by Melinda Metz
Isabel had loved it. Well, it had made her laugh at least.
“Go on. You can do it. A-lex! A-lex! A-lex!” she chanted.
So she’s a not Isabel, he thought. That’s what you want. Someone who might treat you slightly better than a human-shaped doormat.
But there was one problem with the not Isabel. She was … not Isabel.
Alex shook his head. “I can tell from here that it just wouldn’t work,” he said. “See that sweeping gesture she’s making with her hand? It’s obvious that her greatest ambition in life is to be a game show hostess. Which is cool. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a game show hostess, right?”
“Right,” Maria answered. “And who wouldn’t enjoy talking to a wanna-be game show hostess, if that is what she is? So go.”
“The thing is that while most guys would love to talk to a soon-to-be game show hostess, I have this phobia. I don’t really like to discuss it, but hey, we’re friends, so here’s the deal when I’m in the presence of someone with even the slightest look of a game show hostess about her, I panic. I start trying to buy vowels. I start demanding valuable prizes. And I put everything in the form of a question. It’s not pretty.”
“Does the word desensitization mean anything to you?” Maria asked. “It means gradually exposing yourself to the thing you’re afraid of. It’s how people get over phobias. Go cure yourself.” She tried to push Alex toward the escalator, but he grabbed the railing with both hands and held on tight.
Maria gave a huge sigh. “Fine, forget the elegant hand gesture girl. Amber Whalen’s coming out of the card store. Just go say hi.”
“Don’t know her,” Alex answered. But he already knew everything about her. Not Isabel.
“I’ll introduce you.” She grabbed him by the arm. He tightened his grip on the railing. “You have nothing to be scared of,” she insisted. “I don’t think she even watches TV. She wants to be a vet.”
“A vet!” Alex exclaimed. “I have an even bigger phobia about vets. I can’t go near her. Barking would be involved. There would be much humiliation for all three of us.”
Maria dropped his arm. “I give up.”
“Good.” Alex shot her a grin. “Now we can find someone for you.” He pushed himself away from the railing and scanned the upper deck. He wanted to find someone good for Maria. He spotted Josh Martinez wandering in their direction. Excellent choice. “How about Josh?” he asked.
“I like Josh,” Maria answered. “Josh is great.” At least this night wasn’t going to be a total bust, Alex thought. One of them was going to go home happy. Or at least happier. “So, you want me to stay with you? Or should I take off now so you can talk to him by yourself?”
“Um, you know what, I think Josh is too nice. Because he’d be a rebound guy for me. And everyone knows it never works with the rebound guy.”
“Everyone knows this?” Alex repeated. “I’ve never—”
“Girls. Girls know this,” Maria explained. “So, anyway, it wouldn’t be fair to start something with Josh when it would just crash and burn in approximately eight-point-three days or four dates, whichever came first.”
Alex didn’t bother picking out someone else for her. He had a feeling no matter who he suggested, all Maria would see was a big not Michael.
“Food court?” he suggested.
“Food court,” she agreed.
✱ ✱ ✱
“How’s Isabel doing?” Cameron asked. She lay curled up on a couple of the flattened beanbags, wrapped in one of Ray’s Star Wars comforters.
“Max said she’s still sleeping,” Michael answered. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. It wasn’t nearly time for his two hours of sleep yet, but he was keeping Cameron company until she dozed off.
“So she’s okay,” Cameron said.
“No thanks to me,” Michael muttered. “If I’d listened to Max in the first place, Adam would never have had the chance to even put a finger on Izzy”
“Is that Max talking or you?” Cameron asked.
“Both, I guess,” Michael admitted. “Let’s just say he wasn’t happy about what happened.” He didn’t even want to think about their conversation. They’d ripped into each other pretty good, and they never did that. It had always been him and Max against—
Cut it out, Michael ordered himself. In another second he’d be in the middle of some chick flick moment. A montage of his and Max’s most special moments. Max pushing Michael into a pile of leaves. Michael cheering Max up after he struck out during the big game.
“Is Adam …?”
Cameron’s question pulled him away from his thoughts. “Our boy Adam is still circling the airport, and I’m making sure he stays that way,” he assured her.
“What do you think Isabel meant when she said there was something evil controlling him?”
Michael shook his head. “No clue. I’d almost be happy if she was right, though. At least it would mean I wasn’t totally deluded about Adam.”
Cameron mumbled something that sounded like an agreement. She was close enough that he could hear each breath she took. And the scent of her, that clean ocean smell, was driving him nuts. He wanted to reach over and pull her up against him. And why shouldn’t he? A couple of hours ago they’d been all over each other.
But it felt different now. A lot had happened. Plus it was night, and they were going to spend that night sleeping in the same room. Which made the stakes a little higher. Like if he touched her now, she could think he was looking for more than he actually was. At least more than he actually was tonight.
“So, uh, I saw the hummingbird tattoo. Got any more?” he asked. He figured the way she answered might tell him if she was thinking about the same thing he was thinking about or if she was just thinking about sleep.
“There’s one more. I never let anyone see it, though,” she answered.
That didn’t sound like an invitation. But it wasn’t a slap, either. Michael turned onto his side so he could look at her. It was hard to read her expression in the dim light coming from the hall, hard to see her aura, too. “No one’s seen it? So, where is it?”
Cameron laughed. “I can hear the drool dribbling out of your mouth,” she teased. “Suck it in. The tattoo’s on my ankle. The reason I never let anyone see it is it came out really ugly. It’s supposed to be a dragon, but it looks more like a mutant piglet. I’m going to get laser surgery done when I get the cash together.”
“I could do it right now,” Michael offered. “All I have to do is connect with you, then push the molecules of ink out of your skin.”
“No, that’s okay,” she said quickly. She rolled onto her other side and made a big production out of fluffing her pillow and adjusting her blanket.
Nothing hard to read about those signals. “Are you afraid?” he asked harshly. “What, do you think if I connect with you, I’ll hurt you, the way Adam did Isabel?”
“It’s not that.” She sat up and flicked on the light switch.
“So?” He sat up, too.
“So, it’s just not a good idea, all right?” she said.
Michael couldn’t stop himself from checking out the long stretch of bare leg the T-shirt Cameron was using for a nightgown showed off. “Not a good idea,” he repeated. He didn’t get it. Touching her in any form seemed like a great idea.
“I probably should have told you this before, but I’m leaving town tomorrow,” she announced. Just like that. Michael thought back to himself sitting in his cell in the compound, parceling out the women in his life—Cameron, Maria, and Isabel. He wasn’t sure why, but Cameron seemed to be the one—the one he could potentially love. But not if she just up and left.
“No biggie,” Michael muttered.
“It’s not safe for me to stay in one place too long. Especially a small town,” Cameron went on. “Strangers get noticed.”
Michael felt some of the muscles in his shoulders loosen up. This was something he could fix. All he had to do was rearrange some molecu
les, and he could give Cameron a whole new face. He could change her appearance every single day if that’s what it took to keep her around.
“Let me show you something.” He leaned over and touched her face. He made the connection almost instantly. Images from Cameron flickered through his mind.
A little girl Cameron fighting not to cry as a woman vigorously brushed Cameron’s long red hair. A mirrored tray covered with perfume bottles. A worn paperback book—The Little Princess. An older Cameron leaping over a track hurdle. A needle injecting ink into skin. Cameron standing next to Sheriff Valenti, watching Michael and Adam through a two-way mirror. A varsity jacket.
Cameron yanked Michael’s hand off her, breaking the connection. “I just told you not to do that,” she ordered him, her voice low and angry. “Don’t go pawing through my mind.”
“Afraid of what I’ll see?” Michael asked. Why was Cameron in an observation room with Valenti? She was a test subject. She should have been on the other side of that two-way glass. Was she some kind of informant for Valenti? Michael felt his face reddening.
“Ever hear of a thing called privacy?” she demanded. “What made you think—”
“What exactly was the deal between you and Valenti?” Michael interrupted.
“I told you. I agreed to let him test my powers so he wouldn’t turn me over to my parents,” she answered, her brown eyes locked on his face.
Liar, he thought. She was trying way too hard to look him in the eye.
He felt his stomach churn with a cold, oily liquid as he suddenly remembered something Max had told him. Max had said that Valenti already knew that he and Isabel were aliens when they showed up at the compound to break Michael out.
Michael hadn’t thought all that much about it. It hadn’t turned out to be much of a problem since Adam fried the sheriff about two seconds after the words had come out of his mouth.
“You were in Valenti’s office when Adam killed him, weren’t you?” Michael asked slowly. “I mean, you said you saw it happen, right?”
The color drained from Cameron’s face. She knows exactly why I’m asking, Michael realized. Some of the acid from his stomach rose up into his throat.
“Year. I was there,” Cameron answered.
“You were there because you’d just told Valenti what you found out from me. You told him that Max and Isabel were the other aliens.” It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t have any powers,” Cameron admitted. “Valenti said if I didn’t get him the information he wanted, he’d take me back home personally.”
Michael nodded. He couldn’t even look at her. She’d played him for a chump.
“I didn’t know you then,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Michael, come on, I didn’t even know you then,” Cameron repeated.
He still didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
“Fine. You want it this way, fine,” Cameron finally said. “I’m out of here.”
Liz snuggled into bed. Her thoughts went from Max’s kiss, to Isabel’s odd fight with Max, to Max’s kiss again … until she gently faded into sleep.
“I need to talk to you, Liz,” a voice whispered. “It’s important. Please wake up.”
Liz forced open her eyes, and she felt her heart give an erratic flutter. Adam was sitting on the side of her bed.
Don’t let him know that you’re afraid, she instructed herself. Just listen to what he has to say, and maybe he’ll leave.
“Do you remember when I picked you flowers?” he asked.
Liz nodded. All she could hope was that Mama and Papa wouldn’t hear a guy’s voice coming from her bedroom in the middle of the night. If they did, they’d be in here in half a second. And Liz was very afraid Adam would hurt them.
“I remember,” she said.
Adam smiled his sweet, shy-little-boy smile. Liz forced herself to smile back, her top lip sticking to her teeth because it was so dry.
Now what? Adam wasn’t saying anything else. He was just staring at her with his bright green eyes. She noticed that his gaze kept flicking to her mouth. Was he thinking about kissing her? She couldn’t let that happen. He could make the connection with the slightest bit of contact and do to her what he’d done to Isabel.
“I’m really cold. I need to put on, uh, more clothes,” Liz mumbled. As she stepped from her bed to the floor, she gasped. Her floor was soft, and patches of color had appeared before her eyes. A waft of pollen filled the air, and Liz realized her room had been transformed into a vibrant flower garden. Reds and lavenders, chrysanthemums and roses, all resting on a soft bed of mossy grass. She looked at Adam in astonishment.
“I need to tell you—something important. But I need you to trust me first. I thought it would help if you could remember something good about me,” he explained. “That night it was good, wasn’t it?” He smiled again, in a serious way this time. “Even though you did say that Max was the only one who could touch you.”
“I’m ready to hear what you have to say,” Liz answered, relieved to hear that her voice sounded steady. The flowers were comforting, but she was still suspicious of Adam.
He nodded nervously. “You’re in danger. All of you. There’s something inside me. It’s—”
A hideous gagging sound spewed from his throat. He bent over, hacking and choking.
Liz scrambled over the bed to his side. “Adam, what’s wrong? What’s happening to you?”
He straightened up, and she could see that his face had taken on a faint bluish tint. “Inside … inside.”
He gave a deep, ragged cough. Liz screamed as he lunged forward and landed on the bed, then began to writhe with seizures.
5
“You don’t need to be here. I told you, I’m keeping Adam knocked out,” Michael told Max.
Obviously Max didn’t trust him. Obviously he planned to spend the day watching Michael watch Adam.
“I’m not staying,” Max answered. “I thought you might be hungry.” He thrust a white paper bag into Michael’s hands.
Michael opened the top, and the smell of fresh crullers hit his nose. He peeked inside. Max, Mr. Reliable, had remembered the hot sauce.
“Uh, thanks,” Michael mumbled.
“I hope Cameron likes crullers, too,” Max said. “I didn’t think about getting something else so she’d have a choice.”
Michael snagged the Star Wars comforter off the living-room floor, rolled it up, and tossed it into the corner. “She says she’s taking off, anyway. She doesn’t like to stay in one place too long.”
“Hmmm.” Michael caught a flash of concern in Max’s eyes, but Max didn’t push for details.
“You were right about Adam,” Michael said, doing a fast subject change. Not that the new subject was anything he really wanted to talk about, either, but he knew he had to bite the bullet. “What you said on the phone last night was true. What happened to Isabel was my fault.”
Max shook his head. “I was out of line,” he answered. “All you did was take a shot on someone you thought you could trust. It’s not like I’ve never done it. When I told Liz the truth about us, I didn’t listen to your warning signals.”
“That turned out fine. Good, even,” Michael said.
“It could have gone the other way, though,” Max countered.
“You want a cruller?” Michael asked. He was ready to end this little discussion. If he’d just screwed up on the Adam call, it would be bad enough. But Cameron had been strike two. He’d actually believed he could trust her.
Max pulled a cruller out of the bag. “I’m not eating any of that hot sauce.”
He and Michael flopped down on the floor and attacked the bakery bag.
“Hey, before I leave, you want to help me with something?” Max mumbled through a big wad of cruller. “I think if I let myself connect with the consciousness, I can spread all my molecules out so far I disappear and then re-form them. I think. But since my brain could disappear, too, maybe not. Maybe it won’t oc
cur to me—or what used to be me—to rematerialize. Does that make sense? I figured you could help bring me back if there’s trouble.”
“Do you think we could re-form you in a different place?” Michael asked.
Max shrugged. “Maybe.”
Michael snorted so hard, he could feel hot sauce stinging the inside of his nose. “Now you’re really going to be king of the science fiction geeks. No contest. You’ve got to let me hear you say it. Just once,” he begged.
“What are you talking about? Say what?”
“Beam me up, Scotty.” Michael laughed, spraying little cruller bits onto the front of Max’s shirt.
“I haven’t watched that show in a long time,” Max protested.
Michael wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “So you want to do it right now?”
“Yeah. Let’s make the connection.” Max grabbed Michael’s wrist. “Don’t leave me hanging out there.”
“I’ve got you covered,” Michael answered. Then his mind was filled with images from Max. The pictures flew past faster and faster until the last one shattered in a rain of sparks that dazzled Michael’s eyes.
When his vision cleared, he saw that Max’s right arm had disappeared to his shoulder. His shirtsleeve hung limp and empty.
Would the connection hold when Max didn’t have a body for Michael to touch? They hadn’t even thought of that.
Michael dosed his eyes again and focused his mind on Max’s body, on their body. He could hear Max’s heart beating along with his own, feel Max’s breath in his own lungs.
Yeah, this should be okay. With the connection it was like he and Max shared a double body. So when Max was gone, the Michael part of their body would still be here to re-form him.
Unless because of the connection Michael’s body flew apart, too. Something else they hadn’t thought about.
Michael heard one of their hearts stop. He felt a chill rush through him. Max’s heart was gone. He opened his eyes and saw Max’s eyes staring back at him.
