by Melinda Metz
“The second I got back, I felt you,” Nikolas whispered from behind her. “I had to meet you. If you hadn’t come walking into my dream, I would have come into yours.” Nikolas stepped over the rock next to Isabel. He sat down and pulled her down next to him.
“Got back from where?” Isabel asked. Her heart was still pounding, but somehow she didn’t know whether it was from fear or from the excitement of feeling him so close to her.
Nikolas didn’t answer.
“Look. I know you said you don’t like questions,” she said. “But if you want me to stay, you’ve got to start talking. Your choice.”
“Okay, okay,” Nikolas said. “I broke out of my pod first. I waited for a while, but I got cold and hungry. I left the cave. I dragged my pod with me—my own little security blanket. I got adopted. My family moved to California a few months later,” he said in a singsong voice. “A few months ago I started getting these dreams and visions. I knew I had to come back. So I arranged it. And here I am. Happy?”
Isabel stared at him, shocked. A Project Clean Slate agent might have been able to come up with that whole story. But if so, they knew a lot more about the aliens than Isabel had ever imagined.
Nikolas’s golden brown eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “Don’t you believe me?” he murmured. Isabel could think of only one way to test him.
Slowly she reached out and touched Nikolas’s face. She took a deep breath, trying to form a connection. Once they were connected, she would be able to see Nikolas’s memories. She would know the truth.
Nikolas knocked her hand away and sprang to his feet. “What the hell are you doing? You think I’m just going to let you open my head and take a look around?”
So he knew she was trying to form a connection. And he knew about the pods. And he knew about dream walking. “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?” she whispered. “You really are one of us.”
“Well, duh.”
Isabel shook her head, trying to clear away the confusion that seemed to be clouding her thoughts. Another alien. Another one of them.
Just like she had always dreamed.
“I’m sorry I tried to connect without asking or anything. It’s just … I thought you might be with Project Clean Slate,” Isabel explained in a rush.
Nikolas sat back down. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s a government agency that was formed to track down aliens living on Earth,” Isabel said. Suddenly the confusion was gone. Suddenly she wanted to tell him everything. He was one of them! Practically family. She felt as though she had to explain her entire life to him, the life with Max and Michael that Nikolas had missed, growing up alone. “Sheriff Valenti—the Roswell sheriff—he’s one of them,” she added. “He’s looking for us.”
She glanced over at Nikolas, trying to gauge his reaction. When she’d found out the truth about Valenti, it had terrified her.
“So that’s why you were so scared. Because you thought I was an alien hunter or something?” Nikolas asked.
“Yeah,” she answered. “You’ve got to be careful, Nikolas. Really, really careful. You have to stop using your powers. Even little stuff like what you did to the mascot or to my golf ball. That was you, right?”
Nikolas nodded. But he didn’t look upset. Isabel wondered if he was in shock or something.
“I don’t get it,” Nikolas said.
“I know. When I found out they were watching for us, I was blown away. But if you’re careful, then—”
“No. That’s not what I mean,” Nikolas interrupted. His golden brown eyes burned with intensity. “I don’t get why you’re afraid of Valenti—or anyone else. I mean, they’re only humans. How can you even think that one of them could hurt you? You’re the one with the power.”
Isabel blinked in surprise. I’m the one with the power. The thought repeated itself over and over. I’m the one with the power.
Nikolas was right. Why was she so frightened of Valenti when she was the one with the power?
Isabel felt all her muscles begin to relax. Muscles she hadn’t even realized were tense. I got so used to being afraid, she thought. It started feeling normal to me.
“This is so amazing,” she whispered. Impulsively she reached for Nikolas’s hand. “We didn’t know … we thought we were the only ones. It never even occurred to us that there might be another one of us. You have to meet Max and Michael.”
“I started thinking I might be wrong about you and Max and Michael,” Nikolas told her. “I’ve been watching you for a couple of weeks, and you never used your powers. Now I know why I still can’t believe you let some human scare you. And there are three of you. I could take on Valenti by myself, easy, So could you.”
An image of Valenti lying on the ground at Isabel’s feet, begging for mercy, flashed into Isabel’s mind. She smiled.
“Max believes in being careful,” Isabel answered.
“Careful. Is that what you call it? What a waste.” Nikolas reached for a strand of Isabel’s blond hair and slowly twirled it around his finger. “You’re lucky I showed up, Isabel,” he murmured. “Someone needs to teach you what your powers are for.”
Alex glanced across the quad. Isabel and that new guy Nikolas were still over by the pecan tree, talking. Talking and standing very close together.
“Can I have some of your pork rinds?” Max asked.
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” Alex shoved the bag at him without looking away from Isabel. Max, Liz, Michael, and Maria probably thought he was pathetic. And they were right. He knew he should stop staring at Isabel like some kind of stalker. But he couldn’t. It was physically impossible.
It was the hair. He knew it. Red hair could look amazing on girls. But there was no guy equivalent. Just a bunch of clowns with, like, orange hair.
If Alex didn’t have red hair, Isabel wouldn’t be over there with Nikolas. She’d be sitting fight here, next to him. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Alex thought.
Alex shot another quick look at Isabel and Nikolas. They were heading over. Oh, great. Now he was going to be tortured up close while he was trying to eat lunch.
“Hey, guys.” Isabel squeezed into the circle between Michael and Maria. She grabbed Nikolas’s hand and pulled him down next to her. Alex noticed she wasn’t too quick about letting go of his hand, either.
Isabel did a quick introduction. She basically talked directly to Alex’s ear when she got to him. It’s worse than I thought, Alex realized. She can’t even stand to look me in the eye.
It’s not like he and Isabel were going out or anything. But he’d gotten the impression that she thought something was happening between them. He definitely felt something when they were together, something special.
Alex caught Liz and Maria exchanging one of those significant looks girls give each other. It was pretty clear that they thought it was uncool of Isabel to show up with another guy when Alex was right there. But they were his friends before Michael, Max, and Isabel ever joined their group. Of course they would side with him.
“We’ve got something to tell you,” Isabel said. She sounded all breathy and excited. Not at all the way she usually did.
I feel like one of the guests on some dumb talk show, Alex thought. I know there’s no way I’m going to like what I’m about to hear.
“Nikolas is one of us,” Isabel announced, glancing back and forth between Max and Michael. “His parents were on the spaceship, too. He broke out of his incubation pod before we did and got adopted. His family moved away before he started school. That’s why we didn’t know.”
Alex felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Oh, man. Nikolas didn’t just have brown hair. He was an alien, too. There was no way Alex could compete.
For a moment everyone just stared at Nikolas.
“Wow, you must have been so lonely,” Maria finally said. “At least Max, Isabel, and Michael had each other.”
“I don’t buy it,” Michael said before Nikolas could respond. He turned to Isabel. “I
can’t believe you just brought this guy over without talking to us first. He could be anyone. He could work for Valenti. What were you thinking, Isabel?”
Alex’s first impulse was to defend Isabel. But he wasn’t sure she would want that from him right now.
“I didn’t believe him right away, either,” Isabel answered. “But I went into Nikolas’s dream. He has the same memories we do—of the home planet. And he knew exactly where our cave was.”
Max shook his head. “I don’t care—I can’t feel his emotions like I feel yours and Michael’s. I think he’s lying.”
Nikolas snorted. “You guys are pathetic. You’ve been so busy not using your powers that you don’t even know what powers you have! Don’t you know how to block your emotions? You don’t feel me because I don’t want you to feel me.”
“That’s a pretty convenient excuse,” Michael muttered.
“If you don’t believe me, I could just use my powers to set that tree on fire,” Nikolas told Michael.
“Didn’t Isabel warn you not to use your powers?” Max asked, his voice low and urgent.
“See, he’s definitely lying. We can’t use our power to set fires,” Michael said at the same time.
Nikolas rolled his eyes.
“Nikolas’s power is a lot more developed than ours,” Isabel explained. “He’s going to give me some lessons.”
Look how fast she jumps in to defend him, Alex thought. And look how obvious it is that she plans on spending a lot more time with him.
“I don’t want you taking any lessons from him,” Max told Isabel. “I don’t want either of you using your power at all.”
“You know what? I don’t really care what you want,” Nikolas shot back.
“Uh, this isn’t the part where you challenge each other to some kind of battle to the death, is it?” Alex asked. “’Cause if it is, I want to get out of the way. This is a new shirt, and my mom will freak if I come home with any blood or brain matter on it.”
Nikolas and Max both ignored him. Which was probably a good thing. He didn’t think he really wanted to find himself in the middle of something with those two. Alex could hold his own in a fight. Growing up with three older brothers had made sure of that. But none of his brothers had alien power.
“If you use your power, you put us all in danger,” Michael said. Alex noticed the muscles in Michael’s neck knotting up. He was not too thrilled with Nikolas. And Alex couldn’t help feeling a little happy about that.
“Didn’t Isabel tell you about Sheriff Valenti?” Max asked. “The guy’s mission in life is to track down aliens.”
“And he works for an organization called Project Clean Slate,” Michael added. “So it’s not likely that he’s looking for us just to say hi.”
Nikolas stared back and forth between Michael and Max. “Wait. Am I getting this? I knew Isabel was afraid. But you two are also scared of a human? That’s like being afraid of a fly. If this Valenti guy gets too close, I’ll just squash him.”
“Nikolas is right,” Isabel insisted. “Why are we so scared of Valenti? We have the power. He doesn’t.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” Liz spoke up for the first time. Her dark eyes glittered with anger. “Valenti isn’t a fly. He’s dangerous to all of us.” She tuned to Nikolas. “You don’t know him. We do. We know what he’s capable of. You have to listen to what he did to me. He—”
“I don’t listen to insects.”
Liz’s head snapped back as if she had been slapped. Maria’s face grew pale.
Nikolas stood up and strode across the quad.
What a complete and total jerk, Alex thought. At least Isabel got to find out the truth about him right away.
But Isabel jumped to her feet and followed Nikolas without even glancing at any of them.
“I can’t believe she did that!” Michael burst out. “I cannot believe she just plopped down and said, ‘Oh, hi, this is Nikolas. He’s an alien, too’”
“She should have come to us first. Alone,” Max agreed. “It’s like it doesn’t even occur to her that this is something that involves all six of us. That guy Nikolas could put us all in danger. What is she thinking?”
It’s pretty obvious what she’s thinking, Alex answered silently. She’s thinking she wants the brown-haired boy. And I’m guessing that’s much more than okay with him.
“Hey, Nikolas, wait up,” Isabel called.
Stacey walked out of the bathroom in time to see Isabel trotting after Nikolas. Her lips turned up in a smug little smile. “Don’t think you’ve won our bet,” she said softly “I saw you in the quad, and it looked like you were holding his hand, not the other way around.” She wagged her finger in Isabel’s face. “That doesn’t count.”
“Oh, shut up, Stacey,” Isabel muttered. She continued after Nikolas, but she slowed down a little. It was too humiliating to be seen literally chasing a guy That was not her style.
Nikolas stopped at his locker. Isabel forced herself to walk over to the drinking fountain and take a few sips. Then when she figured she wouldn’t look pathetically eager, she wandered over and leaned against the locker next to Nikolas’s.
“Max worries. He can’t help himself. I think it’s a big-brother thing,” she said. “Michael’s totally protective, too.”
“Us worrying about some sheriff is like a general with a nuclear warhead worrying about a kid with a BB gun,” Nikolas said.
When Isabel was a little girl, she used to have nightmares where Sheriff Valenti was a big wolf chasing her. He kept getting closer and closer, his long, sharp teeth dripping saliva. Even when she got older, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someday he was going to capture her, lock her away somewhere, and do all kinds of hideous tests on her—ending up with her on some dissecting table.
“I really want you to teach me how to build up my power,” Isabel said. “I want to be able to do what you said—squash Valenti like a fly if I have to.”
She didn’t care what Max said. Because Nikolas was right. With her power she could be the strong one. She would love to give Valenti a few nightmares about her. She would love to stop being careful.
She would also love having an excuse to spend some time around Nikolas. No, make that a lot of time.
Nikolas slammed his locker shut. “I think I can fit you in,” he told her. His eyes traveled slowly up her body from the tips of her boots to her face and lingered on her lips.
“Um, cool,” Isabel stammered. She tried not to stare at his mouth. But it looked so kissable. When was Nikolas going to kiss her? If he didn’t make his move soon, she’d just have to do it herself.
“Well, we’re all going to a movie tonight. You should come,” she added. Isabel didn’t usually ask guys out. In fact, she never asked guys out. She liked to make them work for it a little.
But Nikolas was new in town. He didn’t know anyone. And besides, she felt like she was addicted to him. She couldn’t stand the idea of going through the whole weekend without seeing him.
“Does we include your human friends?” Nikolas asked.
“Yeah. I know it’s weird having humans know the truth about us. It really freaked me out at first,” Isabel said quickly. “But the three of them totally came through for Max and Michael and me. They helped us get Valenti off our trail.”
“They aren’t even the same species as us. And they smell funny,” Nikolas answered. “Sitting in some movie with a crowd of them doesn’t sound like fun to me.”
“Come on. You’ve never had one human friend?” Isabel asked.
“Nope, but I did have a dog once,” Nikolas said. “Hanging out with humans is probably part of the reason your power is dull. You spend too much time with them, you start thinking like one of them, then you start believing you’re one of them.”
Isabel thought about trying to convince him he was wrong, then decided to skip it. Things were just starting up between them. She didn’t want to risk blowing everything with a stupid fight.
> Nikolas would get to know Alex, Maria, and Liz eventually. And when he did, he’d change his mind. He had to.
Max knew Liz was coming down the hall behind him. He wasn’t sure exactly how he knew, but he definitely did. Maybe he picked up on some little things—like the sound of her footsteps or the smell of her shampoo—and processed them on a subliminal level.
He glanced over his shoulder. Yeah, there she was, striding down the hall like she had somewhere very important to be. Liz always walked like that no matter where she was heading.
“You want a ride home?” he called. Because he hadn’t had enough of those totally awkward, numb-brained, tongue-tied moments with Liz.
“Actually, I’m going to the Crashdown,” Liz answered as she caught up to him. “Papa still hasn’t figured out how to do the work schedules on the computer, so I have to show him again.”
Liz spent a ton of time at her family’s alien-theme restaurant. Back when he had a total crush on her and she was only thinking of him as her lab partner, Max used to eat at the Crashdown Cafe constantly just to give himself a little more Liz time. He’d hang out, watching her, pretending he wasn’t watching her. Now doing that would be too weird for both of them.
“So … Nikolas,” Liz said as they headed out of the building and over to the parking lot.
“Yeah. Nikolas. I’m sorry he was such a jerk. What he said about humans? That was totally unacceptable,” Max said. “And Isabel didn’t even open her mouth to tell him how wrong he was. I couldn’t believe that.”
“Max, you shouldn’t be apologizing for Nikolas,” Liz answered. “Just because he’s an alien, too, doesn’t mean you’re responsible for him.”
Max shook his head. “I think we’re all going to have to be responsible for him. If he uses his powers the wrong way, Sheriff Valenti will go after him … and that’s dangerous for everyone,” Max said. “Any ideas?”
“I know,” Liz said. “I’sll throw Nikolas a surprise welcome-to-Roswell party. He’ll be so touched that he’ll realize I’m not really an insect.”
Max snorted. “That’s better than my plan.”
