0001
WICK
For once, he is not alone.
There is a boy sprawled out on the ground with the gold of sunlight in his hair and the blue-grey of sky in his piercing gaze. A lifetime of feeling alone, wiped out the instant Wick’s eyes fall on this boy with the beautiful face. For some reason, they don’t speak. Nothing to say, maybe. What the hell can be said to a boy who turns strong, clever, brave guys like Wick into a helpless, melted mess? Red, furious light dances across their faces. Fire, he realizes belatedly. Everything is on fire. His chest, his eyes, his knees … Knees that all his life held him up, crumbling in the presence of this boy. Blue-grey eyes that smolder, dissolving Wick’s every pinch of strength. He imagines them opening mouths to each other … How he might taste … His smell lingering on his clothes … You’ve gone and set everything on fire, Wick accuses the boy, a smile playing on his face. He knows the boy’s lips are warm, and it’s not because of the fire. For once, I am not alone. Wick reaches for the boy, and the boy reaches back. Fire hugs them like a swarm of yellow friends. The boys grow closer and closer and closer … yet never seem to touch.
Then Wick opens his eyes, and it’s all gone. The fire, the boy, the touch that never happened. Gone.
How cruel a dream can be.
Wick hears breakfast sizzling in the kitchen before the aroma reaches him. With great reluctance, Wick abandons his attempt at squeezing himself back to sleep; the warm lips will wait for another night. When he pulls on a pair of pants, he finds the dream left him with one other considerate gift in his pants. Sighing, he gives an honest consideration to taking care of his distractingly peppy friend before heading downstairs, but judging by the dagger of sunlight striking through the window, there really isn’t enough time.
Getting ready takes Wick exactly fourteen seconds. After thrusting on the only pair of clean socks he owns, he coaxes his feet into a pair of running shoes with red stripes that cut up the sides. Pushing a spray of hair under the hood of the same red sleeveless jacket he’s worn for years—and long since outgrown—he opts not to don a shirt underneath, as laundry hasn’t been done in half a week and the jacket fits snugly enough without one.
He staggers out of the closet he’s called a room his whole life and makes a stop at the tiny bathroom he and his brothers and parents share, only to find the faucets make no water. “Come on,” he moans tiredly. “Just a spray. Just a trickle’s all I need.” With a sleepy, resigned sigh, he continues his short trek down the steep narrow stair to the den, stepping over a dune of dirty shirts that haven’t made it to the laundry and a half-dumped backpack.
He takes a creaky seat at the island counter, the only thing separating what can be called den or kitchen in their tiny, crowded living space. His brother Lionis, who generally inhabits the den as his own room, has left something loud and crackling in the pan.
“Cooking without water?” moans Wick, pulling on the short spikes for sideburns that play on his cheeks. “Hey, where’s mom?”
Returning, Lionis doesn’t reply, pitching a dash of who-knows into the pan. Lionis looks like a starved version of Wick. Lionis’s short brown hair is combed forward and pressed flat to his forehead today. He has the blunt nose of their dad and is always flushed with mad craters of acne, masked only by wiry, overgrown stubble that runs in patches up his cheeks. His eyebrows are two blunt dabs of dark that seem in a permanent state of concentration.
“Do you know where Link was last night? He wasn’t home when I …” Seeing the cold half-closed eyelids of his brother, Wick just gives up. He pushes palms into his eyes, trying to forget that beautiful boy in his dream.
From behind he gets a sudden embrace from two tiny arms, mom’s citrusy perfume finding him before her face does. “Hey. Morning, mom. Water’s out again. Where’s Link?”
“Upstairs.” She kisses him on the brow. “He stayed out all night working on a project, something for school.”
“Sure.” Wick knows better; his little brother’s late night antics are always suspicious. He doesn’t like how Link’s changed, turning from the bright thinker he once was into this angsty stranger who keeps secrets and wears too much black—even his hair’s dyed black. He even insisted on taking the whole room upstairs when his older brother Halves moved out. But Wick’s no room to scorn others for secrets, considering his own.
“Get enough sleep last night?” his mother whispers into an ear, and Wick nods irritably, shrugging her off.
It’s the family secret. Everyone knows children wake for the last time at the age of two … so why at seventeen does Wick still sleep? Mom coddles him and makes a fuss like he’s still her baby because the only people left in the world who sleep are toddlers. But Wick is no toddler.
“Breakfast,” says Lionis.
“Not hungry,” says Wick, disinterring his backpack from clothes and clutter on the sofa and checking it for his proper books before slinging it over a shoulder.
Mom calls at him when he reaches the front door. “You really should eat, sweetie.”
“There’s lots of things one should do, and doesn’t,” says Wick, feeling smart, “and things we shouldn’t do, but clearly do.”
Like sleeping. Like dreaming.
He doesn’t wait up for Link. The air outside is thick and smelly as his mood, dust settling in the morning air as his shoes slap against damp pavement on his way to the station. He draws his hood, squeezes it to shield most of his face as he boards the overcrowded nine-two, which takes him halfway through his home ward with only three midway stops. On the fourth, he hops off the train and walks the long nine and a half blocks to school.
Today’s lesson does nothing to lift his mood.
Professor Frey’s going on about Legacies and Kings, her gritty voice marveling how vital it is to express oneself without fear. She gushes on and on about the importance of being free, of not having to hide one’s Legacy … so why are Wick’s parents so adamant that he hide his at all costs? Why must he keep secret that his unique, special power is the unheard-of ability to sleep?
“Dream,” Professor Frey urges her students, smiling wanly, “and dream big. For the King only cries once.”
Wick rolls his eyes at that. Dream … Hah. If only she knew how deceiving a simple dream can be. Wick dreamed once he had the Legacy of flight, found himself flying to the Lifted City, straight to Cloud Tower and meeting the Banshee King face to face. In the dream, he plucked out Greymyn’s tongue, removing his death-cry once and for all. Yeah, the King only cries once, but after Wick’s through with him, he’ll hardly be able to cough.
But it was just a dream. These people who don’t sleep … his classmates, his brothers, his mom, his dad, Professor Frey … they only consider the joy of dreaming.
They fail to consider the agony of waking up.
“Most of you are seventeen. For those of you who haven’t taken it early, your Legacy Exams are impending. A good word. Gets to the point, I think: impending. Inevitable, I like that one too.” She pops the back of a boy’s head with her hand, putting a stop to a side conversation he was having. “Each of you may have a unique Legacy—a little gift from the Sisters … a talent, a special ability, a power, whatever you’d so love to call it—but in honor of some of your impending Legacy Exams—there’s that word again—I’d like to focus on what makes us alike, not what makes us different. Tell me.” She stops in front of a girl’s desk, interrupting the girl’s important business of picking her nails. “What are the three classes of Legacy?”
Hands shoot in the air, but Professor Frey ignores them all, staring needles into the girl, who has frozen in place. After too long a moment, the girl finally offers an answer. “M-Mentalist.”
“Mentalist, yes, there’s one,” she agrees dryly, “but allow me to share a few fun factoids, as I know not all of you are as bright as a Lifted City sunrise. The majority of Legacies are, in fact, Mentalist. If you conduct regular practices of your Legacy for your Exam, I suggest quiet areas. Get into your own head. Psychist. That’s another word for a Mentalist who channels others’ minds. Could also include sensory abilities, Sensors … mathematical abilities … and so forth. On a scale of influence from 0 to 10, we place them at about a 1. And the second class of—If I have to pop you on your head again, you won’t have a head.” The boy rights himself, his private, hushed conversation brought to a shut-up.
“The second class’s a Morph,” offers another boy.
Professor Frey’s stony gaze lingers on the little whisperer a while longer, daring him to speak again before moving on. “Didn’t ask for it just yet, but well done. Morph. Please, someone put me out of my misery and tell us what the hell a Morph is.”
“It’s someone whose power affects the body,” the same boy finishes quickly.
Frey leans on a desk, crossing her legs and looking to the ceiling as if for help. “Must I beg for an example?”
Another girl, thin-faced and squeaky of voice, gives it. “My dad and his brother both can make their skin rough at will. My dad’s can feel like a stony texture, my uncle’s, sort of reptilian, like snakeskin.”
“I don’t like snakes. Terrible examples, but they’ll do. On our scale of influence, Morphs are about a 2.” The professor turns about, engaging a tall, wiry boy in the back who hardly ever speaks. “And the third class?”
“Elementalist,” he mutters, voice deep.
“And they affect …?”
“Things … Things outside the body. Elements.”
Sucking her tongue, Professor Frey nods once. “We have a few Elementalists among us, don’t we? Even someone who can bend paper. You ought to practice origami, dear, don’t miss your obvious calling.” A few classmates chuckle, and the one she refers to blushes and twirls a pencil in his hand. “On our scale, Elementalists come at about a 3.” She arrives back at her desk, facing the room. “Legacies grow as you mature and gain life experience. It’s a fact, not a myth, not a sugary fantasy your mommy and daddy tell you. It’s fact. We grow and we learn and we evolve. Many of you will regret taking your Legacy Exam so early; you might discover you underestimated your ability … and I consider that a great offense in my class.” She leans forward, her eyes carving into the front row of students. “Never underestimate your Legacy. Not ever.” She winks at no one in particular, gives a lift of her chin. “No two of you are identical, and neither your Legacies. Twenty people can open the same door, but will open it twenty different ways. Remind us of the special class of Legacy.”
No one answers. Wick sighs, irritated by the fact that not only is his class full of idiots, but he’s surrounded on all sides today. Every desk around him, occupied by an idiot. He’s always hated crowding; it makes him so edgy, nearly sick in the head. Social anxiety, his mom calls it.
Wick finally says, “Empath,” just to kill the silence.
To that, Professor Frey smiles approvingly. “Yes,” she agrees. “Empath. It’s a special class, as it incorporates the transfer of something from one person to another, and its influence can range anywhere from a 1 to a 3, depending on the person. For example, a person who can plant fears in others—or take them away … In fact, the thirty-seventh King had such a Legacy: King Rainly Prime. They named him the Scare King. But to escape fear is to feed it. Once the people learned that, well, so long to him. He took the throne after infamous King Chole, the Dust King.”
Pudgy-nose speaks again. “How’s Rainly called an Empath and not a Psychist? Or Mentalist? Didn’t he push fear into others?”
“Good point. It’s a matter of perception. One can go their whole lives misunderstanding their own power. Consider our current King. The Banshee King, called so for his cry that brings death to any who hear it. Who knew that as a kid, his yapping would develop into the life-rending weapon it is today?” She stops by the girl’s desk, peers over the brim of her bony glasses. “Dream big, child, for the King—” Only cries once, Wick finishes bitterly.
“Are there even higher classes?” asks a kid right next to Wick, his voice too loud. “What if someone’s Legacy is over a 3? What if it rates at a 9 or 10 on the scale? … or even higher?”
Professor Frey shrugs lightly. “Outlier.”
“What?”
“Outlier. They’re called Outlier, and those types, I’m afraid, cause proud Kings to go cross-eyed and Marshals to shiver, and that’s all we’ll say about that.” Abruptly, Professor Frey flips open the book on her long knobby desk, says, “Chapter 8. Open your books and let’s discuss the history of our first ten Kings, and how their Legacy Exams won them a damn throne.”
Wick closes his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. Or maybe it’s last night’s dream forcing its way into his terrible day … A very welcome distraction it’d be.
At lunch hour in the courtyard, he watches his younger brother Link eat alone at a wooden lunch table. The trio of bullies are tramping about the grass, and it takes everything in Wick not to hurl a stone at their heads. There’s several by his feet; he’s even picking which one he’d chuck. He’s hated them for years, ever since their voices changed and girls and boys became more interesting and hair sprouted in sensitive places. That’s when the new feelings came, the yearning and the anger. The most muscular of the bullies—his name’s Tide—has always had a fist ready for little Link—and Wick, two fists of his own ready to defend him. But he’s not an expert at defense and often did more witnessing than defending. But someday, Wick silently promised …
“Hey Pink!” Tide calls out, passing the lunch table and laughing. Link’s Legacy is changing the colors of things through touch, but he’s admittedly not very good at it. Most often, he only manages to turn things a sickly pink hue, hence the unfortunate nickname.
“Ignore him.” Wick takes a seat next to his brother. They’ve been through this a hundred times, but Link’s stopped eating. The anger that lives in his little brother scares Wick sometimes … the way Link has changed. “Tide’s just a meathead, bro. He just thinks he’s—”
“Whatever.” Link rises from the table, trudges off.
Wick sighs and slaps a hand to his face. In truth, he didn’t sleep well at all last night. “I don’t like him either,” says a friend of Wick’s at a neighboring table. “That Tide’s gonna learn, you can’t keep biting at everyone without someone someday biting back.”
Wick smirks. “I think Tide’s a bit beyond learning.”
The friend at the table is Rone, handsome, deeply bronze-skinned with buzz-cut hair and bright, sapphire eyes. He’s always been very comfortable around Wick, but never hangs with him outside school. His twin sister is a lot fuller of frame than he and not so pretty in the face, though she shares her brother’s intensely blue eyes and dark skin, always sitting with him and never talking. Both are known smart, note-takers, always in good graces with Professor Frey. They’ll get highest in life, those types. Maybe score a job up in the Lifted City … who knows?
But the city isn’t always kind to those who deserve it. Just his luck, it’ll be a low-life like Tide who’ll catch the eye of Impis, the Marshal of Legacy, in some upcoming Legacy Exam, scoring fortunes from above. One day, he saw Tide walk a poor kid half his size into a wall, then burst into tearful laughter about it with his cronies, hysterical, rolling on the floor like dogs. Bad people don’t deserve good graces … but slum life is not known for being fair.
“Tide couldn’t land a job in a wind factory,” Rone jabs.
“What the hell’s a wind factory?” Wick asks back, and they both just laugh. Tide’s Legacy is pushing air. Or at least that’s how Wick likes to describe it, because it sounds not unlike farting.
“Can you smell stupidity?” asks Rone.
Wick makes a big show of sniffing the air, earning him a half-amused-yet-still-unsmiling glance from Rone’s silent sister, then responds: “And he reeks of it.”
Everyone thinks Wick’s Legacy is that of acute smelling because that’s the lie his family tells. “He even smells fear,” his mom told their neighbor Iranda, “and sadness.” Wick can’t stand the lies, that his family won’t admit to people that he can sleep.
But then there’s all of Sanctum and the Marshals with prying, greedy eyes who are on the lookout for strange and unusual powers among the citizens’ youth. If Wick’s dreamy secret were told to the wrong person, he might be abducted by Sanctum and studied, used, experimented on … or so say the rumors. But Wick thinks little of rumors or things he’s never witnessed himself.
“You remember the first thing you ever smelled?”
Wick shrugs. “Myself?” They laugh again.
Really, what an awful Legacy. Sleep. You can’t even call it an “ability” like most Legacies; it’s a disability. Can’t avoid or control it either. That pains Wick the worst … He’s certain he’ll die in his sleep, neck slit or heart pierced at a blade’s end, especially in a world where no one else at all requires eight hours a night to recoup. That’s eight hours of possible death, that’s what it is.
“See you in class,” says Rone, departing the table. His sister’s eyes linger a bit on Wick, then she’s off too. Feelings still sitting heavy, he stays a while staring at his hands until he convinces himself not to be late to class.
When school’s out for the day, Link and Wick board the nine-two back home. Pushing through the front door, Link’s right out the back door and gets lost somewhere in the overgrowth of shrubs in their diminutive backyard, likely not to be heard of for the rest of the evening. Mom and dad are both still at work, so the cramped house is oddly quiet and seems to breathe for once, the sunlight cutting through the kitchen like a golden sword.
Unmotivated as ever to get a start on his homework, Wick leans against the back of the sofa, still cluttered with last week’s dirty clothes and blankets, and stares out the window at the giant scrap metal disc thing in the backyard. It is a giant scrap metal disc thing because Wick has no idea what else to call it. Ever since it fell from the sky, it cut so deep into the ground that no one, not even dad, can manage a budge. It used to fascinate him, wondering what it is, what it’s used for … He peers up, squinting against the sunlight at the arm of the Lifted City that overhangs this part of the slums, about thirty stories in the air, give or take. From the window, he can see only two of the enormous pylons that hold the Lifted City up, of which there are copious. And this giant scrap metal disc thing, it’s probably just trash from that Lifted City, some large discarded thing from the rich and privileged above. How easy their lives must be … So casual, to let go a huge piece of metal over the brim, dropping it to the trash-laden slums below. It could’ve killed someone, cut a child in half … It actually did land unsettlingly close to the tree Lionis reads in. But what do they care, up in the sky, of those who struggle and starve below?
Wick—Anwick Lesser of the ninth ward, by full name—has never known luxury or gold or height. His dad bangs iron at the metalshops and his mom rakes mud tirelessly in the Greens, all for scraps. Their bellies, all full of scraps. His oldest brothers Aleks and Halves live in the Guardian dorms now, working for them. And Lionis, older than him by only two years, is no help either; he just fills his head all day with science and nonsense at the library. Mom excuses his lack of income, since he also does laundry and cooks for them on the daily, but Wick doesn’t care. He can feed himself. Wick doesn’t need his brother soaping his socks.
After flicking on the broadcast for half a minute and discovering exactly four boring channels on them, he finally makes way to his tiny room up the narrow stair, pushes the front window open and sits on the tiny porch roof outside, scribbling away his homework assignment in the steadily waning daylight. When he’s on the last page, mom’s come home and pokes her head in his room, face spattered in numerous hues of mud. “Coming down for dinner? Just us tonight.”
With Halves and Aleks off defending the city in the name of Guardian and the Marshal of Whatever, the house is considerably quieter. Two less mouths to feed. And so he clambers down to the half-lit den to share a communal plate of dumplings, bean mash, and salted cabbage with his two brothers and mom until the sun’s been replaced by black and birdsong traded for crickets.
That night, Wick wakes to the razor point of a sword at his lips. “Dead,” says the sword-bearer.
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Want to read the rest of OUTLIER: Rebellion, the first book in the dystopian OUTLIER series?
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Keep scrolling for a sample from Daryl Banner’s heart-gripping, darkly humored, and whimsical post-apocalyptic / young adult series: The Beautiful Dead.