Outlier: Reign Of Madness Read online

  Outlier : Reign Of Madness (Book 3)

  Copyright © 2016 by Daryl Banner

  Published by Frozenfyre Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover & Interior Design: Daryl Banner

  www.darylbanner.com

  Cover Model: Joe Delaney

  www.jd-fitness.com

  The Beautiful Dead Trilogies

  A post-apocalyptic fantasy series starring Winter, an undead teenage girl. Each trilogy can be read independently, but it’s best to read them in order.

  The Original Trilogy

  The Beautiful Dead

  Dead Of Winter

  Almost Alive

  The Sunless Reach Trilogy

  The Whispers

  The Winters (coming soon)

  The Wakings (coming soon)

  The OUTLIER Series

  An epic dystopian saga with a strong ensemble of unique & unlikely heroes who incite a rebellion. Join them on their journey for truth, love, and justice.

  The OUTLIER Series

  Outlier: Rebellion

  Outlier: Legacy

  Outlier: Reign Of Madness

  Outlier: Beyond Oblivion (coming soon)

  Outlier: Five Kings (coming soon)

  Kings & Queens:

  A Collection Of Companion Novellas

  The Slum Queen

  The Twice King (coming soon)

  The Queen Of Wrath (coming soon)

  The Brazen Boys

  A series of fun & playful standalone M/M romance novellas.

  Dorm Game

  On The Edge

  Owned By The Freshman

  Dog Tags

  Commando (Dog Tags 2)

  All Yours Tonight

  Straight Up

  Houseboy Rules

  Slippery When Wet

  The College Obsession Series

  A series of full-length standalone romances linked together by a group of college friends. Though characters are shared between the books, each one can be read on its own.

  Read My Lips

  Beneath The Skin

  With These Hands

  Acknowledgements

  Chris Rivera – Hey there, “Reader”! It’s me, “Writer”. I always thank you first because at times, I literally feel like I’m walking the streets of Atlas with you at my side. We’re braving Mad Kings and a decade of growing up and a future unknown … and Atlas is a scary as shit place, dude, but with you there by me, I’m never afraid.

  Jan Behrens – You are literally my brother from another mother When you read this book, I hope you forgive me for the abuse your “feels” will take. You were with me each step of the way in writing it, so I will be there each step of the way in your reading it. Not even an ocean can stop us from being best bros! Stay in my life! You’re one of the greatest influences I know, and for that, I feel blessed. And thank you for introducing me to your friend. To David: Thanks for reading Outlier! You are an inspiration and your feedback touches my heart.

  Joe Delaney – You make Anwick Lesser look so good! Thank you for being the one to represent the rebellion that changes the world. I count myself very lucky to know you!

  Sue Banner – My mom! Literally the first one to read anything I write, even the stuff that never makes it to publishing. Thanks for saving me from a hundred bad ideas (especially the creepy sex scenes). Thanks for your faith and for being my “home”. Thanks for healing me, dealing with me, and feeling with me. I love you

  David & Aimee & Jordan – I love my family. My bro and my sis-law and my brilliant nephew!! David, you fill me with joy and pride. Aimee, you stir my mind with creativity and make me laugh. Jordan, you are smart and intuitive and approach everything thoughtfully and with the eye of a wise soul. You’re going places, little guy!!

  A very special thanks to the members of

  Daryl’s Doorway

  Thank you for being there for me!! All of you are the sweetest and most supportive and smartest people I know! You make me laugh when I’m down and you kick my ass every day with love! I don’t know about you, but for me, the Doorway is always, always a safe place that I can run to when the world is too much. It’s all because of you. And believe me when I say, there is literally not a day that goes by where I’m not reminded of that sole fact. I’m so thankful and blessed to have you all at my side, and I promise to write you stories that you’ll love, that will move you, that will make you laugh, and that will take your imagination out to dance … as long as you’re still wanting them. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  And if you’re reading this and are not part of the Doorway, well goodness, where’ve you been?? Come join the party! You’re invited!

  www.facebook.com/groups/darylsdoorway

  And finally …

  Thank YOU, the one in possession of this adventure you’re about to embark on. It’s a long one. It’s a trying one. It will test your heart and your loyalty and your faith. I know you’re strong enough, but I am also with you every step of the way. Thank you for joining me for the third installment of the Outlier series: Reign Of Madness.

  www.facebook.com/DarylBannerWriter

  www.amazon.com/author/darylbanner

  www.DarylBanner.com

  THE OUTLIER SERIES

  Chapter Compendium

  R E B E L L I O N

  Act 1 0001 – 0018

  Act 2 0019 – 0043

  Act 3 0044 – 0069

  LEGACY

  Act 1 0070 – 0091

  Act 2 0092 – 0117

  Act 3 0118 – 0137

  REIGN OF MADNESS

  Act 1 0138 – 0161

  Act 2 0162 – 0184

  Act 3 0185 – 0207

  Act 4 0208 – 0231

  BEYOND OBLIVION

  - - -

  FIVE KINGS

  - - -

  Don’t be afraid.

  Seriously, don’t be afraid.

  I know the whole world’s Mad. And maybe it should be.

  It’s only in that Madness that we can truly understand who we are.

  For instance, I’m a guy who dances with Madness. Every single day.

  And then I get lost in it. And then I scare the shit out of myself.

  I worry I’ll fall into the Madness one of these times and never, ever find my way out.

  The Madness is something I will fight my whole life.

  But it only exists because of me.

  And in knowing that fact, I gain a strange power over it.

  It’s there to make me strong. It’s there to remind me never to sit still.

  It is a fight that I will never lose, as long as I keep fighting.

  And it knows that.

  So don’t be afraid.

  The Madness can be your friend if you learn to dance with it.

  #OutlierPride

  xxoo

  Daryl

  The Citizenry of Atlas

  Members of Rebel Group Rain, sixth ward slums

  Anwick Lesser “Wick”

  18 m - Mimicry

  Lionis Lesser

  19 m - Hot palms

  Athan Broadmore

  17 m - “Luck”

  Victra Kingsword

  19 f - See through others
’ eyes

  Pratganth Upgold “Prat”

  22 m - (not yet disclosed)

  Juston Markmake

  22 m - Generate noise

  Arrow Fyrefellow

  19 m - Charm electronics

  Yellow Everon

  48 m - Erase memories

  Gandra Gateward “Professor Frey”

  50 f - (not yet disclosed)

  Formerly The Keep, now The Undercity

  Forgemon Lesser “Forge”

  45 m - Calculate possible futures

  Aphne Lodestone

  29 f - Duplication

  Guardian Interim HQ, Eleven Wings Hospital

  Halvesand Lesser “Halves”

  22 m - Stop kinetic force

  Aleksand Lesser “Aleks”

  23 m - Make heavy his feet

  Ennebal Flower

  23 f - Unpierceable / Deafness

  Obert Ranfog

  37 m - Lie detection

  Title: Lead Officer Obert

  Former Head Trainer

  Guardian, stranded in a sixth ward holding unit

  Ellena Lesser

  39 f - Transfer wounds to and fro

  Gabel Wayward

  25 m - (not yet disclosed)

  Beatrice “Bee”

  30 f - (not yet disclosed)

  Cope

  19 m - (not yet disclosed)

  The Lifted City

  Rone Tinpassage

  18 m - Phasing through objects

  Erana Sparrow

  20 f - Memorization

  Ruena Netheris

  18 f - Electricity

  Title: Former heir to the Throne of Atlas

  Granddaughter to the late King Greymyn

  Sanctum

  Impis Lockfyre

  28 m - Mania

  Unofficial Title: King Of Atlas “Mad King Impis” / The Usurper

  Formerly the Marshal of Legacy / Royal Legacist

  “Metal Hand”

  40 m - Touch of destruction

  Sedge Arwall

  11 m - Shapeshifting

  Dregor

  31 m - Scale-skin armor

  Arcana “Reader”

  25 f - Listen to thoughts

  Axel “Writer”

  25 f - Control thoughts

  The Waterways, previously at The Brae

  Link Lesser

  16 m - Formerly: color manipulation

  Ames

  14 m - (not yet disclosed)

  Baron Poe

  60 m - Grants invulnerability at the cost of life & Legacy

  “Facility”, unknown location

  Cintha Two

  16 f - Stimulate others’ sexuality

  Aryl

  11 f - Able to “see” temperatures

  Elsewhere in the Last City of Atlas

  Kendil “The Weapon”

  17 m - Coldness

  “Kid”

  10 f - Invisibility

  Mercy

  18 f - Poison

  Edrick

  22 m - Amplified hearing

  Tide Wellport

  17 m - Wind manipulation

  ACT 1

  Prologue

  “Everyone wants to save the world.”

  She looks up from her cup of broth, startled by the man’s words, a drop slowly crawling down her chin. “Sorry?”

  “It’s the natural human hunger we all share. We feel a sense of … significance in the world,” the man with the pointy grey eyebrows and dimpled russet face goes on. “We grow up feeling like our lives are going to amount to a great and wonderful thing … that we will accomplish the impossible and … save the world.”

  She listens to his words guardedly, dabbing a finger in the broth to give it a stir. The gritty, slum-grade flavor spices from which it’s made are already separating, which annoys her greatly.

  “The truth is,” the man drones, “most of us will amount to very little. And it’s important to know that. And it’s important to be okay with that sad, sobering fact. Some of us are destined to be small. We are not, all of us, a King or a Queen or a—”

  “Outlier,” she murmurs.

  He flinches at her word. “I was going to say Lifted Citizen, but sure, your vulgar word makes the point just as well.”

  She lifts her face from the cup of broth and observes the room. Her eyes scan the plain chrome chairs and beige sofas that make up the social lounge in which everyone is allowed to mingle (within the allotted hours, of course), the big clock on the wall (which she has always suspected since her first day here does not tell the proper time, as it seems to make the hours go by faster than they ought to), and a broadcast hanging upon the wall that looks so well-kept, it’s a wonder such a device can be found in the slums. In fact, she’s even doubted if she’s in the slums at all. Maybe she was lied to.

  She wouldn’t mind if most of the things she was told were lies. The people here have treated her kinder than the ones in Guardian did, who kept interrogating her about Rain, about bombs, and about that boy with the cold hands. I miss him, she realizes. He could see past my sex. He had no hunger for me, whether with or without my Legacy. He was much like the boy who could sleep. But they’re all gone now. They’re not a part of her life here; no one is.

  “Cintha Two,” calls a sweet voice.

  She turns her head, spotting the woman with the long cream cloak and the piercing red eyes standing by the doorway.

  The man pats her hand and wiggles his pointy grey eyebrows. “Good luck.”

  Cintha smirks, setting her cup of broth on the table between them and pushing it gently toward the man. “You can have the rest. I’ve had my fill and I know today’s your favorite flavor.”

  His face warms. “The world’s full of big people and little people. You are one of the big, my dear. You will accomplish great things.”

  I wouldn’t count on it. But instead of voicing her doubts, she rises from her chair and leans into his ear to say, “I’ll owe it to you, Kirin,” before departing the room with the cream-cloaked woman.

  Once she is seated on the table in the observation room, the woman flicks on the machines and slides a clipboard off the counter and onto her arm. “How are you feeling today, Cintha?”

  “Fine.” Cintha smiles minutely. “No bellyache.”

  “And the fogginess in your mind?”

  “Less than yesterday.”

  The woman nods curtly. “Good.”

  No one is interested in Cintha’s Legacy of sexually arousing others, not until now. The people here make her feel useful to the world. She didn’t have this much purpose in Rain. She was always in the way of her brother Rone’s latest mission, or Arrow’s charms and gadgets and electronic machinations, or Gandra’s great vision.

  Here, Cintha is the great vision.

  “Today is a big day for you,” the woman says brightly, her red eyes like two needles of blood. “We have the results of your chemical preliminary.”

  The word “chemical” had such a different connotation to her back at the Noodle Shop when her brother Rone would guzzle it all day and night. I miss my brother. Not the chemical.

  “Are you interested in the results?” asks the woman.

  “Yes,” murmurs Cintha.

  The woman gives the clipboard a gentle tap. “According to your testing, you … are eligible for all three levels of treatment.”

  Deep relief floods Cintha’s heart at those words. She had never thought it was possible. She even still thinks it may just be a fantasy, another sweet lie told by the men and women who run this facility. But this is a lie she most desperately hopes is true.

  When she was six, she knew she could pull boys with her mind. That was how she described her Legacy—her unique power. When she focused her muddy brown eyes on a boy, she felt as if she could pull him toward her. It was amusing to her, considering she’d always seen herself as ugly, and no boys or girls wanted to play with her. She tried it on her brother Rone most of all, who described it as a tickling in his ches
t that made him both want to laugh and cry at the same time. Nevertheless, the influence was clear: Cintha had some sort of power over boys.

  It wasn’t until she turned eleven that she realized the sobering reality of her Legacy. Four months into the eleventh year of her life, her Legacy experienced what the sages call a “bloom”, its power surging to an unprecedented height. It was in that year, in the center of her classroom filled with boys, that her bloom forever changed the way she would ever look at a male. It was that day that her faith in all people, in all men, in all notions of love or trust or beauty would forevermore break.

  “You’re quite certain that Legacy elimination is your choice?”

  Cintha brings her gaze up to meet the red eyes of the woman. She, too, is a victim of an unfortunate Legacy. Her eyes used to only turn red when she was excited, angry, or sometimes when she grew physically tired. Around age twenty, the ability began to take an assertiveness of its own, and soon, the redness was there by default, and it would take the greatest effort imaginable for her to will away the red and reveal her true eye color—which Cintha still does not know. And this woman chose to keep her Legacy. She did not choose to eliminate it with the grueling three-level treatment. Am I making a big mistake? What would Rone do?