The Outsider

by Melinda Metz

  She threw a cracker into the pond, and three ducks started a fight over it, quacking and flapping. “Sheriff Valenti is part of an organization called Project Clean Slate, which tracks down aliens. I don’t know exactly what he does when he finds them, but he thinks aliens are a threat to humans, so whatever he does can’t be good.”

  Liz took a deep breath and finally met Max’s gaze.

  Max felt as though she’d just shot him. He dropped down in the damp dirt near the edge of the pond. His legs felt weak and boneless. Max, Isabel, and Michael had spent hours talking about them, about what they would do if they ever discovered the aliens. But it felt a lot different now that the vague they was a real organization, with a real name. And that one of them was very close to finding Max, his sister, and his best friend.

  Liz sat down next to him. “Are you all right?”

  “Does Valenti know the truth about me?” Max asked in a strangled voice.

  “No. Kyle told him about the silver marks on my stomach. Valenti says he knows they were made by an alien. But I didn’t tell him anything,” Liz answered.

  Kyle saw Liz’s stomach? Max felt a stab of jealousy He told himself to get Over it. Now was definitely not the time.

  “There’s more. Valenti brought me down to the morgue. He showed me a man’s body with the same silver marks on its chest. He said . . . he said the same alien who healed me killed the man.”“I didn’t — ,” Max began.

  Liz ran her hand lightly down his arm. Max could feel her touch all the way down to his bones. “I know you didn’t do it, Max,” she said. “I know you could never kill anyone.”

  There was no trace of deceit in her aura. She meant what she said absolutely. She knew the truth about him, the truth he thought he could never reveal to any human, and she still trusted him.

  Suddenly the rest of what Liz had said hit him. “Valenti took you to the-morgue? That’s so sadistic. If he did that to me, I would have been sure one of my parents had gotten killed or something.”

  “That’s exactly what I did think. It’s what he wanted me to think,” Liz said. “I guess he figured I’d break down and tell him everything.”

  Max still couldn’t believe she hadn’t broken down. “That man he showed you has to be the guy I tried to heal at the mall. He had a heart attack. I tried to save him — I was making it look like CPR — but I was too late.”

  Liz nodded. “The handprints looked the same size as yours.”

  “How did you know . . . how did you know I didn’t kill him?” With all that evidence, how could she still have believed in him? Max thought he would only find that kind of trust and loyalty from Isabel and Michael. He never imagined it could come from an outsider.

  Liz met his gaze, and he thought he saw tears shining in her eyes. “I wasn’t sure,” she admitted. “I . . . I thought you might have done it. I’m sorry, Max. So much has happened so fast. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Max wanted to wrap her in his arms and comfort her. But he wasn’t sure it would be comfort. Just because she didn’t think he was a killer didn’t mean she wanted him touching her.

  “What convinced you?” he asked.

  Liz gave a snort of laughter. “A mouse. I saw you heal Fred in the lab. And I realized that someone who cared so much about a little mouse life could never be a murderer.”

  Her expression turned serious. “I shouldn’t have needed the mouse as proof, Max. I’ve seen you do hundreds of kind, good things over the years. You always know when someone is hurting, and you always try to help. You’re the best guy I know. Really.”

  Max felt as if someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart. He’d never guessed Liz gave him a thought when they weren’t working on one of their lab experiments. But she had noticed things about him, and she cared about him. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice.

  He grabbed a handful of crackers and threw them into the pond. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you remember anything about the crash?” Liz asked. “I know I freaked out when you tried to talk to me about it before, but I’d like to hear it now if you want to tell me.”

  “No. I wasn’t even born yet — that’s probably why I survived. I was in some kind of incubator when the ship went down.” Max picked up a stick and started poking a row of holes in the dirt. “The first memory I have is of breaking out of the incubator pod and being in a big cave. I was about seven years old — well, that’s how old the social services people thought I was, anyway, even though I’d been in the pod for a long, long time.”

  Liz picked up another stick and started drawing petals and stems on the holes Max made, turning them into flowers. She shook her head. “You must have been so scared. What happened to you? How did you make it out of the desert all alone?”

  “I wasn’t alone.” Max hesitated. He’d spent so many years not talking about this. He’d been the one who made Isabel and Michael swear they would never say a single word about their past to anyone. But Liz had gone to the mat for him, and she deserved the whole truth. Not just about him — about all of them.

  “Isabel was with me — we shared the pod.” Max said.

  Liz nodded. “I wondered if she was, you know, because she’s your sister.”

  “We picked a direction and started walking. We lucked out. We ended up at the highway just as Mr. and Mrs. Evans were driving back into town. They picked us up and took us home, and we never left.

  “I don’t know why they fought so hard to keep us. Two kids who couldn’t speak English, who couldn’t speak any language. Kids who didn’t know how to use a toothbrush or a toilet. Kids who had been found wandering naked along the highway.”

  Max hurled his stick away. He hadn’t thought about all this junk for so long:

  “Our parents — our adoptive parents — were amazing,” he continued. “They took turns teaching us at home until we were ready to start at Roswell Elementary.”

  “You must have learned fast. In third grade you knew the answer to every question the teacher asked. I still remember,” Liz said.

  “You still remember because you’re so competitive. You didn’t like anyone else getting points from Ms. Shapiro,” Max teased. “But it’s true. Isabel and I were both pretty much able to absorb information immediately. When our parents read us a book, we could always recite the whole thing back to them after hearing it just once. I guess we have really good adaptive skills. I think our systems, and our bodies, patterned themselves after what they found here.”

  “Wow.” Liz shook her head. “I guess you don’t have to spend much time on homework.”

  “Not really.” Max admitted. “But my parents are always bringing home books — a lot of their law books, some medical books and stuff. They don’t let me slack off.”

  He grinned, thinking of his dad’s constant, goodnatured nagging. What would his life be like if the Evanses hadn’t found him?

  It would be like Michael’s life, he realized suddenly Bouncing from foster home to foster home, never feeling like you belonged.

  “Did you understand what you were?” Liz asked. “I mean, did either of you know where you came from?”

  “No, at least not at first,” Max said.

  “I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for you,” Liz said. “I have this huge extended family right here in town. I know everything about them — and they know everything about me. And it doesn’t stop there. At bedtime my parents used to tell me stories about my ancestors.”

  Liz stared out at the lake. “You know, in Spanish there are way more verb forms you can use to talk about the past than the future. I guess that shows how important the past is to my family”

  She turned to Max. “I wish I could give you some of my history. Then you wouldn’t feel so lonely on this . . . world.”

  “It got easier when I started school,” Max said. “Because I met Michael, and we both realized pretty quickly that we were . . . alike.”

>   Liz’s eyes widened. “Michael? He’s a . . . one of . . . He’s one, too?”

  “You can say it. A-li-en,” Max answered. “I don’t think there’s a politically correct term. We don’t even know what planet we’re from, so we don’t know what to call ourselves. And yeah, Michael is one, too.”

  He frowned a little. He hadn’t meant to tell her about Michael. But somehow it just came out. He couldn’t seem to keep any secrets from Liz.

  “Are there more of you? Is it like this whole underground community” Liz asked.

  Max scrubbed his face with his fingers. He knew it was normal for Liz to have a lot of questions, but he was starting to feel like some kind of freak. “Just the three of us. I think. We’ve never seen any indication that there are others.

  “When we got older, we spent a lot of time talking, trying to remember everything we possibly could. We all had these memories of another place, a place like nothing we’d seen, even in books. I think they’re shared memories that people on my planet are born with — you know, like humans have inborn instincts.”

  “I think I saw a few of them when you let me connect with you,” Liz said, “I saw a sky with acid green clouds.”

  “Yeah, Michael and Isabel and I all have that memory, even though none of us has ever seen anything like those clouds.”

  Suddenly Max wondered what else Liz had seen during the connection. Did she know how he felt about her? He hoped not. He’d already had too many humiliating conversations with Liz. He never wanted to have the one where she said she liked him as a friend. That would make him want to shrivel up and die.

  He cleared his throat. “We did some research and discovered where Michael had been found. Then we got a map and drew a circle that encompassed that spot and the place where our parents found Isabel and me. We started making searches of the area — first on our bikes and later in my Jeep. And we finally stumbled on the cave. Our cave. When we saw the incubation pods, we pretty much realized the truth about ourselves. By then we’d all heard the story of the Roswell Incident — so we knew that the silvery material of our pods matched the description of some of the material of the debris found at the crash site.”

  “Do you know how the pods got to the cave?” Liz asked.

  “We talked about that. We think one of our parents must have managed to hide the pods before they died.”

  Max knew the aliens in the ship must have been badly injured from the crash. But someone had climbed out of the wreckage and done whatever it had taken to save Max, Isabel, and Michael. Whoever it was must have loved us, Max thought. He felt his throat tighten up.

  “Valenti got the facts pretty much right. He said he thought an alien child had survived the crash,” Liz said. “I don’t know how he knew that.”

  Max felt stricken. Maybe the alien who moved them had tried to go back to the ship, tried to save the others. And maybe Valenti’s organization had found that alien, captured it, tortured it, gotten information from it.

  My parent, Max thought. Maybe Valenti’s people hurt one of my parents.

  “We’ve got to come up with a plan,” Liz was saying. “Valent is not going to give up. He’s going to track you down, no matter how long it takes.”

  “You’ve already done enough,” Max told her. “You kept our secret. Now you have to walk away. I don’t want to put you in any more danger.”

  “Look at me,” Liz said fiercely. Her hand touched his arm, and he could feel its warmth and smoothness. She was so beautiful, Max thought with a pang. “I am not going to just walk away You saved my life, and I’m never going to forget that.”

  Relief flooded Max. He wanted Liz out of danger. He wanted her safe. But he also wanted her to help him, to understand him . . . to be with him. And she would. She wasn’t going to just disappear.

  “Then I guess we better go tell Isabel and Michael what you found out,” Max said.

  “And Maria,” Liz told him. “She knows, too. We’re all in this together.”

  And that means we’re all in danger, he thought.

  10

  “I feel like I’ve been in a tornado,” Max said as they pulled into the school parking lot. He exchanged a shy, tentative smite with Liz. Everything was still the same, but everything was different.

  “I thought exactly the same thing when Valenti dropped me off after our little visit to the morgue,” Liz answered.

  That happened to her a lot with Maria — they were always finishing each other’s sentences and making the same associations and connections. But Liz had never felt such a connection to a guy before.

  “Are you ready to go in?” Max asked.

  Liz stared at Max’s eyes, his face. How come she had never noticed how handsome he was?

  “Let’s wait until the bell rings, then we can blend better. We don’t need to get busted for cutting class on top of everything else.”

  “Liz Ortecho, outlaw,” Max teased. But he didn’t look at her, and his voice sounded flat and lifeless. He picked up the empty cracker wrapper and smoothed it out. He folded it in half, then in half again, and kept folding until it was a tiny square.

  The stuff about Valenti is all starting to sink in, Liz thought as she watched him. She wished she could come up with something to say that would make him feel better. But she knew there wasn’t anything, so she just sat with him, hoping that at least helped a little.

  Maybe I should hold his hand or something, thought. She stared at his hand on the seat. The hand that had touched her wound, that had healed her. Could she help him feel better by holding his hand?

  “Did you have a nice talk with my dad” a loud voice called, jerking her out of her thoughts.

  Liz looked toward the voice and saw Kyle Valenti heading for Max’s Jeep.

  The bell rang, the shrill sound blasting through the school doors. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to deal with Kyle right now,” Liz said, keeping her voice low.

  “Should I get rid of him?” Max asked.

  “No, let’s just go.” They climbed out of the Jeep and started across the parking lot. Liz walked fast, but not too fast. If Kyle thought she was scared, it would only encourage him.

  She heard Kyle’s boot heels thumping against the asphalt as he followed them. “Interesting” he called in a snide voice. “You get pulled out of school for questioning, and then you and Max Evans take off together. This is very interesting. I bet my dad would think so too.”

  Kyle’s right, Liz thought. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out Liz might try to warn the alien she was protecting. And if Valenti heard about her cutting school with Max, he would at the very least be curious about Max — who he was, why Liz would run to him after the trip to the morgue.

  Liz turned to face Kyle. Max moved in protectively, standing close beside her — and that gave her an idea.

  “Why? Is your father some kind of pervert or something?” she asked Kyle. “Does he like to hear all the details of who is making out with who” Liz slid her arm around Max’s waist. She could feel the tension in his body, every muscle tight.

  I hope he’s not too freaked to go along with my story, she thought. Then she felt Max’s arm loop around her shoulders. Good. “I talked Max into cutting class. We wanted to have some time alone,” Liz added.

  Kyle wasn’t nearly as icy and controlled as his father. If she pushed him just a little harder, she could probably make him forget all about his suspicions. She’d just give him something more interesting to think about.

  “Sometimes you just can’t wait for school to end, you know? And both my parents were out all afternoon, So . . .”

  “You and Evans — right. I believe that,” Kyle said sarcastically.

  Liz raised her eyebrows. “Well, I guess guys don’t really notice other guys’ bodies.”

  She let Kyle figure that one out for himself. She knew he got it when an angry flush colored his face. He pushed his way past Max and Liz without another word.

  “I hope I didn’t dama
ge your little male ego,” she called after him. She wanted Kyle to stay mad. It would keep him from thinking too much.

  Max started to move away, but Liz wrapped her other arm around his waist and pulled him closer. “I have a feeling Kyle will be watching us. He’s not as dumb as he looks,” she told him quietly “We should kiss or something.”

  “Um, if you really think we should,” Max answered. His voice sounded lower than usual, huskier.

  Liz understood why actors always said doing love scenes wasn’t sexy. It was like she’d forgotten how to kiss. She couldn’t decide what to do with her hands. All she could think about was Kyle watching them. If this didn’t work . . .

  Max tilted her chin back with his thumb, and she found herself staring up into his eyes. Suddenly it was a lot harder to think about Kyle. Max lowered his head, and she closed her eyes, expecting to feel his lips brush against hers. Instead he kissed the side of her neck. The unexpected sensation sent a shock through her.

  His hands moved to her waist, pulling her tighter against him. Liz felt a low tremor coursing through him. Or maybe it's me, she thought. Maybe I’m the one trembling

  Max kissed his way up to her earlobe. “Do you think he’s gone?” he whispered.

  Who? she thought. Then she remembered. Kyle. This was all a show for Kyle. Her heart was thudding crazily. And Max’s was, too. She could feel it through his shirt. His warmth, his strength.

  Liz reached up and wove her fingers through Max’s hair, holding him close. “Maybe we should wait another minute,” she whispered. “Just to be sure,”

  “This is your fault, Max.” Isabel’s voice shook with anger.

  Max knew it would be tense with Isabel, Michael, Liz, and Maria in one room to talk about the Valenti situation. But he hadn’t expected it to be this bad. He felt as if he were sitting in a minefield instead of his living room. The wrong word from any of them could cause an explosion that would destroy them all.

  “If you hadn’t healed her, this wouldn’t have happened,” Isabel cried.

  Max knew she was terrified. He wanted to tell her that he would protect her from Valenti no matter what it took. But that would only make things worse. Isabel hated to admit that she was scared — it made her feel even more vulnerable or something. If he tried to reassure her, he knew she’d totally go off on him.