Alex leapt out of the Jeep and held a hand out for Maria. She took it, allowing him to help her onto the street. Spirits had been high as they’d driven back to Roswell. They’d managed to find the device that had done something to Max and Alex had assured them that it was only a matter of time before he had the device figured out.
“I mean, did you see the look on the security guard’s face?” Maria asked with a laugh. “Michael, what did you do anyway?”
Michael climbed out of the drivers’ seat and watched as Alex carefully picked up the bag with the alien device. “The usual. Alex, you got that?”
“Sure.” Alex grunted. The metal might not be heavy, but it was still large.
Isabel was looking around nervously, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Do you feel something, Michael?”
“Feel what?”
She continued to let her gaze wander up and down the street. “I don’t know. Something is…off.” She glanced sharply at Michael. “You don’t feel anything strange?”
“Nope. But I have had to piss for an hour now.”
Isabel wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That’s disgusting, Michael.”
“Joys of being human,” he amended. “C’mon, let’s go up and see how Max is holding up. Alex, if you can get the bag, I can take the box.”
Alex had been eyeing the narrow ladder leading up to Liz’s balcony wearily. “Thank god. I was wondering how I was supposed to get all this up there by myself.”
“Well, I’m going up,” Isabel announced as she started for the ladder. She needed to see Max and make sure he’d been okay in her absence. She didn’t trust Liz and Kyle further than she could throw either of them. At least Tess had been around. She would have made sure that Liz didn’t hurt her brother.
“Wait up.” Maria followed close on Isabel’s heels, half-afraid Isabel might cause a scene when she got upstairs. Isabel hadn’t made any effort to conceal her disdain for Liz, and while Maria didn’t understand any of what was going on between Liz and Kyle these days, she was determined to get the full truth from one of them after this whole fiasco was fixed.
The two girls climbed steadily up the ladder. Maria trudged cross the concrete balcony first and slipped inside the room, anxious to see what had happened in their absence. “Hey, guys. Guess who’s back from-” Maria froze in front of the window and her mouth hung open in shock. A second later, Isabel bumped into her from behind as she climbed through the window.
“Maria, what’s your--god, no.” Isabel rushed past Maria and into the heart of Liz’s room. “Get Michael!”
When Maria ducked back through the window, Isabel cautiously circled the room. Liz’s bedside table had been overturned and several items had been smashed into the carpet. Isabel carefully stepped over a mess of small rectangular pieces of glass that littered the floor and made her way into Liz’s bathroom. Discovering that it too was empty, she returned to the bedroom in time to see Michael climb through the window.
“What the hell happened here? Where’s Max?”
Isabel shook her head helplessly as the first signs of a panic attack set in. She could feel her windpipe closing. While they’d been sitting in a motel room, the others had been in danger. Her worst fears were coming true. She had deserted her brother when he’d needed her most.
“They’re all gone,” Maria whispered. “The Skins took them and we don’t even know where they are or even when they took them.”
Alex moved to Isabel’s side and wrapped one arm around her shoulder. She looked like she was going to collapse on the ground any second. “Maria, you have to calm down. We don’t know for a fact that the Skins took them.” But Alex didn’t even believe his own words. Liz’s room was trashed and the only thing that could have caused this kind of damage was a struggle. “This had to have happened today or else the Parkers would have called the police.”
Isabel clung to that scrap of information. “Yes. You’re right. They haven’t been gone too long.”
Michael took a deep breath and decided he had to take charge. “Okay, we need to look for clues or something.” He looked around at the mess wearily. This was going to be a long process.
Hearing a scuffling sound outside the window, Michael instinctively raised his hand high and his body charged for a blast. The breeze billowed through the window and it was only a second later before a figure slid through the window. Michael grabbed at him, grateful that the low lighting in the room provided them with some cover. But when he came face to face with Kyle, Michael frowned in confusion. “Valenti?”
“Kyle!” Maria launched herself at him, pulling him into a tight hug. “You’re alright. Where are the others?”
“What’s going on? When did you guys get back? Do you have any idea how many times we tried to call you?” Kyle tried to wiggle out of Maria’s death grip hug, but she was holding fast.
Tess popped through the window a second later and paused when she saw the large group in Liz’s bedroom. “Did you get it?”
Michael nodded curtly. “Yeah. We got it. Where’s Max? Let’s fire this thing up and fix him.”
“What do you mean, where’s Max?” Kyle looked past the strange group for the first time and found Liz’s bed empty. “Shit. They’re not here?” Kyle pushed past Maria and noted the damaged furniture.
Tess joined his side and stared down at the broken lamp. “The Skins took them.” Her voice wavered a moment before she forced herself not to react. She looked at Kyle. “This is bad.”
“You mean Max and Liz aren’t with you two?” Maria asked fearfully.
Kyle straightened and ran a hand through his hair. “We left them both here maybe an hour, hour and a half ago.” Kyle kicked the bed viciously. “Damn it! They were right here! How could we have left them alone?”
Tess braced her hands on Kyle’s shoulder, knowing he was feeling guilty that they had been off making up when their friends had been taken. “We didn’t know. We thought they would be okay for an hour or two.” She took several deep breaths, watching him struggle to pull his emotions together. She lowered her voice and caressed his cheek with her hand lightly. “We’ll find them and we’ll fix everything.”
“What the hell is going on around here?” Maria asked incredulously. “Since when are you two-“
Tess dropped her hand from Kyle’s face and turned to face the others. “Kyle and Liz didn’t sleep together. The whole thing was arranged to push Max and I closer.”
“You know, that makes a lot more sense,” Alex deduced.
“Shut up, Alex.” Maria glared at Kyle. “Is that true? The whole thing was a lie? Why?”
Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know. Liz only said something about the end of the world being why she did it. Frankly, I didn’t want to know. I have enough trouble with the few details you people give me. But that’s not our problem now. Someone has Max and Liz and if we don’t get to them soon and reverse the process it’ll be too late.”
“What do you mean it’ll be too late?” Isabel remained at Alex’s side, drawing strength from his silent support.
Kyle turned to Tess and gestured for her to take the floor. She shook her head in disbelief. Why would any of them listen to her? But she searched for the words to explain what had happened in the last few days. “Max’s cells are changing and he’s sick. If we don’t figure out where they are and how to use that thing that changed him, we might not be able to reverse the process in time.”
Michael nodded, hearing the underlying meaning of her words and the urgency. “Okay. Alex, can you and Isabel try to figure out how that thing works? The rest of us are going to have to figure out where Max and Liz are.”
*~*~
Liz opened her eyes slowly, forcibly prying them open. Sharp pain was radiating through her skull and she tried to breathe shallowly and hold still until it receded. She struggled to remember what had happened, but it hurt to think. All she remembered was sitting on the floor in her room looking at the piece of paper Max had written her name on. And then nothing.
Something had happened though; the throbbing pain in her skull told her so. And the only way she was going to figure out what had happened was for her to get up and find out where she was.
Pushing up on her hands, Liz fought against the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. It burned when she tried to breathe and she tenderly lifted a hand to her throat. Even her gentle probes were enough to push her back to the floor in pain and she cried out softly.
That was when she remembered.
Someone had come inside her room and had grabbed her from behind. She’d fought, but had obviously lost. But where was she and more importantly, where was Max?
Liz tried to sit up, but quickly found her movement hindered. Glancing at her arm, she found it handcuffed to the foot of a large metal bookshelf. She tried to lift an edge and get free, but the bookshelf seemed to be bolted into the ground. When she tried a second time, her head throbbed and the room swam before her eyes.
Why was she there? Had they taken Max too? Would he be upset if he woke up and she was missing or would he even be able to understand that she was gone? As Liz lay on the floor, she took stock of the situation. She knew she was alone in the room. Max wasn’t with her or she would have felt his presence. But she needed something that would be of use to get out.
There wasn’t time to wait for the pain to settle this time. She pushed until she was sitting upright and looked around. The room was dim and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She looked like she was in an office of some sort. Or what had once been an office. There was a large window on one wall that was still blocked by aging blinds. They were torn in places, allowing only small streams of light to penetrate the darkness. Dust motes flew around the room, stirred up after years of inactivity and were illuminated by the streams of light.
From Liz’s vantage point, she could only see the ceiling and she couldn’t even tell if she was on the ground floor or on a higher level. A desk had been pushed to one wall and she wondered if there might still be something inside that might help. Unfortunately, she couldn’t reach it from where she sat no matter how she stretched.
She continued her search, hoping frantically that there was something to help her escape and find Max. After another fifteen minutes of searching with no results, frustrated anger began building. There was nothing anywhere near her to use in an escape. The Skins had done their job well. So Liz did the only thing she knew to do and began trying to tug her hand out of the cuff.
She twisted and turned, ignoring the sharp bite of metal against her skin. Even as she cut herself, she tried to use her own warm blood to slick her hand as she pulled. Finally, after one final desperate tug, Liz collapsed against the bookshelf with a cry of pain.
She was never going to see Max again, never going to see his smile or hear his voice. They had either brought her there for information or as bait, but either way she was dead. Somewhere out there, Max was alone and confused and it was her fault. Why had she thought she could take care of him? She was just a girl. She was a girl that had failed to do the only thing she’d ever wanted, and that was to keep Max safe.
Her hand was on fire, burning from the intensity of her struggles and her head hurt from an unknown injury. But as she sat on the dusty floor and gave into the sobs welling in her bruised throat, it was Max she cried for.
*~*~
Max fought to control his breathing as he reviewed the situation before him. He had awoken a few minutes ago to find himself in a strange room surrounded by ordinary looking men. He was tied to a chair, though he couldn’t see by what. There weren’t any weapons that he could see, which meant that his kidnapping wasn’t military, but alien. And he wasn’t sure which odds he preferred.
He had no doubt the men before him were Skins and though there were five of them standing guard. That wasn’t what he was worried about. He’d tried out his powers on the bonds that held him, testing their strength. And it hadn’t taken him long to discover that he couldn’t draw any strength from his powers. The one time he’d been able to, his vision had blurred and he’d almost passed out. So, he hadn’t tried again. Which meant that he was going to have to get out of this mess without his powers.
They were obviously killing time waiting, though he didn’t know for what. None of them had spoken to him thankfully and he was hoping they didn’t know about his condition yet. It wouldn’t do to have his enemies know he was weak.
The curtain over the large window in the room was pulled back, allowing sunlight into the room and he struggled not to blink against the intrusive light. It was blinding and harsh, but he tried not to focus on it. If he could ignore how oppressively hot it was in the room, surely he could ignore the light too.
But as much as Max was worried about his situation, he was worried about Liz more. He didn’t even remember being taken, so he had no way of knowing what had happened to her much less Tess and Kyle. The last thing he remembered was leaning close to kiss her, to show her with his actions that he wasn’t letting her pull away from him again.
Then he’d woken up here with middle age men that could no doubt use whatever powers they possessed to keep him where he was if he moved the wrong way. He hoped that Liz had been far away from him when the Skins had come for him. He hoped that she had been safe somewhere else. Because Liz was a fighter and she would have been hurt if someone had tried to take him away in front of her. It was who she was.
Thinking of Liz calmed him, and he let it. He could almost see her now, spearheading a campaign to find him. She was the most logical of them all. If anyone could figure out where he was, it would be her. But just to be on the safe side, he memorized the details around him for when Isabel inevitably tried to dreamwalk him later. Unless of course Liz figured out where he was first.
He couldn’t believe how used to her presence he’d become in the last few days. They’d lived in each other’s pockets, sharing the same breathing space until he needed her next to him to survive. And he wasn’t even thinking in terms of not being about to understand his environment.
Max needed Liz for everything he did. He needed to be able to run ideas by her to see how she reacted to a situation. He needed to bridge that forced distance she’d been keeping between them. He wished all it would take was one kiss and she would be his again, but Liz had a stronger, more stubborn will than anyone alive. He knew she loved him. It was just a matter of getting her to admit it.
As Max watched, the door opened and one of the men entered, whispering to the man standing closest to the door. Max smiled smugly at them. So, they didn’t know about his condition then. Otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered with the whispering tones.
After a few hushed words, the man left again and the remaining five thugs continued to glare at him maliciously. Max tried how best to use this upper hand. He didn’t want to tip the scales and let them know he didn’t understand them, but how was he supposed to bluff his way through an interrogation if he had no idea what they were saying, much less how to answer? This wasn’t like running into Jeff Parker. A simple smile and a head nod wouldn’t pacify the Skins.
The door opened fully this time and Max winced against the sudden brightness from the hallway. When he heard the door close, Max reopened his eyes, deciding it safe. And he realized he’d made a mistake.
Nicholas lounged against the closed door, hands crossed over his chest. He wore a broad smile that made Max’s stomach lurch. He looked happy, almost pleased with himself. And Max decided on the spot that it couldn’t be a good sign of things to come. There was no way he was going to be able to bluff his way through an interrogation with Nicholas. He was too strong and Max wasn’t able to draw on his powers in even a small way.
He would simply have to stall and wait, hoping that Liz found a way to get to him before Nicholas killed him. She was his only hope.
