by Melinda Metz
“So, I was going to help you choose between Maria and Isabel,” Cameron said, trying to distract Michael a bit.
“Okay, here’s the thing,” Michael said. “Say you went into an ice-cream store and the guy behind the counter points to two of the tubs and says you can pick between those two flavors. But the freezer case is filled with all these other tubs with all these other flavors. The two tubs of ice cream look great. You’re sure they would taste amazing. But what if you’re really in the mood for something else?”
Cameron groaned. “Can we please go back to talking about Lime Warps?” she said, grinning. “Because I have a bad feeling that I’m a tub of ice cream in this scenario. A tub of ice cream. Do you notice something about the wording there that might not be overly appealing?”
“Bad scenario. Sorry. Let me try again.” Before she knew what he was doing, he had her face cupped in his hands. An instant later his mouth was on hers.
This is a big mistake. This is a monumentally big mistake, Cameron thought. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned back, pulling Michael down on top of her.
✱ ✱ ✱
Isabel paused outside the museum’s side door and applied a fresh coat of mochaccino lipstick, then she headed in. It was time for her all-night guard duty session. By morning Michael was not even going to remember Cameron’s name.
She picked her way across the trashed museum and headed up the staircase leading to Ray’s living room. Halfway to the top she heard something that made her blood start to sizzle, something that made it very clear that at least right now, Michael knew Cameron’s name very well. He was practically groaning it.
Isabel dashed up the rest of the stairs, and her blood went from sizzling to a full boil when she saw Michael and Cameron sprawled on the floor. Cameron’s hands were buried under Michael’s shirt. From where Isabel was standing, she couldn’t see exactly where Michael’s hands were, but she didn’t need to see them to know they were someplace they shouldn’t be. They should be on her—not Cameron.
She was way prettier than Cameron, no contest. The girl had a body like a boy. Why would Michael want to be making out with that?
They were held prisoner in the compound together, she reminded herself. Maybe that created some kind of twisted thing between them. Something must have happened because Isabel was standing about three feet away from Michael and he was so caught up in kissing Cameron that he hadn’t noticed. That was just not something that could have happened unless Michael had been through some major psychological trauma.
Well, there was someone who could tell her exactly what went on between them in the compound. And Isabel was going to get the whole story from him right now. She rushed across the room and down the hall to the bedroom where they’d been keeping Adam. Max sat in front of the door.
“Your shift’s over,” she said. “Liz said to tell you she’d meet you at our house.”
“Maybe I should stay,” he answered. “Adam … it’s not that he’s done anything, exactly. He only got up once, and Michael and I kept him from leaving, but—”
“Michael’s here. We’ll be fine,” Isabel interrupted. She reached down and hauled her brother to his feet.
“Call me if anything happens,” Max told her, his voice tense. “And don’t underestimate him, Izzy. You have to think of him as a completely different person from the one we first met. Think of him as dangerous.”
“I will. I promise,” she answered. Was he ever going to leave? She couldn’t talk to Adam until he did. “Liz and I might go over to Flying Pepperoni, so if you need me and I’m not home, try over there. And if I’m not there, try the Crashdown.”
“Flying Pepperoni. Crashdown. Got it,” she said. She grabbed his coat from off the floor and thrust it at him.
“Do you have the phone numbers?” he asked as he pulled on the coat.
“There’s always information. It’s like magic. You call them up, and they’ll tell you any number you need to know,” Isabel answered. “Now go. Liz is going to be sitting in front of our house, waiting for you.”
Max turned around and started down the hall.
Thank you, Liz, Isabel thought.
She forced herself to wait until she was sure Max was out the door, then she slipped into the bedroom and quietly closed the door behind her. Not that Michael and Cameron could hear anything over their own heavy breathing.
Adam lay on the bed, motionless. Yeah, he’s real dangerous, Max, she thought. She hurried over and shook him by the shoulder. Nothing. He didn’t even flutter an eyelash.
Isabel shook him harder. She wanted to know every single word Michael and Cameron had exchanged in the compound. And she definitely wanted to know if there had been anything physical between them. Anything. If they bumped elbows eating dinner, she wanted to know about it.
“Adam, come on. Wake up.” She leaned down until her lips were about an inch away from his ear. “Wake up!”
His eyes began to move back and forth under his dosed lids, then slowly they opened. Isabel jerked away. It was an automatic response, like jerking a hand away from a hot stove.
Adam’s eyes were … People always said eyes were the windows to the soul. If so, Adam looked soulless. They could have been made of glass, like a really fancy doll’s.
You’re not here to stare into his eyes, Isabel reminded herself. “Adam, tell me everything you know about Cameron,” she demanded.
He didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her. “This is important. I need to know about Cameron,” Isabel repeated. She thought another little shake might get him talking, but now that his eyes were open, somehow she just didn’t feel like touching him.
“Come on. We’re friends, remember? Friends talk to each other. Tell me about the compound,” she coaxed. “Tell me how you met Michael. Tell me something about Cameron. Anything.”
A big, fat nothing. That’s what she was going to get from him. Isabel stood up. It would have been nice to know exactly what she was dealing with, but it wasn’t necessary. The day she couldn’t make a guy, any guy, forget about another girl was the day Isabel’s coffin slammed shut.
She took a step toward the door, then Adam grabbed her arm. “Oh, so now you’re ready to talk.” She turned to face him. His blank green eyes stared right through her.
“I don’t have time for this,” she muttered. She tried to pull her arm away, but Adam tightened his grip, digging his fingers into her bare skin.
And then they were connected. But it wasn’t like any connection she’d ever experienced. This was a violation. The images were being ripped from her mind.
She tried to scream, but the muscles in her throat contracted, as if they’d been squeezed by a hand jammed down her mouth.
She had to break the connection. She reached over and slashed the back of Adam’s hand with her nails. She could feel warm, slick blood under her fingers, but Adam didn’t loosen his hold on her.
She tried to think through the pain tearing through her mind. They were connected. She should be able to feel an artery in Adam’s head or his heart and squeeze the molecules together until he collapsed or died. She didn’t care which.
Isabel used all her will to fight the pain and search for the most vulnerable spot available to her. But she got nothing from Adam. She couldn’t even feel his heartbeat or hear him breathing. She wasn’t receiving any images from him, even though she could feel him digging through her mind.
There had to be something there. The connection had to go both ways. She squeezed her eyes shut and reached out with her ravaged mind, out and out. Yes. There. Just a little farther.
A flood of images pounded into Isabel. Too many Too much. Blasting her raw brain.
She opened her lips again. “Michael.” She forced the word through her bruised throat. “Michael, please …”
Michael unbuttoned another button on Cameron’s shirt and discovered a tattoo low on her left shoulder—a hummingbird. He traced one of its wings with his tongue,
and Cameron gave out a gasping sigh. She ran her nails lightly across his shoulders, shoving all thoughts out of Michael’s brain. He heard a low whimpering sound, and he wasn’t even sure if it was coming from him or Cameron.
Then he realized it wasn’t coming from either of them. He jerked up his head and listened hard. It was coming from the bedroom, and it sounded like Isabel. He hurled himself to his feet and raced down the hall. He hadn’t even realized Isabel was there.
He yanked open the door, and he felt an electric jolt sizzle through his body when he saw Isabel’s face contorted in fear and pain. Then he noticed Adam’s hand locked on her arm.
Michael gave a growl of fury and grabbed Adam by the back of the shirt. He yanked him away from Isabel and shoved him to the floor, then scooped Isabel up in his arms and laid her on the bed.
“Isabel, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear you. I didn’t know.” He brushed her hair away from her face with trembling fingers. “Can you tell me what happened? What did Adam do to you?”
Why was he wasting time talking? He had to heal her. He took a deep breath, getting ready to make the connection, then Isabel reached out and grabbed his hand.
“Not Adam,” she whispered, her eyes bright. “I saw … for a second I saw … not Adam. Something controlling him.” Her fingers went limp in his. “It’s … I saw. Evil.”
4
“You disappeared?” Liz exclaimed. “You must have been terrified.”
“Well, I didn’t really disappear. I just became kind of see-through. I could see my heart, Liz,” Max said.
Liz flashed him a look of horror.
“And guess what? My heart has your name on it,” Max said, grinning. As Liz giggled, he slid his fingers through her thick, silky hair, then leaned in for a kiss.
Maybe I should call and check up on the Adam situation. The thought barged into Max’s head. He shoved it back out. He wasn’t going to waste his Liz time stressing about Adam. Michael and Isabel were with him, and he’d made Isabel swear to let him know if anything strange happened.
He returned all his attention to kissing Liz. Each kiss was a kind of miracle. He’d spent years dreaming about what it would feel like to touch Liz, torturing himself by imagining one perfect kiss over and over. Back then he’d been sure dreams were all he’d ever have. But he was wrong. Liz was right here, sitting next to him on the livingroom sofa, her lips a breath away from his. He dosed the distance and gave her bottom lip a playful nibble.
Liz pushed him away and shoved one of the big sofa pillows between them. “You stay on your side,” she ordered. “No more kissing until we finish talking about the collective consciousness. What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t broken away when you did? Would your whole body have disappeared?”
“Disappeared is the wrong word to use. The molecules of my body had flown so far apart that it seemed like it was invisible,” Max answered.
“When actually it was just scattered in a billion pieces?” Liz asked, her brows drawing together.
“Exactly Once I realized what happened, I just focused my mind and squeezed the molecules back together. It was actually kind of cool.” He grabbed the sofa pillow and tossed it across the room. “And that concludes the discussion of the collective consciousness.” He looped his fingers around her turquoise necklace and gently pulled her toward him.
“Uh-uh.” Liz grabbed another pillow and reformed the barricade. “Have you thought about the fact that if you’d stayed connected longer, the molecules of your brain could have been separated from each other, too? Then what? How would you have had the capacity to realize anything? How would you have been able to focus and squeeze without a mind?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Max admitted. Count on Liz to zero in on the most important piece of information. “I bet it would feel amazing, though. I panicked when my memories started to dissolve into the consciousness. But for the three seconds before I freaked, it was … I can’t even come up with the right words to describe it.”
“Are you going to do it again?” Liz asked.
Was he going to do it again? He had to do it again. Now that he knew it was possible, he couldn’t go through the rest of his life without ever allowing himself to experience being part of something monumental, a living entity of cosmic proportions.
Liz wrapped her arms around herself. “You are. I can see it in your face.”
He didn’t have to ask what she thought. Yellow tendrils of fear were spreading through her aura. A couple of crimson splotches of anger had sprouted, too.
“It’s like I’ve discovered a whole new world, and I have to explore it. The only way I’ll really be able to do that is by giving myself over to it, becoming it,” Max said, struggling to express how he felt about the consciousness.
“Even if it means you won’t ever come back to this world? To me?” Liz asked.
Her voice was steady, but he thought he glimpsed the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. “That would never happen,” he promised. “You’re what would bring me back. Even if my molecules were spread out from here to whatever galaxy my home planet is in, that wouldn’t stop me. All my molecules would be like little homing pigeons. They’d all zoom to you, and then I’d re-form.”
“That’s very romantic and all, but I don’t think there’s any scientific basis for your theory,” Liz answered. But a few of the crimson splotches disappeared from her aura.
“Wait. I’ve got it,” Max said. “I’ll use Michael or Isabel as a spotter the next time. Then if I do disappear completely and have no way of squeezing myself back together, they can do it for me.” He ran his hand across the pillow separating them. “Can I get rid of this now? My molecules are really missing your molecules.”
Liz snatched up the pillow and tossed it over the back of the sofa. Max didn’t need an engraved invitation. He slid his hands along the curve of her waist. He loved the feel of her. Could not get enough.
He was not at all happy to hear the front door open with a bang. He’d been counting on a lot more alone time with Liz. He leaned back and saw Isabel coming down the hall.
“Hey, Izzy, come here a minute,” he called. “I want to try something, and I need your help.” He turned to Liz. “This way you can be here to see how the molecule thing happens. When Iz helps me re-form, you can tell me how it looked.”
Isabel started through the living room without a word. Max reached out and snagged her by the wrist as she passed him. “Come on, it won’t take long. I need you to make a connection with me, and—”
Isabel turned to him with piercing eyes and gave him a hard shove. He flew through the air and slammed into the wall next to the fireplace.
Liz rushed over and helped Max to his feet. “Are you okay? What happened?” she asked.
“I’m all right,” he answered. He turned to his sister. “Why the hell did you do that?” He and Isabel had had a lot of fights. But they had always had reasons, and Isabel had never been able to physically overwhelm him. Even when she used power.
Isabel didn’t answer. She just stared at him, eyes round and blank.
Max strode over to her. “Start talking, Isabel,” he ordered.
Isabel gave a breathy squeaking sound. And then she collapsed.
“Help me get her to the sofa,” Max called. Liz was at his side in an instant. Gently they carded Isabel around to the sofa and lowered her down.
“Is she unconscious?” Liz asked.
Max knelt next to the sofa and reached for his sister’s hand. Before he could touch her, she struggled into a sitting position.
“Maybe you should lie back down,” Liz said.
Isabel shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I’m okay.” She shoved her hair out of her face, then slowly raised her eyes to Max’s. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I did that to you. It’s just that when you touched me …” A shudder swept through Isabel’s body.
Liz sat down next to her and wrapped her arm around Isabel’s shoulders. Isabe
l flinched away, but Liz held on tight. “Did something happen at the museum?”
The museum! Max felt like such an idiot. He should have known the second Isabel opened the front door that something was wrong. She wasn’t due home until morning. They’d given their parents this whole cover story about how she was spending the night with Maria.
“Was it Adam?” he asked. His rib cage suddenly felt too small, as if the bones were crushing his heart and lungs. “Did something happen with Adam?”
Isabel nodded. “I went in his room to check on him. He grabbed my arm and made a connection.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “It was like my brain was ripping apart.” Her aura darkened, a rim of black forming around the outside.
“You’re safe now. You’re home,” Max told her. He knew he should have stayed at the museum. What was he thinking, coming back here for a little make-out session? He stood up. “I’m taking care of this. Adam isn’t going to get the chance to hurt anyone else.”
“Michael said he was going to put sleeping pills in his food to make sure he stays out. He wants us all to meet tomorrow to figure out what to do now,” Isabel said. “But Max, it’s not Adam. I’ve connected with Adam before, and it wasn’t him. There’s something … something…. ”
Her eyes drifted shut, her breathing becoming slow and even.
“I can’t believe it,” Max whispered. “She fell asleep.”
“How about that girl over by the fountain?” Maria asked.
Alex leaned over the polished metal railing of the mall’s upper deck and checked out the girl. Wavy hair that fell almost to her waist, nice waist, nice everything else. “Yeah, she’s pretty, I guess,” he said.
He realized that somewhere along the line his way of looking at girls had changed. Now they all fell into two categories—Isabel and not Isabel. That’s basically all he saw when he looked at the girl by the fountain. A not Isabel.
“So go talk to her,” Maria urged. “Go give her one of your goofy lines. What was that one you told me, something about you have to arrest her for stealing the stars from the sky and putting them in her eyes? She’ll love it.”
