Exiled_Kenly's Story Read online

  “Yes, yes, yes,” I muttered under my breath.

  Four wide, frenzied, and very busy lanes. Road buses were heading in both directions. Hovercabs dipped down between the buildings to drop off their charges and collect new fares. Ground taxis offering cheaper transport veered through the lanes, screeching to a halt alongside the curb without warning. Road cars sped and swerved among the other vehicles, primarily driven by kids who couldn’t afford hovercars. With few exceptions, all of the vehicles seemed to be driving imprudently fast on the crowded road, slick with rain. The incessant beeping of horns filled the air, a cacophony of different pitches and lengths adding to the noise and chaos.

  Before entering the pandemonium, I peeked over my shoulder to see whether my mystery boy was still in pursuit. The misty sprinkle from earlier was now actual rain. His golden hair was darker now that it was wet, but he was still easy to spot in the crowd. He was also still following. Inexplicably relentless, that one.

  “I just want to talk!” he called when he noticed me looking.

  The boy was closing the gap between us. I swore, and considered turning on full-speed to lose the tail. Even before I’d received the latest injection of the Creation drug, I was faster than the average person. All of the running that I’d done with Talia, and then with Donavon, in preparation for my Hunters’ tryout had contributed to my superior endurance. But with the Creation drug…I was now faster than Olympic gold medalists. Unfortunately, a teenage girl moving so fast that people would only see a blur might draw unwanted attention. Especially tearing down one of the busiest streets in the Slums.

  Breathing deeply, I kicked my pace up a notch, consciously keeping it below an unnatural speed. I wove between the racing vehicles in the first two lanes. Though it meant traversing through more traffic, I ran diagonally across the road, heading towards the alleyway. Hopefully he wouldn’t have the guts to follow my path, and I’d lose my tail.

  Just before I reached the median, horns blared and cabbies shouted out the car windows. I spared the quickest of glances behind me, confused because they seemed delayed from my trek. I was right. The honking wasn’t at me. The damned kid had followed me into traffic. Except, he wasn’t as adept at dodging vehicles. Tires screeched and the smell of burnt rubber filled the air. My new friend might not have been UNITED, but he wanted to talk to me pretty badly if he was risking his life to do so.

  I couldn’t help myself. Pausing on the narrow concrete barrier dividing the rushing traffic, I looked back again to make sure he was okay. Shit. He was more than okay. The cab had stopped short of actually hitting him. In fact, it’d barely broken his stride. Even with my extra speed, he was still on my heels and closing the gap. Time to head into the other side of traffic.

  This isn’t working, Kenly! New strategy, you need to come up with a new strategy! I mentally coached myself.

  Without slowing, I instantly analyzed the situation. Unlike me, Golden Hair Guy was panting and sweating, but it wasn’t yet affecting his pace. Attempts at losing him weren’t working, either. Maybe if I just kept running, he would ultimately wear himself out. My cardio trainer at school liked to remind us that until just a few hundred years ago, people used to run extreme distances—over 25 miles—for fun. It sounded like the opposite of fun at the time, and it still did now. But remaining alive and free was worth any distance I had to cover.

  I’ll slow down as he does, and then just keep going. He’s probably not Talented, or he’d almost certainly have shown it by now. Eventually, he’ll have to give up, I decided.

  A road bus barreled down the center of Tiber, swerving to avoid slower moving vehicles. Jolting out of my mental analysis, I again focused on the physical pursuit aversion. When the bus was mere feet away, I leapt forward, directly in front of its path.

  The driver didn’t even have a chance to honk his alert horn. The warmth radiating from the front of the bus encompassed me instantaneously. The hairs on my arm stood up in the whoosh of air, and I swear I felt them brush along the heated metal. The bus passed behind me, just barely avoiding a fatal wreck. But the tactic worked. My purser wasn’t fast enough this time. Using the bus as a shield, I darted onto the sidewalk and into the alley. He didn’t have a prayer of seeing where I’d disappeared to.

  The darkness welcomed me like an old friend. I wasn’t winded exactly, but felt the need to take a minute and regroup. That had been a close call. The second of the day, after what happened at the Giraffe. The third, if you counted the run-in with the bitchy blonde and her snotty friends. That was too frequent for a week or a month. Having that many in a single day….

  I wasn’t focused enough. I wasn’t thinking enough. Using my powers in public earlier had been so asinine. Despite all of my earlier efforts, I’d been noticed. Noticed enough to be chased. If the golden-haired boy had been an agent with UNITED, there was no question he would have caught me.

  I pressed my back to the cold, wet stone of one of the buildings in the alley and blew out a long, frustrated breath. Tonight I’d gotten lucky. But depending on luck was no way to survive. I needed to be smart. Years of training on how to use my Higher Reasoning had taught me better than this. Slipping up, losing control, and flickering in front of a roomful of people? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  Allowing my head to fall back, I rested it against the wall. The hood of my sweatshirt slid down and exposed my upturned face to the rain. The cold water felt refreshing, cleansing even. The girl’s comments about smelling homeless came back to me. I hated to admit it, but she was probably right. The clothes I was wearing weren’t even fit for fire kindling. The Hideaway had showers, but no laundry machines. In a feeble attempt to be hygienic, I’d been washing my clothes in the sink with hand soap. Regrettably, my efforts did little more than mask unpleasant smells with an intensely pungent floral scent.

  Opening my mouth, cold water wash over my tongue. People said the rainwater was contaminated, just like the oceans and rivers, but I didn’t believe that. It tasted crisp and clean and amazing. Besides, what did it matter if the water was contaminated? I was a byproduct of contamination. If the water was contaminated, in theory, drinking it would only make me stronger. As far as I was concerned, it was a win-win scenario.

  With my eyes closed, I rested my head against the wall again and tilted it up. The cool drops swam down my cheeks. In that moment, I felt peace. Like the world was good, worth fighting for. And I felt strong. Like I could conquer anything. Everything. You get one more minute of enjoying this, and then you have to take off. At least my mind was giving me a slight reprieve.

  I inhaled deeply, concentrating to amplify and isolate my favorite smell in the world—the fresh scent of purifying rain. Without warning, another aroma breezed by. This one was impossible to ignore. Above the stench of moldy cheese, spoiling- fish, emptied ashtrays, and flat beer, there was the faint scent of trees and grass and wet leaves. The best top note possible, right along with the worst odor imaginable. My stomach clenched. The scent grew stronger. His smell reminded me of the guys at school, just after they’d come in from a run in the woods.

  After I seemingly disappeared from the middle of the road, I was clueless as to how he possibly found me. And yet he had.

  I was so screwed.

  “You’re bloody fast, aren’t you? A proper athlete,” he panted.

  With my eyes still closed, face still upturned to the water falling from the sky, I pictured him. He’d be standing in the entrance to the alley, hands on the knees of his dark wool pants as he worked to regain his breath. The scarf around his neck would have come loose in the chase.

  “You’re impossibly fast, do you know that?” he appended his question in my silence.

  I should have been afraid. But I wasn’t. I should have run. But I didn’t.

  Instead, I smiled and said, “And you give good chase.”

  I was ten feet from where he stood, the shadows swallowing me so I appeared as little more than a silhouette to his untrained eyes. At least that was h
ow I imagined I looked to him. Debating turning invisible, I wondered if he’d convince himself that it was just a trick of light or his eyes deceiving him. Unfortunately, he’d already seen me do that once at the Giraffe. If he’d dismissed it then, he wasn’t likely to again.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” I demanded, trying to sound fierce.

  “Wait, you’re American?” the boy guessed, ignoring my question completely.

  “What do you care?” I asked tiredly. That seemed to be the only thing anyone noticed when I spoke.

  He straightened and took several more steps towards me, into the darkness. I had to give him credit; he was braver than I’d have expected.

  “I wanted to apologize for my sister. Libby is…well, Libby is Libby. She lives in a bubble. A bubble that is quite small, where she rules over most everyone around her. I don’t imagine she even realizes anymore how ghastly she behaves.”

  Invisible links snapped into place in my head. Libby. The girl I’d wanted to punch. She was his sister. Hers was the back I’d seen at the Giraffe.

  Two encounters with both of them in a single day. Coincidence? Maybe. A risk I was willing to take? Absolutely not. I started to back away, deeper into the alleyway.

  “Wait! I apologize, I certainly didn’t mean to offend you. We were just with our mates, going to have a nosh, when I saw you. I thought maybe you’d fancy joining us?” He sounded truly sorry, like he was really concerned that he’d offended me.

  “Not hungry. But thank you,” I added, attempting to be polite. My stomach growled again. It sounded deafening in the confined space, if only to my ears.

  “You’re quite a ways from Andrew’s Rock, aren’t you now, Monroe?”

  The new voice stopped me in my tracks. My eyes darted to the mouth of the alley. Four figures blocked the exit, arranged in a diamond formation with a slim boy at the point closest to me. I instantly tensed, readying for a fight. People didn’t box you in if they were just looking for some friends to have a picnic with. It was a menacing act. This group meant to do harm to the guy I was talking with—Monroe, I guessed. The question was, would they consider me an enemy by proxy?

  “It’s a free country,” Monroe replied, mildly.

  I quickly scanned him and analyzed his body language. He seemed almost relaxed. That would be odd for a novice fighter, but not for someone used to handling himself. It was a good sign, should things become physical. It meant he thought things through, didn’t let emotion rule his actions. The question remained—if they didn’t pursue me, would I abandon this guy I didn’t know to four combatants? Or would I stay? Truth be told, after everything I’d seen today, hitting something would probably be pretty satisfying.

  Don’t make enemies, stay under the radar, the logical part of my brain reminded me.

  “No thanks to you,” the newcomer snapped.

  I squinted to see him better, the mouthpiece for the hostile group. In the dim light, I could just make out his spikey hair, the tips dyed bright red. His eyes twisted orange flames that illuminated his face with an eerie glow. Despite his change in appearance, there was no doubt in my mind that he was the guy who’d been sitting at Tug’s bar a few hours ago. The one who’d been openly appraising me. Who Willa had been skittish around, causing her to throw me out of the bar. This situation I’d somehow fallen into was no accident.

  Get out. Don’t worry about Monroe. His safety is the least of your concerns. Run. Don’t look back.

  I tried to slow down my frantic thoughts long enough to assess the situation logically. Before I even had a chance, a girl stepped out of her place in the formation. Her hazel eyes were fierce and determined, radiating hostility.

  “Where are your mates, Monroe?” the girl called out. It was the last voice I’d expected to hear coming from a gang of agitators. “Where there’s one dodgy bloke, there’s more, aren’t there?” She quickly scanned the alley, as though expecting Monroe’s friends to slink out of the shadows. “You’d best shove off. Go back to your Rock and your bloody sister.”

  “Or what?” Monroe asked, his tone still conversational. As if the odds were not stacked heavily against him. I sincerely hoped he wasn’t banking on me fighting alongside him. I was two seconds away from bolting. “Wilhelmina Tuggard, I presume. That is your name, isn’t it?”

  An unmistakable flicker of surprise flashed in Willa’s eyes. Though she obviously knew Monroe, she hadn’t expected him to know her, too.

  “You might have a flat here in London, Ms. Tuggard, but make no mistake. You do not own this city. We do. You would do well to remember that.” The threat was delivered in that same easygoing tone that Monroe used with me. It made the words all the more ominous.

  I glanced from Willa to Spikey-Hair to Monroe, unsure who to trust.

  “Willa,” I said, drawing her attention away from Monroe. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

  “Get over here, Kenly.” Willa extended her hand and wiggled her fingers, beckoning me towards their group and away from Monroe. I hesitated. Did I want to go with them? The last time I’d seen Willa she had booted me from her grandfather’s bar without an explanation. And now…well, now I had no idea what was happening, exactly. Was it possible she was here to rescue me? I almost laughed at the absurdity of that.

  “Lord Monroe won’t stop you or try anything, just come over here,” Willa added when I stayed put. The venom in her voice startled me. She was always so pleasant at the pub, even when she’d told me to leave. Now there was no trace of her friendly smile.

  “Don’t be daft, I’ve no intention of hurting her. I just wanted a chat. That’s all,” Monroe answered. He paused for a moment, looking me over. “Americans are just so…interesting.”

  The way he said ‘interesting’ sent chills down my spine. Suddenly, I felt less sure of myself. Slight changes in his tone and demeanor had dropped some of the pretense. This might not be an entirely friendly guy.

  Willa’s jaw tightened and the spikey-haired boy started forward, followed by the two others. Now that they were out of the shadows, I recognized them as Ghost Girl and Platinum eyes.

  Shit.

  I didn’t move. My brain was on overdrive, computing all of the variables and possibilities with only half of the data needed.

  Willa and her friends were dangerous but meant me no harm. At least, they certainly didn’t seem to. Monroe—Lord Monroe?—didn’t appear dangerous, though I was beginning to think he wasn’t entirely safe either. There was something about him that I was missing; something Willa and the others obviously knew but weren’t saying outright. She and the spikey-haired kid had called Monroe by name, which implied familiarity. Yet they were clearly not friends. The blatant hostility suggested enemies or, at the least, adversaries. But the most important questions were coming up as complete blanks.

  Who was my friend? Who was my enemy?

  Too many variables. No obvious or computable solutions.

  “Alright. Alright.” Monroe held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not looking for a row. I’ll go.” He turned to me, leaving his back to the foursome. It was a bold move, in my opinion, and spoke volumes.

  “My sincere apologies that you’ve been mixed up in our affairs this evening. I regret that we weren’t able to better make one another’s acquaintance. I do hope another opportunity will present itself, so we can rectify the error. Another time, then,” Monroe said with a friendly smile. The flash of menace that he’d revealed earlier was gone, replaced by his former gentlemanly countenance. If he’d been wearing a hat, I swear he would have tipped it to me.

  Confidently, like the royalty he apparently was, Monroe sauntered towards the mouth of the alleyway. Platinum Eyes shoved Monroe as the golden-haired boy passed, evidently unable to contain his apparent anger. Monroe stumbled, shook it off, and kept walking. “I reckon I’ll remember that, Wellington,” he called as he disappeared around the corner.

  “SOMEONE HAD BETTER start explaining. Right. Now,” I demanded, whi
rling on Willa and her friends.

  Willa, who had been so confident, so forceful with Monroe, now looked sheepish. She averted her gaze, deferring to Spikey-Hair, thus confirming the odd boy as the group’s de facto leader. Unable to stand being the only one out of the loop, I turned my frustration on him.

  “Talk,” I growled.

  “Riley,” he said, jerking a thumb towards his chest. “This here’s Honora.” He nodded to Ghost Girl. Her round face and soft features reminded me of a full moon. She gave a tiny wave in greeting. “James,” Riley said next, indicating Platinum Eyes. “And you know Willa.”

  “I thought I did,” I muttered.

  Willa frowned. “Kenly, I am sorry. You’ve every right to be cross with me. And I know you’re frightened, but–”

  I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “I’m not scared. I can handle myself.”

  “Okay, just angry then. Let’s get inside, out of the rain, and we can talk.” Her next words were for Riley. “The Giraffe, you think?”

  “They’ll come looking for her there,” James said, his voice gravely like it didn’t get a lot of use.

  “Perhaps.” Riley shrugged, unconcerned. “The little prat won’t try something there. Not with the four of us and ol’ Tug ‘round.”

  “The twins did come in the other night,” Honora pointed out.

  “Yeah, what of it? They didn’t chase her out of there. Even after she turned invisible right in front of them,” Riley said, both amused and exasperated.

  I felt my cheeks redden. That brief slip of control had created a shit storm, and I was standing in the center of it.

  Great, I thought. Way to go, Kenly.

  “The Giraffe it is then,” Willa said decisively. “Come along, Kenly. Granddad will feed you, we’ll answer your questions, and you can tell us how you ended up in a dark alley with Jaylen Monroe.”

  If I declined to go with Willa and the others, would they try to stop me? I quickly calculated the odds: there was an eighty percent chance they’d just let me go. I liked those odds, and would have, should have, turned and marched in the opposite direction. Except, they had information that I didn’t, information that I might need. Plus, I was confused, extremely hungry, and just simply curious about what was going on. The latter may’ve driven me more than it should’ve, but I agreed to accompany the band of wannabe vigilantes to Tug’s pub.