The Rebel

by Melinda Metz

  Alex forced himself to look straight back. But he was the first one to glance away again.

  “No idea,” Alex said. “I think that my memory got wiped. I remember being sucked up the worm-hole instead of DuPris. And I remember flying back through it. But not much in between—just kind of shapes and muffled sounds.”

  Alex hoped no one could tell he was lying. He did have a pretty good idea how the consciousness had gotten the strength to send him home.

  Trying to look casual, he slipped his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the Stone of Midnight.

  When he’d arrived back home, he’d had the Stone—one of the three—with him. He was sure it was the power of the Stone that had opened the hole.

  He had intended to give the stone to Max, but he’d passed out last night before he’d had the chance. There was no way he was going to hand it over right now. Not until he was a lot more sure what, exactly, Trevor’s deal was.

  “Uh, now that I know the boogeyman in the hole with me was only Michael’s brother, I guess it’s safe to go home and tell my parents I’m still alive,” Alex said.

  “I’ll drive you,” Max volunteered.

  “I’ll go, too,” Liz offered. She smiled at Trevor. “I want to hear everything about you later.”

  Me too, Alex silently added. But first he was going to put the Stone somewhere safe until he could figure out what to do next.

  “Alex, there’s something you need to know before you go home,” Liz said as soon as they were on the road. She turned around so she could look at him, and the worried expression on her face had his stomach going from postage stamp to pea.

  “Your dad …” Liz hesitated, and Alex’s brain went nuts. His dad what? Had disowned him? Had had a heart attack? Had finally shouted one too many times and spontaneously combusted?

  “Tell me,” he demanded.

  “Your dad is with Project Clean Slate,” she blurted out.

  Alex felt like he was crashing through another wormhole.

  “We found out because he was trying to get you back, too,” Max explained, shooting a fast glance over his shoulder.

  “Wait. My dad was looking for me?” Alex asked. He found that sort of hard to believe. Maybe the garage needed cleaning or something.

  “Yeah,” Max answered. “Your dad had tracked down DuPris to try to suck up some power from the Stone with a Clean Slate device, and we’d tracked down DuPris to try to steal the Stone. We sort of ran into each other.”

  “But he didn’t find out the truth, obviously,” Alex said. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the roll bar, and turned to Max. “I mean you, Isabel, Michael, and Adam are all still walking around free.”

  He couldn’t imagine anything worse than his own father holding his friends captive, the way Sheriff Valenti had imprisoned Adam.

  “Actually, he does know,” Liz replied. “It was pretty much unavoidable. But he helped us escape from DuPris.”

  “Yeah, you missed out on DuPris’s latest attempt to kill us all,” Max said as he swung the Jeep onto Alex’s street.

  “And your dad said we were wrong about what Clean Slate’s agenda was,” Liz explained.

  The shreds of Alex’s brain that remained were screaming from information overload. “So, then, what is its agenda?”

  Max pulled into Alex’s driveway and parked. “We don’t know,” he admitted.

  Great, Alex thought. One more thing to worry about. What a homecoming.

  “Doesn’t Doug Highsinger realize that he has a better chance of getting his precious Mustang dinged when he takes up two parking places?” Max muttered as he maneuvered the Jeep into a tight space in the school parking lot.

  Liz muffled a sigh. Max wasn’t in one of his deep connections with the consciousness, but he wasn’t exactly focused on her, either. It’s not that she expected him to worship her and never think of anything except her. She didn’t expect him to be Adam or anything, but—

  Whoa. Where did that thought come from?

  It comes from the fact that when you’re in a room with Adam, you’re his whole world, answered the obnoxious little voice that seemed to have taken up residence inside Liz’s head.

  Liz ignored it. She reached into her backpack, pulled out a brown paper sack, and thrust it into Max’s hands.

  He opened the top and gave a long sniff. “Blueberry and jalapeño. “You made them just for me?” Max said, sounding like it was this big deal.

  Liz got an unexpected burst of what-an-excellent-girlfriend-I-am pleasure. It was only marred by the fact that she knew she’d made the muffins as soon as she got home from visiting Adam yesterday, in a session of somewhat guilt-induced baking. “You’re pretty much the only one who’d eat them,” she reminded him.

  Max wrapped her ponytail around his fist and gently urged her head back. Then he leaned over and kissed her, kissed her in a way that made her feel like she was his whole universe.

  Now that Alex is back, everything’s going to be different, Liz thought when Max lifted his lips from hers. Max wouldn’t have to connect in that deep way anymore.

  “I always thought that saying ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ was sexist propaganda,” she said, still a little breathless from that amazing kiss. “But I guess not.”

  “I do love the taste of those muffins,” he teased. He paused, then added, “But I love the taste of you more.”

  Liz grabbed Max’s T-shirt and pulled him back toward her, and they were kissing again. It felt so good. So right. As if some missing piece of herself had miraculously been found.

  Liz slipped one hand around to the sweet spot at the back of Max’s neck. He gave her bottom lip a playful nibble.

  Then his lips went slack.

  Liz pulled away slowly. When she looked into Max’s eyes, they were blank. Her stomach dropped down to her toes, a wave of revulsion sweeping through her.

  He’d gone into a deep connection right in the middle of kissing her. Had the beings been able to feel the kiss? Feel the sensation of her lips and tongue?

  Liz yanked the neck of her T-shirt up until it covered her mouth, then she scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed. When she finished, the top of the T-shirt was stained with plum lipstick, and her lips felt raw.

  She shot a glance at Max. At the Max thing. Because it definitely wasn’t Max over there, not entirely, at least. It wasn’t the guy who’d just made her feel like they were the only two people alive, living in their own Garden of Eden.

  Liz reached for the door handle, then hesitated. “I can’t just leave him here like this,” she muttered. “There might be something really wrong.”

  She’d never seen Max have quite that reaction to connecting before, not that sudden clicking off. She forced herself to watch him until she could see his awareness of his surroundings, of her, return.

  That little episode had nothing to do with Alex, Liz told herself. She had to accept that Max had changed after he went through his akino. His connection to the consciousness was the most powerful, intense thing in his life now.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I just got this massive flood of … of emotion, basically, from the consciousness. I couldn’t control it at all. It just took me over.”

  “Are you okay?” Liz made herself ask.

  Just say yes so I can get out of here, she thought, shocking herself with the strength of her desire to get away from Max.

  “Yeah,” he answered, his voice a little thick, as if he’d been asleep. “I wish I knew what was going on. I think maybe it has something to do with one of the Stones of Midnight. But that’s all I got. None of the beings have really taken the time to explain things to me.” He angled his head so he could see her watch. “Was I out long?”

  “Less than a minute,” Liz said. She smoothed a stray section of hair back into her ponytail and reached for the door handle again.

  “So we still have a little time to …” Max smiled as he slid one arm around her shoulders.

&
nbsp; Another wave of revulsion rose up inside her, and Liz gave an involuntary shudder. “Actually, I have to go to the library before class.” She climbed out of the Jeep, gave Max a quick wave, and bolted.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to kiss Max again. Kissing Max was what she wanted more than anything.

  But it hadn’t been Max sitting next to her. Not really.

  Alex heard a key turn in the lock. A moment later he heard the sound of his parents’ voices, and something inside him twisted.

  He stood up from the kitchen table. Before he could reach the kitchen door, his parents walked in, each carrying a couple of bags of groceries.

  His mother looked up, and both bags slipped out of her hands. “Alex?” His name came out in a long quaver.

  “It’s me, Mom,” he answered, his own voice not completely steady.

  “Alex?” she repeated. She stumbled toward him, her heel catching on a box of cookies that had fallen out of one of the bags. Alex reached out and grabbed her by the elbows to steady her, and her hands locked on his arms as if she never planned to let him go.

  “I’m okay. Don’t worry. I’m fine,” he told her.

  “Where were you?” she cried. Her fingers dug so deeply into his skin that Alex was sure they’d leave bruises. But he didn’t try to pull away.

  “I … I took a hike into the desert, and, I don’t know, I think I got lost,” Alex said, his explanation sounding even more lame than it had when he’d made it up. “I came to this cave. I don’t even remember going in there.”

  “Heatstroke,” his father said in his most authoritative I-am-the-Major tone.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Alex agreed, glancing at his father. “I don’t think I brought enough water. Stupid, I know. And … and it took me a while to find my way back.”

  “Do you want something to eat?” his mom asked. “Or do you want to take a nap? You must be exhausted.”

  To Alex’s horror, tears were spilling down his mother’s face. In the Manes family, you were supposed to pretty much pretend that nothing got to you. The Major was the champion of that, and he expected them all to follow his example.

  His father set his bags on the table, then took Alex’s mom by the shoulders and gently pulled her away from Alex.

  “Why don’t you go freshen up?” he said. “I’ll make scrambled eggs for all of us.”

  “I … all right.” His mother snagged a paper towel off the roll over the sink and swabbed at her eyes as she hurried out of the room.

  “Grab that stuff off the floor and stick some bread in the toaster, would you?” the Major asked.

  Good to see you, too, Alex thought as he crouched down and picked up the bags of groceries and the cookies. He dropped everything on the table, then started rooting around in the closest bag for bread.

  What the hell am I doing?

  Alex let his hands fall to his sides. “I know that you know where I really was,” he told his father. “I know you’re Clean Slate.”

  The Major nodded. He stepped around Alex and pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge, then he strode to the stove and pulled a frying pan out of the cabinet underneath it.

  “I assume your memory was cleaned before you were sent back,” he said. He cracked an egg into the pan, then another.

  “You assume correctly,” Alex muttered. His father didn’t tell him to speak up the way he usually did.

  “I want you to get yourself checked out by a doctor. Just a precaution.” His father cracked two more eggs, studied the pan, and then added three more. “Get me a fork.”

  Alex handed him a wooden spoon. “You don’t want to burn your fingers.”

  “Thanks.” The Major began to stir the eggs vigorously. “I’ve been thinking about the ROTC.”

  I haven’t been home even half an hour, and he’s already ragging on me, Alex thought. He doesn’t care what happened to me. All he cares about is getting the bragging rights to having four sons in the military.

  “You’re old enough to take care of yourself,” his father continued. He reached for the pepper with his free hand, still stirring with the other. “If you don’t want to go into the program, it’s your call.”

  Alex held very still. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the Major had just told Alex that he missed him or that he was proud of him. Or maybe even that he loved him.

  “That means a lot to me,” Alex finally answered. It seemed like the right coded response to his father’s coded message.

  Alex turned around and pulled the bread out of one of the grocery bags. He took out six pieces and stuck four in the toaster.

  “Dad, before Mom comes back, I need you to tell me what the story is with Clean Slate,” Alex said, staring down at the coils in the toaster as they turned from black to orange. “I mean, will you be going after my friends now?”

  “Project Clean Slate is classified to the highest level,” the Major answered. “But I will tell you that your friends have nothing to fear from us.”

  “And that’s all you can say—even to me?” Alex challenged.

  “Yes,” his father said evenly. “Hand me some plates.”

  Alex pulled three plates out of the cabinet and passed them over. The toast popped up, and he added slices next to the eggs his father was dishing out. A moment later he heard his mother’s heels clicking toward them. He didn’t have much more time alone with his dad.

  “I just want to say thanks for trying to get me back,” he blurted out.

  The Major turned to Alex and waited until Alex met his gaze. “I would do anything to keep you safe,” his father answered, his voice coming out choked and harsh. “Anything. Don’t you know that?”

  I do now, Alex thought.

  “I’m thinking I should go through a wormhole and back,” Maria told Liz as they drove to the Crashdown Café for their afternoon shift.

  “Why?” Liz asked. She reached over and pulled the wheel a little to the right. Maria had the tendency to let the car drift into the wrong lane when she got caught up in what she was saying.

  “Because did you see how great Alex looked?” Maria asked. “Shampoo-commercial hair, soap-commercial skin. He even seemed a little more muscle-y or something. And Michael’s brother? He could be on a billboard. I wouldn’t mind seeing him a hundred feet tall.”

  Liz made another small adjustment to the wheel. “If we ever figure out how to open a worm-hole ourselves, we can start a spa. The Wormhole Ranch, specializing in space travel facials. You could give aromatherapy sessions, too.”

  “Maybe,” Maria said. “Although I wouldn’t mind keeping the wormhole as my personal beauty secret. And yours, I guess.” She snorted as she pulled into the Crashdown’s parking lot. “Like you need it. Look at you. It’s no wonder you ended up with the perfect boyfriend.”

  My amazing boyfriend who practically goes into a coma while we’re kissing, Liz thought, climbing out of the car. “Well, Michael’s brother is up for grabs,” she commented.

  “Yeah, if I can’t have the real thing, why not take the fat-free version?” Maria joked. They headed toward the restaurant.

  “Next time I see Michael, I’m telling him you think he’s fat,” Liz teased. She pushed open the door, and the first few bars of the Close Encounters theme played. But the sound was almost obscured by the music coming out of her papa’s office.

  “Oh no.” Maria gasped. “That’s The Doors, isn’t it? Are we late?”

  Liz checked her watch. “Not late enough.” Her papa only played The Doors when he was in a heinously bad mood. So whatever had his boxers in a bunch was big.

  Before she and Maria were halfway to the counter, her papa burst out of his office. No, not big, she realized when she saw his face. Make that enormous. Make that nuclear.

  You’d think that a guy who walked around in Grateful Dead T-shirts with his hair in a ponytail would be laid-back. But no. Liz’s father had a quick temper—and he wasn’t afraid to show it.

  “Your mother came in for lunch today,” Mr.
Ortecho told Maria as she and Liz headed toward the storage room in back that doubled as a changing room.

  “Uh, that’s nice,” Maria said nervously. She stopped in front of him, shifting from one foot to the other.

  Liz wondered if Maria was nervous because the throbbing vein in her papa’s temple looked like it was about to erupt or if she was nervous because she’d figured out the same thing Liz had—Liz’s father had found out that their weekend trip to the Carlsbad Caverns had been completely adult-free.

  Mr. Ortecho took a step toward Maria. Maria backed a step away.

  “She said it was so nice of me to take you two and your friends to the Caverns,” he continued.

  I got it in one, Liz thought. What am I going to say to him? It’s not like I can say that I absolutely had to go to the Caverns to try and bring Alex back home from another planet.

  “Which means you both lied to me and to her,” Mr. Ortecho said.

  “We really needed to—,” Maria began, taking another step back.

  “Enough,” Mr. Ortecho barked. “There’s no excuse for what you did, and I don’t want to listen to you try to come up with one.” He turned his full attention on Liz, his eyes glittering dangerously. “What I want to know is what else you’ve been lying about.”

  Liz glanced behind her at the dining room. At least the only customer was Mr. Orndorff, and he probably had his hearing aid turned off.

  “Nothing,” Liz promised him. It wasn’t completely true, but it was mainly true. Yes, there had been other nights that she’d had to lie about where she’d been, like the night they drove to Albuquerque to get Isabel and Adam away from DuPris. But she’d never been doing any of the things she knew her papa was worried about her doing—like drinking, like drugs, like following in her sister Rosa’s footsteps.

  “And I’m supposed to believe this? I’m supposed to believe that I just happened to find out about the one lie you’ve ever told me?” Her papa’s brown eyes seemed to turn darker as he spoke, darker and colder.

  Liz felt something harden inside her. She straightened her spine and met her father’s gaze without flinching.