by Jess Petosa
Ally’s tongue felt heavy in her mouth. Lucky? She wanted to run back to her room and hug Willow. She needed to talk about this with someone who was in a similar position, not an Exceptional.
“I’ll escort you back to your room now. Dinner will be served to you there.”
As soon as the Exceptional locked Ally back in her room, Ally took a few deep breaths. Willow was back to sitting on her bed, brushing through her blonde hair. She had the TV on and it was playing a romance Ally remembered seeing in Luke’s movie collection.
“They only give us movies about romance.” Willow pointed at the screen. “I think it is to train us for what’s to come. Some of them are quite graphic.”
Ally frowned. “I don’t think romance is the foundation for what happens here.”
Willow shrugged.
Ally sat next to Willow on the bed. “Will, are you under contract?”
Willow set down her brush and looked at her hands. “Yes. I’ll be leaving sometime in the next few weeks, but I’ll return once I fulfill my requirements.”
Her passive attitude scared Ally. “And you are okay with that?”
Willow rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I should be, but I am having trouble being upset over it.”
“How has no one in the settlements ever heard of ORC?”
“Probably because any Ordinary that passes through the walls to the City never comes back out. And you know those Exceptional Guards aren’t going to talk about it.”
Ally nodded her head. “Are there males here as well then?”
“Not that I’ve seen.” Willow thought about it.
A thought dawned on Ally. “Sabine, Asher, and Flint. They said they were born in the city, maybe they are products of the ORC.”
Willow shook her head. “If they are Ordinarys, I doubt it. Did you know that any child with at least one Exceptional parent will be Exceptional as well?
“Really? Interesting.” Ally tapped her fingers on the bed.
“Can you imagine me pregnant? And with an Exceptional baby no less. I’d kind of like a little girl,” Willow said suddenly.
Just a year ago Ally and Willow had talked about how they would put off marrying as long as possible. Babies had never been on their mind. Now Willow was talking as if she might be pregnant in the next month or two. In actuality, she very well could be.
“Why are they using us for breeding?” The concept didn’t seem rational considering there were plenty of Exceptionals that could breed with each other. And Ally assumed that the Exceptionals would want to ensure that their offspring would inherit their supposedly superior DNA. Luke had said that Exceptional powers had evolved to be stronger over time, would an Exceptional baby from an Ordinary start back at the bottom with out a pure genetic line?
A kissing scene on the TV had momentarily caught Willow’s attention, but she quickly turned back to Ally. “I guess I’ve never thought about it.”
“Luke is going to come and get me, Will, and when he does I’m going to have him take you with us as well.” Ally squeezed Willow’s hand.
“Whatever you say.” Willow went back to watching the movie.
Chapter Ten
That night dinner came through a slot at the bottom of their door in the form of plain chicken, cooked broccoli, and grainy bread. The Exceptional hadn’t been lying when she said that their diets would be healthy and monitored. After they had eaten and placed their plates back through the slot, Willow’s mood changed dramatically. She became withdrawn and drowsy, saying that she just wanted to go to bed. She couldn’t even seem to remember what they had been talking about before dinner. Despite being asleep for four days, Ally had no issue falling asleep quickly in her small, yet still comfy, bed.
The next morning Ally rose before Willow and took a shower. Even though she had just taken one the night before, she felt dirty just by being in this place. Slowly but surely, as the warm water washed over her, she could feel pieces of the old Ally coming back to life. She never handled being contained well. If she had known that coming to the City would mean lack of fresh air, she never would have even considered it.
By the time she was out of the shower and dressed, Willow was up and moving around their room. Her mood had improved since the night before, and she even joked with Ally about how sunny they looked with their yellow clothes. Their clothes back in the settlement had been black as night, and that contrast was humorous in itself. Especially considering that sunshine brought with it an air of happiness, and Ally felt none of that in this place.
A speaker over their door crackled to life. “Breakfast in five minutes.”
The door clicked open and Ally followed Willow out into the circular room. It was a much different atmosphere than the last two times she had walked through it. Other female Ordinarys were trickling out of their rooms and into the open space, greeting each other with hand signals. Several were already seated at the tables, holding quiet conversations with each other. She followed Willow to a table near the middle, where two other girls were already seated.
“This is Ally. She just arrived last night,” Willow said as she sat down. Ally followed her lead and lowered herself onto the bench.
The girls smiled slightly and went back into their quiet conversation with each other. Ally had a feeling that the girls in here were anything but friendly, and she didn’t blame them. This wasn’t what they had expected when they volunteered to come to the City, and each new Ordinary was just another reminder of the family they had left behind. She wouldn’t be surprised if they felt resentful at the thought that she might have recently volunteered, when they would do anything to take the same action back.
After a breakfast of eggs, fruit, and more of the same grainy bread last night, the girls on the first floor were shuffled into a large room filled with chairs. An Exceptional stood at the front of the room and talked to them about their reproductive cycles, and methods for achieving pregnancy. Ally’s mind felt foggy again, as if she had just been lifted from yet another drug induced sleep. She found that she could focus on what the Exceptional was teaching them, but not much else. She couldn’t seem to recall anything from outside these walls. The other Ordinarys seemed to be in a similar state, a sea of yellow all staring toward the front of the room.
From their lessons they moved on to exercise. They were taken into a large gym and made to walk around the perimeter for thirty minutes, and spent the next thirty minutes doing exercises that worked all of their body muscles. They then had free time until lunch, and after lunch they had two more lessons before being sent to their rooms for the remainder of the day. The last two lessons focused on reading and writing, which Ally was actually grateful for. If she was going to be held in this awful place, at least she could get something worthwhile from it.
The schedule repeated itself the following day. She didn’t talk with the other girls much, although Willow would try to include her in conversation sometimes. It wasn’t Willow’s fault that she wasn’t fitting in; she couldn’t seem to allow herself to invest in new friendships. Everything about the ORC was wrong. She was sure that Ordinarys in the old world never had a place like this.
Also in repetition was the foggy feeling she experienced several times a day. During those times she remembered less and less about what she had experience before the ORC, and one morning she caught herself wondering if she had ever lived anywhere else at all. Sometimes, after headache inducing concentration, she found that she could work her way through the veil that shielded her from her prior memories. There were times during the day where she could recall her previous life with ease, and she noticed that the other Ordinarys shared her moments of clarity around the same time. On the third day, Ally had formed a theory about why she was feeling so off, and took steps to counteract it. She only hoped that it wasn’t too late to reverse any damage that may have been done to her.
ON HER FIFTH DAY in ORC, they received two new Ordinarys to their floor. Neither was from the same settlement she and W
illow came from, and both looked frightened and confused. They refused to talk their first day, spending their time sulking in the corner of the common room. On the second day one girl had a break down and tried to use a classroom chair to break through the large metal door the Exceptionals used to access their floor. Two Exceptional doctors had to hold her down while a third injected her with tranquilizer. She didn’t return to the floor after that.
The same afternoon Ally was taken from the floor for her first evaluation. She was led through the same hall that brought her here, and back into the same exam room. She was made to shower in the fluffy foam again, and had more blood drawn. Dr. Hudson stepped into the room, and Ally was slightly surprised to see him again.
“Your blood work is still normal, but we are slightly worried about a sudden dip in you weight. Have you been eating?” He looked up at her.
“I haven’t had much of an appetite since coming here,” she answered.
“Completely normal,” he said, as though she were mourning the loss of a family member and not upset over being imprisoned. “Try to keep up with your calorie requirements for the day. If you haven’t made improvements by the time your next assessment comes around, we’ll need to put a feeding tube in.”
That sounded about just as much fun as some of the topics in their Reproduction lessons. Dr. Hudson left the room quickly, failing to say goodbye. The female Exceptional who had retrieved her from her lessons reappeared to take her back to the common area. She was started to wish they wore identification of some sort, so that she could recognize them better.
She made it back just in time for the last half of her writing class. When she sat down Willow leaned over her desk and whispered, “How did it go?”
“Took a shower. Had some blood drawn. Was told I need to eat more.” Ally shrugged.
Willow nodded her head. “Weight loss is to be expected.”
Ally stiffened and peered over at her friend, who was copying a sentence from the board onto the piece of paper in front of her. All of the other girls were doing the same, their faces tense with concentration. It had been this way since Ally had arrived at the ORC. The girls on her floor moved from lesson to lesson, activity to activity, with no sign of resistance or annoyance. Had Ally looked just like this with her foggy mind? She had formed a theory just two days prior, and it appeared to be working for herself. The less she ate, the clearer her mind felt.
That night back in their room, Ally and Willow sat down to eat another dinner of baked chicken, brown rice, and carrots; the vegetable of the day. She and Willow had normal conversation to start, but the more Willow ate, the stranger she acted. Ally barely touched her food, taking only a few bites and keeping them several minutes apart. She ate evenly between the three options, not sure if there was something in each item or just one. As usual, as soon as their plates were through the slot in the door, Willow crawled into bed and passed out. Whatever they were given at dinner seemed stronger than the other three meals, since none of the Ordinarys were falling asleep during lessons or exercise.
The next day, during their Reproduction lesson, Ally probed deeper into the thought. Their instructor, who still had yet to introduce herself, was talking about changes the body went through in the different stages of pregnancy.
Ally raised her hand, which startled the instructor. All of other girls always remained quiet, listening to her speak. When Ally had been feeling foggy, she never would have thought to ask a question.
“Yes, J102,” the instructor said after looking at her porta-comp, most likely trying to identify which Ordinary was speaking. All heads were turned to where Ally was seated.
“Could certain substances, say a pill of some sort, hinder one’s chance at becoming pregnant?” Ally tilted her head, trying to appear somewhat dazed.
The instructor set her porta-comp back on the desk. “It depends on the substance. Most are harmless when it comes to fertilization, and if stopped when conception happens, the pregnancy should be able to continue without complications.”
The instructor ended her explanation by picking up where she had left off, letting Ally know that question and answer period was over. But Ally had seen the twitch in the instructor’s lips as the question left her mouth. She was on to something, but she secretly wondered if her curiosity would get her into trouble.
The days rolled by and Ally lost count of how long she had been in the ORC. Willow seemed more and more distant with each day, and one night after dinner she barely recognized Ally. Ally decided that Willow had been so aware when she first arrived because it was something new and exciting from home. Once the adrenaline wore off, Willow went back to her current state of dazed stupor.
While the days grew longer, Ally grew thinner, still refusing to touch most of her food. She had another assessment coming up, and surely they would put a tube in her, as Dr. Hudson had put it. Then they could pump any drug they wanted into her, and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
The day before her assessment, just before breakfast, an Exceptional strolled into their room. She held paperwork in hand and announced that Willow would be leaving with her matched Exceptional tonight. Willow packed up a few pairs of clothes and her hairbrush, hesitating by the collection of movies that she would be required to leave behind. She stopped in front of Ally before leaving, wrapping her in a big hug.
“Stay safe,” she whispered in Ally’s ear.
“You too”, Ally responded. She smiled inwardly at the hint that there was still some of the old Willow left in the blonde, female shell she lived with.
When dinner came that night, Ally left it sitting on the floor. Someone had delivered two plates, not realizing that Willow was no longer there. Ally thought that was awful unorganized for this Exceptional establishment, but maybe they were hopeful that she would partake in eating from both plates. Instead, Ally paced the room for a while, feeling as if her life were falling to pieces by the day. Her only hope now would be for Luke to come and retrieve her. Once she was on the outside she could find Willow, and hopefully keep her from being sent back to the ORC. Maybe the dazed personality Willow had taken on would wear off by then.
THE NEXT DAY at breakfast, the others slowly noticed Willow’s absence. Ally had seen two girls disappear in her time here and there always seemed to be a silent mourning period. The girls didn’t spend much time interacting, or even forming strong friendships, but they understood the circumstances in which their fellow floor mates were being taken.
Ally sat down with the two girls she met her first morning on the floor. They sat with each other for breakfast and lunch; dinner was always served in their respective rooms. She still didn’t know their names, and they didn’t know hers either. Based on lessons, she knew that the girl on the right was J203 and the girl on the left was A024. Just a number to the Exceptionals. Always.
J203 leaned forward slightly. “Did Willow finally get an assignment?”
Ally just nodded, not wanting to talk about it. She had trouble falling asleep last night, and when she did she dreamt of Willow. The room felt too big with out Willow there to occupy half the space. Ally didn’t even have to wait for the shower last night, or worry that watching a movie would wake her best friend.
A024 picked at a dried piece of food on the table. “At least she is fulfilling her purpose. It’s better than rotting away in this place.”
“At least in here she is safe,” Ally mumbled.
What she meant was that Willow was safe as long as they were together. In the ORC, Ally could look after her. But out in the City, she had no idea where Willow had been taken or what was being done to her. She had an idea, but she didn’t want to dwell on that thought for longer than necessary.
Ally thought back to how she had felt safe during her time with Luke. Life was moving along just fine despite her purpose for being there, which she hadn’t even known yet. She even had a few friends. She wondered how Sabine, Asher, and Flint were doing. How had they interpreted her disap
pearance? Had they been told anything? Surely they had known her reason for being there, and they had neglected to tell her. Perhaps they thought she already knew and just didn’t want to speak of it.
“J102,” a voice boomed over the speaker.” All of the girls jumped. “J102, please report to the main door and wait for further instruction.”
“Maybe you are getting assignment as well,” J203 said. “That was fast.”
Ally shrugged. “Apparently I had a contract before I even stepped foot in the City. He must be here to collect.”
Mrs. Hughes met her at the door. “Mr. Mathias is here to see you. You can gather your belongings and meet me back at this door.”
Ally froze. Did Mrs. Hughes mean Aden or Luke when she said Mr. Mathias? She swallowed back the lump forming in her throat and held her head high.
“I don’t have any belongings,” Ally responded. “And there is nothing here that I would want to keep.”
Mrs. Hughes shrugged and stepped into the hall, leading Ally back the way she had come when she first arrived here. She wasn’t sure what, or who, waited for her at the other end of the hall, and she started to mentally prepare herself for several different situations. It could mean further incarceration, or freedom, and Ally found herself vocally wishing for the latter. She didn’t care that Mrs. Hughes shot her a dirty look over her shoulder; Ally just wanted this all to be over.
Chapter Eleven
Luke was surprised that his father had given him permission to bring Ally home from the ORC so soon. He had worked hard during his three weeks at the training center, making considerable progress. One of the trainers had even mentioned that he was advancing faster than Aden ever had, but Luke couldn’t tell his father that. Aden might want powerful men in his circle, but one thing he definitely didn’t want was anyone more powerful than himself. Still, it had seemed almost too easy.
