Rogue (Exceptional) (15 page)

       "Max," she said his name quickly and stood up.

       "Going somewhere?" He eyed her boots, bringing a hand out of a pocket to rub at his rough jaw line.

       "What's it to you?" She brushed past him, wincing at how rude she sounded. She was still working on controlling her sometimes-sporadic emotions, but knew that her anger towards him was fresh. Ally didn't want him to know how much his absence had hurt.

       He kept up with her easily. "Are you mad at me?"

       She kept her eyes on the ground in front of her, picking up her pace. "I should be asking you the same thing."

       "Do I look mad?" Max responded.

       She chanced a look at him. He didn't look angry, more worried and maybe a bit sad.

       "No," she finally said.

       "So I'll ask you again. Are you
mad
at me?" He drew out the word mad.

       "I'm...", she thought through her answer. "I'm confused, and a little bit annoyed."

       Max grabbed her arm to stop her. He had been jogging to keep up with her brisk walk, and she saw a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

       "Confused about what?"

       His light blue eyes met her gaze and she tried to ignore the tingles she felt traveling up her spine and down over her arms. She didn't want to feel this way about someone else. She wanted the tingles and blushing reserved for Luke.

       "Where have you been all week?" Ally answered Max's question with a question of her own.

       "Busy," he looked down at his feet. "Is that why you're upset?"

       She crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, one minute you're my personal shadow and the next you pull a disappearing act. Is it about what happened with your Aunt? I still don't understand that, by the way. Or are you afraid of me because of what I did to that tree? Or maybe it is something else altogether."

      Max stared at her for a few silent moments before speaking,

       "I didn't think you cared whether or not I was around, especially after the incident with the tree. I've been giving you space. You've dealt with a lot of change in the past few months, and a good portion of it in the last two weeks."

       Ally shrugged. "It's just ... recently people keep leaving me, whether it's by choice or death, and I can't handle the latter anymore. You said you wanted to be my friend, Max. Do you still want that?"

       She realized she was starting to sound needy, but Max was a great asset to her in more ways than one. She felt guilty at the thought that a partial reason behind the need for his friendship was that he had direct access to Heath.

       "Yes," he stepped closer to her. "Of course. I really wanted to find you sooner than this and talk, but like I said, I've been busy. I've been helping my Uncle with the Rogue." He almost whispered the last word.

       A new form of anger rose up in Ally's chest. "Wait, you've been helping with the Rogue
without
me?"

       Max's brow furrowed together. "What's that supposed to mean?"

       She took a step back from him. "I don't know, just that
I
was the one to catch him in the woods.
I'm
the one with direct knowledge of the Rogues, knowledge I learned in the City.
I'm
one of the only Exceptionals in this town."

       "Don't be foolish, Ally." Max frowned. "You don't know what you are talking about."

       Ally closed her eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on keeping the ball of energy bouncing inside her stomach at bay. Instead she glared at him and said, "Unbelievable."

       Max appeared to be fighting a smile and that made her even madder.

       "I can take you to him. That is why I came to find you," he held his hands out as though giving a peace offering. "You won't believe the changes he's made."

       "He?" The word slipped out before she remembered she was supposed to mad at him.

       "Yes, a he. And he won't talk to anyone but you." Max pushed his pointer finger into her chest to make a point.

      Sadness crept in underneath her anger as she mulled over the fact that she was only being sought out because they needed her for something. More than Max valued her friendship, he valued her knowledge. Ally realized they at least had that in common.

       "Interesting, how you suddenly need me to do something for you and expect me to do it," She smirked at him.

       "Really, the childish thing again?" Max crossed his arms over his chest.

       "I spent a lot of my childhood working," she pointed out. "I think maybe now is a good time for a redo."

       He brought one hand up to cover his eyes. "Please, Ally. Do this one thing for me."

       Ally faltered at the pleading in his voice. Something heavy sat in the back of his words, as though there was more on the line than her just speaking with the Rogue.

       "Show me the way," she said with a sigh. "But I am not doing this for
you
."

They stepped up to the porch of a large, stand-alone home. It was nestled on a street with other homes almost exactly the same. She wondered if the prominent people in town lived here, just like it seemed to be in the City. Although, Heath and his wife lived in a converted building that also served as his office.

       "Whose home is this?" she asked.

       "Technically it’s mine, but I don’t live here anymore," Max said quickly before pushing the front door open. He motioned for her to step inside and followed behind her.

Ally worked to hide any surprise and moved past him into the vast foyer. The home reminded her so much of Luke's, her chest tightening at the thought. The main difference was that Max's home was completely empty. She could only see the foyer, and into the large rooms on either side of it, but so far she didn't spot a single piece of furniture on the floor or pictures on the wall.

       "It's..." She paused, her voice bouncing off of the walls.

       "Cozy, I know," Max said under his breath.  Ally recognized the sarcasm in his voice. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the room on the right, which led into a large kitchen.

       The kitchen had a small table with a few mismatched chairs thrown around it, but that appeared to be all. Ally wondered if he even kept food in the fridge.  Max led her to a thick, wooden door stuck in a narrow wall in the middle of the kitchen. He opened it, revealing a set of stairs to a lower level. They were already lit, as if someone had used them recently. He released her wrist and moved down the steps in front of her, seemingly expecting her to follow. The steps wrapped around the wall near the bottom, and then opened up into a large, well lit room.

       The first thing Ally noticed was that this room was nothing like the first level of the house.  Sofas and chairs were shoved into random positions around the room, and there were multiple tables with different sizes of lamps lit on top of them. The second thing she noticed was the group of six townsmen staring straight at her, and she recognized two of them from the night she captured the Rogue in the woods. They were a good mix of young and old, and all were well muscled.  Heath stepped from the group, his face set with determination.

       "Ally, thank you for coming," he said.

       Ally bit her tongue, holding back the angry words she wanted to fire back at him.  Instead she chose silence, watching him with what she hoped were intimidating eyes.

       Heath raised one eyebrow before continuing. "I'm not sure how much my nephew has told you, but the Rogue has been changing rapidly since we brought him in last week. He started talking this morning, and he has been asking for you.  He doesn't know your name, but he keeps asking for the "pretty girl from the woods." Would you be willing to speak with him?"

      
Pretty girl from the woods?

       Ally looked at Max, who was back to using his eyes to plead with her. Or maybe threaten her. She couldn’t quite tell at the moment.

       Ally nodded and followed Heath toward a room in the back of the basement. It opened into a large bedroom, and chained to a large bed was the Rogue. At least, she thought it was the Rogue since this was the room Heath brought her too, but he looked much different than the creature she encountered in the woods a week ago.

       For one, he was Ordinary. He sat up in the bed when she entered, and she noticed that one of his arms was cuffed to the post. He was bald at the moment, but the little hair he was growing appeared to be light.  He looked up at her with big, green eyes and Ally stiffened at the familiarity she saw in them. The color was similar to that of her and Stosh's. Was this really the creature that had attacked her in the woods? He seemed to be about her age, but it was hard to tell in his weakened state. His skin sagged in certain areas, now back to a regular, pale complexion, and his mouth, nose, and ears were now misshapen.

       "I'd like to speak with her alone," his voice was raspy, as if he hadn’t talked in weeks. Months. And he probably hadn’t.

       "I don't think that's a good idea," Max said. Ally hadn't noticed that he had come to stand right beside her.

       "He is harmless, Max," Heath said. "Let's give them a moment and then we'll come back and all talk together."

       Ally had no doubts that Heath had his ways of listening in on the conversation from the other room. All he cared about was listening to what the Rogue had to say.

       Once the others had left, Ally took a seat in a chair by the bed. She felt awkward with the Rogue—now Ordinary— staring at her. For a minute she looked anywhere but at him, playing nervously with her hands. Finally she crossed her legs and gripped either arm of the chair, bringing her eyes up to meet the boy's.

       "Shut it off," the Rogue spoke.

       "What?" she asked.

       He motioned to the upper corner of the room, where a small black ball hung from the ceiling.

       "Is that a camera?" Ally asked.

       He nodded. "You have the abilities to shut it off."

       Ally focused on the core of energy within her and then on the camera in the corner. Like she had done with the small objects she moved around in the woods, she focused on the change she wanted to happen.  She focused on the camera shutting itself down.

       A muffled complaint came from outside the door, letting her know she had succeeded. She half expected that Heath would come bursting through the door to stop their conversation, but no one did. Ally could at least expect to be questioned on it later.

       "I'm Wyn," the boy watched her with interest.

       "Ally," she responded. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

       "You're an Exceptional. That was my life before this all of this started. It is what I know, and I know that I can trust you."

       Ally had to stop herself from telling him that she had only just recently become an Exceptional. It wasn’t important information to share right then.

       "I remember everything," Wyn started talking again. "I remember my old life, I remember getting sick, I remember the transition into becoming a Rogue, and I remember everything I did
during
my time as a Rogue, right up to attacking you."

       Ally thought over his words carefully. Was he admitting to being aware and willing to attacking her?  Wyn continued.

       "I didn't have control over my actions as a Rogue. I felt like a bystander in my own mind, watching my body do horrible things to Ordinarys and Exceptionals alike. I murdered people, Ally. Innocent people." His words caught in his throat and Ally watched his green eyes glaze over with tears.

       "Why are you telling me this?" Her voice sounded small as she spoke. She wasn't going to comfort him and tell him it was okay, because it wasn't. Nothing about any of this was okay.

       "A group of four of us left our City, heading east for a while and then cutting south. The two females got into a fight over a kill on the third day and both died from their injuries. The other traveler, a male, tried to gut me in my sleep and I was forced to kill him. Well, the Rogue in me was forced to. My body and mind were driven by a hunger and a need; for flesh and death. I felt pulled in this direction, pulled toward you."

       "That doesn't make any sense," Ally interrupted.

       "It doesn't at first," Wyn agreed. "But before I became a Rogue, when I was still an Exceptional, my abilities centered around being able to create the situations I wanted. If I wanted to win a girl, she would suddenly find herself fancying me. If I wanted to ace a training test, I suddenly gave my best performance.  Things like that. Before my mind was completely taken from me, and the Rogue instincts took over, I kept thinking about how much we needed help, and how we needed a cure."

       He paused, waiting for my response. I brought my hand up to my mouth. ".... and you ended up with me."

       "And I'm cured," his words came out with a hint of gratitude. "I kept seeing your face in my mind as I traveled here from the City. It took me two months, and it was if my body was pulling me along, but I finally found you. I literally ran right into you."

       "You tried to kill me," Ally said.

       "I was a Rogue, through and through," he said with a smirk. "It is a good thing you are quick."

"It wasn't me that cured you. It was a vaccine," she wanted to move the conversation along. Heath was likely to burst in at any moment, and then he would be leading the discussion. "It was originally created to turn Exceptionals back into Ordinarys.  I had no idea it would work on you as well, it was the only weapon I could reach in the moment."

       "I don't think it happened by chance," Wyn said with a smile. "But now we can go to the eastern City and help my family, and my friends. We have a cure."

       Ally held up her hands. "Wait a minute. I don't have enough of the vaccination to cure an entire City. K..." she caught herself before she gave up his name, "the man who gave it to me only gave me enough to give myself."