Rogue (Exceptional)

by Petosa, Jess

  “Ally,” she responded.

  “I like Tiger better.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means….” He thought for a moment. “You know what, forget it. You coming?”

  “I don’t think so.” Ally bent over and picked up the bucket of water.

  “Where are you going, then?” He ran his hand through his hair and peered up at her.

  Ally looked at the path she had followed through the woods, the one that led back to the others. She didn’t know enough about this boy to trust him, but her instincts didn’t tell her that they were in any immediate danger.

  His eyes widened. “There are others, aren’t there.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Ally said as she looked back at him. “They’re Ordinarys.”

  “Ordinarys,” Max repeated. “Why are you traveling with Ordinarys?”

  His expression turned angry for a moment and Ally quickly picked up on what he was thinking. He thought she was traveling with Ordinarys as her workers, forcing them to do her bidding.

  “They’re my friends. We’re traveling south, trying to reach the City there.”

  Max snorted. “What City? All you are going to find the further south you head is less people, less food, and less everything else.”

  Ally frowned. “I’m going to leave now.”

  “No, wait.” Max reached forward and grabbed her arm. “Let me come with you. I want to meet them.”

  His blue eyes sparkled as he looked down at her, and she felt a rush of warmth in her cheeks. His touch was the most meaningful one she had felt since the left the City, and she couldn’t explain why.

  “Okay, but one wrong move…”

  “I know, I know,” Max interrupted. “You’ll send me sixty feet through the air.”

  Ally awarded him a small laugh before turning back to the path. She hoped that Max proved to be as trustworthy as she believed, because the last thing she needed was more blood on her hands.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Stosh was the first one to stand up, more like shoot up, at the sight of Ally and Max.

  “Hey guys,” Ally said casually. “This is Max.”

  The reactions that passed over her friends were mixed. Stosh was weary of Max, at the realization that he had no chance in winning a fight should it come to one. Sabine was flashing him a friendly smile, all the while clinging to Stosh’s side. Cody seemed unimpressed, and Willow was pink in the cheeks, obviously taking note of the same good looks that Ally had noticed.

  Max raised his hand. “Hey.”

  “Max is from,” Ally paused. “Well, I don’t know where he is from, but I ran into him down by the creek.” As the words left her lips, she realized how naïve she sounded.

  Hey, I know we really shouldn’t trust anyone we meet along the way, but I found this guy down by the creek, and I thought it would be a good idea to bring him to meet you guys.

  Or not.

  “Ally, can I speak to you for a moment?” Stosh crooked a finger at her.

  She set the water bucket down by the fire and stepped over to her brother, who was still watching Max.

  “You’re telling me you found an Ordinary down by the creek, learned nothing about him other than his name, and brought him back to our camp.”

  He kept his voice low and hushed. Had Max been an Exceptional, he would have heard the conversation easily, but that was not the case.

  And when Stosh put it that way, Ally confirmed that questioning her decision-making abilities was the right move.

  She crinkled her nose. “Isn’t that exactly what we did with Cody, and then Theo and Flora?” At this point she was reaching.

  He sighed. “Yes, but we knew they were from the settlements after talking with them. This is an Ordinary from the Wilderness, Al. We don’t know what he is capable or what he wants from us, because we have never dealt with this before.”

  “Then let’s find out,” she said with a nod and turned to face Max.

  He was perched at the edge of the camp, his strong arms crossed over his chest. Now that they were out in the open, Max seemed bigger somehow. Stronger, taller, and all around older. His eyes were darker than before, and he was watching them with a rough expression.

  “You’re here,” Ally said. “Now what do you want?”

  “I told you, I just want to meet your friends.”

  Ally could see it in his eyes now. He hadn’t believed her when she’d said that the Ordinarys traveling with her were doing so of free will, not being forced. She laughed out loud and then shook her head, taking a seat by the fire.

  “By all means, question my captives.”

  Stosh shot her a confused look. “Captives?”

  She smirked. “Max here thinks that I am forcing you guys to travel with me. That I’m using my Exceptional abilities to make you do my bidding.” She waggled her fingers at her brother for effect.

  Willow snorted from across the fire, and even Sabine let out a small giggle.

  Stosh rolled his eyes and laughed with them. “Trust me, Max, we aren’t making this journey because we think it would be fun, but Ally isn’t the one forcing us on the run. We are doing this simply to save our own lives.”

  Max stepped closer to the fire and let his arms drop to his sides. “You are on the run from the City, aren’t you?”

  They all nodded together.

  “There’s been an influx of Exceptional Guards in the area, coming into town to question us. We knew they were searching for someone, but we couldn’t quite figure out who.”

  Ally bristled at the news. “Did they say who they were looking for?”

  Max shrugged. “They didn’t speak much, just forced us out of our houses so that they could search us.”

  “I don’t like this, Al.” Stosh rubbed at his forehead. “I don’t trust him.”

  Her brother didn’t seem to care that Max was standing just a few feet from him.

  “We could offer you protection,” Max responded. “You think other Ordinarys haven’t come through this area, trying to get away from a life they once thought was perfect?”

  “We don’t need your protection,” Stosh fired back. “We’ve been doing just fine.”

  “Yeah, and what about the other two that came through before you? The couple with the matching blond hair and brown eyes? They said the same thing, and walked away from our help. We got news two hours later that the Exceptional Guards found them.”

  “Theo and Flora?” Cody stepped out of the shadow now, rubbing his hands together. “You saw them?”

  Max’s stance was taut now; his arms crossed back over his chest. “I ran into them by the creek. It’s why I was back down there today, seeing if any more of you would be coming through. The boy refused to come with me and refused to listen to my warnings. There is a Guard outpost just south of here. They check every Ordinary that goes through, making sure they have clearance to pass.”

  “Clearance?” Ally asked.

  “Unmarked from the City,” Max responded.

  She rubbed the spot on her wrist where a microchip once sat just beneath the skin. The spot where her mark had been before that. Sabine did the same, as well as Willow. Only Stosh and Cody still had their settlement markings. Stosh hadn’t been in the City long enough to be implanted with a chip, but he might still be wanted by Aden and therefore recognizable. Ally had removed her own chip shortly after the escape, and had Sabine and Willow agree to do the same. It had been painful, but necessary.

  “Why didn’t Theo and Flora make it through then?” Sabine asked.

  “Because of what happened a week ago, the day they left us. Somehow they must know. Someone knows about our group, and they have descriptions of all of us,” Stosh responded.

  Max nodded in agreement. “So, will you come with me? We can help you get past the outpost, and continue on your way.”

  “How many of you are there?” Ally asked, still seated on the ground.

  “A little over two thousand.”r />
  “Whoa,” Sabine said with a gasp.

  She said just what they were all thinking.

  “That is a large family.” Ally raised her eyebrow.

  Max looked them over. “Does this mean you’ll come?”

  Ally looked at her brother, and then at the others. They were all looking to her, waiting to see what her decision would be. She knew they didn’t have much choice. If what Max said was true, about the Guard outpost to the south, they would need all the help they could get with passing through; she didn’t travel this far and long to fail.

  “We’ll come,” she finally answered.

  Max spent the night with them, using one of their extra tarps to make a decent tent under two branches. He had obviously done this before. They left the camp early, setting out west rather than south. The dark circles under Stosh’s eyes told Ally that her brother hadn’t slept much. She knew he still didn’t trust Max, and she wasn’t sure if she completely did either, but at the moment he was their best option for survival. If he turned out to be a fake, she knew one way she could take care of the situation. Ally’s palms itched at the thought and she rubbed them on her worn shirt.

  “How far is your town?” Sabine asked.

  From what Max described to them of his home last night, it sounded like a mixture of the homes in the settlements along with some of the larger buildings from the City. Ally couldn’t really fathom what it looked like, with two thousand Ordinarys occupying the streets, so instead she would just have to wait until they arrived.

  “We should get there early afternoon. It is straight west of here, so we won’t come in contact with the Guard outpost at all.”

  Max was leading them on a thin trail through the woods, picking his way through the trees as if he had the way memorized. Ally couldn’t keep her eyes off him; the way he would balance on tree roots waiting for them to catch up, or how he would sometimes jump up and swing from a low hanging branch. He seemed carefree as they moved along, and when he thought no one was looking, Ally could see the rough exterior break away, revealing a young boy beneath. Maybe she had been wrong about his age, and Max was closer to hers than she originally thought.

  They traveled through the morning with ease, for the most part remaining silent. Every now and then Stosh would ask Max a question about his town, and get a standard answer in return. After the first hour of the trip, Cody decided that Max was his new hero, and was now hopping beside him, trying to keep up. Ally brought up the rear of the group, along with Willow, who had so far avoided any sickness for the day.

  “So, do you really trust him?” Willow asked.

  Ally thought before answering. “Right now, I trust him more than I trust the Exceptionals. I’m not sure how much that counts, though.”

  “It counts enough,” Willow said. “For now.”

  They heard the town before they saw it. Ally was the first to pick up the sound of machines running in the distance, and the faint giggles of children. They were stepping through thick brush, pushing various branches out of their face, and then all of a sudden the town was in front of them. The path opened up into a wide street; homes decorating either side. The street continued on into the town, and Ally could make out the top of taller buildings several blocks down. She guessed that more houses sat behind this row. If this town were anything like the City, they would be placed in a grid-like formation.

  “Welcome to Champaign,” Max said.

  “Champ-aign?” Sabine repeated each syllable.

  “That’s what it was called in the Old World, and it stuck,” he explained.

  This particular street was deserted, except for a few young children playing with a ball, but as they got closer to the center of town; they ran across older male and female Ordinarys. Max and the group were ignored at first. A man used a hammer to fix a broken windowpane, an older woman carried a basket of clothes toward a small laundry shop, and a couple sat on an old bench caught in an intimate embrace. But it didn’t take long for others to notice Ally and the others.

  At first, they seemed interested—possibly excited— that new Ordinarys had found their way into town. She could hear the questions they bounced off Max, who was a good ten feet in front of her.

  “New recruits?”

  “Where did you find this bunch?”

  “This is the biggest bunch we’ve had in months, right?”

  “Does your Uncle know about this?”

  It wasn’t until they took in Ally that their interest turned to fear, and their questions turned to accusations.

  “How could you bring one of them here?”

  “Do you realize what she is?”

  “You’ve endangered us all.”

  The younger Ordinarys seemed to mix their fear with excitement.

  “Is she from the City?”

  “I wonder what she can do.”

  Ally rolled her violet eyes in exaggeration, hoping all the complainers noticed.

  They finally stopped in front of a large, square building in the center of town. A large crowd gathered on either side of, and behind their group. Ally felt claustrophobic, and she fought the tingle that was stretching into her hands. She didn’t plan on using her abilities against these people unless they threatened her life, or one of her friends’ lives. She couldn’t begin to image the amount of guilt she would feel for murdering not just a handful of Ordinarys, but a whole town.

  A gray haired man stepped out of the front door, obviously curious about the large group of people gathered in front of his office. She assumed that was what this building was, like the offices that Aden had, because it was too large to be just a home.

  “What’s going on, Max? Why is the entire town hanging out on my doorstep?” The man was tall and lean, like Max, and he was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Jeans! Ally hadn’t seen jeans in the entirety of her life, and didn’t think many others from the settlements and City had either. She had seen them on the men and women in the movies she had watched at Luke’s, and figured they were a lost luxury.

  As she looked around, she noticed that all the other Ordinarys from the town were dressed in similar styles. Jeans, plain shirts, dresses, colorful prints, and so on. She had been so focused on their reactions when they stepped into town that she hadn’t noticed their appearance.

  “Well Uncle Heath…” Max started. It was the first time Ally heard him sound nervous. Even when he had discovered her identity in the woods, he had just seemed angry. “I’ve brought some stragglers in from the woods.”

  This man, who Max had called Uncle Heath, peered around Max. “Nice size group. That still doesn’t explain the crowd.”

  A woman yelled from the crowd, “He’s brought one of them. We’re all in danger!”

  “Oh shut it Lucy,” Max snapped.

  Uncle Heath’s nostrils flared. “What does Lucy mean ‘one of them,’ Max?”

  Max turned around and motioned for Ally to step to the front of the group. His expression said please do this before I make you, and even though Ally knew he couldn’t really follow through, she appeased him. It wasn’t until she was standing by his side, looking up at Uncle Heath, that the gray haired man frowned.

  “I see,” he said, not seeming particularly bothered, or even impressed, by her presence. “Come inside.”

  “All of us?” Ally asked.

  The crowd recoiled, and she could have sworn she heard hissing. What did these people expect from her? Did they want her to pick them up one by one and toss them around? Or maybe stomp them into the ground? Maybe they hadn’t thought she could even form coherent sentences.

  “Just you,” Uncle Heath said pointedly at Max. “And her.” His gaze shifted to Ally. “The others can go with Mark to be processed.”

  “No way,” Stosh said at he stepped up beside Ally. “I’m going with my sister.”

  Heath’s mouth hung open for a few seconds before he recomposed himself. “This girl is your sister?”

  Stosh nodded.

  “He com
es too,” Heath said.

  “I’m not going anywhere without Stosh,” Sabine whimpered in the background. She seemed to be talking to herself, but Heath heard her.

  He threw his arms up in the air. “Fine. All of you, in my office now.”

  “I don’t mind staying here,” Willow said from the back but Stosh silenced her with a wave of his hand.

  “Man, this guy might be just about as bossy as the Guards,” Cody said quietly behind Ally.

  When she let out a small laugh, she could feel Max boring a hole into the side of her head with his glare.

  Max led the way into the building in front of them, which smelled damp and musty. They entered into a large foyer with a desk off to the right where a short Ordinary girl sat. A long, hall full of doors stretched in front of them, lit by lights on the wall. That meant that this town had electricity, even though they were off the City’s radar. Heath motioned for them to follow and led them into the first door on the right, which turned out to be an office. It looked like a closet compared to the office Aden had held in the City, but Ally could tell the Ordinary man took pride in it.

  Books were stacked neatly on a bookshelf against the wall, and Ally resisted the urge to step over to them and run her fingers along the binding. Were the settlements the only places void of them? Uncle Heath’s desk was “L” shaped and held several stacks of paper, a few more books, and what Ally recognized as a computer. There were standing frames on his desk with pictures of people in them. Luke’s family had some framed artwork on the wall in their home, but never pictures of real people. Ally studied one from across the room, which was simple with her Exceptional eyesight, and thought she recognized a much younger Max.

  “I don’t have enough seats for all of you, but if we can move through this meeting without interruptions, we won’t be in here for long.” Heath motioned to the four chairs crammed along the wall before he took a seat behind his desk.

  Willow automatically received a chair, as well as Cody and Sabine. Ally and Stosh argued for a full thirty seconds about who should sit before Max shoved Ally down into the chair. She stared at him in stunned silence but he had already turned to lean against the wall, his hands tucked into his pockets.