by Melinda Metz
THE SALVATION
“It was fun for a while—having a human girlfriend,” Max continued. “But now, through the consciousness, I’ve gotten to see what life’s like at home, my real home. All I can think about is getting back there. And it’s not as if I can take you with me, so …” He shrugged. “It’s just as well we’re officially not together.”
“What?” Liz said again. It was Max talking. She was sure of it. Whenever the consciousness was in control of him, his face was totally lifeless. But now his eyes were blinking and sparkling; his skin looked healthy. He was totally there. But how could he say these things to her?
“What?” Max mocked with a smirk. “Listen. I’ll spell it out for you. I don’t love you. I never did. It was fun, but it’s time for me to go back where I belong.”
Don’t miss any books in this fascinating series:
# 1 THE OUTSIDER
# 2 THE WILD ONE
# 3 THE SEEKER
# 4 THE WATCHER
# 5 THE INTRUDER
# 6 THE STOWAWAY
# 7 THE VANISHED
# 8 THE REBEL
# 9 THE DARK ONE
# 10 THE SALVATION
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This book is a work of fiction. Although the physical setting of the book is Roswell, New Mexico, the high school and its students, names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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For Laura J. Burns—Roswell High wouldn’t be the same place without your creativity and dedication.
Liz Ortecho stared into the open grave. At the bottom she could see Adam wrapped in the flowered sheet she’d chosen. His body looked so small down there. So lonely.
Tears blurred her vision until all she could see was a splotch of colors in the hole. Being alone was the thing Adam hated most. He’d spent years held prisoner underground by the alien-hunting agents of Project Clean Slate. The agents and guards and the doctors running the experiments on him were his only contact with the outside world.
It wasn’t fair. Adam had just started to have a normal life. He’d just found people who truly cared about him. And now … Liz let out a shuddering breath.
Alex Manes gave her shoulder a squeeze, then stepped forward and dropped a photograph into the grave. It fluttered down to Adam’s body.
“What was that?” Liz asked, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand.
“It was a picture from the party we had at the UFO museum,” Alex answered as he took a step back and stood next to her again. “Sorry you weren’t in it. You weren’t there that night.”
“It’s okay,” Liz answered. “At least Adam has some company now.” A piece of her long, dark hair flew over her face. She didn’t bother to brush it away, but her best friend, Maria DeLuca, did it for her. Then Maria approached the grave. She took seven little vials of her aromatherapy oil out of her purse. One by one she poured drops of them into the hole. Liz caught the scent of roses, eucalyptus, cedar, ylangylang, cinnamon, and almonds.
Fresh tears stung her eyes as Maria poured the last vial and the odor of green leaves, new leaves, leaves just opening to the sunlight, joined the mix. Adam’s scent, Liz thought. She pulled in a deep breath, smelling the perfume that filled the air every time the seven of them—she, Max Evans, Michael Guerin, Maria, Alex, Isabel Evans, and Adam—had formed a group connection.
The connection would never be the same, not without Adam’s green leaf scent, without the yellow of his aura, without the note of music unique to him. Liz pulled in another deep breath, trying to memorize the perfume, trying to imprint it and make it a part of her forever.
By the time Maria moved back into place beside Liz, the scent of the oils had already begun to fade. “That was nice,” Liz forced herself to say, struggling to get the words past the salty lump in her throat. Maria nodded, clearly unable to speak.
Isabel and Michael exchanged a look, then Isabel moved forward and knelt beside the grave. She whispered something, Liz couldn’t hear what, then leaned down into the hole as far as she could and dropped a plastic sun next to Adam. Liz was glad Isabel had thought of that. Liz knew it was irrational, but she hated thinking of Adam being trapped underground again, separated from light and warmth by layers of the desert earth.
He’s dead, she told herself. He doesn’t know where he is.
Dead.
The word had a heavy weight in her mind. Like a stone.
It had happened so quickly, the transition from living to dead. One instant Adam was standing beside her in the hangar where Elsevan DuPris was holding the spaceship. The next instant Adam was on the ground with a hole going all the way through his body. Right through the center of his heart.
Even with Adam’s form lying in the ground, it was hard for Liz to completely believe he was … not alive. It should take longer, she thought. No one should be able to die so quickly. There should be time to realize it was happening. To do something. To say good-bye.
Liz’s eyes returned to the grave as Isabel rose gracefully to her feet. Michael immediately moved forward, touching Isabel’s arm briefly as he passed her. He stared down at Adam’s body for a long moment, then he opened his backpack and pulled out a shiny silver toaster.
“It’s too heavy—,” Liz began, hating the thought of the toaster hitting Adam’s defenseless body.
It doesn’t matter—he’s dead, she told herself again, trying to make it real. Trying to accept it.
Michael dropped the toaster, but he must have used his power to push the molecules of oxygen closer together underneath it because it floated down into the hole as lightly as a feather.
“We got DuPris,” Michael said, his voice harsh as he stared down at Adam’s prone form. “He’s dead. Not that that helps you any.”
When she heard the name DuPris, Liz’s heart practically stopped. She flashed on the vivid memory of DuPris turning toward Adam, directing the power of the Stone of Midnight at him and killing him as casually as swatting a fly. He’d done it to prove a point in an argument he was making. It was nothing personal. Adam happened to be there when DuPris wanted to make a little demonstration.
Liz’s stomach cramped as she thought about how casually DuPris had annihilated Adam. Yes, DuPris was dead now. But that didn’t seem like punishment enough. Not after all that he’d done—not only killing Adam, but killing Adam’s parents, Max and Isabel’s parents, and Michael and Trevor’s parents by making their ship crash back in 1947.
“Liz,” Maria said gently. “Are you ready?”
Liz realized it was her turn, her turn to try to
find a way to say good-bye. Reluctantly she took the few steps that brought her to the edge of the grave.
“Adam …” Liz hesitated. What was there to say? What was the point of saying anything?
“Adam, I don’t know what happens after we die,” she said finally, trying to keep her voice from breaking. “Who knows, maybe there’s a way to bend back time, or maybe you’ve been converted into another form of energy and you can hear me or feel me.” Her breath started to come in hard pants as she struggled not to cry harder than she already was. She didn’t want to break into the big, noisy sobs that would make it impossible for her to talk. She hadn’t found the right thing to say. She couldn’t lose it yet.
“If you can hear me, I just want you to know that I’m never going to forget you,” Liz said, tears coating her cheeks. “Part of you is going to live in me—just the way my sister, Rosa, does. And maybe that way … maybe it’s like you’ll never have to be lonely again.”
Liz opened the shopping bag she’d been cradling against her chest. She pulled out a snow globe with the Empire State Building in it. She’d bought it for herself years ago to keep her dream of moving out of Roswell to the big city alive. But now she wanted Adam to have it.
She glanced over her shoulder at Michael. “Help me?” she asked, holding up the heavy glass globe.
Michael was at her side in two long strides. Liz twisted the key in the base of the globe and the song “New York, New York” began to play. Liz nodded to Michael, then released the globe. It floated down to Adam, tiny snowflakes flurrying. “Sorry we never got to make our road trip,” she whispered.
“Let’s cover him up,” Michael said. He took Liz’s hand, then held out his other hand to Isabel. Liz reached toward Alex, and he pulled Maria over to join the group. In moments they’d formed the connection between them. It felt washed out and watered down without Adam and without Max.
Liz pushed the thought of Max aside. She couldn’t think about him now. He was almost as lost to her as Adam was, and if she let her mind go there, she was afraid something inside her would snap, leaving her as limp and vacant as a rag doll.
She turned her attention to the connection, feeling the power running between them, taking comfort in the closeness of her friends’ auras wrapping around her.
Michael threw out an image of Adam eating a piece of toast, looking amazed as if it was some kind of miracle. Maria shot back an image of Adam doing the alien bop. Alex added a picture of Adam intent on understanding the circuitry of an electronic device. Isabel showed them Adam taking off his sunglasses and tilting his head back to the sun. Liz answered with a picture of Adam’s bright green eyes, eyes alive with wonder and hope and love.
Then together they directed the power of the connection toward the mound of earth on the far side of the hole and slowly filled in Adam’s grave until it was indistinguishable from the desert around it.
Each of the two Stones of Midnight was smaller than Michael’s thumbnail. They weighed almost nothing. But their presence in Michael’s pocket was almost intolerable. It was like carrying around two armed nukes.
He pulled out the worn map of the United States from the little cubbyhole carved into the soft limestone wall of the cave. It was one of the few things left in there. Now that Michael lived on his own, no more a human pinball in the machine of the foster care system, he didn’t spend much time at the cave. It seemed odd now that it had once been his second home.
Michael unfolded the map. He needed a place, a safe place, a place no one would think of looking for the Stones. His best bet would be to find somewhere that he had absolutely no connection to—someplace he’d never even heard of. Someplace random.
“Round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows,” he muttered as he closed his eyes and ran his finger in circles over the map. He tapped the paper, then opened his eyes. He’d chosen Montauk, New York, a little town at the tip of Long Island.
It was a little risky to teleport. Who knew who’d be nearby on the other end? But it would be dark on the East Coast already, and the odds of re-forming right in front of a Clean Slate agent weren’t all that good. Michael focused his thoughts on a stretch of beach in Montauk, then let his molecules get slippery enough to slide away from each other, trying not to resist as his body broke apart.
When he re-formed, he found himself alone except for a big black Lab who seemed unimpressed by the amazing materializing alien. Good. Michael quickly scanned the beach. He was tempted to throw the Stones into the churning ocean, but he and his friends might need them again later. Sometimes it was good to be the ones with the nukes.
Michael scanned the beach and spotted a large rock surrounded by a group of smaller ones. He jogged over to the rocks and concentrated on the jagged, wet surface of the largest one. Concentrating hard, Michael used his mind to shove some of the molecules out of the way. The rock changed shape in front of his eyes as an indentation started to form. When he’d made a small but deep hole, he placed the Stones inside, then quickly pushed the molecules back into place.
“Safe as they’re gonna get,” he said. He took one glance around at the empty beach, and he was out of there.
As soon as his body had re-formed in his apartment above the UFO museum, Michael headed to the bedroom. Isabel, Maria, Liz, Alex, and Michael’s brother, Trevor, were all gathered around the bed, staring down at Max’s pale, motionless body.
The sight of his best friend lying there like a corpse made Michael’s heart squeeze, but he tried to ignore it. It’s like another friggin’ funeral, Michael thought before he could stop himself.
“How is he?” he asked.
No one answered for a moment, but the group around the bed exchanged glances. “The same,” Alex finally said, meeting Michael’s eyes for a split second.
“It’s just so awful, knowing he’s in there somewhere,” Maria blurted out. “It’s like that story we had to read for English, Iz. You know, the one where the guy got walled up in the cellar, but he was still alive, and—”
Liz’s face visibly contorted, and Maria blushed. “And … and I’m going to stop talking now,” Maria said quickly. “Sorry. I’m upset and hence stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Liz answered, her dark brown eyes intent on Max’s face. “You’re right. He’s trapped in there, in his own body.”
Michael shot a quick look at Max’s face. A quick look was all he could take. Max’s vacant expression and empty blue eyes sent a creeping shiver down Michael’s spine.
“Does this happen to many beings who are connected to the collective consciousness?” Alex asked Trevor. He turned so that his back was to Max’s face, and Michael knew he couldn’t take it anymore, either.
“Yeah,” Maria said, turning away from the bed as well. “You’re the expert, right?” Trevor had grown up on the home planet, so he was the only one who could have experience with this type of thing.
Trevor took a long, deep breath, and it was all Michael could do to keep from shaking his brother to make him hurry up and talk. They had to figure out a way to help Max.
“This is extreme,” Trevor admitted finally, shaking his head. He ran his fingers through his longish brown hair. “The consciousness doesn’t usually do a hostile takeover like this unless there’s an objective. It probably has some kind of plan, something it needs that Max can get.”
Something like the Stones, Michael thought. At least he was the only one who knew where they were.
“And until they decide to use him, he’ll just be—” Isabel jerked her chin toward Max’s still form.
“Yeah. At least I think so,” Trevor answered solemnly.
“I’m starting to feel a little like Grumpy or Doc,” Alex said, scratching at the back of his head.
“What are you talking about?” Michael demanded.
“Sorry. I made a Maria,” Alex said with a nervous laugh. “I just meant we’re all standing here, all helpless, looking at, you know, Snow White postapple.”
&nbs
p; No one laughed. Michael couldn’t take it anymore. He’d had enough of standing around staring at Max, acting like that was all they could do. He turned to his brother, crossing his arms over the front of his denim jacket.
“You want to shatter the consciousness, and we want to help,” Michael said, staring his brother in the eye. “It might be the only way to free Max. So what do we do?”
Trevor walked over to the desk by the wall and leaned back against it, squeezing his eyes shut. None of which was a good sign to Michael.
“DuPris was going to have me use one of the Stones to open a wormhole and go back home,” Trevor answered slowly. “I was supposed to get a squadron together and break into the consortium chamber, then get the third Stone and bring it back to him. With all three, he could have shattered it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Michael said.
“Except pretty much everyone would die in the process,” Trevor said, his tone serious. “The third Stone is guarded by the greatest defensive technology ever known to our planet. There would be a lot of carnage.”
“Oh,” Michael said, his frustration level skyrocketing.
“I told DuPris we should find another way. I told him it was a suicide mission,” Trevor said, starting to pace. “But, well, he didn’t have a problem with—” He stopped and stared at the blank white wall in front of him.
“With murder,” Isabel finished.
An eruption of fury exploded through Michael as he thought about what DuPris had done to Adam. But he couldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t bring Adam back, but he could focus on Max. Max was still alive. If you could call it that.
Michael could tell his friends were all thinking the same thing as they turned again to stare at their fallen friend.
“There’s got to be another way—,” Alex began.
“Wait,” Liz interrupted suddenly, her eyes wide. “I’m not sure….” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be talking about this here.”
