CHAPTER 25
"This is ridiculous!" shouted Maria as she collapsed backward onto her bed quite some time later. "We can't just wait around for Isabel to dreamwalk somebody and tell us where they are. We have to do something!"
"We've been over this already," Max responded without trying hide the fact that he wasn't any less concerned than Maria. "We have no way of knowing where they are."
Maria growled and flung a pillow at the wall. It knocked a picture frame askew, but it didn't help ease her tension in the slightest.
The knock on her bedroom door didn't help, either. Her face hard, she stared at the ceiling and refused to acknowledge it. At that moment she wasn't willing to talk to anyone who wasn't already in her room. Well, Isabel or Michael, sure, but they were nowhere to be found, which was why they were having this meeting in the first place.
Tess, who was closest to the door, swung it open.
Sure enough, Maria's mother stood there, a drawn look on her face. Hesitating in the doorway, she finally said, "It's getting late." Maria glanced at the clock and saw that it was, indeed, close to midnight. Liz started to rise from her seat on the bed, but Amy stopped her. "It's all right, Liz. I called your parents, and Alex's and Max's. I told them you and Isabel were working on a project, and got permission for you all to spend the night here. You too, Kyle. Your father said you can stay if you want to." She turned to the small blonde alien who still hovered by the door as if she didn't really belong there. "Tess, I'm afraid I didn't know your parents' phone number," she began.
"That's all right, Mrs. DeLuca," Tess responded offhandedly. "I live with our protector. Half the time he's not around to know if I am or not." The thought crossed Maria's mind that a protector who wasn't there wasn't doing a particularly good job.
Amy DeLuca seemed taken aback by this revelation. "Good lord, there are more of you?"
"Just the one. As far as we know," Max clarified. Somehow this didn't seem to reassure her. She swallowed convulsively. "Anyway," Max continued, "thanks, Mrs. DeLuca." The others echoed him.
"No problem." There was a pause, in which Maria purposely didn't look in her mother's direction. Said mother seemed to come to a decision. "Sheriff Valenti and I have been talking, and maybe I've been a little unfair. Chalk it up to the shock of being held at gunpoint. I'm not going to lie to you; I don't like any of this. But Max, Tess.... I can't stop you from doing what you feel you have to. From what Jim says, you have an obligation to...to your people. And much as I'd like to, I can't stop Liz or Alex from helping, not without telling their parents what's going on." She lifted a hand to forestall the protests. "No, I'm not going to tell anyone about you. I won't put you in more danger than you're already in. But what I can do is make sure that my daughter doesn't end up hurt. Or dead," she said fiercely. She shook her head. "Maria," she continued, her voice softening, "Just promise me you won't leave the house tonight. We'll talk in the morning, once I've had time to...absorb this all." Her jaw clenched, Maria refused to answer. "Please," was all her mother said.
Maria didn't take her eyes away from the ceiling, but she muttered a grudging, "Okay." Her mother let out the breath she'd been holding.
"Thank you." She closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them and adopted a more businesslike tone. "As for the rest of you, I can't stop you from doing anything. I'm not your mother. But please, for your parents' sakes--for your own--be very careful. I don't want anything to happen to you. Any of you."
Glances were exchanged between the teens, and Liz spoke for all of them. "We'll be careful, Mrs. DeLuca. We promise."
"Good." She nodded briskly, then started to go. Stopping abruptly, she turned back to Maria who was still lying sullenly on the bed, her arms crossed.
"Maria."
"What?" Maria snapped, sitting up. Her mother studied her and then reached into her pocket. "I almost forgot," she said, tossing a small object to her. "I dug this out--it had rolled underneath the couch. I thought you might want it." She turned to look at the others. "Maria knows where we keep the extra blankets and pillows. Don't stay up too late. You still have school tomorrow morning." And with that, she was gone.
Maria stared glumly at the small blue crystal in her hand, the one Bob had said was a power cell. Whatever Michael had tried to do with it hadn't depleted its energy store; it still gave off a Michael vibe. She folded her fingers gently around it. And yet she almost wished she'd never seen the thing. If she hadn't, if Michael had never created it, Bob wouldn't have been able to track it down and force Michael to go with him. Michael would be with her right now, and she could lose herself in his arms, taking comfort in the warmth of his body....
No, she couldn't. If Michael were still here, he'd be off on his own, avoiding them for some unexplained, mutton-headed reason that only he knew. She would be forced to wait until they shared another dream to be able to talk to him. He certainly wouldn't be busting down her door to--
Wait a sec.
She sucked in a breath, her mind working busily. "Guys," she said, her voice rising in excitement, "I think I have an idea."
*****
"Forget it, Isabel!" snapped Michael as he paced his way across the tiny confines of the room. "If you use your powers and Bob catches you, he's gonna know who you are, that you're important to someone besides just me. You'll just be another weapon to use against Max. We have to be smarter than that."
He hated this. He wasn't good at long-term planning...or even short-term planning. He usually went with whatever his gut urged him to, and let Max bail him out. But Max wasn't here, thank god. Bad enough that Isabel was.
"Come on, help me come up with something," he grumbled. He wished Liz was there. Not to put her in the same mess he and Isabel were in, but because she and her too-logical brain could probably be of use right now. Or even Alex; beneath his joking exterior, he had a way of seeing straight through things to their core.
Come to think of it, Isabel was no dummy either. So why was she coming up with such stupid plans?
Continuing to pace, he thought out loud. "We need to convince him you don't know anything about Max. That you don't know aliens exist, either. And that threatening you isn't going to get him what he wants."
"Which is for you to join with him."
"Yeah," he bit out sourly.
"So we tell him you don't really care about me," she offered. "That I'm worthless as a bargaining chip."
"And then he kills you and buries you in the desert," Michael said, his voice glum. "No, we have to come up with a way of making him want to get rid of you, but not hurt you." He brightened. "You could put on your old 'Queen Isabel' act. Annoy him into it."
"And that stops him from killing me how?" she asked acidly.
Michael shrugged. "It never made me do it."
She gave him a pointed look but didn't comment. Instead, she asked, "What kept him from killing Maria and her mother?"
"I said I'd go with him if he didn't," Michael admitted. "Plus I told him the Sheriff was a good friend of Mrs. DeLuca's, and he would get suspicious if anything happened to her."
"We could tell him the Sheriff's my friend, too."
With a snort, Michael shot back, "Oh yeah, the town Sheriff is good friends with a seventeen-year-old girl. He'll sure buy that. At least Mrs. DeLuca is old." He ran his hands through his hair, as if it would jump-start his brain into coming up with a decent plan. Rather surprisingly, it seemed to work. "I never said your name. He has no idea who you are."
"So?"
"So we tell him you're someone the Sheriff would care about. His kid," he said in growing excitement. Yeah. Yeah, this might work.
Isabel apparently didn't think so. "The Sheriff only has one child. And I hardly think I could be mistaken for his son, Michael," she pointed out.
"Bob might not know that," Michael said stubbornly.
"But what if he does?"
Michael barely held in a frustrated groan. Here he'd finally come up with a great plan--okay, not a great one, but a semi-decent one--so why did Isabel have to be so negative? Fine. She could come up with all the roadblocks she wanted; it wouldn't stop him. It was a good plan, if they could pull it off. And--he smirked inwardly as a solution occurred to him.
"Then we give him something close enough that he'll think he just heard wrong," he said, his tone nonchalant.
"Meaning?"
One corner of Michael's mouth twitched upwards, ever so slightly. "You're now the Sheriff's only kid, Kyla Isabel Valenti."
*****
Maria's fingers trembled from a combination of nerves and excitement as she fumbled with the buttons of her pajama top. Liz and Tess had opted to stay in their street clothes--and there wasn't anything in the DeLuca household to fit the three guys--but Maria figured that her flannel pajamas had worked before, so what could they hurt now? Maybe they'd be lucky.
Wadding her street clothes into a ball, she took a last glance in the bathroom mirror and gave herself a deliberately reassuring smile before heading down the hall towards the bedroom. The others were conversing in pairs: Max and Liz, and somewhat less tensely, Kyle and Tess. Alex was standing in front of her mirror, studying Michael's scrawled message. He seemed to be controlling his concern over Isabel's disappearance, at least enough to make an attempt at humor.
"Nice love letter, 'Ria," he commented as she entered.
"I know," she responded with a smile. "And given that it's Michael, it's probably the only one I'll ever get." She tossed her pile of clothing into the hamper. "Do you think I should have it bronzed?"
He returned her smile with an Alex-grin of his own.
By the desk, Kyle took one look at the faded sheep printed on her nightwear, and snorted. "Hey DeLuca. Love the pajamas. No wonder you have the guys falling all over you," he teased.
Surprisingly, Tess chided him. "Shut up, Kyle," she said, sounding very human.
"Yeah, shut up, Kyle," Maria echoed. "I'm comfortable in these. Besides, I'd wear your football uniform and a clown wig if it would help Michael and Isabel. And it's not like Michael hasn't already seen them."
Kyle's ears pricked up, and he gave her a knowing smile. "Well, well. Way to go, DeLuca! Or should I say way to go, Guerin?"
The three girls spoke as one. "Shut up, Kyle!"
"Are you ready?" Max asked, breaking into the burgeoning spat.
"Yeah, I think so." Maria picked up Michael's blue crystal from the dresser and sat on the edge of her bed. She could feel her stomach tense.
Liz sat next to her and took her other hand. "Don't be too upset if it doesn't work," she said softly, squeezing it. "He might not even be asleep. We'll come up with something else."
Maria refused to even consider the thought that she might not succeed. She gave the others a confident smile. "Oh, it'll work, all right. The only question is, which do I do first: hug Michael for saving Mom and me, or slap him silly for getting himself hurt?"
Tess didn't seem to realize that part of this bravado came directly from the shakiness of Maria's nerves. "First you should find out where he is," she said quite seriously.
"Good point." Maria punched up her pillow and lay down stiffly. She closed her eyes.
A scant moment later, she opened them. "Guys, I'm not used to having an audience while I sleep."
"Just pretend it's a slumber party like you and Alex and I used to have," suggested Liz.
"Whitman, you used to go to slumber parties?" demanded Kyle. "Wuss."
Alex looked over at him, not at all disturbed. "I was spending the night with girls. What were you doing?"
Much to Liz's amusement, Kyle shut up.
From her position on the bed, Maria said petulantly, "Well, could you at least turn out the light?" Max, being closest to the door, flicked the switch off, and the room darkened. Everyone's eyes were immediately drawn to the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. She'd gotten them on impulse during one of her off-again stages with Michael. They reminded her of him.
"Those are new," Alex said thoughtfully.
"So?" Maria said, just a tad defensively. "I like them, okay?" She could hear a muffled snicker from Alex's corner of the room, but did her best to ignore it. With a loud sigh, she closed her eyes and willed herself to fall asleep.
*****
"You've got to be kidding."
"Nope. He's not going to want anything interfering with training me," Michael explained. "Having the whole Roswell police force out looking for the Sheriff's missing kid could get in the way of that. The best thing is to let you go."
"And what's to stop me from telling everyone where you are?" Isabel said, playing devil's advocate.
"So he blindfolds you before he drops you off somewhere," Michael suggested. He gave her a rather aggravated look. "Of course, if you prefer I can suggest he hits you over the head again instead."
"No, no. A blindfold is good," she said hastily. There was a moment of silence. "Michael, do you really think this is going to work?"
He didn't meet her eyes. "It has to."
Both of them subsided into their own thoughts. Finally, Isabel spoke softly. "Michael, how are you going to get out of this? Maybe I should stay and help."
He shook his head. "No. You can't," he said firmly. "You need to get back and make sure Max is protected. And keep Maria from looking for me."
"Do you think she will?"
"I left her a note not to. But since when has she listened to me?" he said gloomily, beginning to fidget with his rings. "She's probably already organizing a posse."
"Would that be so bad?"
"Hell, yes!" Michael said with conviction. "Other than the fact that we've got to keep Bob away from Max, I don't know how to fight him. But it's only gonna make it harder if I have to worry about everyone else while I'm doing it."
"What if you can't do it by yourself? What if he kills you?" she said bluntly.
"He won't."
"But what if--"
Michael's voice overrode hers. "Max is the king. He's gotta save a whole planet full of people, remember? He's not gonna be able to do that if someone comes along and takes him out. So it's my job to keep that from happening."
She studied him carefully. "So you do care about our planet," she said quietly.
"Yeah. I guess I do." He scratched one eyebrow, hoping his expression wasn't as sheepish as he felt.
"So you've just decided you're expendable?" she pressed again. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of you?"
Michael laughed. "Look, I'm not bucking to get myself hurt here. I know what that's like, Iz; Hank taught me that a long time ago." Somehow the fact that he was admitting anything so personal didn't really bother him. It seemed trivial in retrospect. "And I don't think dying would be any more fun. There's a lot of things I hate about my life, but I'm not trying to take the quick way out. It's just...it's my father who's doing this. I'm the one who should deal with it."
"What about me?"
"No way. You come under the category of people I care about, remember? Besides, Max would skin me if I let anything happen to you."
Isabel sat for a moment. "Well then, what about Nasedo?"
"What about him?"
"Maybe he knows something about this other alien. Maybe he could help."
"Come off it, Iz. He doesn't trust me. He thinks I'm dangerous. So why would he give any help to someone who he thinks is betraying Max?"
She shrugged delicately.
"Look, it's late," he said. "We know what we're gonna do; we just gotta wait for Bob to make an appearance. Until then, I'm gonna get some sleep." Pulling off his jacket, he folded it into an approximation of a pillow and stretched out on the floor. Through his closed eyes, he could sense her studying him. He didn't move, forcing himself to breathe evenly. After a while, he heard the bedsprings creak as she lay down.
He hadn't really intended to sleep; he'd just wanted to stop talking in circles about everything. But the leftover sedative in his system and his headache combined to put him out, and he quickly lost his hold on consciousness.
His dreams were confused, troubling...filled with the sort of tumultuous images he'd experienced after Bob had unblocked his mind. The hunger for violence that he'd controlled since awakening played itself out in bloody and horrific nightmares. He moved restlessly in his sleep, muttering.
He couldn't have said how long he dreamed, but the rattle of a key in the door's lock woke him with a start. Finally free of the drug he'd been given, he knew immediately where he was and what was happening. Bob had returned.
Showtime.
*****
Cautiously, Liz sidled over closer to Max. "I don't think this is going to get the job done," she whispered.
"Give it a little time," Max suggested. "She hasn't been asleep very long."
Sitting on the floor by Maria's dresser, Alex looked up from the pool of light he was shining idly on the pages of one of Maria's fashion magazines. "She's not asleep," he said, not bothering to keep his voice down.
Maria sat up and reached for the switch on her bedside lamp. "Well, maybe if I had some peace and quiet--" she began before interrupting herself. "Oh, who do I think I'm fooling?" she demanded rather hysterically. "All I had to do was go to sleep. How difficult is that? Easy. A baby could do it. Babies do do it. But me? No, of course not. Oh well, it's not as if we didn't have loads of other ways to contact Michael and find out where they are so we can help them. It doesn't matter at all that I...just...can't...do it!"
"Chill," ordered Kyle, not unkindly. Alex stood and began to look through the vials on Maria's dresser.
"I'm all out," she told him. "I don't think there's a bottle of cedar oil left in the entire state of New Mexico--yet another Michael Guerin-induced shortage," she said dramatically.
"It's all right, 'Ria," Liz protested. "Isabel will dreamwalk someone and let us know where they are."
Maria sat upright. "How can she dreamwalk us when we aren't even asleep?" she shouted. Flinging herself back onto her pillow, she screwed up her face in concentration and tried to force herself to sleep. Not surprisingly, it didn't work.
"Max," Liz said suddenly. "Can't you put her out like you did Michael when we had to get him out of his head?"
Tess and Kyle exchanged puzzled glances, and the jock said, "For being Liz Parker, you're not making a whole heck of a lot of sense there, Liz."
But Maria knew immediately what her friend was talking about, and jumped on the idea. "That's it!" she exclaimed. "Do it, Max. Come on, come on. I don't have all day here."
He took a step over to her. "Are you sure?"
"I trust you," she said indignantly. "Besides, you did it to Michael. If he could take it, I can take it." She closed her eyes and waited breathlessly.
"You might want to breathe," Max said, with a hint of a smile in his voice. "Oxygen is a good thing."
The corners of her mouth lifted, but she didn't open her eyes. Instead, she concentrated on breathing in and out slowly, evenly. She welcomed the light touch of Max's hand on her forehead. She let herself relax a bit, sure that Max would come through, and her slide into slumber was almost unnoticeable.
The sound of gently lapping water was what finally caught her attention, and she opened her eyes to find herself in an idyllic clearing, with unbelievably lush green grass, and sunlight dappling the ground around her. Not far away, a waterfall trickled down past lichen-covered rocks to end in an almost endless shining pool of water that played at her feet. The scent of honeysuckle filled the air.
"Great," Maria muttered, her hands on her flannel-clad hips. It was about as far from Michael's typical dream desert and the round room where they usually met as it could get. Well, no. It could be snowing.
She slowly turned in a circle, trying to get a feel for Michael's direction. He was there, she was sure of it. It wasn't the tingle that heralded his approach in the waking world, but more an inner certainty. And unfortunately, it told her that he was across the water, in the direction of the falls.
She moved closer to the pool, until her hibiscus-polished toes hovered over the water. "Great," she repeated. "All I need is a rowboat and somebody very strong to row it." But neither were forthcoming. With a shrug, she stepped into the water. It was cold. Figured. So she'd get wet. It was just dream water, right? She wasn't really wet; she was just dreaming it. With determination, she moved forward; the water quickly rose to her knees.
Undaunted, she kept forging ahead. She was almost two-thirds of the way to the waterfall when she realized the water was still hovering at knee level. Surely it should be over her head by now...maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.
A hundred or so more yards of slogging through the pool, and she was standing at the foot of the falls, looking up. Even though the top seemed to get father and farther away, and the water pounded down more furiously each minute, the spray didn't land anywhere near her. From her knees up, she was totally dry.
Okay, now how to get to the top? No ladder, no obliging helicopter standing by...but she wasn't about to let that stop her. This was her dream, right? Isabel and Michael had proven they could affect things in their own dreams, so why couldn't she? Of course she couldn't just wave her hand and have things happen...or maybe she could.
"I need a way up," she said smartly to the rushing water in front of her. And that was all it took. The stream of water pulled back on one side, and a series of step-like protrusions appeared in the rocks. Her way up, just like magic.
Grinning, she moved towards the bottom-most step, the water splashing around her knees as she sloshed forward. She put one hand out to steady herself for the start of the climb. Then something inside her made her stop.
Why settle for an arduous climb, in bare feet no less? This was her dream, after all. Throwing any remaining shred of doubt behind her, she walked directly towards the center of the waterfall. And like Moses, the waters parted before her. She stepped from dancing blue water onto smooth dry stone.
And a door appeared before her.
A very familiar door, with dark wooden geometric carvings depicting almost-but-not-quite recognizable pictures. The door behind which she'd first found the dream room she shared with Michael. Joyfully she strode towards it, only barely noticing that her pajama legs were now dry. That didn't matter; only that she could sense him now. Michael was behind that door.
Smoothing her hair down, she ignored the fact that she was primping for him. Her hand reached out eagerly to turn the doorknob.
Which wasn't there.
She blinked her eyes and looked again. Yes, this was the same door, she was positive of it. But where was the handle? Determined not to let that stand in her way, she put her palms flat on the wood and pushed.
Nothing.
Fine. Michael would just have to open the door from the other side, then. No biggie. She licked her lips, set her shoulders, and knocked.
"Michael? It's me."
No response.
"Come on, Michael. I know you're in there; I can feel you, remember? I need to talk to you."
Not so much as a sound from the other side of the door. But surely he wouldn't be keeping her out on purpose, would he? That had been the deal: she'd leave him alone on the outside, but in this room, he was fair game.
"Please, Michael," she begged. "We need to know where you and Isabel are. Please. Please let me help you." All the happiness faded from her face. "Let me in."
But nothing--not her pleading, not her threats, not her pounding on the door until her hands felt bruised--nothing ever got through, because the door never opened, and Michael never answered.
Silent tears were rolling down Maria's cheeks as she finally woke up in her own bedroom. She ignored them, choosing to lie silently for a moment.
"What happened?" asked Tess, sounding like she had a fair idea it wasn't good.
Maria didn't answer her; instead she rose and moved to the mirror. Ignoring her own reflection in the dim light of the bedside lamp, she reached out to touch the words Michael had scrawled on the glass.
Don't look for me. But how could she not?
"I couldn't get in," she said softly, not turning around to face the others. "I found the door to our room, but I couldn't get in." She was quiet for moment. "I don't know if he was keeping me out on purpose, or if Bob...if Bob did something to him, and he couldn't let me in," she whispered.
"It's okay," Alex told her, forcing confidence into his voice. "Isabel will let us know where they are. We just have to wait for her."
And the timing couldn't have been better if they'd planned it. It was at that very moment that a loud knocking sounded on the DeLucas' front door. Five teenagers stared at Alex, as if his words had conjured up the sound; then the six of them raced out of Maria's room and towards the front door.
It wouldn't have been unexpected for Kyle, West Roswell's star athlete, to get there first, but two genetically enhanced aliens and a frantically determined Maria barreled past him and left him--not to mention Liz and Alex--in the proverbial dust. The three of them reached the front door just in time to see Max swing it open and a figure stumble through the doorway.
None of them said a word.
Standing before them was a somewhat frightened, uncharacteristically disheveled, and extremely annoyed Isabel Evans.