Defective (The Institute Series Book 3) (10 page)

The brunette has her face screwed up, disgusted at the thought of working with people like me. It’s pretty obvious Jayce hasn’t told his friends about me. Not that he would’ve had reason to, and we didn’t know we were coming until half an hour ago, so he didn’t have time to warn them.

“It’s not any different than working at the hospital, or any other clinic,” I reply
.

“I still can’t believe you work there, Jayce,” Robbie says, sitting back down after getting beer from the bar. “They should all go back to the Institute where they belong.”

Oh yeah, tonight is going to be real fun.

“Uh, guys,” Jayce starts, but I grab his arm, slowly shaking my head.

“They don’t belong in society,” Robbie continues. “They’re coming out of the woodwork now they’re free. They seem to be everywhere. They’re stealing our jobs, government housing, and funding. Next they’ll be taking our spots at university.” He looks at Jayce and me. “I know you guys work with them so you have to defend them, but I just don’t know why they can’t go back. Keep them away from us. I wouldn’t mind being given everything I need, not having to work. I don’t know why they complain so much.”

“Wow. You sound like the Collective. Maybe you should go to the Institute if you think it’s so great.” My tone is still relatively calm. I’ve met with this sort of ignorance before – random strangers around the clinic, well-educated political people at some of Paxton’s events – and I worked out quickly that getting angry just makes them think they’re right about us.

“I just don’t understand how you can work with them when they could use their magic on you, kill you on the spot,” Robbie says.

I have to laugh at that. “Magic? Really? You think Defective people sit around, conjuring spells like witches? Do you believe in Bigfoot, too?”

“Magic, abilities, same thing. They can still kill you.”

“What’s the difference between someone taking a gun and shooting you, and someone using their ability to kill you? In the clinic we see more shootings, stabbings, and beatings than ability injuries. And by the way, I’m yet to come across an ability that
could
kill you. I did meet this kid once who could give an electric shock through his fingertips, but even at his strongest I don’t think he could kill you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. What about the kid who destroyed half the country?” Robbie says, going straight for the number one excuse used for why we should be banished from society; the boy who blew up the country over
forty
years ago.

“So because of one kid four decades ago, we should all be punished for his actions? Which could’ve been totally preventable had the government embraced or nurtured us instead of treating us like we’re less than human.”

“We?” Robbie asks, his head cocked to the side.

I roll up my sleeve, showing my mark. “We.”

The table goes silent. Jayce’s mouth opens in awe.

“You’re one of them?” Blondie asks, almost giddy with excitement. It seems no one else shares her feelings, though.

“I am,” I say, leaning back in my chair.

“You were at the Institute?” she asks.

Jayce glares at her. “Whit,” he says in a warning tone.

“No, it’s okay,” I say. “I’m open to answering questions. I get it a lot,” I say, shrugging it off. “I was at the Institute.”

“For how long?” Ryan speaks for the first time since meeting me.

“I was pretty lucky. I was a late bloomer. I didn’t get my ability until I was eighteen. I was only in custody for six months before Brookfield was kicked out.”

“Was that photo real?” Whit asks. “The one with the guy in the cell? He’s running for Vice President now, isn’t he? Is that what it was really like there?”

The photo of Tate in his cell in the last few days before the Institute was liberated was everywhere after Paxton televised it to prove the mistreatment of Defectives there. TV, newspapers, it seemed to be that anywhere you looked, that photo would appear.

“It was real,” I nod. “The guy in that photo is actually my brother-in-law.”

Whit’s face lights up like she just got the best piece of gossip ever. “Were you treated like that?”

“I—”

“Allira,” Jayce says quietly, touching my arm, “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know I don’t have to. But people need to know the truth, and if people are willing to listen, then they deserve to know.” I turn to face Whit. “When I was arrested I didn’t know I was Defective. I didn’t have an ability. So when I couldn’t tell them what I could do, they beat me. When that didn’t work, they put me in a room with bright, blinding light and an alarm so loud that the sound didn’t leave me for days after the ringing stopped. Next thing they did to try to get me to reveal my ability was put me through electroshock therapy to see if it could trigger it within me. All it did was make me lose consciousness. They told me that they were simply ‘running tests’ to try to bring my ability out of me somehow. I was lucky. I only had to endure days of it. Others I know endured weeks.”

“Why did they stop?” Whit asks.

“Only after a freak accident – through no fault of my own, or theirs – revealed my ability.”

“What
is
your ability?” Ryan asks.

“Dude! You can’t just ask people that,” Jayce says.

“Why not?” Whit asks.

I politely smile at her as best I can. “It’s kind of like asking someone what sexual position they prefer,” I say as an analogy. “You know what it is, but you don’t exactly want everyone else to know.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with
that
question either,” Ryan says. The table manages to laugh, even given the seriousness of our conversation.

“Also, it seems to be that once you tell someone what your ability is, some people want to see it in action. They don’t really seem to care that it can send you to prison.”

Robbie and the brunette have been remarkably quiet since I revealed my secret.

“Don’t worry Robbie, you don’t have to be scared of little ol’ me,” I tease. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the banter. “I can’t use my ability unless I’m near another Defective person.”

“Why not?” Whit asks.

“I can borrow other abilities, but I have to be in range,” I say.

“That’s what you can do?” Jayce asks, leaning forward and taking my hand. My skin warms to his touch.

I nod, telling myself I can fill him in on the whole ‘double ability’ debacle another day… or not.

“Hey, is it also true that they were training you all up like ninjas, like some sort of super army?” Ryan asks.

The ninja comment makes me laugh, but I give the response Paxton has always said I should give when asked this. “You can’t believe
all
of the conspiracy theories,” I say with a convincing smile, but notice a look of realisation cross Jayce’s face.

Robbie gets up from the table without a word, heading back to the bar again. Jayce stands up to follow him. “I’ll be right back,” he says. Ryan also gets up to go after them, leaving me with the girls.

“So are you sure you and Jayce aren’t, like, together?” Whit asks.

“I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason. You just seem… close,” she says, glancing at the other girl, Max. I get the feeling I may be stepping on Max’s toes.

“We’re just friends,” I say.

“But you like him,” she states.

I feel my face flush. There’s silence between the three of us for what seems like an excruciatingly long time. I don’t really know how to respond to her, and now too much time has gone by to say anything.

“Excuse me,” I say getting up to go find Jayce and the others.

The three of them are standing, facing the bar with their backs to me. “Why would you bring her here?” Robbie asks. “You’re not seriously on a date with her, are you?”

“I don’t understand why you’re being like this,” Jayce says.

“I don’t understand why you’re here, either,” Ryan says. “I’ve heard Defectives are firecrackers in the sack. You should be in bed,” he says with a laugh.

Where did that rumour start? My bad date, Dex, thought something similar when I was with him.

“That’s disgusting,” Robbie states. “They should be with their own kind.”

I don’t know why this pushes me past the breaking point, but it does. I don’t know if I’m just looking for an excuse to kiss Jayce again, or if I feel I really need to make my argument, but I walk up behind Jayce, running my hands down his back and around his waist, pulling him around to face me. Rising up on my tippy toes, I bring my lips to meet his. It’s a short kiss compared to our first, but it’s still just as intense and sends tingles all over.

“I dunno,” I say, pulling away slowly. “What do you think? Totally gross?”

“Mmm, disgusting,” he says, nodding slowly with a grin.

Taking a step back, Robbie’s looking even more pissed off, and Ryan’s looking pretty bashful. I can almost feel the burning glares from the girls back at the table.

“Let’s go,” Jayce says, grabbing my hand and heading for the exit. “I’m sorry about them,” he says as soon as we get outside. “I guess you’ve found my thing?”

“Your thing?”

“My flaw. I have A-holes for friends,” he says, unlocking his car.

We get in, and he starts the engine. “They aren’t so bad,” I lie.

“You handled that amazingly, by the way.”

“I’ve had many conversations like that. Although, I usually shut them down a lot quicker.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

I shrug. “I probably shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry about that, but if I’m not going to stick up for my own kind, then I can’t expect anyone else to.”

“You never have to be sorry about kissing me,” he says with a smile that I can’t help but return. “Ever.”

Aunt Kenna’s right. I haven’t spoken like this in a long time, I haven’t even thought like this. Something’s changed in me, and I’d like to think it’s for the better.

“So, home? Or coffee?” he asks.

“You ask me that like there’s more than one possible answer. The answer is always coffee.
Always
.”

He smiles and starts driving through the city towards the café.

“We could go somewhere else, not so close to the clinic?” he says as he pulls up outside our usual place.

“Nah. They won’t know we’re here unless one of them comes for coffee.”

“So basically, they’ll know within five minutes.”

“We do drink a lot of coffee, don’t we?” I say with a small laugh.

We find a table outside, the cool night air smells fresh. As fresh as it can get in the city anyway. Mix that with ground coffee beans, and I think I’m in heaven. Jayce goes inside to order.

“There’s one thing I want to ask you,” he says, sitting down with two coffees, handing one to me.

I take a sip, and am surprised to find he knows my drink order without having to ask me. “Yeah?”

“You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. You’ve already answered so much for me and my stupid friends tonight,” he says putting his hand on top of mine on the table. I can’t shift my gaze away from our hands. “But Ryan was right, wasn’t he?”

Break the tension, make a joke. Stop looking at our hands.
I force myself to make eye contact, a small smile on my lips. “That we’re firecrackers in the sack? Well… from my experience I’d say we’re okay. A more educated conclusion could come from Ebbodine.”

Jayce winces. “Eww, I am
not
asking my brother about his sex life.” He sits back in his chair, letting go of my hand.

“I was one of them,” I admit. “I was trained at the Institute to be a field agent.”

“Field agent?”

“Well, we weren’t an army like Ryan thought, but we were sent back into the real world to arrest others like us. I was in the field for three months.”

“So that whole time that Mr. Brookfield was telling us, ‘Defectives need to be isolated,’ he was sending you back out into society? He obviously couldn’t have believed his own words if that were the case.”

“Oh, Brookfield believed we were dangerous.”

“Then why send you back out?” Jayce asks, confused.

“Because he knew we wouldn’t jeopardise him, or the Institute.”

“Why not? Why didn’t you all escape?”

We did.
But I can’t tell him about that. “Well… we wore tracking bracelets, so they knew where we were the whole time. And secondly – and this is just in my case – Brookfield threatened the life of my brother if I was to do anything to go against him.”

“So you knew Brookfield well?”

I nod slowly. “I knew Brookfield fairly well, unfortunately.”

“And you have no idea where he is now?”

“None. If I did, the authorities would better hope they got to him before I did.”

“So that’s where you got your right hook from? From the training?”

“Sort of. Chad and I went through the training program together, but he trained me on the side to be more skilled, faster, better. He didn’t want me to die in the field.”