by Jess Petosa
Her eyes flicked over to Heath, who was trying to sit up straight and appear in charge. Then they flicked to Max, who had gone back to using his eyes to bore a hole into the back of Luke's head.
Ally wasn't sure exactly what she should say, but she sure wasn't going to miss the rest of whatever conversation they had been having. She slid into the chair next to Luke and waited.
"Heath and I were just discussing a peace treaty." Luke spoke first.
"Oh is that right?" Ally responded.
Heath nodded reluctantly. "Lukin here would like to postpone my plans for one month."
"Or you could just call it off," Ally added.
Heath shot her a glare and she returned it.
"Why one month?" She asked, forcing herself to look at Luke.
"I figured it would be enough time for us to reach the southern city, and come back again," he responded lightly. "I told Heath that if I don't return by then, he is free to do as he pleases."
Luke spoke as though he were talking about the weather. Slightly interested but not enough to show emotion
Ally's mouth hung open and she looked at Heath, and then Luke again.
"I've agreed," Heath said.
Ally groaned. "You've got to be kidding me."
"I'm going too," Max piped in.
"Max," Heath growled.
Suddenly Ally understood what they had been arguing about just an hour ago. Max wanted to travel south with them. She had been surprised when he hadn’t volunteered during their planning. Champaign was his home. His friends and family were here, and he didn't really have a reason to leave.
Except maybe Ally, but she had made it clear that they were just friends. At least, for now. A future with Max had seemed impossible with him in Champaign, but now that he was coming south with them, the possibility was back on the table.
"No," he held his hand up. "I'm old enough to decide for myself, and I'm going. Someone from Champaign should be on this trip, as a representative." Max was reaching now. "I can bring back information."
Heath didn't buy it, and neither did Ally, but neither said a word.
Max eyed Luke cautiously.
Luke was back to watching Ally.
"So, can I join you?" Luke asked her.
He was asking for her permission. She wondered what would happen if she said no. Would he go anyway and travel by his own means? As much as she didn't want to admit it, they could use him in their group. He would be the only Exceptional, and a powerful one at that.
Also, Ally needed him.
She wasn't ready to point out that it would take much longer than a month to go where they were going. It had taken almost as long for them to get to Champaign and it wasn’t really that far from the City, just a handful of hours by transport.
She sat up straighter and tried to appear casual and uninterested. "Yeah, of course."
The corner of Luke's mouth pulled up into a smile. "Good, because I have some surprises."
CHAPTER TWO
[ ally ]
"Oh thank heavens!" Sabine cried out when Luke led them into the abandoned part of Champaign.
It was the happiest Ally had seen her since before leaving the City.
Luke had brought a transport with him. It was more compact than the other transports, meant to carry eight people rather than twenty. Ally was going to say that she was glad he hadn't brought the motorcycle, but held her tongue. She wasn't ready to make small talk with him just yet. Especially not about something so personal.
The transport had supplies; food, weapons, sleeping bags, and pillows.
"Forget a month," Stosh said. "We'll be there in days."
Ally had filled Stosh, Sabine, and Lilla in on what had happened in Heath's office. All three had been sitting on the steps when she, Luke, and Max emerged from the building.
"Is this some sort of trick?” Lilla eyed Luke nervously. "You aren't going to lock us in there and take us back to the City, are you?"
Luke looked offended. "No, I just thought this would be easier than walking through brush, abandoned towns, and rivers for the next three months. It would take at least that long," he said. "This will be faster, and safer."
Max hadn't spoken a word since they left Heath's. Ally knew he couldn't think of a single bad thing to say now. Luke had just given them their biggest advantage.
"So who else knows how to drive?" Luke asked.
Max and Lilla both raised their hands. Ally raised her hand slightly since she had been learning in Champaign before their trip to the City. Everyone else remained still.
"Maybe we should give lessons," Luke offered. "Everyone should know how to drive this, in case of an emergency."
"I think in an emergency, they could figure it out," Max retorted.
Luke's violet eyes narrowed.
"He's right," Ally said quickly. "They can learn later if we need to. I've waited almost a week to leave this town, I'm not waiting anymore. Let's get going."
"I'll take the first driving shift," Luke said. "Someone can sit up front with me, everyone else will need to be in the back."
There was a moment of awkward silence before Lilla volunteered to ride up front. Everyone else climbed into the back of the transport. Luke was frowning at Ally as he closed the door behind them, but he didn't say anything.
The inside of the transport had been transformed. There were two cots against either wall and sleeping bags set up on the floor. Lights hung from the ceiling so that they didn't have to ride in darkness, but they only sprung to life once Luke started the engine. There was a cooler in one corner with water and some chilled food, and even a small pile of books.
Ally sat down on one of the cots and leaned her head against the wall. Stosh and Sabine sat against the other, and Max contemplated the situation before finally choosing to sit next to Ally rather than sit on the floor.
Stosh leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Do you think he is really here to help us?"
The question was for Ally, and she hesitated with the answer.
"Yes," she said. "I think he is."
She hadn't told the others about what happened in Luke's bedroom. She had just told them that Luke had changed, and she had too, and they had decided to part ways. Him showing up here had to be confusing for them. Ally didn't even know what to think and was terrified that the truth would come out.
"I don't trust him," Max mumbled.
"You don't even know him." Ally’s words sounded harsher than she meant and she added in a softer voice. "Look, I know that when you met him two weeks ago, he wasn't exactly kind to us. But that wasn't Luke. He has his memories now and he isn't going to hurt us."
"But he changed," Sabine said quietly from her spot on the cot. “He wasn’t the Luke that I knew and he wasn’t the Luke that you knew. Who’s to say that the old Luke is really even back?”
"It's complicated," Ally agreed.
The vehicle lurched forward and they were finally moving. The transport bumped up and down on the uneven road, and Ally felt herself pulled back as they turned left.
"We didn't even say goodbye," Sabine spoke again. "To Brooke, Andrea, or Alexis." She rattled off the names of a few other people they had met, and then the Ordinarys from their settlement.
"It would have raised too many questions," Ally said. "They might have even wanted to come along. It's easier when you don't have to say goodbye.”
She was glad that Sabine was at least making conversation with her, and she could tell from the expression on Stosh’s face that he was relieved.
They drove for two hours before the truck slowed to a stop. Sabine and Stosh napped on the cot together. Max laid on a sleeping bag and pretended to sleep. There was no way Ally was sleeping anytime soon, though, since she was too anxious about the trip. She looked over the maps she had stashed in her bag. They were old maps, maps of the world before the virus.
Max had circled their City on the map.
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The name read in bold letters: CHICAGO.
Champaign was circled as well, a town south of Chicago. Its name was written on the map, just like it had been written on the town sign.
There were several large cities south of Chicago. Too many. Any of them could be the southern City.
The back door slid open and sunlight filled the small space, making Ally squint.
Luke hopped into the back.
"Why are we stopping already?" Ally asked.
"Lunch time," he responded.
Max was already rising off the floor, and the sunlight had woken Stosh and Sabine. They sat up groggily while Ally started pulling food from the packs. Luke picked one of the maps up from the cot where Ally had set them.
"There are so many cities." Ally handed bowls of crackers, dried meat, and berries to everyone. Except Luke, he turned the food down. "How do we know which one it is?"
Luke ran his finger down the map and stopped toward the bottom.
"It's this one," he said, his finger circling the name.
Ally stood beside him and leaned down.
"D-A-L-L-A-S," she read. "You think that's it?"
"Dallas. I know that's it." He looked down at her. "Aden told me before he got sick."
"So it really does exist?" Ally couldn't hide the excitement from her voice. The hopefulness.
Luke nodded, but his face was grim. "Or at least, it used to. There hasn't been communication with them for over a century. For all we know, the city is gone."
"Well, it's worth finding out. Even so, look at all of these other cities on the map. There could be people there, or even a city or town for us to call our own."
"Dream big, why don't you?” Max said between bites of dried meat.
"Nothing wrong with that," Stosh responded.
"I just want a new start, that's all," Ally said quickly. "At this point, I'd stay in the first abandoned town we find. But first we need to get to the southern city. We need to see if Po, Kemp, and the others made it."
The people from Ally's settlement had left and headed south on her words. They trusted her, and were expecting her to follow. She should have found them weeks ago but Champaign and then the war with the Rogues had gotten in her way. They most likely assumed she was dead, but she wasn't giving up.
"Dallas it is," Luke said as he folded the map. "Lilla."
Lilla set down her plate and followed Luke from the transport.
".... unless someone else wants to ride up front," Luke said.
Again, no one spoke up.
Lilla jumped down from the transport and Luke shut Ally, Max, Stosh, and Sabine into the small space.
"I still don't trust him," Max said.
They didn't stop again until dinner. By then Sabine was dancing around saying she had to go to the bathroom, and Ally was growing restless. Max's sour mood seemed to suck the air out of the transport and he had resigned to sitting in the corner and flipping through a book. Ally had taken a nap to pass the time, and looked at more maps from her pack.
Ally felt good, now that her feet we back on the ground. She stretched her back and walked around the small clearing Luke had brought them to. There was a wide road next to the clearing, and Ally gathered that this area had been a park of some kind many years ago. There were some broken tables on one end, and the remnants of an old building— just a foundation and one single support beam sticking up into the air—were in one corner.
Max walked over and handed her a bottle of water and more crackers, dried meat, and berries.
"Luke said it will probably take three days to reach Dallas, if we keep moving at this pace." Max plopped onto the ground and motioned for Ally to join him.
She sat down and nibbled on a cracker. "Yes, if we keeping moving at this pace. It can't be this easy, Max."
He nodded his head. "I feel exactly the same."
Ally took another bite of her cracker and then looked over at Max, waiting until his blue eyes found hers.
"Can we be friends, Max?”
He hesitated for a moment. "Of course, I thought we already were."
"It doesn't feel like it," Ally responded. "You’ve been distant all day."
"Do you want me here?" he asked suddenly.
Ally put her hand on his arm. "Yes! I was actually a little surprised, and disappointed, when we got to Champaign last week and you announced that you were staying behind. Why would you think I didn't want you here?"
"Because of him." Max nodded his head toward the transport.
Luke was leaning against the side, chewing on some dried meat and talking to Lilla.
A pang of jealousy hit Ally. With Stosh and Sabine sitting off to the side together, Ally and Max, and then Luke and Lilla; they looked like a traveling group of couples. Maybe it had been a bad idea to let Lilla ride up front with Luke. Although, he had someone waiting for him back in the City. Unless....
No.
Luke wouldn't have used the ORC the way it had been intended.
Would he? He hadn’t truly been himself.
Ally wasn't about to sit here and talk about her relationship with Luke. And she definitely didn’t want to think about him and that girl… together.
"We should get going. We've been here for too long." She stood up and waited for Max to join her.
Stosh and Sabine met them at the transport.
"I'll drive now," Max offered.
Ally was going to offer to ride up front with him. Maybe it would be easier this way, accepting things as they were. Max was a great guy, and she knew that if she could get closure with Luke, it would be easy to fall in love with him.
"I'll ride up front," Luke said before anyone else could volunteer.
Ally felt uneasy about the arrangement but didn't protest. She climbed back into the transport and settled into a sleeping bag on the floor, letting Lilla have the cot. Stosh and Sabine sat in the corner, looking through some of the books Luke had brought. Sabine knew how to read, and Ally could hear her reading softly to Stosh. Ally would need to go through the books later, and brush up on her own reading. It had been awhile since she had tried to decipher anything other than a map.
"Ally," Lilla said from the cot.
"Yeah?" she responded.
"He still loves you."
"Excuse me?"
"Luke," Lilla whispered. "He still loves you."
"What makes you say that?" Ally tried to calm the butterflies in her stomach.
"He was quiet when we first started driving, but then he started asking all sorts of questions about you," Lilla responded. "I didn't have many answers for him, since I only met you for a few hours before this trip, but then he told me something. He said that he is here because of you. He said that he wasn't about to lose you again. He said that he let you walk away once, and that was one time too many."
Ally's breath caught in her throat and she jumped up from the sleeping bag. Instead of feeling relief, or even joy, she just felt angry. She walked to the wall opposite the back doors and banged her fist on the wall.
Lilla popped up on her cot and Stosh and Sabine watched Ally with wide eyes.
"I know you can hear me, Luke," Ally yelled at the wall. "Tell Max to stop the transport."
"Ally, what are you doing?" Stosh came up behind her.
"STOP THE TRANSPORT."
The transport slid to a stop and Ally counted the seconds until the back door opened. Luke was regarding her with amusement, and Max stood several paces behind him, looking worried.
"Did something happen, Ally?" Max asked.
"I think it's my turn to drive," she responded.
"I've been driving for ten minutes," Max said with a laugh. "Are you sure everything's okay?"
"No," she answered truthfully. "I need to talk to Luke. Alone."
Luke was smirking now, and Ally wanted to slap the look off his face.
Max's eyes narrowed but he finally climbed into the back of
the transport. Ally made her way to the driver's side, climbing into the cab and waiting for Luke to catch up. She felt the truck rock back and forth as the back door shut, and soon Luke was in the seat beside her.
She concentrated on the controls for a minute. The transport was already running, so she just needed to move the gear shift to the D and press the gas with her right foot. The transport jerked forward when she hit the accelerator too suddenly, but soon they were moving along smoothly. The road was smoother outside of the towns, with only overgrown grass and weeds to worry about.
"You wanted to talk?" Luke asked.
"Yes," Ally said. "I want you to tell me all about your pregnant girlfriend. And after that, you can tell me why you think you have any right to come here for me."
Luke raised his eyebrows. "This is going to be one interesting ride."
CHAPTER THREE
[ marnie ]
Marnie woke up in the dark. Then she realized that she had her eyes closed and she slowly opened them, finding that her eyelids felt heavy and lagged several seconds behind her attempts to make them move.
She was strapped to a bed in a bright, white room.
A voice filled the room, coming from everywhere at once.
"Exceptional 9405," a woman said. "What is your given name?"
"Marnie." Her voice caught in her throat, which was dry and scratchy.
She swallowed and tried to clear her throat. "Marnie," she said clearer this time.
"Marnie," the woman repeated. "Welcome to Zone D."
The Ordinarys called the city Zone D, for a reason Marnie didn't know. It had been that way since before she was born, by decades probably.
“Thanks?" Marnie answered the voice.
"You were brought in this morning," the voice recounted for her. "We started to pull sedation around at eighteen hundred hours. Do you think you can sit up?"
Marnie was still mulling over the fact that she had been out cold all day. Her stomach rumbled in protest.
"I probably could if I wasn't strapped in," she said loudly.
As if on command, the straps snapped apart and disappeared into the bed with a buzzing sound.
Marnie grasped the sides of the bed and pushed herself up slowly.
