by Melinda Metz
“Yes, I’m talking to you, young lady, with your hair the color of Dixie sunshine,” DuPris continued. He caught up to her and slid her tray out of her hands. “Allow me. Now, here’s today’s question—would you consider having a child with an alien if you found yourself madly in love with one?”
Isabel felt a cold band wrap around her heart. The buffoon had actually hit on a question she’d done a lot of thinking about. Not whether she’d consider having a child with an alien, but whether a human would ever consider having a child with her. She could possibly want to be a mom. Maybe. Someday.
That’s part of what made the idea of being with Michael feel so right. They were the same. He understood her in a way that no human ever would.
“I can see it’s a difficult question. You just take your time,” DuPris said. He set her tray down in front of the cashier and smoothed out the sleeves of his white suit.
“Actually, it’s not difficult at all. I’m not interested in having brats of any kind,” she told him. She thrust her money at the cashier, grabbed her tray, and strode off. Fortunately DuPris’s southern-gentleman deal meant he would never go chasing after a lady who’d made it clear she wished to be alone. About halfway across the cafeteria she hesitated. She saw Alex, Maria, and Liz at the table they always sat at when it was too cold to eat in the quad. But did she really want to go over to them?
Alex and Maria wouldn’t exactly be psyched to see her right now. Still, if she didn’t sit with them today, did that mean she didn’t sit with them tomorrow? Did it mean she was out of the group?
The group is whoever you’re with, Isabel told herself. But she shot another look over at the usual table. Liz, Maria, and Alex were her real friends—as opposed to Corrine Williams, Doug Highsinger, and the other members of the school elite that she used to spend most of her time hanging with.
Even Tish Okabe, Isabel’s shopping buddy and loyal follower, didn’t come close to being the kind of friend Alex, Liz, and Maria were. That’s because the three of them knew the truth about her. They’d been there for her in situations that would have sent anyone else, even Tish, running away at full speed.
That decided it. Isabel took a sharp right and started toward the table.
“I didn’t know that Isabel was, you know, interested in Michael,” she heard Alex say.
They were talking about her! Isabel turned around and slid in between two guys at the table behind her friends. She flashed an evil look at the loser to her left. She could tell he was about to try to speak to her, and she wanted to hear everything Alex was saying.
“They practically grew up in the same house. Mr. and Mrs. Evans call him their third child. I’ve heard them,” Alex continued. “I knew Michael and Isabel were close, but I thought it was in that way, not in that other way.”
Poor Alex, Isabel thought, though she was still glad she’d broken up with him. It had to be done. She couldn’t keep going out with Alex when every time he kissed her, she ended up thinking about Michael. But she probably could have found a gentler way to do it. Make that definitely.
Isabel blotted the grease off her pizza, then turned her whole attention back to the conversation going on behind her.
“So what are you saying? You think that Michael’s the reason Isabel broke up with me?” Alex asked.
“Her attitude toward you did seem to change after we saw Michael’s dream,” Maria said reluctantly.
“I don’t know if that should make me feel better or worse,” Alex said. “I guess it’s good to know that she didn’t start spending a lot of time with me and then decide that I was worthless scum.”
Isabel frowned. She hadn’t meant to make Alex feel that way. “No one could ever think you’re worthless scum,” Liz told him. “It’s not possible.”
“Yeah, no one could even think you’re really valuable scum,” Maria added. “You’re better than penicillin, even.”
“That’s mold, not scum,” Liz corrected.
“Either way makes me feel better,” Alex said.
All three of them laughed, and suddenly Isabel wanted to be over there with them so badly. She grabbed her tray and slowly began to rise to her feet. She didn’t want them to catch her at the other table.
“If Isabel’s hoping to get Michael now that she du—” Maria stopped midsentence. “Sorry, Alex,” she said quickly. “Now that she screwed things up with the best guy in the world, she’s dreaming.”
Isabel froze. This she absolutely had to hear. She sat back down.
“Michael doesn’t want her. Or me,” Maria explained, her voice flat. “He wants Cameron. He made that clear when I went to the museum this morning.”
Cameron? Isabel thought. The redhead with the buzz cut? Michael must be in post-traumatic shock from the compound.
Well, at least Isabel knew her competition. Neither Maria nor Cameron had a snowball’s chance in Hades against her guy-snagging skills. Let the games begin.
Max cracked open the door to Ray’s bedroom and did a quick Adam check. He was still asleep, his chest rising and falling so slowly, it was almost frightening. But not as frightening as Adam awake.
He knew Adam was deadly. He’d had firsthand evidence, which was why he still couldn’t believe Michael was willing to risk all their lives after he’d seen Adam destroy the compound.
He leaned back his head and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He felt as if his brain were pulsing, trying to push its way through his skull. The sensation would probably go away if he’d open himself to the collective consciousness. He’d been blocking the knowledge and sensations of the consciousness for days because he’d needed to focus on getting Michael out of the compound.
Well, Michael was out now, so maybe it was time to stop resisting. The consciousness held the knowledge of everyone on his home planet, living or dead. Maybe somewhere there was an answer to what was wrong with Adam, to why he had seemingly gone from innocent to evil in such a short time. Maybe Max could learn how to help him.
If not, maybe he could at least find out if Adam’s powers could be stopped. If … if he could be killed.
Max pulled a breath deep into his lungs and let it out slowly, relaxing his body, relaxing his mind, allowing himself to connect to the consciousness. Ahhh. It felt so good, so right, like sliding into an ocean exactly the same temperature as his body.
The last time he’d connected to the consciousness, he’d been bombarded by scents, images, tastes, and textures and by information, by a rush of facts that overwhelmed him. Now all he felt was the light brush of many auras against his. The auras, they were what formed his ocean. He could feel them supporting him, lifting him the way a wave lifts a swimmer.
He knew he should try to find a way to search for information about dealing with Adam. And he would. In a minute.
The image of Max breaking free from his incubation pod filled his mind, and an instant later he received a rush of emotion from the others, a mix of joy, and pity, and excitement.
Another image appeared—Max’s mother teaching him how to drive. Again he felt the reaction of the others—curiosity about the technology of the car, appreciation of the warmth of the relationship between Max and his mother, wonder that one of theirs could experience this with a human.
He felt as if his essence, his spirit, was being discovered and celebrated by all those in the consciousness.
The images came faster and faster, with no effort from Max, revealing all the most important moments of his life.
As each image disappeared, Max felt a little piece of his memory fade, dissolving into the ocean of auras. He was becoming part of the whole. The whole was becoming part of him. It was awesome. Transcendent.
The image of his first kiss with Liz exploded in his brain. He felt the others’ appreciation of the love between Liz and Max and echoes of the love the others had experienced in their own lives.
Then the memory began to slip away from him, becoming softer and blurrier as it was shared between the bill
ions of entities making up the consciousness.
“Stop!” Max cried. “Don’t.” He wasn’t sure if he was using his throat and tongue and lips to form the words. He wasn’t even sure if he was speaking in English. But somehow the others understood him. He felt their bewilderment, their concern.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t share so much with them. If he did, he wouldn’t have anything left.
Max used all his will to force the others away from him, to break the connection and stop them from pulling away the memories that formed his own consciousness, that formed the entity called Max.
You’re all right, he told himself. You’re safe now. You’re still you.
He opened his eyes, and his heart jackhammered as he saw his own image in the mirror. His body had become almost transparent—like a ghost. He could only see an outline of himself, and his bones and organs were faintly visible underneath.
Max looked down and tried to poke his finger through his midsection. But his finger just jabbed into flesh. He dosed his eyes and squeezed himself with his mind. He looked back up at the mirror—to see that his body had fully rematerialized.
3
“You might want to move back a little,” Cameron warned Michael. “The contents of this Lime Warp soda are under pressure. If I make one wrong move when I open it, that’s it. The cap could blow off, causing—” She checked the warning on the side of the can. “Causing eye or other serious injury.”
“I’ll risk it,” Michael answered. He stayed planted on the flat beanbag next to hers.
God, he was sexy. God, she wished he would move just a little farther away. Her whole body was aching for him. But she had to hit the road soon—a couple of days, tops, and starting something with Michael wasn’t going to make that any easier.
“Okay, if you want to live dangerously.” Cameron unscrewed the bottle top, and the soda gave a gentle fizz. “Kind of anticlimactic,” she said. “Like a lot of things.”
And you should remember that, she told herself. Yeah, she felt like she’d die if she couldn’t feel Michael’s hands on her again, but it was probably one of those things that was a lot better in her memory than in reality. Or not.
“Oh, really?” Michael asked. “I don’t find that at all.” He twisted off the top of his soda, and it erupted. That was the only word for it. At least half the bottle spewed up into the air, and the cap hit the ceiling with a pop.
Cameron wiped a little foam off her cheek. “I think you gave that a little help,” she accused him.
Michael grinned at her. “All it takes is the right guy.”
“Okay, stop,” she ordered Michael. “I’m starting to feel like we’re in a movie some businessman is watching in a cheap motel.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” He leaned toward her, his gray eyes smoldering.
Cameron jerked her soda can up to her mouth and took a long swallow, doing one of those numbers where she pretended she had no idea that Michael had been about to kiss her. She knew what kissing Michael felt like. And she knew if she let herself experience it again, she’d never get her butt out of Roswell.
Runaway rule number one: Always keep moving, she lectured herself. If she stayed here, or anywhere, too long, she put herself at risk of getting caught and shipped back home.
She wished that wasn’t true. She wished she could just stay here forever. It was the first place she’d really felt safe in a very long time.
Yeah, safe with the people you betrayed, she thought. She felt a little sick every time she remembered how she’d manipulated Michael into telling her the names of the other aliens and then told Sheriff Valenti that Max and Isabel were the ones he was looking for.
At least nothing bad had happened to them because of what she’d done. Adam had killed Valenti before he had a chance to do anything with the info. But that didn’t change the fact that Cameron had given up Michael’s friends just to stop Valenti from turning her over to her parents.
It probably wasn’t the last time she’d have to do something like that. That’s just the way it had to be. She had to be willing to do anything to survive. It was very nice that Michael had this whole group of people willing to go to the mat for him, but she didn’t. She had to take care of herself.
“So, do you want me to help you decide between psycho gift and the cheerleader?” she asked Michael, just in case the move with the soda hadn’t discouraged him enough. “Isabel is definitely hotter, but you’d have to be willing to—”
“He’s coming out!” Max shouted. A second later Adam burst into the living room, Max right behind him.
Cameron and Michael jumped to their feet. “If you think he’s going to hurt you, use your powers on him,” he told her, his voice so low, she could hardly hear him.
Oh, good, she thought. Then I’m perfectly safe. I’ll just use my powers. The fake powers I lied about having so Michael would trust me enough to open up. Sure am glad I have those powers.
Cameron tried to get control over the fear whirlpooling inside her as she looked at Adam. His eyes passed over her briefly as he jerked his head from side to side, scanning the room, but he didn’t seem to recognize her at all. She could have been a bug or a piece of furniture.
“What’s up, big guy?” Michael called. “Cameron and I were just saying we were in the mood for a card game. Want to play?”
His voice sounded casual and friendly, but he carefully positioned himself between Cameron and Adam, and there was tension in every muscle of his body. Something was obviously very wrong with Adam.
Adam didn’t answer. He did another quick survey of the room, then headed straight for the front door.
Michael and Max scrambled around him, blocking his way. “Adam, listen,” Max said, his voice soft and gentle, as if he were trying to calm down an animal. “You’re sick or something. I know you might not think so, but you are. We need you to stay inside until we find out what’s wrong and how to help you.”
“Ray took something that didn’t belong to him. I have to get it back,” Adam answered, his voice deeper than Cameron remembered it. He took a step forward, but Michael and Max wouldn’t let him pass.
“Move,” Adam demanded.
“No,” Michael said firmly. “We’re not moving. You want to get past us, you’re going to have to take us out. Is that what you want to do, Adam? You want to attack us? Look at us. I’m the one who helped you escape from the compound. Max is the one who took care of you when you got out.”
Is he even capable of remembering them? Cameron wondered. He seemed so completely different. Was there enough of the old Adam left to respond to what Michael was saying?
“Maybe you should just let him go,” she cried. She’d seen what Adam had done to Valenti. She would go insane if she had to watch that happen to Michael. But there was no way she could fight Adam. She was powerless.
“No, we’re not letting him go,” Michael answered, his eyes locked on Adam’s. “If he wants out, he has to go through us.”
Why did he keep saying that? He might as well just dump gas all over himself, hand Adam a blowtorch, and get it over with.
Adam gave a growl of frustration. A tremor raced through his body. Then he collapsed, as if all his bones had turned to liquid.
“This was the first time I’ve seen him conscious since we were in the compound together,” Michael said. He crouched down beside Adam.
Cameron slowly walked over. She had this crazy fear that Adam would suddenly sit up and attack them all, like a deranged killer in some horror movie. She told herself to get a grip and knelt next to Michael. “The way Adam looks is the only thing that’s the same. He was like the world’s biggest little boy when he was with us.” She gave a choked laugh. “It kind of creeped me out at first, how innocent he was. Like he’d been raised by teddy bears or something.”
“Are you starting to understand why I wanted him kept knocked out?” Max asked Michael, his voice cold enough to give a freezer burn.
I thought the
y were supposed to be best friends, Cameron thought. With friends like that. Although she supposed Max had his reasons.
“We’re never going to be able to figure out what made him like this if he’s unconscious,” Michael answered.
“We’re never going to be able to figure out what made him like this if we’re dead,” Max shot back.
“He didn’t do anything to hurt us,” Michael protested.
“This time.” Max shook his head. “What I don’t get is why he was talking about Ray. Ray died before Adam got out of the compound.”
“I connected to him a few times,” Michael said. “Maybe he got images of Ray from me … but that wouldn’t explain why he was looking for something of Ray’s.”
“Well, we can’t ask him now.” Max bent down and grabbed Adam’s limp arms. “Help me get him back to the bedroom.”
Michael grabbed Adam’s legs and stood up. Cameron stayed where she was, watching as they hauled him off. She hoped Adam stayed out until she was ready to leave. This was a situation she did not need to deal with.
“So is he okay?” she asked when Michael came back into the living room.
He shrugged. “You know everything I know.” He dropped back down on the ripped-up beanbag chair he’d been sitting on before Adam’s breakout attempt.
Cameron got up and moved over to the debeaned beanbag chair across from him. It kept her a little farther away from him than before at least. “So are you staying here again tonight?” she asked.
“Yeah. I can’t exactly go back to my foster home after disappearing for more than a week,” he answered. He flicked some beanbag stuffing off the knee of his jeans. “I guess when this whole Adam thing is … over, I’ll have to go kiss my social worker’s feet. He’ll probably have to find me a new home. I don’t think the Pascals are going to want me back.”
Cameron nodded. She knew how that felt. She doubted her parents had even wanted her on the day she was born. The only reason they wanted her back now was because it seemed the proper parental response to her running away—and because she was a good psychological punching bag.
