Luke.

“Where are you from?”

Champaign. Oak Settlement. Northern City.

“Interesting,” Marnie said out loud as she wrote. “Their homes all have different names.” Here they had Zone D and then Sectors 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on.

Evan just nodded beside her.

“What brings you here?” the General asked.

The three of them shared looks and started in on their story. Max was from a town outside of the City, and had only met the other two recently. Ally was an Ordinary from a settlement outside the northern city, and had met Luke by chance. When they got to the Rogues, Marnie felt sick. It was everything Kemp had tried to tell her. She hadn’t completely understood everything in his mind, because some of his thoughts came out scrambled, but she was finally piecing it all together.

Ally was telling the General about how she had left the City, and how she had stumbled upon Max’s town.

“Wait a minute.” Marnie paused her pencil.

“What?” Evan asked.

“Max was Ordinary when they met.”

“Are you sure?”

Marnie nodded. “Positive.”

“That’s impossible,” Evan said quickly. “The virus was eradicated. We’ve never seen a new case of the virus, not even a new strain.”

He sounded nervous and Marnie understood. If the virus was back, then all of the Ordinarys were in danger. If the virus mutated Exceptionals, she was in danger.

The pencil shook in Marnie’s hand. She wrote down what she read in their minds, but as she went, she noted they were telling the General the truth. They didn’t leave anything important out. Eventually Marnie stopped writing, and focused on listening. Even the General sat completely still, and was no longer asking questions. Ally was leading the show, and every now and then, Luke and Max would fill in details.

“Unbelievable,” Marnie whispered.

The story was catching up to present day.

“A suppressant vaccine. A cure. A new serum. Ordinarys turning Exceptional. Rogues. It’s...”

“Unbelievable,” Evan repeated.

“This is so much cooler than all of the other stories. Think of all the possibilities,” Marnie said. “We could cure the Exceptionals. I think Kemp had tried to tell me about the cure but I didn’t completely understand.”

“Cure? You want to be cured?”

She turned her body toward him, gripping the table. “I want to be equal. I don’t want fancy cuffs, or to live in a beat down house in Sector 4. I don’t want to worry when my next meal might come. Zone D wouldn’t need to focus on guarding Exceptionals, or what harm they might do. No one would have abilities.”

“Maybe that isn’t such a great idea,” Evan said.

“Why not?” Marnie responded. “You don’t know what it’s like… being so different, and so unaccepted.

“It sounds like the northern city has the opposite issue,” Evan pointed out. “Exceptionals ruling while the Ordinarys work on the outside.”

“That sounds awful too,” Marnie said.

Evan looked away and froze.

“Marnie...”

“What?” she asked.

She followed his line of sight. The General, Ally, Luke, Max... all of them were looking right at her. Which was impossible, since the window in front of her only worked one way.

“Your hand is on the talk button.” Evan reached over and pulled her hand away from the table.

“Crap,” Marnie squeaked.

“Whoever that is, I like her,” Ally’s voice piped into the room.

“Major crap.” Marnie put her head down on the table and groaned.