Exiled: Kenly's Story (A Talented Novel) (3 page)

At least, what I thought her words meant. I
was still working on figuring out all of the Irish and British
slang words, and what exactly they meant. According to Willa, the
slang of both countries, and the many areas within them, had
mingled over time, leading to a much broader use of terms that had
once been restricted to regional dialects. Given the huge range and
the strangeness of it all, I was struggling to keep up. I
catalogued the terms she used and my inferences of their meanings,
but had yet to attempt actually speaking the lingo for fear of
insulting someone.

“
Let me finish this order,
then I’ll come have a cuppa,” Willa promised.

The boy with the dyed tips shifted on his
barstool so that he could see both Willa and me. He was trying to
be inconspicuous as he eavesdropped on our conversation, but I
could tell his interest was piqued.

Now that he was turned, and I could see more
of him, I had more facts for the mental file that I’d started the
instant my eyes had landed on his spikey hair. Before the
spiky-haired boy could blink once, I input every detail of his
appearance, demeanor, and actions into my mental hard drive, and
made an assessment. Dangerous but not threatening.

The danger was partially in his inquisitive
stare. It lasted for seven seconds, which is longer than it sounds.
And definitely longer than a customary glance. I don’t possess the
ability to feel the presence of other Talents, the way some people
do, but instinct and experience told me that he too was Talented—a
contributing factor in my ‘Dangerous’ assessment. Regrettably,
neither those same instincts and experience nor my Higher Reasoning
skills gave me any clue as to his specific abilities.

Wired to be logical and analytical, strictly
dealing in facts—rarely assumptions—I was reluctant to guess his
Talent. The problem with blind guessing in a situation like this
was that an incorrect guess could lead to a false assumption. Which
could hurt me later. Reluctantly, I left the Talent column blank in
the mental file I was compiling on the boy at the bar. The
assessment, consideration, determination, and filling out the file,
all had taken place in mere seconds.

“
Sure, sounds great,” I
replied to Willa, who was waiting for my answer.

To her, the pause in our conversation was
insignificant. She smiled and turned her attention back to the
steaming food on the flat-top in front of her.

Sometimes it was really weird having a brain
that ran like mine did; it was almost as if the world moved in slow
motion, but I was stuck on fast-forward.

Though I’d answered Willa, my focus was
still on the spikey-haired boy. Since he was no longer observing
social etiquette, not even pretending to be subtle as he took my
measure, I openly stared back. His posture was relaxed. His eyes,
one the same color as his dyed tips and the other just a shade
lighter, were friendly and interested. Not interested in a romantic
sort of way, not exactly. I didn’t have a lot of personal
experience in that department, but I’d studied kinesiology and had
seen enough of the guys at school ogle Alana to know the difference
between a romantic look and a curious one. This was a curious
look.

The boy flashed me a grin before returning
his attention to the match playing on the wallscreen. While I was
fairly confident that he meant me no harm, the unwanted attention
left me feeling jittery. I had to reconsider the potential threat
this boy posed. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I was supposed to
be in hiding. I couldn’t afford random strangers asking questions
about me, or inquiring as to why an American teenager was on her
own so far from home. This was a challenge nearly as large as
evading the UNITED agents.

A collective groan from the bar patrons
temporarily distracted me from my thoughts.

“
Fecking O’Banion!” Tug
swore loudly and shook a fist at the wallscreen. “Stop acting the
maggot! Quit gawking and use your eyes for something
useful!”

I caught Willa’s gaze through the order
window and we both smirked. Tug was an avid football fan, and acted
as though his advice and criticisms would actually get through the
screen to the players. Whenever the London Legends, his favorite
team, were in a close match, his eyes remained glued to the screen,
no matter how many customers were in the bar. Tonight was no
exception. Giraffe regulars understood and accepted this.

Without warning, a long,
shrill beeping noise blasted through the speakers mounted
throughout the bar, making me wince. Gray and white static replaced
the legion of sweaty soccer players, running back and forth on the
wallscreen, followed by the words
Breaking
News Alert
in flashing red letters. The
words faded and a female correspondent in a sleeveless fuchsia
sheath and matching lipstick took center stage.

“
I am standing in front of
the Manhattan base for UNITED—the international agency responsible
for those with Talents—where we have just learned that a group of
Created Talents are holding the workers hostage.” The reporter
gestured behind where she was standing, and the camera panned out
until a black glass skyscraper came into view. Military men and
women peppered the street and sidewalks in front of the building.
“We’ve been told that UNITED’s top officials are in contact with
the assailants, who have yet to make any ransom demands. UNITED
spokeswoman, Victoria Walburton, released a statement just minutes
ago.”

The view on the wallscreen changed from the
scene in New York to a blue screen with a picture of Walburton
herself. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen her image, but I’d
never before heard her voice. When the audio recording of her
statement began playing, I immediately recalled everything I was
told about the power-hungry head of UNITED; she sounded every bit
the evil, disaffected woman I’d been warned to avoid. White words
appeared on the screen, captioning her well-planned speech.

“—
the appalling situation
in Manhattan. The safe release of the hostages is the
organization’s top priority, but UNITED will not negotiate with
terrorists.”

Terrorists?!
The Created—me included—were now being labeled
as
terrorists
?
This wasn’t happening.
Couldn’t
be happening.

I felt the blood rush out
of my face, knew that if anyone looked my way there would be no
hiding my shock. Nausea rushed over me. Inhaling deep breaths, I
fought the bile threatening to come up my throat.
What have they done?
I
thought. I wanted to bury my head in the sand, turn back the clock,
do something, anything that would make this situation go
away.

Shock and dismay gave way to a crashing
realization. As a terrorist, I’d never be able to go home. Never
see my mother again. Or hang out with my friends.

Intense loathing ate at my stomach like a
corrosive acid. UNITED: the malicious organization who’d attacked
D.C., who’d killed so many of my innocent colleagues. UNITED: the
reason I was a fugitive, alone in a foreign land, unable to ever
see my friends and family again, incapable of living a normal life.
UNITED: my worst enemy.

I hated them and everything they
represented. The organization was supposed to protect people like
me, protect all of the Talented. They were supposed to help the
world understand that we were not freaks of nature, that we mean no
harm to those without Talents, that we were not a threat to anyone.
Instead, they were a destructive force. They’d demolished TOXIC,
toppled the American government. And now, they were hunting us.
Hunting their own kind. It was unthinkable.

Not actually their own
kind,
a voice inside my head reminded me.
The Created, what Director McDonough had helped me to become with
aid of the Creation Drug, were superior to the Talented in every
conceivable way. The drug had allowed us—the lucky few chosen to
receive the injection—to reach our full potential. To embrace more
power than any one person had possessed in decades. No longer were
we limited to just one or two abilities. Our Talents knew no
bounds. And that scared UNITED. Just as the non-Talented populace
had felt in the years immediately following the Great
Contamination, UNITED feared what they didn’t understand and could
not control. What a bunch of damned hypocrites.

Relax, Kenly. Stop reacting. You can’t let
your emotions show. They’ll see. They’ll know.

Taking in deep breaths, I fought to contain
my fury and outrage.

Tug ambled over with my tea. I swallowed the
pain that burned my throat every time I thought about why I’d come
to London. My eyes stung with unshed tears of anger. Setting the
cup and saucer on the table, Tug squinted in concern. My agitation
must have still been apparent.

Crap.

“
Tragic, isn’t?”

“
Tragic,” I echoed
hollowly, not quite sure what exactly Tug found tragic about the
situation.

While I’d become friendly with Tug and
Willa, I had no idea how they felt about the Talented, much less
the Created. I’d shared many long conversations with both of them,
but the subject had never come up. I couldn’t risk revealing that
part of me, in case they shared the mindset of most people in
London regarding Talents.

In my short time here, I’d overheard enough
talk to know that most of the populace had a low opinion of Talents
to begin with. But more than that, TOXIC’s implementation of the
Creation Drug—a chemical that had been outlawed by UNITED years
earlier—was causing fear and anxiety among the city’s residents.
I’d debated relocating to a more accepting country, even researched
alternative locations, only to realize the panic was a worldwide
phenomenon. I didn’t understand it. We weren’t dangerous. We
weren’t monsters. And yet, the universal fear suggested most
thought that we were.

Director McDonough had made the
controversial decision to inject TOXIC operatives with the Creation
Drug as a first step towards creating a world in which anyone could
be Talented. He’d wanted to show the world that the drug was safe,
and that the benefits far outweighed the detriments. For some
reason, few, if any, supported TOXIC’s goal of mass dissemination
of the Creation Drug. This baffled me. Why not? What was so wrong
with having special abilities? If everyone could just experience
the thrill, the rush that accompanied using Talents, they would
feel differently.

Tug didn’t linger or comment further; he
returned to his perch behind the bar to watch the rest of the
newscast, leaving me to wonder what he found so tragic. In that
moment, I decided I needed to be more careful around him, until he
revealed his true stance on the Talented.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the front
door swing open and a couple enter the Giraffe. The girl appeared
to be maybe eighteen or nineteen, with pale blonde hair and even
paler skin. I pegged her companion as slightly older, probably only
a year or two. The tight set of his jaw and swirling platinum eyes
gave off a fierce impression. He was a visibly willing combatant,
constantly on the lookout for his next fight. I’d seen that look
before. Nothing good came of it. Platinum Eyes was dangerous—no
further analysis necessary to know that. Had the reporter speaking
on screen not been cut off for another update at that very moment,
I might’ve left right then.

“
We’ve just received
breaking information that the chief ringleader of the attack on
UNITED’s Manhattan base has been identified. Sources confirm that
the leader of this group is seventeen-year old Alana Stillwater.
While the purpose behind the attack remains unclear, Mr. and Mrs.
Richard Stillwater have arrived on scene and are said to be
cooperating with UNITED officials to ensure a peaceful resolution
to the standoff in Manhattan.”

My heart stopped. Oxygen fled my lungs.
Nightmare. This had to be a nightmare. I had to wake up.

Alana. Loyal, sassy, Alana. My best friend.
My roommate. Alana had broken into a UNITED facility? She’d never.
Not the girl who’d been at school with me, who, along with Francie
Owens, had been like my sister. Alana was the make-love-not-war
type of girl. She’d hated the required combat classes when we were
children and, despite having stronger telepathy skills than mine,
had chosen a non-physical assignment for after graduation. We were
permitted to select three areas in which to take Placement
Exams—the tests that determined where we’d work after graduation
from the McDonough School. Alana had only registered for one:
Education. It had been a running joke amongst my friends. No one
chose Education. It was a post you settled for after you failed to
either place somewhere better or washed out of pledging the
Hunters. She’d laughed off our teasing and protests, and stuck with
her decision. Alana’s gentle nature and sweet, but tough, demeanor
made her a perfect fit to be an instructor. She would’ve had the
male students eating out of the palm of her hand.

So, why would she have done
this? What was she after? And who had been foolish enough to
follow
Alana
of
all people on a suicide mission?

At least she’s
alive,
I thought optimistically.

That was a relief.

For how long, though? How long would UNITED
wait before they gambled with their own people’s lives and sent in
a team? Or worse, maybe they’d just blow up the entire building and
be done with it. That was more their style. UNITED won the attack
on D.C. with sheer numbers alone. They weren’t better, there were
just more of them. Our people had been stronger, faster, and with
Talents unquestionably more formidable.