I focused on Willa, forcing her to meet my gaze. She chewed her bottom lip nervously, a mental war waging behind her hazel irises.
“What’s going on, Willa?” I again spoke quietly enough that no one else could hear, this time emphasizing each word slowly.
My own threat barometer was quiet; with all of the surrounding data input, it told me there was no cause for alarm. So what was up? What was I missing?
“You don’t want to get mixed up with the wrong sort, Kenly,” Willa finally said, her voice gentle but firm.
“And those people are the wrong sort?” I guessed, nodding ever so slightly towards the bar.
“You’ve no idea how dangerous they are.”
Didn’t I, though? I was, after all, a human computer, capable of calculating an exponential number of possibilities in the blink of an eye. Unless I was sorely mistaken, I was by far the biggest threat here.
“Best you keep on as you have,” Willa was saying, her accent thickening the more her stress increased. “Mind yourself. Stay wide of ‘em, and keep under the radar.”
Concealing the fact that I was American had proved impossible; I’d tried, but my fake British accent left a lot to be desired. Concealing that I was Talented was a lot easier. Only a tiny percentage of the Talented population—which made it a miniscule percentage of the general population—could feel other Talents. With my boring brown hair and equally boring brown eyes, I bore no overt signs of otherness. And, until now, I’d honestly thought that concealing the fact I was in hiding was going pretty well, too.
Apparently not.
I should have known better, I thought. The people who ask the fewest questions see the most. Tug and Willa had never questioned who I was, or why I was here.
“Who are they?” I asked Willa.
Either she was paranoid, or I was still missing a key piece of information. Whichever way, I needed to know. Willa shook her head, the dyed blonde ends smacking her smooth brown cheeks.
“Bloody hell, Kenly. The wrong sort. That’s all ye need to know, just hurry on now.” I reached for my bag, for my diminishing roll of Globes, but Willa shoved the food container into my hands, and then made a shooing motion towards the door. “You know Granddad won’t take your money, just go on. And maybe don’t come round for a couple of days.”
With those vaguely insulting parting words, I was dismissed. She hurried off to greet a group of men—I recognized them as regulars, at least—who entered just then.
Who were the wrong the sort of people exactly? The Talented? I didn’t recognize them from school, or from the briefings or lectures at TOXIC, so they weren’t Created. Maybe they were just what they looked like: poor, possibly homeless, teenagers.
I remembered Platinum Eyes’ steely gaze. Willa was partially right about him; he was extremely dangerous. But not to me. Not because my abilities were better than his—though they probably were. But because he meant me no harm. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.
I glanced over at the threesome again. The extremely pale female who I’d dubbed Ghost Girl was obsessively stirring whatever was in her mug. The nervous habit, a tell, contradicted the easy smile she gave Platinum Eyes. But the real indicator that she was more than she seemed? Her fingers weren’t actually touching the spoon. She was moving the spoon, stirring the liquid, with her mind.
Ghost Girl was a Telekinetic.
What about her companions?
My gaze flicked to Spikey-Hair. Slouched, muscles relaxed, seemingly not a care in the world. It was the constant movement of his eyes that gave away his nerves, the way they darted around the room no matter who he was talking to. I moved on to Platinum Eyes. His posture was military-straight, his expression blank. No fidgeting came from him, like the other two—no leg shaking, foot tapping, or nail chewing. His silver eyes were fixed on the golden couple. Even though they ignored him, they had to feel the weight of his stare. The death rays he was shooting from his pupils would have sent TOXIC’s strongest operatives running for cover.
Despite a strong desire to uncover the reason behind Willa’s heart palpitations and what had caused her to, basically, boot me from her grandfather’s bar, I decided to heed her warning. Better safe than sorry. Truth be told, her unease had caught on, and I was no longer feeling confident that I was safe at the Giraffe.
Climbing to my feet, I pulled on my rain jacket in a flash.
Literally.
Light Manipulation was one of my new, Created, powers, and gave me lightning fast reflexes, in addition to invisibility. In times of stress, I’d found myself using the new Talent unconsciously. And I’d been a heart attack waiting to happen since arriving in London.
Alarm bells rang in my mind. The stares were like icy laser beams, freezing dime-sized patches of my skin as they zeroed in on their target. Too many eyes to count were suddenly on me and I knew I’d just made a critical error. Possibly fatal. My movements had been too fast, too jerky. Most people would’ve simply assumed that the lights were playing tricks on them. Even without analyzing the data, I knew that these people—the ones no longer pretending I didn’t exist—wouldn’t buy that explanation.
Still, the logical part of my brain told me that the best course of action was to carry on as if nothing had happened. To pretend like they weren’t all staring at me.
Don’t meet their eyes. The act will be perceived as a challenge. Don’t panic. They can smell fear. Slowly, calmly walk to the door.
The last bit of my brain’s advice was hardest to follow. I wasn’t running, not exactly. More like speed-walking. Either way, it was the opposite of sauntering out without a care in the world. Unease was now full-blown alarm, and my Created Talents were becoming harder to control. As if my earlier slip wasn’t bad enough, I began to flicker like an apparition in one of the old horror movies my friends and I used to watch.
No, no, no. Calm. Stay calm, stay alive, I lectured myself.
Unfortunately, my growing distress wasn’t helping these efforts whatsoever.
Breathe in, breathe out. Control your Talents, don’t let them control you.
This voice, from a distant memory I’d been trying to forget, was not mine. Normally, it would’ve been beyond unwelcome. Now, though, I clung to her advice and used it to anchor my thoughts. I was in control.
Still, as I pushed the door open, my fingers were barely visible against the wooden slab. Once out in the watery night, I did a cursory check of the street and, seeing no one, went fully incorporeal. And then, I ran.
INVISIBILITY IS THE ultimate freedom. There is no judgment, no condemnation. You hear and see so much more than you otherwise would. Extremely perceptive people, usually other Talents, can see a slight disturbance in the air, the faint shimmer of an outline. But even those people have to know that you’re nearby, to notice it.
Ordinarily, I savored that freedom; it was the only time I felt truly safe. Tonight, though, I wasn’t just using my Created Talent to take a leisurely stroll through the park, browse some high-end boutique that I had no business visiting, or eavesdrop on whispered conversations. Tonight I was using my abilities to ensure I wasn’t followed. As added precaution, I cut up alleyways, darted between random cabs idling next to curbs, and took an extremely roundabout route. When I finally dared to stop, to check out my pursuers, I was under the cover of a crop of trees across the street from my hostel.
No one was there. No one was following me.
I breathed a sigh of relief and nearly laughed at my ridiculously furtive behavior. Willa’s hysteria was apparently contagious. Seriously, using evasive maneuvers to lose a tail? Totally unnecessary. Ghost Girl and Spikey-Hair were Talented, so Platinum eyes probably was, too. But it was obvious they didn’t work for UNITED. Like TOXIC, UNITED took care of its own. No agent of theirs would be dressed in worn out jeans or tread-bare sneakers.
Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean no one is after you, a nagging voice reminded me.
It was true. Someone was after me. Just, not the
kids I was currently running from. Hopefully.
When UNITED agents attacked Washington D.C., they’d taken half of TOXIC prisoner. Now, they were hunting down the rest of us. Thoughts of their agents, and the battle that made me a fugitive, were never far from my mind. These thoughts, I told myself, were what caused me to overreact tonight. Willa’s vague warning aside, the teenagers in the bar were no threat to me. I was just jumpy and tense, and needed a good night’s sleep.
Shaking off the lingering feeling of spying eyes, I dropped the invisibility shield and strode into the open. When no previously unseen attackers materialized, I was further reassured that I was in the clear. For now.
I pushed open a door with peeling blue paint, and entered the dimly lit lobby of Ernie’s Hideaway. Calling it a reception area would have been extremely generous; it was nothing more than an alcove between the front door and the stairwell. The reception desk—scratched, scraped, and probably purchased third-hand—sat back in a slight nook. An oriental rug covered the tile flooring from wall to wall. The edges of the carpet hinted at its previous beauty, where the red and cream strands were still vivid and plush. But countless years and feet traipsing over the material had left the center scuffed and faded to a muddy tan with just a hint of pink.
As I passed, the night clerk gave a half-hearted wave without looking up from her tablet comm screen, engrossed in the latest time-wasting gamelet. I returned the gesture on my way to the stairs leading to the upper floors. All in all, the hostel wasn’t much, but it had served me well thus far.
Few guests stayed more than a night or two at Ernie’s Hideaway. At first, I’d been kind of freaked out by the ever-changing guests. It meant exposing my presence to countless people. Plus, I’d wondered if I should be moving around more, if staying in one place for so long would raise eyebrows. Still, with so much change in my life, I liked having a constant. Until tonight, I’d had two: the Hideaway and the Flying Giraffe. Now that Willa didn’t want me in her grandfather’s bar anymore, for whatever reason, I was left with just the Hideaway.
The room I rented held six bunks, two beds apiece. Each wall had three, lined up end-to-end, against it. Mine was the bottom bunk on the left, closest to the door. It had been a tossup between that one and one by the window. All of the data had come down to one thing: in the event I needed to make a hasty exit, escaping through the third-story window wasn’t a viable option. I’d done the math, and calculated the odds of surviving the drop without broken bones at seven percent. Not good.
When I entered, the room was empty. Only one other bed was made, meaning that I had one roommate for the night, but that he or she wasn’t here. Good. I wanted to be alone.
I plopped down on the thin mattress, bedsprings squeaking faintly, and dug out the bootleg communicator I’d spent a large portion of my limited money to acquire. At the time, I’d waffled over the purchase. It wasn’t like I could use it to send messages to people. Even if the communicator was untraceable, the same could not be said for anyone I wanted to comm. But the device had been useful for keeping up-to-date on world events. For instance: UNITED’s manhunt for the Created.
Switching the communicator on, I waited while it found a signal. Once it was up and running, the main screen filled with tickers scrolling news on everything from fashion to the latest tech devices. I missed having nice clothes and gadgets, and sometimes scanned these sites, telling myself I needed to be up-to-date on everything when I finally made it back home. I knew in both my heart and my mind that returning home was not in the foreseeable future. That didn’t stop the intense longing and incurable homesickness that were my constant companions. For now, I searched for reports about the situation in New York, desperate for news on Alana’s fate. It wasn’t hard to find. Every outlet was carrying the story.
In Manhattan it was now midday. The standoff was going into its fifth hour. Time is running out, I thought. UNITED’s patience would likely be wearing thin. It was only a matter of time before they ceased negotiation attempts and took the building by force.
Sure enough, the ticker—still running along the bottom of the screen as I read the article—flashed red a moment later. My hand was shaking as I used my thumb to tap the screen and bring up the news alert. Please let her be okay, I prayed. Please let her get away.
UPDATE: UNITED agents have secured the Embassy in Manhattan. All perpetrators, a group of Created who were holding the building, have been captured. At this time, several hostages are being treated for minor injuries. No fatalities have been reported.
Details on the mechanics of the raid were sketchy, but the end result was all that mattered. The hostages were safe. The rebels had been caught, and were now being taken to an undisclosed location. When the ticker flashed red again, I took a deep breath and tapped to see the new development.
A press conference was about to start, live from the scene. The camera’s view was now much tighter, and showed only the front entrance of the UNITED Embassy and the stairs leading up to the revolving glass doors. People milled around the bottom of the steps, speaking quietly. A podium had been dragged outside, directly in front of the large glass and chrome doors. The front of the lectern was emblazoned with a seal that the Director had shown us countless times. UNITED’s crest.
As if on cue, the crowd silenced. The front door open, and a woman in a tailored black suit strode confidently across the landing to her place behind the podium. There was no fidgeting with her hair—the tight chignon had not a strand out of place—no clearing of her throat, nor a last-second glance through her notes. Without wasting a single moment, she launched into her statement. Speaking clearly and concisely, as if reading the weather, Councilwoman Victoria Walburton decreed the fate of my best friend.
First she expressed her sympathy for the families of those held by Alana and the others. Walburton spoke of the hostages’ bravery and heroics, as if they’d been dealing with true terrorists and not a bunch of teenagers. I shook my head in disgust. It wasn’t like Alana or her cohorts had killed anyone. They’d probably just told them all to stay at their desks and not move. Still, the Councilwoman droned on and on about what a terrible ordeal the workers had been put through, how their lives had been in danger, and how luck had been on the hostages’ side that day, protecting them from the terrorists, intent on destroying the powerful UNITED. What a bunch of B.S.
Though her words were meant to elicit an emotional reaction from the viewers, her voice lacked any true empathy. From everything I knew of Walburton, she was entirely uncaring, and unfeeling. Her bottom line was keeping governments happy, not watching out for the Talents she was supposed to be protecting.
“Thanks to the courage and hard work of UNITED’s Manhattan Team 2, all of the culprits have been apprehended. Not a single one is at-large. And this I promise you: they will be dealt with both swiftly and justly.”
My heart sank. It was political jargon for executed. My earlier anger over Alana’s stupidity turned to deep heartache. She was my best friend. Only she and Francie had made my time at the McDonough School fun. Only the two of them had remained after my supposed-mentor became a traitor. The three of us had banded together when the world began falling apart, promising to stay strong, do the right thing and, above all, watch out for each other. But I wasn’t there for Alana.
Truth be told, after I’d gotten over my original reluctance, I’d spent the last weeks obsessively checking for both her and Francie’s names among the casualties from the battle in D.C. Neither one had shown up in the long lists online and in the world newspapers. After the first few days of searching, I’d allowed myself to hope. I’d hoped they were alive, hoped they were hiding, like me, and that someday soon we would be reunited. At this point, it might’ve been better if Alana’s name had been listed, after all. I couldn’t imagine what was happening to her now that UNITED had her in their clutches.
As if my thought had spanned the distance, Walburton finished her sentence—she was still talking about how great the UNITE
D agents were, shamelessly self-promoting—and nodded to someone off-camera. My breath caught in my throat and my eyes bugged out of my face. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
A line of ten slumped forms emerged from the double doors of the building. Nice tactical move, I thought grudgingly. Though my heart was breaking, my brain couldn’t help but acknowledge Walburton’s genius. Showing the culprits yielding to the Councilwoman and her UNITED operatives reinforced to the viewers that the situation was under control. Parading the rebels for the camera also sent a message to anyone else with similar ideas. The meaning transcended the ocean that separated our physical locations: Do not try it. You will not succeed.
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I couldn’t help myself as they spilled down my cheeks. I gently touched a face on the screen, of a girl near the center of the line. The Councilwoman droned on about her plans, but I no longer heard her words. The girl’s chin rested on her chest, as though her neck could no longer support the weight of her head. Her lithe body drooped as if it had wilted entirely. Without the UNITED agents standing on either side of her, their arms looped through hers, the girl probably would’ve collapsed completely. But worse than all of that…when she lifted her head just slightly and opened her eyes, I saw a girl whose spirit had been crushed. The beautiful strong warrior who’d been my best friend, she’d been broken. I couldn’t stop the sob rising up in my throat, and I shook as tears racked my body.
I couldn’t stand seeing her like that. Alana may have gone about it all wrong, but she’d had the best, truest of intentions. She’d been trying to honor the Director, the man who’d given us a home and a purpose, who’d supported us, and defended all Talents. He’d died trying to fulfill the vision he’d had for the future. Where everyone who wanted to could be Talented. A world where we were no longer freaks but embraced and applauded for our special gifts. And now Alana and the rest of the Created on stage would be giving their lives for that vision, as well. It was noble, but I longed to reach through the screen and pull Alana through to me, to save her. Watching the scene in New York, one thing was painfully clear: they wouldn’t be saving themselves.
Exiled: Kenly's Story (A Talented Novel) Page 3