Thanks to all of you for your nice feedback. Sorry, I've been a little MIA. I just go my first big person job. It sucks. However, I have three chapters after this. So the wait isn't going to be as long.
As for Max being scary, dreamer Max is in there. You guys just have to be a little patient :) .
I have to run. So I hope you all enjoy.
Chapter Eleven: The Walking Wounded
My sweaty, trembling hand flips on the bathroom switch. Squinting against the sudden change in light, I grab my toothpaste and toothbrush out of my night bag.
His warm hand takes mine as I step on to the stool. Lifting me up, I tower over the shiny, white sink.
"I'm big like you now daddy," I giggle. "Yes, you are Lizzie. You know one of these days you won't even need the stool or daddy to help you." He hands me my pink Barbie toothbrush. "Daddy, I'll always need you to help me." Pressing on the toothpaste, I coax a miniscule amount out.
I frown at the toothpaste. "It's all gone. I can't make it come out. This is dumb."
"You have to fold back the edges, like this." "You're so smart daddy." Folding back the edges, a generous helping of green paste coats my brush. I move the brushes up and down over my teeth.
"Lizzie always up and down never side to side." He fills up my cup with some water.
Pooling the water in my hand, I take it into my mouth and spit. From the cartoon, I punch out one white birth control pill.
"Daddy, my vitamins."
"Almost forgot." From the medicine cabinet, he pulls down a white bottle and hands me a red one. Happily, I chew it down. Lifting me off the stool, I link my arms around his neck. "I love you daddy." "I love you to Lizzie Bear." He answers carrying me to my room.
Twisting the bottom of the tube, I move the lipstick over my lips. I try to mimic her gesture. I feel the soft lipstick slide across my lips. With my new red lips, I smile at myself in the mirror. "I look like you now mommy." She smiles and tears off a section of the toilet paper. "Now you always need to blot." I press my lips against a tissue. Throwing it into the basket, I open my compact up and start to apply a thin sheen of blush to my cheeks.
"Now you have to pucker your lips like this," my mom makes a face.
"Liz don't walk away from us."
"I told you. I'm going to Maria's." I grab hold of the door. "What did that little shit Max Evans do to you?" I stop dead in my tracks at the mention of his name. Slowly, I turn around to regard them. "Jeff," my mother warns. "She hasn't been the same since he took off for God knows where." "Liz," my mom begins tentatively. "We're worried about you. You're grades are dropping."
"I'm sorry. I can't be your perfect little daughter anymore," I snit. "We never expected you to be perfect. We just want you to be happy again. You're sleeping all the time," my dad joins in. "I'm tired," I roll my eyes. My mom presses her lips together. "Did you and Max you know have sex?" "We were close, but then I had to save the world." I choke hating myself immediately for sounding vulnerable and wanting nothing more than for them to hold me. It isn't like they can fix it anyway. "You used to be able to tell me anything. Lizzie, talk to me." "That's just it dad. I don't want to talk to you or anyone else for that matter." I slam the door hard behind me.
The brush drops from my hand leaving a bright red trail in its wake. Running a bit of water over it, I scrub at it viciously. My eyes drift to the mirror, and I stiffen. "How did you get in here?"
"Through the door."
I don't need this right now.
His small hand tightens around the handle of an airplane-covered suitcase.
"Seth, it isn't safe for you to be running off like this all the time."
"It isn't safe for you to be having strangers in your room either," he says with distaste. "What's that man doing sleeping in your bed Liz?"
Yawning, I cover my mouth. "He's a friend."
"So you let all of your friends sleep in your bed?"
"Did I miss something? When did you become my mother?"
His eyes flash. "Mothers are stupid. You should be glad that yours went away."
"Go back to your dad or Serena or someone. Just get out now."
"I'm sorry. I guess your mom was nice," he mumbles.
"She was. She and my dad always made me feel..." safe, secured, loved, full. I tuck some hair behind my ear.
"What did they make you feel like?"
"It's not important anymore. What do you want?"
"I'm going with you," he lifts up his suitcase. "Serena packed all my stuff for me. She wasn't mad at me for mind warping her. She said that sometimes you have to be a little sneaky to help people."
"Sounds like her."
"But my dad is going to be mad at me. I had to mind warp him to get away."
"You mind warped your father. How did you do that?"
Something akin to terror appears in his eyes. "I don't know. I just did." He whispers.
"I need to call him then."
"No, you can't. He wants to send me home. I have to stay with you."
"Your dad knows a lot more about what's going on than I do," I tell him bitterly.
"I can help you find out what's going on just let me stay with you." He pulls out Larek's disk. "There's stuff on here, but there's more stuff. I'll show you how to get it all, but you can't call my dad."
He's seven years old, and he's blackmailing me.
"He's really busy, and he probably doesn't even know that I'm gone."
"I doubt that. I can't keep you safe if something happens."
"Yes, you can," he says with an adamancy that frightens me. "You call him now. You end up in the water. He gets you out, but you're blue like a Popsicle. He breathes into you and pushes on your chest and nothing happens. Then he leaves me, because of you."
I cringe at the anger. I hear in his voice.
"He leaves me. I'm all-alone. There's no sister, and there's no daddy. There's only Tess," he rambles ominously without taking a breath. "I can't be left alone with Tess."
The floor starts to rumble.
"I do bad things then."
"Alright." The movement underneath me ceases. "If I don't call him then everything is okay."
"No."
I'm going to die soon. That's a rather uplifting thought. "Do you know how I get into the water?"
"No."
"When?"
"No, everything is always moving. It's hard to keep up with it. If I wasn't broken then I'd be able to do it."
It's on the tip of my tongue to ask him to explain this very stupid and asinine broken concept, but he's way too agitated.
"Alright, we're going to go back out there. You're going to wait for me in the hall. Brian is sleeping so he won't see you."
"It would be easier to mind warp him."
"No more of this mind game stuff."
"Okay."
I open the door but stop just as I fast at the now dimly lit room.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up." I tell Brian's bare back. "I couldn't sl…" the words nearly die in my throat as he slowly turns around to me. Pure terror swims in his usually carefree gaze. "What is it?"
Seth's head peaks around me. "He's had a bad dream. You should get him some water. My dad always gets me some water when I see scary things."
"Brian?" I ask again stopping in front of him.
Almost immediately, he wraps his arms around my waist and presses his head against my stomach.
"Fine, if you're not going to get him some water then I'll do it."
I run my fingers through his disheveled blonde locks. "Brian, What happened?" I can feel my panic growing every second as his silence elapses.
When he finally speaks, his once mercurial voice sounds strained and broken. "I heard you get up. I was asleep, but I heard you. You were next to me then there was nothing."
"I was in the bathroom."
He shakes his head against me. "That's not what I mean. You were with me," he covers his heart, "but then you weren't."
I kneel down beside him. "It's okay now."
"No, it's not Parker. You were in trouble. I was trying so hard to get there to stop it. I'd never been so scared in my whole life. It was all my fault."
I kiss his forehead. "It was just a nightmare see I'm fine."
He shakes his head. "It was hot so hot that…."
"You can't breathe," Seth finishes besides me his voice sounding strangely far away.
"I couldn't breathe."
"The laughing," he places his small hands over his ears.
Flicking my attention to him, Seth looks almost dazed.
"Then there was the laughing. It was shrill. All I wanted to do was to shut it off."
"You can't turn it off. It never stops," Seth adds.
"I stepped on a piece of a glass. It's when I saw it all and realized what had happened."
All three of us jump as Brian's cell phone begins to ring.
He grabs if off the nightstand. "Yeah," comes his soft reply. "Mmmhm. I agree with you."
The color seems to creep back into his face at every word he speaks to the person on the other line while Seth undergoes a similar metamorphosis.
"You shouldn't be looking at me. He's going to wonder why you're looking at nothing," he tells me, but his voice no longer holds that fragility to it of before. "You know the scions were all over this thing." Diving underneath a nook in the dresser, his father's eyes stare out from it at me. I may have no idea what that was, but I definitely know who was behind it.
"Alright thanks. I'll see you soon Lena." He folds up his phone.
"Feeling better." I hand him his shoes and shirt hoping to get him away from the mind warping seven year-old.
"Yeah, I can't even remember what had me so spooked. I guess I just needed to focus on something else. Sorry for behaving like such a whack job." Leaning down, he gives me a peck on the lips.
From the corner of my eyes, I see a dark head slide out from underneath the dresser. "Would you like to tell me what you're really doing with your friend? I have friends that are girls, and I'm not going around kissing them."
I ignore Seth. "You're sure you're alright?"
"Yes, I can think of something else that we could do that could make me feel even better." He winks.
"You're incoercible."
"I'm a guy. It's like a loop in our brain."
I smack him.
"God, woman you're vicious."
"You should just blast him. He needs to leave. We have work to do."
I glare at Seth.
"Sorry."
Brian glances down his watch. "I have some things I need to take care of. How about breakfast in a hour?"
"Only if I can have macaroni and cheese," comes a muffled answer. "What's this?"
I give Brian a forced smile. "Sure, I'll meet you at that little restaurant across from the Zocolo."
"I'll see you then."
"Brian."
"Yeah," he pauses in front of the door.
"It's nothing."
He gives me one of his hundred-watt smiles and shuts the door.
"Brian, I'm part alien. There's an alien plague out there, and my ex boyfriend has been using your body for who knows how long. His son is mind warping you." I tell the wooden door. "You may not even actually like me at all."
"You know you're very weird," Seth says joining me.
"I'm practicing. What was with that thing with the hot place and the laughing?"
He looks confused.
"The two of you were going on and on like you shared the same nightmare."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Seth."
"Liz. Why do you keep rubbing your head like that?"
"Because you're giving me a giant headache. What if Brian had seen you?"
"Humans can't see through mind warps, Liz. I would think you should know that by now."
He pulls a vial out from his pocket.
I snatch it away from him. "Where did you get this?"
"I found it underneath the dresser when I was sploring."
Turning the tube upside down, I watch the particles slide to the other side.
"What's in there?"
"My childhood."
"What do you mean?"
Glancing up at him, it feels like someone has reached into my chest and given my heart a little squeeze. He's looking at me with the same mixture of concern and empathy his father used to give me all those years ago. I tear my eyes away. "It's not important."
"Now you're lying," he answers sounding slightly miffed. "If you don't want to tell me fine, it's not like I care."
"Have you ever had things happen to you that hurt too much to talk about?"
He nods his head.
I bet you have. I'm going to make Tess pay for it as soon as I get the chance.
"This hurts too much to talk about," I answer dropping my little morbid keepsake into my bag.
"Then why do you keep it?"
"I don't know. I need it. I guess. Let's go."
He throws the suitcase on to the bed and pulls out a red raincoat.
"What's with the coat?"
"It's going to rain. I don't like being cold."
"We're in the desert. It doesn't rain that much."
"You get that I tell the future don't you?"
"Yes."
"Just checking." He closes the suitcase back up.
I stare down at the B-52 bombers on it. "So you like airplanes?"
"I'm going to be a pilot when I grow up just like my dad."
"Your dad flies?" Max flying a plane. That's a weird thought.
"When he doesn't have to work, we fly all over Antar. You know," he turns serious. "There are a lot of things you don't know about my dad."
"That's what scares me."
"Is that all you're going to wear? You're going to get cold."
"No, I'm not. You're like a mother hen."
"I'm a father hen," he corrects.
"Technically boys can't be hens."
"Whatever, I hate this stupid language. Can we go already?"
I grab the disk and my purse. "Yes, your majesty."
He stops and spins around.
The mixture of emotions on his face breaks my heart.
"Liz don't ever call me that please."
"I'm sorry."
He shrugs. "You didn't know."
Staring at the damaged little boy in front of me, I know I've only reached the tip of the iceberg of what is really going on here. Maybe, it's his resemblance to my dearly departed lab partner. Perhaps, it's because he's a broken seven year-old, and I'm a broken twenty four year-old, or the more likely reason is that I'm over romanticizing this entire thing. Yet, I feel a kinship to him.
"Are we going to go or are you're going to stare at me all day?"
Scratch that I want to throw Mini Max out the window. "I'm coming," I answer in an overly saccharine voice.
"You scare me when you talk like that."
"You should be scared. I'm a very mean woman."
"No, you're not. You just pretend so people will stay away from you." He tells me before opening up the door and running down the stairs.
Shocked, I pause on the stairwell.
"Liz come on."
"Yeah, I'm coming," I call taking the first step.