Exiled: Kenly's Story (A Talented Novel) (8 page)

“
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, whirling 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.

No one spoke much on the ten minute walk.
The rain was falling faster, leaving large puddles on the cracked
sidewalks. When I’d hurried out of the hostel, I’d chosen sneakers
over rain boots, for comfort since I’d set out for a long walk.
It’d obviously been a wise decision, but I was beginning to regret
it now. Water had soaked through completely, creating small pools
between my feet and the soles of my shoes. Every step was
punctuated with a sloshing exclamation point, followed by a long
suctioning groan. I half expected someone to make an inane comment,
probably Riley, but no one did.

It was weird to be walking
with a group of people again. Not alongside a group, but
actually
with
them. Well over a month had passed—before Talia had become a
double agent—since I’d last been among friends. In London a lot
people tended to shy away from me. It’s not that they’d shun me, or
purposely cross the street to avoid me, or anything so drastic. The
evasion was less overt, almost more instinctive, than that.
Cashiers never allowed their fingers to brush mine when handing me
change. Children averted their eyes when they passed me on the
sidewalk. Others would lean away from me when I was near them in a
line.

I’d obviously noticed the weird behavior,
but simply dismissed it as some strange quirk of the British. Now,
walking with Willa and Honora on either side of me, I began to
appreciate just how odd the behavior really was. Because both girls
were walking so close to me that our arms brushed with every step.
And they didn’t seem at all put off by the nearness.

Before I could even begin processing what
all of this meant, another realization hit me. Dammit. The foursome
had me surrounded. The girls were on either side, Riley directly
ahead and James directly behind. I tried to remain calm. But where
I was from, being encircled meant only bad things.