Chapter Two

"I trust her more than I trust either of you."

The words swirled through Tess's head in a frantic circle, words and sounds mixing and mashing until all she recognized was the unmistakable anger in his voice. Each time she relived the phrase in her head it cut another mark into her chest so tight and sharp she had to resist checking for blood. Desperately, she grasped for a thought or an image to cling to, anything to take her mind off of the tense silence in the beaten up jeep. Breathing techniques and mindwarp instructions that Nasedo had repeated like a mantra throughout her childhood came to mind, but nothing seemed to stop Michael's angry, suspicious voice ringing in her ears.

Tess glanced nervously at Nasedo. He had been silent since his altercation with Michael earlier, simply watching the road with vacant eyes. The expression was one that she'd come to be familiar with over the years, and it usually meant that the special unit was getting too close for comfort or that there had been an unexpected casualty.

Unexpected. A sardonic smile twisted her lips at the phrase he'd fed her so many times. Had it ever been the truth, she wondered? Was there ever a death that hadn't been executed to perfection, a person killed only because it was absolutely necessary? Logically she knew that the salvation of an entire planet was more important than a handful of deaths. She couldn't even say that she wouldn't have killed someone who threatened her safety. But Tess refused to believe that she would have ever entrusted someone with so little regard for any type of life with the safety of her planet.

The sleek lines of Michael's back showed through his t-shirt, muscles clenching in nervousness. She barely resisted the urge to force his attention back to the road by reminding him that running her into a ditch might come at the price of Max and Isabel's lives. The foreign sensation of tears prickling her eyes came at the realization that that might not be enough incentive to stop him.

Her initial attraction to Max had failed to live up to the fabled romance of Ava and Zan, his sensitive and nurturing nature proving to be more than she knew how to handle after growing up shrouded in lies. Even Isabel, whom she felt a certain kinship to, didn't offer her the sisterly bond she had craved in her younger years. It had been Michael that she had been pulled to immediately. It had been Michael who brought foggy, inexplicable memories of a life she'd always presumed to remember perfectly bubbling to the surface.

Why did she care what Michael thought of her? Nasedo had explained to her from childhood that her duty was to Max and to Max alone, that without her he would never be the king her world needed. Recollections of a boy with brown curls staring up at a grey sky and lying next to her on water salty enough to hold their weight had been assailing her for over a month now, and with them came feelings of warmth and something unnamed.

"Of course you were chosen. We're best friends, aren't we? I knew it had to be you." The flash hit Tess particularly hard. Rath's voice was heartbreakingly familiar, and it held an easiness which she had yet to find with her family. And his face, shining with something Tess had yet to see Michael experience.

A large sign announced that Roswell was less than five miles away. Tess dropped the side of her face into her fisted hand, searching for a comfortable position. Her eyes momentarily caught Michael's in the rearview mirror, wary and worried and dripping with abandonment, and she knew that even with his foster father's abuse and Max and Isabel's neglect, he had changed very little since his past life.

The first and last tear streaked down her face as she wondered if she was at all recognizable as the queen that had once been worthy of the faith of a man like Rath.

-

"You should call the Crashdown again," Michael said sharply. "Liz might be there, and we need to know what she told the sheriff." Isabel let out a frustrated sigh and shifted under the dead weight of her brother.

"Michael, we'll be in Roswell in less than five minutes. Why do you want me to call them now?" She asked, doing her best to sound logical. She had felt fear coming off of him in waves ever since he found Max and Nasedo. Isabel had done her best to send him whatever comfort she could, but their connection had lain dormant for years, and rekindling it was taking some effort. It probably didn't help that all she wanted to do was crawl into a hole somewhere and sleep for the next century.

"I just have a feeling," he replied absently. "There's something off about this whole thing. There's no way that Liz would have just followed Nasedo's orders without argument, especially after he impersonated her boyfriend." He glared at the shapeshifter and received an indifferent smirk in return.

"I wouldn't be so sure of Liz Parker. After seeing just how alien her friends are, she might have preferred the company of humans for a while," Nasedo suggested.

"She wouldn't leave Max," Michael insisted stubbornly, clutching the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles whitened. Tess opened her mouth to say something but appeared to think better of it, and Isabel silently thanked whatever god supplied the needs of unprincipled aliens.

"She would when the sheriff was seconds away from seeing two Max Evanses," Nasedo interjected impatiently. "Didn't you listen to a word I said earlier?"

"No, I was a little busy worrying that my brother was suffering from an aneurysm!" Michael retorted, violently rounding the corner to the Crashdown. "But I guess that panic is just another emotion our people don't feel, along with love and regard for the young," he said bitterly. Isabel clumsily pushed Max into a sitting position, suddenly unconcerned with his wellbeing.

"Michael, we are nothing like him. Do you hear me? You are nothing like Nasedo."

"Back to your old habits already, Vilandra?" Nasedo asked, arching his brow.

Isabel fought down the pang of recognition and dread that came with the alien name. Where had she heard that name before? And why did it frighten her when everything else she'd encountered from her planet had only invoked feelings of curiosity? "What did you call me?" She said. Her voice trembled uncontrollably, and she clenched her hands against her thighs to stop her legs from jerking involuntarily. A shadow of fear passed over the alien's face, but before he could say anything Tess's voice, sharp and reprimanding, joined the conversation.

"He's just talking to himself again. It's becoming embarrassing, watching him get so paranoid in his old age," she said. Michael maneuvered the jeep into a parking spot and turned off the engine with jerky motions. Nasedo turned to meet Tess's eyes and the two of them shared a wordless argument, each dueling for dominance. Nasedo finally broke the staring contest with a humorless chuckle.

"Really, you'd think that after all these years humans would—" A primal shout drowned the rest of his words out. Isabel shrank back in horror from Max. The angry keen spilling forth from his mouth rent the air in two, but nothing could compare with the fire igniting his amber eyes. "Tessa, now!" Nasedo shouted, barely audible over Max's voice. The small girl shut her eyes in concentration, her brow furling in exertion. Isabel risked moving a tentative hand toward Max, barely biting back a scream of her own when she saw his alarming form suddenly lying down, slumbering peacefully in the backseat of the jeep once more. As if her mind had hit the wrong switch, Max's distraught condition quickly flooded back to her eyes, ushered in with a flash of green light.

"I'm sorry about that, I only meant to stop the sound from reaching everyone else, but so many people…" Tess was leaning against the seat, sweat rolling down her forehead and her eyes still clenched shut.

"What's going on?" Michael demanded, hopping out of the car and running to Max's side. "Maxwell, calm down and--"

Michael reared back under the force of his friend's unexpected blow. There was a sickening crack. He blinked furiously in an attempt to keep from blacking out, a task becoming harder by the second as the pain in his jaw increased.

"Max, what are you doing?" Isabel cried. She slipped onto the sidewalk and joined her younger brother at his place over Michael's form. She grabbed his arm and tried to get him to meet her eyes, but he shook her off effortlessly.

"I have nothing to say to either of you!" He yelled. "How could you, Michael? You've done your best to terrify her from the moment we told her the truth, but leaving her with Pierce—"

"What's going on?" Maria's frightened voice sounded over the groaning hinges of the café door. Isabel shifted her attention from her brother's muddled ramblings to Maria and Alex. A foreign jealousy took hold of her as she watched Maria kneel down next to Michael, tenderly touching his bloody jaw.

"Max woke up less than a minute ago, yelling his lungs out, and when Michael tried to ask him what was wrong he hit him," she whimpered, wrapping her arms around her waist. Alex moved to comfort her but stopped at Nasedo's clipped voice.

"Get back inside, both of you. The last thing we need right now is interference from anyone else." Max whipped around, his hands encircling his protector's neck in a moment's time.

"Don't you dare talk to them," he said, his voice deathly calm. "In fact, it might be better if you don't even look at them." He ignored Maria's shriek and Isabel's protests, focusing instead on the unhealthy color suffusing the other man's face. "So, we can die the human way after all," he said even more softly, his lips quirking ever so faintly. "Is that why you're so scared? Have you been lying to Tess, to us, this whole time about how strong we are? Is that why you sent Liz in my place?" Tess groaned in the backseat and collapsed without warning.

"What's happening to her?" Alex asked, eyes darting around uncertainly. "And where the heck is Liz? You guys were supposed to bring her back."

This seemed to be the fabled straw capable of breaking a camel's back for Max. His hands dropped from Nasedo's neck and he stumbled backward, finally hunching unsteadily on the sidewalk. He buried his head in his arms. Alex looked between the three injured aliens and Isabel's frightened countenance uncertainly, before stepping forward to take her hand. She accepted his offer numbly, leaning into him slightly when he angled his body behind hers. "So, Liz is lost or something. It's okay, we'll get her back," he said calmly, more to himself than the rest of the group. Maria, however, seemed much less disposed to wait for a coherent explanation. She abandoned Michael, who was now unsuccessfully attempting to heal his jaw, and walked over to Max.

"Where is she, Max?" Max failed to reply, but the tremors that had been wracking his body became more severe. Maria pressed on, her jaw clenching as she struggled to remain in control. Alex might be content to wait until Max and the gang decided to divulge all and invited them to jump into the jeep for a ride to Texas, but every moment without her best friend made the fist around her lungs squeeze a little tighter. "Where is she?" This time he burrowed his face even more deeply into his arms.

"Max, we really do need to know," Alex encouraged. "You're freaking us all out right now, and—"

"Damn it, Max, where the hell is Liz?!" The question burst from her mouth before she had time to consider it, but Maria found that instead of regret she felt a barely restrained impulse to shake him until he looked her square in the face. When he did look up at her, the anger and disillusionment tangible in his eyes were joined by a third, more disturbing emotion. "No," she argued, an overwhelming sense of helplessness consuming her. Maria felt her knees buckle underneath her before the words even left his mouth.

"Pierce has her."

-

"Broken ankle, sprained wrist, cracked skull… don't understand…"

"X-rays said…"

Pierce. The voice, she knew, could only belong to the leader. It was the only one authoritative and placid enough to command so many men. Liz could only catch pieces of the conversation taking place by the doorway, but she hung onto what she could hear, knowing it was likely to provide the few straight answers she would receive. Pretending to be asleep was not hard; with every breath her eyelids felt heavier and her body ached more. She wasn't sure how much longer she would be able to hold out.

"…Alien?"

The word brought her crashing into consciousness.

"… blood tests…"

The faintest of smiles touched her lips at this, and if her throat wasn't so dry she might have broken into an out of control giggle. They were looking for the wrong thing, testing the wrong person. In short, they were wasting valuable time. Time that Max and the others needed desperately. If the prickly, hospital-quality sheets underneath her were any indication, she wasn't suffering half of what Topolsky had prophesized. It seemed, in fact, that she was being taken care of.

"… prepared for this sort of thing, goddammit!"

"…observation necessary… study…"

A small, strangled moan escaped her lips. What was happening? Had Max and the others come after her? Had someone been captured? Maybe she had blacked out and lost a couple of weeks to sleep….

Daniel Pierce's photo ID brushed her arm as he leaned over her, smiling gently. A chill descended her spine, but she ignored it and focused on breathing evenly. The pain was still present but abating in small increments. "What…" she asked, her voice rasping uncontrollably. She attempted to clear it and brought on a coughing fit. The other person in the room was bustling around the IV stand next to her bed.

"We're administering your morphine dose right now," he explained. He ran a hand through her hair, and again she felt the urge to curl onto her side and hide from him.

"Where… am I?" she asked, wheezing again. Instead of answering he turned to a small table and poured her a glass of water, inserting and bending a straw. When he turned back to her, the roguish and charming smile was accompanied with a glint of caution.

"You're in the hospital, Miss Parker. You got yourself hurt pretty badly, do you know that? Don't worry, though, Max Evans has been taken into custody." She stared at him in confusion, not protesting when he placed the straw between her lips. Liz took a cautious sip, choking slightly as the foreign liquid slid down her throat. "Careful, there," he instructed. Once more the hand foreign hand ran through her hair.

"Where are my parents?" she whispered, pleased that her voice was clearing slightly. Pierce's face darkened for a minute, and she congratulated herself inwardly. Acting the part of a trusting innocent would throw him off much more than a paranoid, angry girl waking up in a strange room.

"They're home right now. They've been at your bedside for the past week or so waiting for you to wake up," he told her. "Your friends haven't been allowed to visit. I was just coming in to get an update on your condition for the sheriff. I'm Deputy Fisher. I arrived in town a few days before you disappeared." How much was the truth and how much was a lie? Kyle's dad had mentioned a new deputy arriving unasked for… maybe her parents really were here? Maybe she was just in a federal hospital? Even now, Jeff and Nancy Parker might be hearing for the first time that their daughter was involved with a fledgling group of aliens. It was possible that she had woken up too late.

Liz did her best to fight off the exhaustion becoming increasingly persistent. The agent's eyes flicked down to her slackening jaw and he smiled slightly. "Don't you worry about a thing, Miss Parker. I'll take care of everything," he said, giving her hand one last squeeze before leaving the room with the nurse.

As he exited, the broad metal door swung open widely. Liz's last vision before shutting her eyes was the opened doors of half a dozen empty, abandoned rooms.

-

"We need a plan," Max said, running shaking fingers through his hair. Isabel and Michael shared a concerned look, clasping each other's hands more tightly. Alex sat beside Maria in the corner booth traditionally occupied by the aliens. Maria looked ahead unseeingly. Tears ran down her face in rapid succession and she didn't bother to wipe them away. Tess stood unsurely by the counter, her unease since Nasedo's forced departure written on her face.

"You need to go to bed, Max, recover a little more from that energy blast that Nasedo sent at you," Isabel said coaxingly. Max stiffened at the maternal tilt to her words.

"I still haven't forgiven him for that," Michael muttered.

"Now's not the time," Isabel gritted between clenched teeth, casting a worried glance at Max. "We need to play this right, and sitting here sulking isn't going to convince Max that—"

"Isabel! Isabel, you can dreamwalk her," Max suggested excitedly. "You can dreamwalk her and find out where she is and then we'll go get her." He turned expectant eyes on his older sister. She swallowed hard at the half-crazed expression on his face, inwardly weighing his safety against his emotional stability.

"Max," she started gently, "I haven't ever tried dreamwalking Liz before. And if she's awake it won't work, and it'll only make everyone worry more."

Max shook his head vehemently. "Izzie, you didn't see her. She was out cold, all cut up, and the blood—" he choked on the rest of his reply and covered his face with his hands. Maria whimpered, and Alex's arm tightened around her shoulder. Michael looked longingly at her; from her perch in Alex's arms he could see her drawn face and glassy eyes. Her face contorted as silent sobs shook her body. He turned toward Isabel determinedly.

"Is, I know this is hard, but you have to at least try. If she's hurt badly then we need to get her as soon as possible." Michael ignored the tightening in his stomach as he caught her fiery gaze. Despite the command in her eyes he refused to back down. Isabel finally lowered her eyes.

"Michael, the minute we hear from her, Max is going to be out searching every last inch of New Mexico. There's a reason that this happened in the first place, you know. We need a better plan this time before we act," she said insistently. Her expression softened before she continued. "I know I've been too hard on Liz in the past. But you remember how well Topolsky treated her. Until the Special Unit realizes they can't get any information from her, they probably won't rough her up."

"Try anyway," Isabel started at Alex's quiet, firm voice. "We don't have to do anything yet, but I don't want Liz thinking she's in this by herself."

Tess shook her head and spoke up for the first time. "Unless we can find something out there's no point in—"

"Stop while you're ahead," Maria said coldly. She shrugged off Alex's arms and walked to the center of the group, turning around the circle the aliens had formed unintentionally and staring at each of them in turn. Her eyes rested on Max's for an extra second, softening at the desperate, dogged look in his eyes. When she looked at the other three, her expression hardened. "You know, I can't count how many times Liz has put the three of you first. She's lied, manipulated people, broken multiple laws – and instead of working to get her back you're making this into the Alien Espionage show. I've already tried sitting back and letting you decide things amongst yourselves, and my best friend ended up being taken by the enemy."

"Maria, I know. Can't you see that that's why we have to act?" Max pleaded, looking wildly between Isabel and Michael. Michael shifted uneasily and Isabel looked away.

Maria snorted derisively at their deflection and crossed her shaking arms across her chest. "If you don't get your selfish alien asses into gear and do something, I'm going to Sheriff Valenti with everything I know. If you want to risk it, be my guest, but there is no way that I'm letting Liz rot away in the same place that drove Topolsky insane." Isabel looked at her incredulously.

"You think this is all about us? Don't you understand that the more attention we draw to ourselves, the more questions Liz's parents will ask? Believe it or not, Liz trusted my 'selfish alien ass' enough to tell me that her parents are really starting to freak her out with all the interrogations." Maria walked up to Isabel, not stopping until they were inches apart. The fact that she was inches shorter did nothing to deter the sheer rage in her eyes.

"Don't pretend that you care about Liz! You don't think that she's told me about the way you treat her? Those little, cutting remarks you make when you think she's out of earshot? Every time she invites you to do something with the two of us you brush her off with that condescending ice bitch veneer. Maybe someone else would be able to say 'what the hell,' but Liz just wonders what she's doing wrong! Wherever she is, she's probably already deciding that this whole damn thing is her fault, and when no one even tries to contact her she'll just fall apart!" Maria shouted, not caring anymore that the Parkers were a floor above her fast asleep or that pissing Isabel Evans off in the current situation wasn't one of her smartest moves.

Isabel listened silently, a thin film of tears touching her eyes. Even her occasional arguments with Michael weren't this intense, and he never called her out on anything because she was always straight with him. "I – I'll try," Isabel finally whispered. "But I can't promise anything."

-

Max closed his eyes, suppressing a weary groan as Isabel shifted on the booth seat and jabbed her finger insistently into Liz's school picture. It was an older copy, he realized; probably from around ninth grade. The rhythmic tapping of Maria's foot against the tiles reverberated across the room, and Max could tell from the twitch in her jaw that it was irritating the hell out of his sister. Michael and Alex sat across from her. Alex was holding one hand in a show of comfort and Michael was boring holes through her with his eyes.

"It's not working!" Isabel exclaimed, muttering a curse under her breath as she pushed the yearbook away. "I don't know why I can't get into her head. I can feel her, just out of reach, but I can't seem to…" Alex rubbed his bleary eyes and slumped down in defeat.

"Maybe we can try tomorrow. I should probably get home, see if I can find anything that might help us."

"You can't decode this like some kind of computer virus," Maria argued. Her exhaustion seemed to have peaked an hour earlier, and now instead of crying or yelling she was glancing between the three of them erratically, wheels obviously turning at light speed in her head. Alex sent her an irritated look.

"Maria, I know that I don't have alien mind powers, but I think that some good old fashioned computer hacking just might come in handy when we're dealing with the FBI."

"Oh, like this is a branch of the FBI that's even on the web," she retorted.

"Well at least I'm not just sitting around criticizing—"

"Max," Michael said, looking at his best friend intently. He waved raised his hand and Alex and Maria fell silent. "What if you and Isabel tried working together? Like a piggyback connection or something. You might be able to get to her if both of you were trying." Max's heart sped up.

"Do you think it might work?" he asked hopefully. Isabel shrugged, crossing her arms in what could only be described as a self-defensive gesture.

"No one's ever had to help me with my powers before. But… it is Liz. And it is you," she met his eyes for a moment and then sighed. "It's worth a try." Max tripped over his feet in his haste to reach the corner booth, and he plopped down gracelessly when he reached it. "I guess you should take my hands," Isabel said nervously. Max reached out, curling his thumbs around the length of his sister's fingers. No sooner had he closed his eyes than he felt gentle tugging at his consciousness. Within moments he and Isabel were standing in the middle of a sterile-looking hospital room. The machinery was laid out to precision, much of it looking more advanced than anything the Roswell Community Hospital carried. And in the corner, hunched in a bed that looked more like an uncomfortable cot, sat Liz.

"Liz!" Liz looked up at the sound of Max's voice, joy and relief mingling on her face as she met his eyes. His heart pounded in his chest when she effortlessly slipped onto the ground and hurtled into his arms. The force of her small body jolted him momentarily.

"Oh, God, Max! When Pierce started talking with those doctors, I was so worried that they'd found you or Isabel or Michael or Tess. I was so scared that you weren't safe!" She buried her head in his chest, and he nudged the top of her head with his nose. Max drew in a deep breath, pretending that he could smell vanilla on her skin.

"Liz," Isabel said urgently, moving toward them quickly. "Are you awake or asleep? I've been trying for hours to reach you, but nothing's working." Liz looked up from her spot in Max's arms, her eyes widening as she caught sight of the other girl.

"I don't know. I… they've been giving me morphine for the pain. I know for sure that my right ankle is broken, but other than that all I know is that my head really hurts. It feels like I've been drifting in and out of consciousness for days." She glanced from Max to Isabel, her brow furrowing in concern. "You guys are okay, right? The sheriff isn't asking any questions?" Isabel shook her head, but Max redirected the small brunette's attention to his face.

"Liz, none of that matters. All I care about is that you're safe. Do you have any idea where you are?" His voice picked up urgency as he went on. "We need to find you, and soon. If Pierce has any proof that you're connected to us, then there's no telling what lengths he'll go through to get answers." Liz shook her head furiously, backing away from him.

"No, I'm fine. I'm in some sort of hospital, I think. From what I can tell, it's abandoned. He told me that you were taken into custody and that my parents were here." Max reached forward, but she shied away from his grasp.

"I'll try to get out as soon as I can, but you guys can't come after me. They're taking care of me. I think they're mostly curious about what you did to me during the shooting, and now they're just making sure that there's nothing abnormal about me," she said. "I'm going to be fine."

"Liz…" Isabel started, taking a step toward the other girl. Liz shook her head furiously.

"I'm okay, really. You guys have to worry about staying inconspicuous, like Nasedo said."

"I don't care about Nasedo!" Max exploded, stepping forward to reestablish the lost physical contact. "Liz, all I care about is getting you back safely!"

"I'm fine!" she insisted. "Max, just give me a few days and I'll be fine." He snorted in disbelief.

"You have a broken ankle and most likely a concussion. You've got a morphine drip for God's sake! You are not all right." Liz ignored him and looked beseechingly at Isabel.

"Isabel, you wouldn't be able to dreamwalk me if I was in really bad shape, right? I mean, I'm obviously okay if you can get inside my head."

"It took me a long time to get through to you Liz," Isabel argued hesitantly. "Look, if you could just give us some information--"

The scene abruptly changed to black. A moment later Max was blinking away the vestiges of sleep and picking his head up from Isabel's shoulder. Maria stood over them expectantly. "So? What did you find out?" Max pounded the table with his fist. Her face flashed before his eyes, so stubborn and certain as she insisted she was fine. Only the taught corners of her mouth had given her away. He wondered if this same frustration and vulnerability had encompassed her every time he pushed her away, citing her own good as the reason. He ignored Maria's probing eyes as he answered.

"Not a damn thing."