Rogue (Exceptional) (27 page)

       "One of the last times I saw you, you shot one of my friends and killed him," she crossed her arms over her chest.

       Pax didn't seem surprised; in fact, he didn't react at all. Instead he brushed past her and took off down the long hall, headed for the apartment where the others were. Ally turned and caught up with him.

       "Did you hear me?" she asked.

       Pax stopped and turned to face her. "What do you want me to say? I don't remember killing your friend, but I know he isn't the only Ordinary I've killed. We are at war here, Ally, WHAT do you want me to say?"

       His hands were clenched into fists and he had stepped so close to her than her nose almost bumped his chest. She took several deep breaths and looked up at him.

       "You called me Ally." Her voice was barely a whisper.

       Pax stepped back quickly and ran his hands over his face. "Don't tell Luke, please."

       "How long have you remembered?" she asked quietly.

       Pax rubbed his chin and closed his eyes. "A few weeks now. I've been trying to pretend I don't remember, I really have. Aden had them give me my memories back, he said I would need them. He made me swear not to tell Luke what happened to us."

     "What
did
happen to you?" Ally stepped toward him.

     "That night at the wall, the night you left, Aden showed up after you blasted those Guards," Pax spoke low and fast. "He said he was going to let you run, but that he needed us on his side. He was going to take our memories so that Luke wouldn't go after you, and he didn't trust me not to tell Luke what had happened after."

       Ally thought she was going to fall into Pax, but instead she ended up leaning against the wall beside him. "So it is reversible?"

       Pax nodded in response.

       "Pax, I need to help," she looked over at him. "I know Luke told you to get us out of the City, but let us help."

       "How?" Pax asked. "You aren't Exceptional anymore."

       "That doesn't make me useless!" Ally spat at him. "We can help. Get us the guns, the ones with the cure in them. We can help," she repeated again and again.

       Pax tilted his head to one side. "You are one odd Ordinary, Ally."

       She rolled her eyes and shoved him down the hall. "Let's get the others."

When they entered the apartment, the others were mobilized in the main living area and ready to move.

       "A message went across the screen, something about evacuation and a code yellow, we figured something big was happening," Stosh said quickly when he took in Pax and Ally's curious faces.

       "It's time to go." Ally stepped into the room and took her pack from Max. He had it slung over his shoulder. "Luke told me that we can leave the City, he'd let us go. But I think we should stay and help."

       "Are you insane?" Tilt said with a laugh. "Help them after they imprisoned us for over a week? I say we go back to Champaign."

       "Technically they didn't do anything we wouldn't have done either." Max pointed out. "It's standard, and for all we know Heath is on his way with the remainder of the guns."

       Ally nodded. "It isn't like Luke threw us into a cramped cell to live on bread and water. Really, it is safer for us in here. I've seen some of the nastier Exceptionals that are in the City, Ordinarys are treated as property, not people."

       Pax didn't refute her words, but just nodded along with her. "I can get the guns you brought with you. Luke has them stored in his office for now."

       That surprised Ally. She thought for sure he would have researchers looking them over and trying to duplicate the cure. He must have had a good talk with Heath, or he didn't trust anyone enough to authorize use of them.

       Pax continued, "We can station you on the roofs of some of the smaller buildings. You could shoot any Rogue that gets too close to the City Center. The outer Exceptionals, and Ordinarys in the settlements will be evacuated to a compound on the northwest side of the City, The Exceptionals who didn't volunteer to fight will be evacuated to this building. The fifth through eighth floors are set up as a strong hold."

       Ally peered around the group. "Any of you can leave. If you don't want to be apart of this, grab your things and head out of the City. You can probably get in line with the Exceptionals being evacuated. But I'm staying."

       Stosh seemed to struggle for a moment, but then Sabine stepped forward. "I'm staying," she said. "This is my home, after all."

       "I'm staying too," Stosh said.

       "I'm in," Max said with a smile.

       Tilt and Hank shared a look and picked up their packs. "Sorry guys, but we're going to head back to Champaign. If there is a caravan headed this way with guns, maybe we can alert them." Tilt said.

       "You make sure they keep coming," Max stepped right up to Tilt. "Don't turn them around. We need those guns."

       Tilt nodded just slightly, and Ally was suspicious that he planned to do just the opposite.

       Once Tilt and Hank had left the apartment, Pax started to speak. "We didn't expect the Rogues to get past the walls so easily. We were hoping to pick a few of them off and hopefully scare the others. They didn't seem this organized according to our scouting teams, but we were wrong. The back-up plan is to kill first, take prisoners later."

       Ally's eyes widened.

       "I'll gather a group of Guards to stay back and watch over the area you'll be in. If you shoot a Rogue, we can at least drag them into a safe place to recover." Pax said.

       "You need to send us closer to the wall," Max fidgeted with the strap over his shoulder. "If no one makes it to City Center, we won't get to save anyone. Let us save these people."

       Pax shook his head. "It isn't safe. Luke would kill me." He glanced over at Ally. "From the reports I heard just before coming here, there is a good chance they'll make it to City Center."

       Max started to protest but Ally shot him a look. She had her own plan for what would happen once they were outside with the guns, and she would tell him the first chance she got. For now, they needed to follow Pax's plan.

       "This feels awfully unorganized," Sabine put a hand on her hip, and the gesture brought a small smile to Ally's face. "You've had weeks, no, months, to plan for this. Aden knew this was going to happen, and all of the sudden Rogues are taking over the City and people are panicking?"

       Pax just glared at her and then spun and walked out the door.

       "They just hate it when we're right," Sabine said before taking Stosh's hand and pulling him into the hall.

       "Thanks for staying," Ally said to Max. "I know you would probably rather go back home. You don't owe this City anything, but thank you."

       "I owe the City for bringing you to me," Max responded before slipping out the door.

       Ally took a deep breath and tightened her hold on her pack. When this was all over, she had several messes to clean up.

The guns were just where Pax said they would be, stored in Luke's office. Pax was the only other person with a key, so it was lucky that he was the one that Luke had assigned to their group. Ally wondered if this had been done on purpose, if in the end, Luke had hoped they would stay and help, but she didn't have much time to think on it further.

       "No one was planning on taking these into battle?" Sabine asked as she fingered the trigger of a gun.

       "It was never a part of the plan," Pax responded. "I'm sure they've forgotten them."

       Ally didn't quite hear truth in his voice, but shouldered her own gun and followed the group out of the office. When they finally stepped out in the City, she had to blink several times to adjust to the daylight. Large, gray clouds loomed in the distance, a sure sign of rain. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

       "This way," Pax shouted out.

       The City was loud. An alarm blasted over speakers, Exceptionals ran one way yelling with fear, and Guards ran around shouting out orders. Even though Ally knew that everyone had a place they would end up, it still seemed like chaos. How many would stay in their homes and hope for the best? How many would forget where to go and end up in the street, out in the open for the coming Rogues? They followed Pax a block east before entering a four-story apartment complex.  They climbed the staircase, and at the top a door led them onto a roof. Pax leaned over the front ledge of the building.

       "Two of you stay up here, the other two I'll place on the apartment building on that corner," he pointed to a building a block to the south."

       "We'll stay," Ally pointed to Max and herself. "Sabine and Stosh, be safe."

       She gave them both hugs, holding on to each of them longer than necessary, and said her good-byes. She couldn't linger on the words, in case something happened and she didn't see them again. There had been too many moments like this, and she just wanted to believe that her luck would last. Pax and the others jogged back into the building, and Ally was left with Max.

       "So what's the real plan?" he asked quickly.

       Ally smiled, "I knew you would catch on. We need to get closer to the east wall, closer to where the Rogues are coming in. If we can pick them off there, we can save more of them. The population is down as it is, I don't understand why Luke is willing to risk so many lives."

       "Maybe he doesn't think he has a choice," Max responded.

       "Or Aden told him that he doesn't," she said quietly.

       "And then there is the ORC." Max didn't look at Ally when he said the words.

        "Who knows how much good that has actually done," she looked in the direction of where she remembered the ORC to be. If one building had to burn to the ground today, she hoped that would be it. Surely they had evacuated those Ordinarys as well.

       "We better move fast, while there are still others moving along the ground. We'll look extra suspicious if we are traveling on deserted roads," Max pointed to parts where the crowd was beginning to thin.

       They ran back down the staircase and out onto the open street. They fell in step with a group of Exceptionals and traveled quickly to the east. They were careful to avoid the building Pax had taken Stosh and Sabine to, just in case. Max and Ally were an odd pair. Two Ordinarys, both armed, and one with a shoulder bag full of a dozen guns. No one seemed to notice, or care, though.

       The further east they got, the more the crowd thinned. Thirty minutes in, the Exceptionals and Ordinarys disappeared, and now random formations of Guards marched on. No one questioned Ally and Max, or gave them orders. They probably saw two wandering Ordinarys as an okay casualty in this war.  An hour into their journey, the factories started to pop up.

       "We're close," Ally said.

       They could hear shouting in the distance, and random explosions and other odd sounds.

       "It looks like they've held them back so far," Max said. "There aren't Rogues running wild here just yet."

       "Yeah," Ally said softly. "But I still have a bad feeling about all of this."

       They weaved in and out of warehouses, drawing closer and closer to the sounds of battle. Or maybe the battle was drawing closer to them. Every now and then a Guard would run by, but still, no one stopped to speak with them. Finally, they stepped out onto a street that was heavy with bodies and full of smoke. Flames shot into the air, targeting both buildings and groups of people.

       "We have to get up high," Ally said before covering her mouth and nose with her arm.

       Max did the same and pointed toward a Warehouse across the street that was so far untouched. They sprinted through the groups of Guards, and other random Exceptionals, and reached the brick building. Max didn't hesitate to kick a window in and climb inside. Ally followed behind him, ignoring the sting on her palm where the broken glass left small cuts.

       They could breathe easier in here, but the smoke would infiltrate fast.  The warehouse floor was large and open, since it had been abandoned and unused for decades. Ally spotted a staircase on the opposite wall and they sprinted for it, taking the steps two at a time. It was only three stories tall, so they burst onto the rooftop in under a minute. Smoke rolled up into the air in columns of gray, and mixing in with the rain clouds above.  They ran to the ledge and looked over. At this vantage point, they were looking right down over the Rogues. Watching the fight was like watching a movie. Hands were raised and random bits of fire and ice shot through out the crowd. Some Exceptionals would fly backwards and land several yards away, while some Rogues would be tossed aside with the swipe of a hand.

      The Guards had guns, something the Rogues didn't, but it seemed like they had prepared for it. There were smaller, weaker Rogues on the front line. They were being taken out by the bullets. The strong Rogues, with the more useful abilities, were leading another group from behind.

      A scary realization came to Ally, "I'm not sure who is winning."

      "Looks like a fair fight to me." Max said from beside her. He was kneeling, already pulling guns from the bag. "We don't have infinite rounds, so we'll need to pick off the strongest first."

      Ally nodded and peered back over the ledge, pulling her own gun down in front of her. "Try not to hit the Exceptionals."

       "Why?" Max grunted. "It will cure them as well."

       Ally didn't want to start this argument so instead she pulled the gun against her shoulder and raised it to eye level. She shut one eye, like she had been taught, and found a target.

       "I'm taking fire boy," she said to Max. They didn't need to waste ammo by going for the same target.

       "I'll take the creepy dude in the front that seems to be chucking bodies with his mind," Max responded.

       The Rogue Ally was aiming at shot another large fireball toward the warehouse across the street. Several Guards perched atop the building took flight, and glass from the windows exploded, raining down on the street below. Ally found a clear shot and put her finger on the trigger.