Rogue (Exceptional) (16 page)

       "You don't like being an Exceptional?" Wyn asked.

       "It's complicated," Ally leaned toward him, resting her elbows on her knees. "I'm sorry, but I just don't have enough."

       Wyn’s face changed, his expression growing angry. "Then find more. This man must know how to duplicate it."

       "He might," she said with a nod. "But right now no one knows where exactly he is."

       "I DON'T BELIEVE YOU." Wyn suddenly lashed out, using his free hand to grasp her neck. "You want to keep it all to yourself."

       Ally clawed at his hands, finding his grasp unusually strong. She watched as his mouth pulled up into a half smile and his green eyes shifted, becoming a brilliant violet. Her eyes widened and if she could pull air into her lungs, she probably would have gasped.

       "Cloaking was, or should I say
is
, another one of my abilities as an Exceptional. I worked as a spy, disguising myself as an Ordinary and going into the settlements," Wyn said.

       The door behind her burst open and Ally wished she could warn them. With one sweep of Wyn’s arm, Ally heard the sound of bodies hitting the wall behind her.

       "Let her go," Max growled from the other side of the room.

       With what little oxygen it had left, Ally's brain was able to compute that she was an Exceptional and that she could fight back. She didn't know the extent of Wyn's abilities, but she knew that her own were pretty strong. She focused on the energy, feeling it rush up and into her arms. Her hands glowed and as she raised them toward Wyn's chest, and as the last bit of oxygen escaped her lungs, she wished deeply that the blow would not harm him.

His grip disappeared from her throat and she sucked in big boughs of air, never realizing that oxygen filling her lungs would taste so sweet. Wyn had been blown off the bed and against the back wall. He was groaning and holding his right arm, which was now handless and seeping blood onto the floor. She remembered that he had been cuffed to the bed when she came in, and the force of her abilities had thrown him hard enough that he had been dismembered. Ally fought back a gag and she took her eyes off the gruesome mess, surveying the damage behind her.  The townsmen had already regained their footing, and Max was rushing toward her.

       Ally was surprised when he threw his arms around her and pulled her into a hug, but she returned the gesture with ease. When she pulled back, she noticed that Max's cheeks were flushed.

       "I thought for sure he was going to kill you," he said, cupping one of her cheeks with his hand.

       The touch felt very intimate and Ally immediately stepped back. "I did too. Then I remembered that I'm an Exceptional, too." She said the last part with a small laugh.

       "How did you guys miss this?" She didn't want to sound angry, but surely their tests would have detected the virus in his blood.

       "He has been so weak through the change that Carla said she was afraid that taking any blood might kill him, and she didn't know if using donated blood would have any effect on him. She was planning to come in this afternoon to do the blood draw, but he had asked to see you first. Now we know why." Heath’s voice was deep with anger.

       Ally was still wearing her hunting pack around her waist and she pulled open the top pocket, reaching her hand inside. She withdrew another vaccine, uncapping the needle and walking over to Wyn.

       "Don't do that," Heath's voice came from behind her. "Not yet."

       "Sorry," she said, trying to keep her eyes off Wyn’s mangled hand. "But I'm not asking."

       Wyn looked up at her, fear filling his eyes. "Please don't, Ally. My emotions are all over the place. I didn't mean to attack you, it just happened. I promise I'll be more careful. I'll do whatever you want me to."

       Ally looked down at him, managing to find a small amount of pity for him. "I can't take that chance."

       She jammed the needle into his neck and injected the vaccine, watching the clear liquid disappear into his body. If the vaccine worked on him like it did other Exceptionals, he would truly be an Ordinary in a few days. She wrapped the syringe in cloth and placed it back into her pack, knowing she would need to dispose of it in a safer place than this.

       "You should have come for me earlier," was all she said before she walked out of the room and out of Max's house.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The following morning Ally was intercepted by Heath as she left the house.  He was leaning against the post at the end of the walk, and the bags under his eyes told her that he had had a long night.

       "I'd like to request a meeting with you, Ally," he started speaking as soon as she stopped in front of him.

       "Request a meeting? Why so formal, Heath?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

       "I feel like we've been going about this in the wrong way." He rubbed a hand across his forehead, momentarily rubbing at his eyes. "We should have included you in this from the beginning. We have some thoughts and ideas we'd like to pass by you."

       Ally couldn't help but feel smug, and she was sure the smile on her face didn't hide that sentiment at all.

       "When?"

       "Now, if possible," Heath responded.

       Ally had planned on going out with one of the hunting parties but he was giving her a chance to be involved, and she was going to take it. "Let's go."

       Heath led her back to Max's house and into the basement, where the same townsmen from last night sat around a large, round table. Max was nowhere in sight so she had no idea if he was even aware of the meeting taking place in his basement.

       They all greeted her as she took a seat. There were piles of papers and writing utensils laid out before them, but nothing had been scribed just yet. They were obviously waiting on her to start.

       Heath settled into his own chair and clasped his hands together on the table. "I've been up all night thinking about the situation with Wyn." Ally was surprised he called the Rogue by name. "Ally, we have a valuable resource in this vaccination. You hold the cure for the Rogue outbreak, and also a cure for the Exceptionals."

       Ally's skin bristled. She hadn't been an Exceptional for long but his words cut into her emotions. "I'm sorry, but what exactly about me needs to be cured?"

       "I told you her age would get in the way of what needs to be done," one of the men said.

       "Sean," Heath growled with a warning. He turned back to Ally. "I need you to understand, Ally, we don’t believe that anything is
wrong
with you. I believe that you can truly grasp why the Rogue situation needs to be handled with the vaccination, and quickly."

       Ally nodded. That was something she wholeheartedly agreed with.

       Heath continued. "As for curing Exceptionals, we have a chance to start over. We have a chance to rebuild the world, as it once was, where Ordinarys and Exceptionals did not exist. We could restart society, and bring back the old ways of life. Ordinarys wouldn't need to work for the Exceptionals anymore."

       Ally ran his words through her head. A life of Ordinarys and Exceptionals was all she knew, and all these people knew as well. It had never seemed that awful growing up, but after being in the City, she could see the unfairness and unequal treatment of others. Yes, Luke had told her how the old world before hadn't been perfect either. She had seen it herself through the movies they sometimes watched together. There were wars, sickness, and shortages of food.

       “There is no way you’ll convince the Exceptionals to take the vaccine willingly. Aden tried to have it destroyed, and no one has been asking for it,” Ally pointed out.

       Heath shrugged. “We think we can convince them otherwise.”

       "Can we take this one step at a time?" Ally offered to the others. "Let's take care of the Rogues first."

       Heath nodded in response, while the others seemed hesitant.

       "What do you need from me?" Ally asked.

       "We need a vaccination sample, to see if we can replicate it in our labs. Either that, or we need the formula." Heath responded.

       Ally pulled two vials from the pack she wore around her waist. "Is this enough?"  She was running low on supplies, but if they could replicate it, it wouldn’t even be an issue.

       Heath eyed the vials and for a moment, Ally feared the look she saw in them. It was a mixture of longing and greed, which gave her a moment of doubt about handing over the vaccination.

       "Kemp left something for me," she blurted out suddenly. "Others from my settlement told me so. He may have left me more of the vaccine."

       "Could you figure out what he left and get back to us?" Heath asked.

       She nodded and watched him finger the vials she had laid on the table. They were passed around to each townsman, and they all stared at the liquid like at any moment answers would pop out of the glass and onto their still empty sheets of paper. One man, who was dressed in a white lab coat, gathered the vials and put them into a small, padded case in front of him.

       "Is that all?" Ally was surprised at how quickly the meeting had gone. Or maybe they were surprised at how easily she gave them what they asked for. All she could think about was Luke, and how he was vulnerable in the City right now. If they could cure the Rogues, perhaps they could really be together.

      And so continued the inner battle of how she truly felt about Luke. She was still having trouble deciding which emotions were real, and which had been fabrications from the mental changes she underwent to become an Exceptional.

       Heath's voice broke her out of her thoughts. "Wyn would like to speak to you again."

       Ally's head snapped up. "No way, not after yesterday."

       "He is sufficiently restrained today," Heath responded. "He is also an Ordinary now."

       Ally mulled that fact over. "So the vaccination worked like I thought."

       He paused and looked at the others. "I'd like to speak to Ally alone."

       The men, especially the one Heath had called Sean, grumbled as they stood, but they all eventually left the room and most likely the house. Heath leaned in toward her now.

       "There are several people unhappy with your actions from yesterday. First you disabled the camera we were using to monitor the Rogue, which almost cost you your life. Then you injected him with a vaccination before it was authorized."

       Ally couldn't help but laugh. "First, I wasn't about to
lose my life
. I'm an Exceptional, and a strong one at that. I took care of the situation. And something needed to be done with Wyn. I didn't have confidence that you knew what you were doing with him."

       Now Heath was the one mulling things over.

       "Wyn said he had something important to tell you. He said that you'll want to hear whatever it is he has to say, and that I can be there for the news as well."

       Ally raised her eyebrows. "What news could he possibly have? He told me as much as he could remember yesterday."

       "He said that he got distracted," Heath said. "Once he thought that you might be able to save his family and friends, he couldn't think about anything else. But he said that this is
important
. Possibly more important than anything else he has said."

       Ally shrugged. "I'm not sure I believe him, but I'll hear him out."

       They stood and Ally started toward the door in the back of the room, but Heath stopped her.

       "We've moved him to a holding cell at the town center. That room wasn't secure enough."

       "He's just an Ordinary now," Ally threw his words back at him.

       "We aren't trying to protect others, Ally. We are trying to protect him."

The town center was almost completely empty.  It seemed as though everyone was out doing his or her assigned tasks or just enjoying the weather.  The seasons had changed and the leaves on the trees had turned all sorts of brilliant colors, but recently they had had another spot of warmer weather.  An older woman greeted them as they walked into what Heath referred to as a
jail
. The woman introduced herself as Mary Lou, and used a key to unlock a door to a back hallway. Ally was growing tired of being treated like she couldn't open doors for herself, but being around an Exceptional was not second nature for these townspeople, so she dealt with it.

       Heath led her past several small, concrete rooms that were closed off with thick, metal bars. Each room had a small window that looked to the outside and a small bed.  Wyn was being held in the room at the end of the row, on the right. It was the only room without a window.

       Wyn sat up in bed when they arrived, and even managed a smile. He looked healthier than he had last night, and his eyes were now a dull brown, their original color, Ally guessed.

       "I'm glad you came," he said as he stood. He made his way over to the bars and grasped one in each hand. "I'm sorry about yesterday."

       Ally believed him. "What did you need to tell me?"

       Wyn eyed Heath carefully and then looked back at Ally. "The disease that spread through the Eastern City, the one that started the Rogue infection, it was planned...."

       Ally rocked back on her heels slightly. She hadn't been expecting news like that. "What do you mean by planned?"

       "I'm telling you that we were infected on purpose, Ally."

       Wyn's voice had an unsettling calmness to it. Ally's entire body felt alive. A planned infection? Who could have done this?

       "Ordinarys," she said out loud. It made sense. Somehow they had found a way to make the Exceptionals sick, and it had backfired.

       "That is what we thought at first, but then
he
showed up. We weren't far into our infection yet, and he told us that if we would do as he said, he could promise us a cure at the end of it all."