The Rebel rh-8

by Melinda Metz

"I guess I should have said something, defended myself. I was just too blown away," Trevor said. He gave a harsh bark of laugher. "No one's ever called me a killer before."

  "You've got to get out more," Michael joked. Or tried to. It sounded funnier in his head. That seemed to happen a lot with Trevor, the sounded-better-in-the-head phenomenon.

  "I almost could see the humans being suspicious of me, but…" Trevor let his words trail off.

  "It's not a nonhuman-human thing," Michael explained. He shifted slightly, trying to find a position where the cave wall wouldn't dig into his spine. "If you'd asked me six months ago, I'd have told you that there was no way a human could be trusted not to murder you in your sleep."

  The word murder seemed to come out of his mouth louder than the others. What if Max is right about Trevor? Michael thought again.

  Michael squeezed his hand into a fist, grinding the bits of glass deeper, hoping the pain would bring back his righteous anger, his absolute certainty that Max and Alex had no clue what Trevor was really about. It didn't.

  "There have been tons of times when Alex, Liz, and Maria have put their own lives in danger to save me, Max, and Isabel," Michael continued, suddenly feeling very tired. He stretched out onto his back. But it felt weird to be lying down with Trevor still sitting up, so Michael shoved himself upright again.

  "So I know for sure that nothing that was said tonight had anything to do with who is human and who isn't. Actually, I don't even think Maria necessarily believed that Alex was right about you," Michael rushed on. "And Liz-Liz is totally logical. When she hears about this, I can guarantee you she won't jump to any conclusions."

  Although logic might tell Liz to err on the side of caution. Logic might tell her that they should all stay very far away from Trevor if and until they were absolutely sure he wasn't a threat.

  "What about Isabel?" Trevor asked, his gray eyes glittering with intensity.

  "I think Izzy was withholding judgment," Michael answered. "It looked like she wanted to hear everything before she made up her mind."

  "But she's willing to consider the possibility that I would have killed Alex for the Stone if I could," Trevor said, bitterness edging his voice.

  Michael thought about the cool way Isabel had asked her questions back at the museum. "I'm not going to lie to you-I think Isabel is in guilty-until-proven-innocent mode." He took a deep breath. "Too much has happened to her-to all of us, I guess-to make it that easy to trust people."

  "I don't have to ask what Max thought," Trevor said.

  Michael reached into the hole in the cave wall, pulled down a battered metal canteen, and took a long swig. "Grape soda and soy sauce. Want some?"

  Trevor took the canteen, tilted back his head, and let some of the drink pour down his throat. "Excellent," he said.

  "We're pretty much the only ones who think so-not even Max, Izzy, or Adam will drink it," Michael answered.

  Trevor and I are so much alike, Michael thought. Why can't Max see that?

  "The thing with Max…" Michael paused, not sure exactly what he wanted to say. "Max is practically like my brother. It's just that, lately…" He shook his head. "I don't know, since he went through his akino and joined the consciousness, he's been changing. Sometimes it's like he's not even Max anymore."

  "Yeah, that happens a lot," Trevor answered. "A lot of the beings come to the Kindred because they refused to join the consciousness. They didn't want to lose their sense of self. You know, their identity."

  "Isn't that basically the same as committing suicide?" Michael asked.

  "You mean because you'll die if you go through your akino without making the connection?" Trevor asked. He handed the canteen to Michael, and Michael shoved it back in the hole. "That's bull," Trevor continued, his voice rough with anger. "That's what the consciousness wants you to think, but it's complete bull."

  "No way," Michael said. "I saw Max during his akino. He really almost died." Michael still had nightmares where he was forced to attend Max's funeral again and again.

  "Do I look alive to you?" Trevor asked.

  "Yeah, but-" Michael stared at Trevor. "Are you saying you've already gone through your akino?"

  "You got it," Trevor answered.

  "Is there any way to break the connection?" Michael demanded. "Can Max?"

  "The consciousness is too strong for an individual being to break free," Trevor answered. "And I get the feeling that Max is so far along that he wouldn't want to separate himself from the consciousness even if he could."

  "Maybe you're right," Michael reluctantly admitted. He shoved himself to his feet. "I've got to take off. I know it sounds stupid, but I don't want to leave Adam alone too long. Can you think of anything else you might need?"

  Trevor shook his head and stood up, too. "I've slept in much worse places, that's for sure."

  "I'll come by after school tomorrow with some more supplies, but I don't think you'll have to hole up here more than a few days," Michael said." I'm going to talk to Max and Alex and the others. I'm sure I'll be able to convince them you're not dangerous or anything."

  I don't know how, he added to himself. But I'm going to do it. I've got to.

  Trevor looked doubtful, but he didn't say anything.

  "So, uh, see you," Michael said as he backed toward the mouth of the cave.

  "Want me to heal your hand before you go?" Trevor volunteered. "Or do you want to keep walking around dripping blood?"

  "I can do it myself," Michael told him quickly.

  If he and Trevor connected, Michael would be open to attack. Trevor could just grab a vein in his head and start squeezing.

  But that wouldn't happen-because Trevor isn't a killer, Michael told himself. He strode forward and stretched his hand out to his brother.

  "Actually, it would be easier if you did it for me."

  NINE

  Liz felt fingers brushing her hair away from her face. I have to tell Adam to stop, she thought. But it felt so good. I'll pretend I'm still asleep, she decided. Just for a few minutes more.

  "What are you doing here, Liz?" a voice asked. Not Adam's voice. Max's voice.

  Liz's eyes snapped open, and she saw Max kneeling on the floor next to her. "What are you doing here?" he repeated.

  She sat up, Adam's air mattress squeaking under her. He'd insisted that she take it while he slept on the floor. She glanced across the room. He wasn't there now.

  "What are you doing here?" Max asked again.

  What was wrong with him? He was like a talking doll that someone had stepped on so many times it could say only one thing. "If you'd called me last night the way you were supposed to, you'd know," Liz snapped.

  An expression that was part hurt and part guilt flashed across Max's face. "I was going to, but then the consciousness-"

  "The consciousness," Liz cut him off. "Of course, the consciousness."

  Max stood up and took a step away from her. "I actually came by because I need to talk to Michael," he said, pulling a painfully obvious subject change.

  "Michael and Trevor never made it back last night," Liz told him. She felt a little pang as she realized she'd been so caught up in her own garbage, she'd almost forgotten about them. "I heard about what happened," she added, her voice softening.

  "Yeah, so it wasn't just because of the consciousness that I didn't call," Max said, leaping on the excuse in what Liz considered pure weasel fashion. "After Alex came and told me that he thought Trevor could be dangerous, things kind of got out of control."

  Liz nodded. "I get that," she said. She stood up. She was tired of talking to Max with him towering over her. "And if last night was a one-time thing, it would be no big deal-even though I really needed you."

  "Why? What happened?" he asked. His eyes flicked up and down her. "Whoa. Your aura is really in chaos."

  Is it just Max looking at me right now? Or is it all the beings? Liz wondered, a prickling, tickling sensation running from the top of her neck all the way down her spine
.

  "There was a time when you would have noticed that the first second you saw me," she told Max. She pulled down on the hem of Adam's T-shirt, which she'd been using as a nightgown. Suddenly it felt too short.

  "Liz, cut me a break," Max shot back, his voice taking on a steely edge. "There's a guy who could be a killer wandering around loose. And not just a guy-Michael's brother."

  "No, that's way too easy. You know that's not what's really going on between us," Liz insisted. She snagged the Star Wars comforter off the air mattress and wrapped it tightly around her waist.

  "I'd like to hear what you think is going on between us," Max said, his voice faintly patronizing. In another second he's going to be asking me if I'm PMS-ing, Liz thought.

  "God, Max, I can't even kiss you anymore without you drifting away to the consciousness," she burst out. "Do you know how disgusting that feels? To be kissing someone and then feel their lips get all loose and dead?"

  As opposed to Adam's lips, so eager, so warm. Liz shoved that thought away.

  "Disgusting," Max repeated. In a flash he had her face cupped between his hands. His eyes bored into hers, then shifted down to her lips.

  He's going to try to kiss me, Liz thought with a spurt of panic.

  "Yeah, completely disgusting," Liz answered. She reached out and put her fingers on his lips, gently but firmly. "Because it wasn't you."

  Max pulled her hand away and backed up. "Disgusting," he repeated again. "So, what are you really saying? Are you saying you don't want to be with me?"

  "I want to be with you, Max. But you're not you anymore," Liz cried.

  Max's brilliant blue eyes got a blank, shuttered look. "So you're breaking up with me?"

  Liz felt that ripping, tearing sensation again, just the way she had last night with her parents.

  Is there going to be anything left of me? she thought.

  But she couldn't pretend that things were the same between her and Max. She couldn't pretend he was still the one she'd fallen in love with, the one she'd loved heart, and soul, and body.

  That Max was gone.

  "Are you breaking up with me?" Max repeated, voice dead.

  How could he expect her to speak? How with this gaping, raw wound inside her?

  Liz nodded. And Max turned and walked away.

  ***

  "So you broke up with Max?" Adam asked. It had taken him all the way through one-and-a-half daytime talk shows to get up the guts to say it.

  "Yeah," Liz answered. It wasn't a happy yeah, a now-I'm-free-to-spend-all-day-making-out-with-you-Adam yeah. It was just kind of tired and sad.

  Adam was worried about her. Her eyes were all puffy; her lips turned down a tiny bit at the corners, and her aura hadn't cleared up any.

  "Is that why you decided not to go to school? Too hard to be around him right now?" Adam hated the thought that Liz could care so much about Max, even in a twisted, negative way.

  But basically, that was what drew him to Liz. She was so intense about everything. He wanted to make up for every moment he'd lost in the compound, and Liz was a person who did things full out.

  "No. Well, I guess it's a side benefit," Liz answered. "I was afraid my father would show up at school, and I don't want to see him." Her aura's deep purple web darkened until it was almost black.

  He wanted to do something to make her feel better. But what? Almost as soon as he asked himself the question, an idea popped into his head.

  Adam turned his attention to a large section of the floor almost in the middle of the living room. There was no furniture in it. He and Michael were supposed to get some eventually.

  "Do you like to trampoline?" he asked Liz.

  "Huh?" She looked over at him with a distracted expression.

  "Never mind. Just wait," Adam said, smiling to himself. He concentrated on the molecules of wood in the section of the floor and used his power to push them farther apart. "Okay, now watch." Adam stood up and walked over to the section of floor he'd modified. His feet sank into it up to his ankles. He shot a look at Liz, then he started to bounce, going so high, his head brushed against the ceiling. Maybe I should temporarily make us a hole up there so we can go even higher, he thought.

  But when he looked at Liz again, he knew that wouldn't be necessary. She had this very polite smile on her face. All he'd done was give her the extra burden of trying not to hurt his feelings.

  The mole boy again proves that he has failed to grasp the basics of normal social interaction, Adam thought.

  He pushed the molecules of the floor back into place, then went over and sat down next to Liz. Not too close. He knew enough to know that touching wouldn't be welcome right now.

  "I wish I knew what you were feeling," Adam said. "I never had a fight with my dad. I mean, I never had a dad, just Sheriff Valenti. So it's not like I can give you some great advice."

  "That's okay," Liz answered. She started twisting her hair into a knot. He'd noticed that she did that almost every time she felt uncomfortable.

  "I never told anyone this, but after I killed the Sheriff-" Adam began.

  "You didn't kill him," Liz interrupted. "You can't think that way. Elsevan DuPris had control over you."

  "Yeah, well, after my body killed the sheriff and I found out what I-it-had done, I totally broke down crying the first time I was alone," he admitted.

  He glanced at Liz. She had her serious, intent look going. He wasn't sure if this was helping her or not, but it was the only father experience he could share with her.

  "I should have hated him, right?" Adam asked. "And I did hate him, too-when I found out the truth. When I found out that there was a whole world he'd locked me away from while he had me do his little experiments. But…" Adam paused, not sure how to explain the rest, even to himself.

  "But what?" Liz prompted.

  "But he used to read me storybooks. And he… he was nice to me. And as far as I knew, he was my dad. I felt like I belonged to him. Even when I found out how evil he really was, I guess I didn't want him dead. It's almost like he was part of me, you know? So how could I want him dead?" Adam answered. "Maybe locked away in the compound himself, but not dead."

  "I never thought about the sheriff dying as you losing a father," Liz said. "But of course it felt that way to you."

  She reached over and took his hand. "Do you have these times where you totally forget he's dead? When my sister died, there would be days where I'd get halfway home from school before I'd remember, especially right after it happened. Like I'd have a story I was planning to tell her, and then-bam!" She made a little explosion with her hands. "It would hit me."

  "That's happened to me, too." Adam felt a loosening in his chest. He hadn't realized that he'd really been needing to talk to someone about this. "So when does it stop?"

  Liz shrugged. "When it happens, I'll let you know," she answered. Then she turned her head and met his gaze. "It doesn't happen nearly as much anymore. And the realizations are more like, I don't know, like oh-rights than bams."

  "I thought everyone would just think I was being a moron if I actually said I felt sad about Valenti," Adam confessed.

  "Of course you were sad. He was your papa," Liz reassured him.

  But he wondered if she'd switched over to talking more about herself and her own father. If Adam could feel so much for Valenti, how much more must Liz feel for Mr. Ortecho?

  "You should talk to him. Your papa," Adam said. He wasn't sure she'd want him butting in, but he thought she needed to hear it.

  "You don't get it," Liz burst out. "He pretty much proved he doesn't even know me. He probably thinks he loves me and everything, but how can you love what you don't know?"

  "So you're just going to run away?" he demanded. "That's not you, Liz. You fight for things. You want him to know you-make it happen."

  "Make it happen," Liz repeated. She snorted.

  "Yeah, make it happen," Adam insisted. "You helped break Michael out of the Clean Slate compound. You faked out El
sevan DuPris's bounty hunters. You practically even brought Max back from the dead, the way he tells it. You make things happen all the time. Impossible things."

  Liz didn't say anything. She took her hand away and pulled her hair free from its knot, then immediately started twisting her hair back up again.

  "You know what's going to happen if you don't, right?" Adam asked. He knew what he was about to say would probably hurt her, but he had to do it, anyway

  Liz shook her head.

  "If you don't, someday you're going to be coming home from school-or the job you get after college, or whatever-and you'll be all excited about telling your father some great thing that happened to you. Or even some awful thing," Adam explained. "And then-bam!-it will hit you. You don't talk to your papa anymore."

  ***

  Max's eyes went right to the group's usual table as soon as he entered the cafeteria. He felt a little of the tension flow out of his body when he spotted Michael sitting there. He hurried over.

  "You're alive," he said.

  Michael shot him an angry look, and Max belatedly realized this wasn't exactly the time for humor, not that it had exactly been humor.

  "I stopped by your place this morning, but you weren't there," he continued. "We need to talk." He saw Isabel and Alex heading toward them. Maria would probably show up any second. "Alone, okay?"

  "Whatever." Michael didn't sound too happy about it, but he shoved himself up from the table and followed Max to the bio lab. Max knew nobody would be hanging around in there at lunch. At least since Liz wasn't at school today.

  He clamped down hard on the pain that shot through him when he thought about her. He couldn't deal with the Liz thing and the Michael thing at the same time. Even separately felt almost impossible.

  "You wanted to talk, so talk," Michael said, leaning against one of the lab station counters.

  "I wondered what you were able to find out from Trevor last night," Max told him.

  "I wasn't trying to find out anything," Michael shot back. He picked up one of the Bunsen burner strikers and flicked it, producing a few sparks. "I wasn't with him to do some kind of undercover work for you."