Outlier: Rebellion (33 page)

The stupid man leans in, whispers,
“Her mom’s dead. I think—Clara, look at the girl—I think she’s homeless. We should contact the—”

“How’s Landy?” Kid asks, recalling the name of the boy who lived next door to her, who should still be there. “We played together a lots. He smells.”

“Oh.” The dad blinks, puts on a smile. “Yes, Land’s doing great. He’s doing—Ah, honey, isn’t he doing fine?”

“Yes, he’s fine,” she agrees, studying Kid curiously.

Kid can’t wait. She wants to do this the honest way, but patience only carries her so far. “I-I’m hungry.”

“Come in,” the mommy insists. The stupid man simply nods, moves out of the way, and Kid finds herself entering her own house. She stops at the spot where her daddy died—her real daddy—and stares despondently at the clean, fresh, unstained floorboards. “Dinner’s this way,” the mommy says, ushering Kid into her own dining room, which is fixed up and looking so pristine that her eyes grow big. “Ester! … Julan! Down here! Dinner’s ready and we’ve a little guest!”

Kid takes a seat, her legs dangling. Julan and Ester, the children whose silhouettes made them look younger than they are, come into the room and stop at the sight of her. Julan and Ester, two teenage boys, one with messy red hair, the other with messy blonde. They were so much smaller, weren’t they? Of course that was three or four years ago … Time tends to change people.

“She’s from down the street,” the mom explains. “She’s eating with us tonight. Why don’t you, ah … Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself while I go get the rolls?” She smiles, her eyes sweet like candy, then disappears into the kitchen.

The boys sit at the table and start to talk about a game they were playing upstairs, but seem to be involved more in explaining it to each other than to her. Kid just folds her hands and waits patiently for the food.
Food, food, food, food.

And then there is food. The daddy moans happily as he bites into a leg of meat.
A leg of meat!
Kid serves herself and, near to tears, she swallows a roll in two huge bites. The vegetables, they vanish from her plate like they never existed at all. A second serving, gone as quick. She lets go a burp or three, giggling—burps always find a giggle or two out of her—and only when her teeth have torn apart a second leg of meat does she realize the whole of the table has her worried attention.

Slow
.
Like a normal kid. Like a very, very normal kid.
She lifts a greasy chin to them. “Daddy doesn’t like meat. I never eated it.”

The mommy smiles warmly, points. “Have you tried the—” Kid helps herself without using the tongs, grabbing a handful of—whatever it’s called—and bringing it to her mouth. The crunches of her chewing crudely fill the room. “Ah,” says the mommy, her smile tightening. “And the verdict is …?”

“Yums.” Kid laughs, helps herself to another happy handful. “Yums, yums, yums.”

The dad leans forward, still working on his first little leg of meat. “So tell us … What was your name again?”

Kid swallows her bite. “El … Ellena.”

The mom giggles. “Ooh, that’s a pretty name!”

“Yes,” the dad agrees, though his voice seems distant, brow wrinkled and pensive. “Tell us more. I’m sure we all wouldn’t mind learning about our guest from down the street.”

Kid, grease all about her mouth, daintily puts down the now-emptied leg bone the way one might a splinter of delicate glass.

“Well,” she starts, “I have three brothers. Their names is Link and … um, and Wickie … and Lions.” She swallows. “My daddy is an elec … elec … elec …”

“Electrician?” one of the boys offers—Julan or Ester, Kid’s already forgotten who’s who.

“Ya.” Ignoring the napkin by her plate, she wipes her mouth with the whole length of her arm, wrist to elbow. “He got the power back on. He’s my hero.”

She puts more green in her face, more meat, more and more and more, and somewhere between her third helping and her fourth, the conversation’s found all else to fill itself with instead of her, and she minds it not at all. The boys laugh a lot, and she finds she likes the sound of their laughter. Especially when the mom smiles and then winks at Kid, as if to include her.

This family … She could make a good time of them. They’re not her real mommy, not her real daddy, but it’s this very thing she so craves, more than candy and games and noodles. What a twisted work of irony, to start all over again with a new family … in her same old house.

An hour or two later, one of the boys is trying to teach her a game in the den. “You put this here,” he’s explaining, “and then follow step three. Right here, see that? Step three. Go ahead.” Kid stares at the weird figures on the paper, then realizes it’s likely best not to reveal that she can’t read, as most her age can. The boy gives up and pulls out a bucket of building blocks, which involve considerably less instruction, and Kid enjoys that.

But she’s an observant cat, and it is not lost on her that the daddy’s been discussing something heatedly with mommy in the kitchen. She makes short glances at Kid, smiles anxiously, returns to her hushed, urgent whispers.

The boy laughs at something Kid does, then corrects a word she says, another word, but really Kid isn’t paying attention. The parents look more and more anxious by the second, and it brings pause to Kid’s every smile and breath. She really doesn’t want this to end, not so soon. This has been good so far. Everything she reaches for vanishes. Anyone she hugs or loves …
Please don’t takes these peoples away … Please.
The boy she keeps playing with, and the smiles she keeps wearing … Kid feels so visible it’s possible she may never vanish again.

“I don’t want to disturb your fun,” says the sweet mom, suddenly at the archway to the den, “but when did you say your—ah—daddy will be home?”

“Two hours. Maybe more.” Kid smiles, holds up a thing she built. “Look what I maked.”

The dad moves to his wife, an arm around her that almost seems protective. “Which house, exactly?”

Kid’s eyes play between them, and then suddenly she’s on her feet. “I having to use the bathroom.” She hurries toward the hall.

“How did you know where it was?” asks the dad.

Kid stops, licks her lips and says, “It’s right there, isn’t it?” She points, like it were the most obvious thing.

“Oh my,”
the mother whispers, though it’s plainly heard by all.
“She … You really think she’s … You think it’s really her?”

“I think it’s really her,” returns the father solemnly.

Her.
Has the story of Kid’s brutal disappearance not yet given to the dark? Do people still speak of it? Do they whisper and wonder and fear, even still?

“M-My name is Ellena,” she repeats dumbly.

“I don’t think it is,” says the man, and he’s pulled a device from the kitchen counter and taps it with thumbs. “Clara.” He turns to his wife. “I already thought it at dinner and made the call. They’ve been on their way.”

“NO!” Kid rushes up to them—bringing great alarm to the mother’s eyes. “No, no, no! Don’t summon them!”

“I think you’re right,” the mother replies, then crouches down to look Kid in the eye. “You don’t have a thing to worry about, dear. I’m so glad you found us. Don’t you know they’ve been looking for you for a long, long time? They’re going to help you, don’t you know? They even told us you might come back, and—”

“The mask men!” Kid yells, panicking, angry and sad and hurt at all once. “They taked everything! They taked my mommy and daddy and they killed them! You can’t let them in! You maked a mistake!”

And just then, a gentle knock at the door. Everyone turns to the sound.

“Please,” Kid begs, her voice no more than a squeak.

The man doesn’t think twice. He moves to the door, just as her dumb daddy moved to the door, except this one doesn’t tell her to hide. He pulls it open.

A long sharp thing bursts cleanly from the back of his skull, then vanishes. There isn’t even any red, and the daddy drops to the floor.

“DAD!” cries out the Kid—or maybe it was the boy. The world’s suddenly very loud and confusing, and the men in masks and shadow flood the room, countless of them, as though the years have given them cause to multiply twentyfold. Kid’s already left the visible plane, but it doesn’t save her from the masked men and their terrible voices. “Hand over the girl!” Voices booming. “Where is she!” Voices like drums that vibrate the walls and rattle teeth. “Cast the nets! No escape! Every exit!”

Kid’s flattened against the wall, watching in horror. The mommy races toward her husband, but a masked man catches her by the neck like a chicken. There is a loud exchange of words—with the screaming and crying, there’s no telling what’s said—and suddenly the woman’s face goes limp. Indeed, her whole body seems to sag, and then the blood seeps from every pore of her body. The sight is so unreal, so alien that Kid has trouble making sense of it. To be fair, she’s never seen someone’s Legacy cause a person to … deflate.

Boars and mad animals, these shadow-mask men flip furniture, throw open cabinets and drawers, all the things shatter and scream and echo—
the shouting, the madness
—and suddenly the boy’s lifted in the air by an unseen force. One of the masked men yells things at him, horrid things, and the boy—
Ester or Julan?
—begs for his life. The squeal of his voice is so, so pitiful …

And she’ll never know the outcome, as she narrowly escapes the chaos and the violence and the masked men through the tiny kitchen window they left unsecured. Scrambling outside, she tears down the long dirty street, panting, panting, crying and bleeding from somewhere and panting. Her feet are so fast, and her breathing faster. She won’t turn around, not to watch the men destroy another thing, take another life for her, take and take and take. The masked men and the shadows they cast.

She’s run away so far she can’t feel her legs, and the only sound that fills the world is her own jagged breath and the rush of pumping blood in her ears.

She hides in the squeeze between two buildings, even invisible she still hides. She can’t even risk letting loose the scream that sits in her throat, nor the sobs in her heavy chest. Only the brick wall ahead of her matters, glaring into it, furious as a fire. She hates that wall, that stupid, stupid wall.

But the bricks are innocent as a massive monster. The true enemy is elsewhere.

She lets herself look away, morning’s light breaking. Today’s air is ugly and the spirals of smoke that come off the rooftops are nothing nice, twirling from the pipes like dragon nostrils. Something calms her, something that, like her, cannot be seen. Maybe it’s the somber realization … Tears don’t stop the men from coming. Hiding didn’t help her daddy. Screaming doesn’t feed a stomach. Glaring doesn’t change a world.

Looking into the bleak city, she doesn’t see the beast with the fiery tail anymore. Massive monsters and innocents … She looks and looks and cannot see it.

00
35
Wick

It’s been so easy the last several days, even with his bedroom window sealed shut. His dad thinks he’s gotten the better of him, and Wick won’t dare imply otherwise. The bathroom window proves just as faithful as his bedroom one had, and in the middle of this dreamless night—which has been
every
night since he and Athan shared the rooftops—Wick slips from his house once more, his mother in the kitchen with Lionis, his younger brother likely up a tree, and his father at the Weapon Show.
I won’t be far behind,
he thinks, racing for the trains.

When Wick arrives at the loft, he learns that Yellow and Juston have already left for the Weapon Show. That was part of the plan; they would all travel to the Crossing in pairs, each of them with a partner … except Wick.

“That’s because you’re the scout,” explains Rone, gripping his shoulder and squeezing. “Well, Victra’s the
real
scout with her Legacy, and she’ll be connected to our radio system that Arrow’s charmed up for us, but—”

“We need the exit covered, I know.” Wick rolls his eyes, frustrated with the whole setup. He knows why they can’t take Athan … It’s obvious, the risks involved. But every time he looks at that ugly locked door across the room, his stomach does flips.
He shouldn’t be kept in there like a dog …

“It’s locked anyway, and Yellow’s taken the key,” Rone says, as if reading his mind. The sourness in Wick’s face must be obvious; Rone’s own sapphire eyes glow with concern as he speaks. “Listen, Victra and I are about to head out. The graffiti bombs are already placed, don’t have to fuss with them at all this time. Yellow’s done it already.” He had gone early to take care of the prep, Juston to be his muscle—if any was needed. Of course, Yellow can cover his tracks easy, his Legacy of wiping memories proving quite convenient. “You remember your part in this, Wick? Go ahead, test your charm.”

Wick pokes the bit in his ear. “Test, test. Got me?”

“
Got you!”
they call from behind the tapestry where Arrow, Cintha, and Prat are running controls remotely.

Rone winks, pops Wick on the face with a palm. “It won’t be like the Festival. This one’s gonna be clean, but it’ll be big. Everyone’s watching. And hey, Wicky … remember whose idea this all was.”

Victra looks positively bored, stretching some kind of long, rubbery glove up the length of her arm and staring at Wick through half-opened electric-blue-shadowed lids. Snap, snap, both gloves donned, she saunters past Wick and only says, “Let’s make it rain,” on her way out of the loft—but not before burying her tongue down Rone’s throat, the two of them struggling and grunting for a full and awkward ten seconds.

The lovebirds gone, Wick checks behind the purple tapestry where Cintha, Prat, and Arrow are seated in front of a screen that beeps with numbers and icons and messages. Only Cintha looks up. “Fifteen past.”