Rogue (Exceptional) (9 page)

        “I don’t know your shoe size, so we can figure this all out tomorrow, but here are some old shoes I don’t wear anymore,” Brooke handed them two pairs of brand new shoes, both purple and gray.

       “What are these?” Sabine asked.

       “Tennis shoes,” Brooke responded quickly. “They are comfy and practical, which really isn’t my thing.”

       She pointed to her own feet, which were shoved into shoes that stood higher in the back and came to a point by her toes.

       High heels, Ally thought they might be called.

       “Now that you are presentable, let’s take a tour of the neighborhood. There are so many people that want to meet you, and we can find your friends too.” Brooke clapped her hands together and squealed.

       Andrea and Alexis breezed by them and out the door. “See you later, Brooke?” They yelled simultaneously.

       “You bet!” Brooke yelled back before turning to Sabine and Ally. “Let’s go!"

       Ally wasn’t used to leaving the house at night. In the settlement their electricity was never on at night, so the streets were dark. In the City, she stayed inside at night. In Champaign the streets were lit by tall, bright lamps on each corner, and the houses had lights decorating their outsides. There were dozens of teenagers on the sidewalk, and Ally gathered that this was their social time.

      
They made it two houses down before they were bombarded by more of Brooke's friends. Ally and Sabine greeted each girl and put on their best smiles. Names were thrown around and Ally tried to remember faces, but it was all too much.

       Brooke's friends asked the strangest questions, too.

       "Do you just, like, use your abilities all the time?"

       "Are the Exceptional boys cuter than ours?"

       "Do you think I would look good with violet eyes?"

       When Brooke finally led them away, Ally leaned toward Sabine and whispered.

       "Do you think all girls in Champaign are like that?"

       Sabine looked horrified. "I hope not."

       "And your friends live over here." Brooke motioned to one of the town homes.

       Ally hurried up the walk and knocked on the door.

        "Ally!" A girl she remembered to be called Mabi answered the door and hurried outside.

       Three more girls she recognized, but didn't remember the names of, stepped out onto the small porch.

       “I am so glad to see you,” a girl with blond hair said. “When Po asked us to leave the settlement we didn’t understand why.”

       Mabi jumped in. "We didn't believe the rumors about you being an
Exceptional
," she said the word with distaste, "but look at you."

               "What about me?" Ally crossed her arms over her chest and furrowed her brows.

       Mabi took a step back and mumbled, "Nothing,” but Ally heard easily.

       "Is Po here? Or Kemp?" Ally asked.

       Mabi shook her head..  "They both continued south with a little over half of the group.  Po said that he wanted to keep moving, to find the City that you had sent him to look for.  Kemp went along as well, but he left something behind for you Ally.  He left it with my Ma, over in the B district."

      
“Can you take me there?” Ally looked at Brooke.

       “The B District is
so
far to walk in these shoes, we’ll go another time,” she said.

       Mabi raised her hand. “I’ll get it for you, Ally. I’ll keep it here until you are ready for it.”

       “Uh, ok,” Ally agreed, only because it would be easier to get the package from Mabi than from a prying adult from the settlement. She didn’t want to have to explain why she uprooted everyone.

       “Isn’t this place great?” The blonde next to Mabi said. “I like it much better than the settlement. We don’t have to work every day, and they have fun activities for us.”

       “So you guys are happy you left the settlement?” Ally asked.

       The girls all nodded, making Ally feel some relief. It was good to know they were settling in somewhere.

       Brooke tapped her heels. “We should move on.”

       She grabbed Ally’s arm gently and smiled at the girls from the settlement. Mabi and the others slinked back, looking intimidated. They scurried inside, leaving Brooke, Ally, and Sabine standing on the porch.

       Brooke led them back to the street, her arm still slung through Ally’s.

       “Like the girls mentioned, we still have jobs to do but not every day and not
all
day. They have us do things like clean up the streets, do laundry, gather food, tend to the gardens and fields... that kind of stuff. Alexis, Andrea, and I are in charge of distributing laundry back to the homes, and getting new clothes from the warehouse. We keep the cutest things for ourselves, of course.”

       She ended with a giggle.

       “Well of course,” Ally said. Her sarcasm was lost on Brooke who just squeezed her arm tighter in response.

       They stopped at the next corner and Brooke proceeded to point out houses and name their occupants. She suggested who Ally and Sabine should stay away from, and who they should definitely get to know. Ally took Brooke’s opinion lightly. She recounted drama from the past week, and Ally and Sabine just nodded along. Sabine actually seemed entertained by these stories but Ally found them uninteresting. She pretended to listen while she stole glances around their neighborhood.

       If she tried to forget about the present, and thought about the movies she had watched at Luke’s, she could almost envision them in the old world. Boys and girls were carrying on as normal, the streets were intact and the homes lit with electricity. There was plenty of food and even hot water.

       “Ally, did you hear me?” Brooke asked.

       Ally snapped her head back toward Brooke. “No, sorry.”

       “I have to go meet Max for a movie night at his house,” she said Max’s name with a big grin on her face. Ally could tell she viewed him as a prize to be shown off. Ally didn’t take the time to tell Brooke that she wasn’t interested in him. “Feel free to explore the rest of the neighborhood on your own. Remember, we are number two-twenty-three on Fern Street!”

       She turned quickly, her hair flipping over her shoulder, and
click-clacked
down the sidewalk in her heels.

       “Some tour,” Sabine said. “I think that took her all of five minutes. What happened to all of the people we needed to meet?”

       Ally shrugged. “I think she realized halfway through that letting us get to know her friends took more attention off of her.”

       Sabine laughed. “Very true. So, should we explore.”

       “Nah,” Ally said through a yawn. “I think I’ve gotten the general idea. Besides, we won’t be here long enough for ‘knowing the neighborhood’ to matter.”

Sabine looked at the ground. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Should we go change into comfy clothes?” Ally pulled at her jeans.

Sabine looked down at her own outfit. “Yes! I say we crawl into our beds and keep each other up with silly stories all night. Like we used to in the City.”

Ally smiled. “Sounds like a better time than this...”

She wrapped her arm through Sabine’s, knowing it showed a truer friendship than Brooke could ever have, and they retraced their steps back to Brooke’s house.

Number two-twenty three.

CHAPTER NINE

Ally woke up the following morning feeling more rested than she had in weeks. Even though she was anxious to get to the southern City, she could still appreciate all Champaign had to offer. It has the luxuries of the City, the Ordinary citizens like the settlements, and a freedom neither really knew.

       Sabine was still sleeping, so Ally slid out of her own bed as quietly as she could. She made her way to the bathroom and turned on the shower, knowing that she needed to enjoy the hot, running water while she still could. Maybe the southern City was as well developed as Champaign, or maybe it was as desolate as the Wilderness. She needed to prepare herself for both options.

       The hot shower felt just as glorious as the one the previous night, and Ally didn’t dare rush the process of getting clean. She figured there was still dirt and grime to clean away from weeks spent sleeping in the Wilderness, and it could take days to wash it away.

       When her fingers started to wrinkle and the water grew lukewarm, she finally turned off the water and stepped out into the steamy bathroom. She reached for her towel and wrapped it tightly around her body, using another smaller towel to wrap up her hair.

       “You are so fit,” Brooke said from the doorway, startling Ally. “Is that from being an Exceptional, or is there a specific workout you do. If it is the latter, I want it!”

       Ally grabbed her towel tighter. “Were you watching me shower?”

       Brooke just laughed and waved her hand in the air. “Of course not, I came in to grab my makeup kit and you were just getting out. We are all girls here, Ally. No need to be shy.”

       Ally had a few choice words she could use in response, but she held her tongue. If she was only going to be staying here another day or two, she could at least make an effort to get along.

        Brooke watched Ally carefully and then began to talk again. “I can show you how to use the hair dryer, if you want. That way you don’t have to walk around with wet hair again.”

       Brooke stepped over to one of the counters and pulled a hair dryer out of a messy drawer. There has been one in her bathroom at Luke’s house, but Ally had never attempted to use it. She had felt dumb asking what it was, and didn’t want to play with it in case she ended up setting something on fire, like the house.... or her hair.

       Brooke motioned to a stool and Ally sat down slowly, putting a smile on that she hoped looked thankful. The machine roared to life when Brooke hit a button on the side, pounding the side of Ally’s head with warm air. She watched in the mirror as Brooke moved the hair dryer around her head, using some unspoken strategy to pull hair out with a brush and simultaneously blast it with hot air. She worked through Ally’s hair in sections until every last hair on her head was dry.

       “There, that wasn’t so bad,” Brooke said after turning the hair dryer off and setting it on the counter. “You have really pretty hair, and it dries quickly.”

       Brooke ran her hands through Ally’s hair a few times and used her fingers to puff it up. Ally looked at herself in the mirror, and saw that Brooke was watching her. She let her violet eyes fall to her own face and tried to hide her surprise. Her hair looked soft and shiny, and curved around her face and shoulders rather than just falling flat.

       “Now, we should probably do your makeup...” Brooke said, reaching for a container on the counter that was full of some sort of pink powder.

       Ally jumped up. “Maybe next time,” she said. “Thanks for doing my hair though.”

       She all but ran from the bathroom and back to her room, shutting the door behind her.

       “Whoa, what happened to your hair?” Sabine said from her bed. She was awake now, and was sitting on the side with her feet hanging over the edge.

       “Brooke happened,” Ally responded.

       Sabine just nodded.

       “I have to meet Max this morning,” Ally said as she found some clean clothes in her drawers. Brooke had given them each several pairs of jeans and colored shirts that she didn’t want anymore. “We are going to have a meeting with his Uncle.”

       “Do you want me to come, and Stosh?” Sabine asked.

       “No, I don’t think so.” Ally pulled on her pants and buttoned them. “Hopefully it is quick and easy, and I’ll have a plan to get us out of here.”

       Sabine stood and stretched her arms above her head. “Well I’m not in any rush to leave. That was the best I’ve slept in forever.”

       Ally pulled on a shirt, grabbed some socks, and started to search for her shoes from yesterday. “I know this place seems great right now, but nothing good lasts forever.” She was mainly thinking about Luke as she said this. “I’m sure we’ll get bored and be ready to move on, so we might as well do it sooner rather than later.”

       “Whatever you say,” Sabine responded before leaving the room.

       Ally sat on the edge of her bed to put on the tennis shoes. She was nervous about Sabine’s quick attachment to Champaign, and disappointed that she herself had started to toy with the idea of staying longer. She didn’t want anyone getting too comfortable, at least not until she talked with Heath.

Max said he would meet her at the street corner outside of Brooke’s house, and that was just where he was when Ally finally left the home. He was wearing another outfit composed of cut-off shorts and a sleeveless tee, which differed greatly from what the other Ordinarys liked to wear around here. His dark hair was pushed forward, and his bright blue eyes appeared alert rather than tired, like Ally knew her own eyes looked. She could tell that Max was looking her over as well. The last time he had seen her she was covered in dirt and wearing baggy clothes.