Chapter 6

Liz and Kyle met Isabel at the old quarry a few miles outside of town, attempting to get far enough away from Roswell where they wouldn't attract any unwanted attention. Isabel was already waiting there when they arrived, standing at the edge of the rocky terrain, staring sadly off into the distance. She turned to face them at the sound of Kyle’s mustang pulling up behind her, and her eyes were weary as she watched them approach.

Liz’s heart clenched at the sight of her. In a mere day their worlds had all completely changed, and Liz didn’t blame Isabel for being confused, or untrusting.

"Isabel." Liz greeted her gently. "Thank you for giving me a chance here. I wouldn’t have come to you, but I don’t know who else to turn to."

"It’s okay." Isabel replied, glancing hesitantly at her, and then back to Kyle. "Kyle was pretty convincing…but just in case. I hope you’ll understand that I want to be cautious. I want to connect with you to make sure that you are who you say you are."

"Of course." Liz agreed readily. "Unlike Tess I don’t have anything to hide from you."

Isabel shook her head, laughing nervously. "God, that sounds so odd coming from her mouth."

"I’m sure." Liz replied wryly. "But I swear to you Isabel, I am who I say I am. Connect with me and see for yourself."

Isabel nodded, taking a few steps forward, and leaning in to take her head between her hand. Focusing on their locked eyes, Liz took deep breaths, just as Max had shown her over a year earlier, and waited for the connection to be made.

She knew the moment that Isabel was in, as the world seemed to flash before her eyes, quick, incomprehensible images of Isabel, Max, Michael, Isabel’s parents…and then as quickly as it began it was over, and Isabel was pulling back, staring at Liz in awe.

"It’s really you in there, isn’t it?" She marveled. "It’s so hard to look at you and not think about her…I hate her so much right now for what she did to Alex."

"For what she me too." Liz corrected her in an angry voice. "Remember, I wanted to fix this, but she decided to take advantage of me too. Now I’m stuck like this until I find a way to undo it, and even then who knows if I can get her to cooperate."

"You’ll get her to cooperate." Isabel smirked. "Because if she doesn’t all you have to do is get Max to make a connection with you, and he’ll know everything. Then she’ll be stuck living out the remainder of her days completely human, and completely hated by Max. I think those are Tess’s two worst nightmares."

"Yeah, probably." Liz laughed with her, before sighing and taking a deep breath. "Isabel…what about my powers…her powers…whatever they are? Can you help me learn how to control them?"

"I can try." Isabel determined. "A lot of it depends on you, though. You have to be able to control them otherwise there’s nothing I can do to help you. We tried to help Michael learn to control his powers for years, and he was never able to…he just didn’t have the focus or emotional control."

Liz nodded. "Focus and emotional control are things I should be able to handle, but I guess we’ll see, right?"

"Yeah…I guess so." Isabel agreed. "What exactly has happened so far? How did you know that you had her powers? Was it an emotional thing, or did you try to do something with them?"

"Well…emotional I guess." Liz explained, her brow furrowing as she focused back on the events of that morning. "Today when I woke up I melted Tess’s alarm clock. I suppose I was frustrated with it for waking me up. I didn’t sleep well last night."

"Is that everything?" Isabel checked.

"Well, no. Then I mind warped my lab partner by mistake today. I didn’t mean to…he was just frustrating me, and then it happened." Liz stared at Isabel with sobering eyes. "I don’t want to screw with people’s heads the way she does, Isabel. That’s why I need to be able to control this thing. I can’t be like her."

"You’re not like her." Isabel insisted. "We’ll do everything we can to make sure you can control it, Liz. Don’t worry."

"So where should we start?" Liz asked in a determined tone.

Isabel studied their surroundings for a moment, as if trying to decide exactly what to do. Finally she settled on a cliff not too far away and headed toward it.

"We’ll work over here, that way if you do anything, uh, explosive, it will be hidden a bit." Isabel decided. She began to try to explain things to Liz as the three friends headed off. "The main thing to understand Liz, is that everything that you do with your powers is based on the energy inside you. You make things happen. You control it. Your powers never control you."

"If my powers start to control me than we’re all as good as dead." Liz continued in a soft voice.

"Exactly." Isabel agreed. "So what you need to do is find that energy inside you. You have to know what it is and be able to feel it rushing around inside of you. Could you feel anything different when you did either of those things before?"

"Well…no." Liz admitted. "But I also wasn’t looking for anything different."

"So this time you need to look for it." Isabel told her firmly. "We’re going to try to do some simple tricks together. I’m going to connect with you and lead you in them, and as we do them, you need to look for that feeling inside you. Once you’ve found it, we can work towards you doing things on your own."

"Okay." Liz nodded eagerly. "Let’s get started."

~~~~~ ~~~~

Kyle watched Liz and Isabel from a short distance away, not really wanting to be there in case something weird went down, but he didn’t want to abandon his friends. He had been to hell and back for the past few days between finding out that Tess was untrustworthy, that Liz was Tess, and everything with Alex, and as a result he found himself feeling oddly protective of Liz. He didn’t want anything to happen to her, and he wouldn’t hesitate to pull her away from Isabel if he thought something was going to happen.

Still, everything seemed like it was going well. Liz and Isabel had stood there quietly talking for a long time, their hands connected, and then slowly they started doing those weird alien tricks: changing the shape of rocks, changing the color of rocks, melting a handful of rocks together.

Somewhere down the line something had changed, because they released hands, and Liz started doing things alone, while Isabel watched on approvingly.

Now though, Kyle was getting suspicious. They were standing there with their heads close together, occasionally glancing his way. If he didn’t know any better he’d think they were talking about him…

Suddenly Kyle blinked at the sound of his name. Turning to look behind him he saw her walking towards him. The girl literally of his dreams…Jody Ann Paterson. Choking, Kyle just stared at her blankly, as she walked closer…closer, calling his name lovingly, her hair flowing back in the breeze.

"Wait a sec…" Kyle suddenly growled, glancing back at where Liz and Isabel stood a few feet away, Liz’s face scrunched up in concentration. "Stop that!" He yelled, jumping up and crossing the distance between himself and his two friends. "I’m not your lab rat! No mind warping allowed!"

Liz broke her concentration quickly and she and Isabel exchanged a quick, mischievous grin before they both burst out laughing.

"Fine, fine…laugh away." Kyle growled. "It seems like you’ve got your powers under control, so can we go home now?"

"Okay, okay." Liz chuckled, taking a deep breath and calming herself. "We can go. Thanks for your help, Isabel."

"No problem." Isabel replied genuinely.

"Isabel." Liz’s expression suddenly went serious. "What are you going to tell Max about all of this?"

"Who knows?" Isabel grumbled. "He has to come home first. I’m going to kill him for leaving and not telling me where he was going. What do you want me to tell him?"

"Nothing yet." Liz sighed. "What we need to do is figure out the extent of what Tess was up to with Alex. Kyle and I might be able to do that better from a distance. We’re going to keep a close watch on her, but if she even suspects that the rest of you are on to her, who knows what will happen?"

"You’re right." Isabel agreed. "Plus I don’t know if Alex could deal with all of this yet. He’s still pretty torn up. It might be better if he didn’t know just how much is going on."

"Once we have a better idea of everything at risk here, we can figure out how we’re going to move on it."

~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

Isabel’s eyes darkened angrily as she pulled her car up to the house to see Max’s jeep innocently waiting in the driveway. Irritation bubbling up inside of her, Isabel rushed into the house, and back to his bedroom.

"Max!" She exclaimed at the sight of him lying innocently on the bed, his face in a book. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Hey Iz." He grinned innocently at her. "It’s nice to see you too."

"Damn it, Max!" Isabel cried. "I’m not joking here! I was worried about you!"

"It’s not that big of a deal, Iz." Max insisted calmly. "Michael was on one of those ‘escape from the world’ quests he sometimes gets on. He needed to mellow out a bit, and decided to go to Las Vegas."

"Las Vegas?" Isabel screeched, barely believing her ears.

"Yes, Las Vegas." Max replied. "Apparently Grandpa Dupree’s money was burning a hole in his pocket. He wanted to get rid of it. So I went with him to keep him out of trouble."

"Las Vegas?" Isabel repeated in a shocked tone. "I’ve been sitting here worrying like crazy about you two, and you were off playing in Las Vegas? Did you even think to call and tell me where you were?"

Max grinned sheepishly. "Well, I figured you’d be mad…"

"Mad?" Isabel marveled at his incredible understatement. "Mad doesn’t even begin to describe what I am feeling right now, Max. I can’t believe you guys! Did you even think about what we’ve been going through while you were gone? No! All you thought about was your own fun."

"What have you been going through?" Max asked suspiciously.

"Nothing that even compares to something as important as leisurely gambling away the past few days." Isabel groaned sarcastically. "You know what, Max? I don’t even want to talk to you right now. Figure out what’s been going on for yourself."