CHAPTER 7
"Oh my god," Liz whispered numbly as she stood over the bed in shock. She blindly made her way to Max and threw herself into his arms.
Isabel looked around in confusion at the blank faces around her and asked, "Where is Maria?" Her voice rose shakily. "Where is she? Where is she?"
Alex blinked and found the power to move. Crossing swiftly to her side, he knelt by the bed and took her hands. "I don't know," he said, shaken. "She was there one minute, and the next she just...disappeared...and you and Max came out of it."
"What happened in there?" asked Max, still holding tightly to Liz.
"We went back to the cylinder. He was there, Max, our Michael was there. We couldn't see him, but he was there." The words poured out of her. "He talked--no, he yelled at us and told us to leave, but Maria was determined to get through to him and she started banging on the barrier with her shoe and he had the other one and then we could see him and Maria tripped and fell and then I...I woke up."
"You've got to go back in, Isabel," Liz insisted. "You have to find her."
"I'll go with you this time," offered Alex.
"No! No one can go back in with me. It's not safe."
Alex protested, "If it's not safe, then you shouldn't do it alone, Isabel."
"It's the only way. I won't risk you too. What if what happened to Maria happens to you? No. I have to do this alone."
Alex plunged on. "What about Max?"
"He can't dreamwalk. Neither he nor Michael is very good at it. Besides, if something happens to me, he's the only one with a hope of getting us out."
"She's right, Alex. God! I want to do something, but Isabel is our best chance," Max burst out.
Isabel grasped his hand. "You can do something. You can be here for me. I need to know that you're here. I need to know all three of you are here."
Max nodded, then let go of Liz to pull his sister into a tight hug. "Be careful, all right?"
"I will." Isabel lay down on the bed for the fourth time that night, and picked up the photo of the three aliens. Staring at it, she blinked furiously in an effort to keep the moisture in her eyes from rolling down her cheeks. She had only minimal success and Alex reached over to wipe an errant tear away. She smiled shakily at him, and then gazed fixedly at the photograph. If only Michael would let her in. He just had to let her in.
Maria lifted her head and looked directly into the annoyed eyes of one very ticked off Michael Guerin. "Michael," she breathed again, and flung her arms around his neck. "Thank god."
For a moment, she thought she felt his arms begin to close around her. It had been so long since he'd held her, since she'd felt this safe, this at home. Her expectations were quickly dashed, however, as he stopped the movement he'd barely started and relaxed his arms back onto the floor.
"Are you gonna get off me, or what?" he asked rudely. Scrambling up, she made certain to plant an elbow in his diaphragm, causing him to grunt in pain. He remained sprawled on the ground, staring up at her, his face unreadable. "What the hell are you doing here, Maria?"
"Here? Where exactly is here?" she countered, brushing herself off as she gazed at her surroundings. The two of them were in some sort of round room, with gray metallic floors and walls that stretched up higher than she could see. "What is this place?"
"I told you before, it doesn't matter," he snapped. "Now will you do what I said and get out of here? Finally?"
"No, Michael, I'm not leaving until you tell me what is wrong with you."
His voice rose threateningly as he sat up. "Oh yes, you are. You're leaving. Now."
"You can't make me go if I don't want to, Michael!" she spat at him. Looking furiously around, she added "Besides, where do you want me to go?"
"I don't care! Same place you came from is fine!"
"Little problem there. No door, Einstein."
He pulled himself hurriedly to his feet and stormed over to the wall behind her. Feeling along it, he began to curse under his breath. Finally he gave up and pounded his fist into the hard surface with all his might. "Dammit!" He punched the wall several more times and threw in a few kicks for good measure.
"Stop, Michael," cried Maria as she put her arms around him from behind and held him tightly. "Stop it. You're going to hurt yourself." His frantic movements calmed somewhat, and she leaned her head against his back. "It's okay. It's okay, Michael. Everything is going to be okay."
Moving restlessly on the bed, Isabel finally gave up and opened her eyes. "I can't do it," she said shortly. "He's not asleep any more. God! Why is this happening?"
"We'll fix things, Izzy," her brother said, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding her hands. "I promise. But we need to know exactly what happened in Michael's dream."
"It wasn't a dream," she remembered suddenly. "That's what Michael said. It wasn't a dream. Or at least we were in his dream, but he wasn't."
"He wasn't? Where was he?"
"I don't know, Max. He wouldn't say. It all happened so quickly, and then I was here, and she was just...gone," Isabel shuddered.
Burying his head in his hands, Max vainly tried to make sense out of what had happened. Once again, everything seemed to be spinning out of his control. He had to get it back. For Isabel. For Michael. For all of them.
"Max," said Liz, who had been silent since the failed dreamwalking attempt, "I'm not sure we're equipped to handle this alone. There's too much we don't understand. Maybe you need to go directly to the source." He looked up at her. "Go to Michael. Tell him Maria has disappeared. Make him help us. He will, for Maria. He has to."
"I'll go with you," offered Alex stoutly.
Looking at Alex, Max could see the tension in his face, but his eyes reflected nothing but determination and loyalty...and hope. "All right," he agreed. "We'll go now. Isabel, you and Liz stay here and cover for me in case Mom and Dad wake up. Alex and I will take your cell phone so you can call us if anything...happens. Try to get some rest, okay?"
Isabel gave him a small, worried smile before repeating his earlier words to her. "Be careful, all right?"
"We will, Izzy. We will."
Michael stood motionless for a few brief moments before pulling away from her. Continuing to stare at the wall before him, he tried to hold in the sense of panic that was threatening to overwhelm him. She shouldn't be here. It wasn't safe. He should have been able to stop her, to keep her out of this whole goddamn fucking mess. But no. As usual, he had to go and be a stupid fuckup. He--
"Michael?" Her voice was softer than he'd remembered it, and there was obvious concern in it. But then she was always concerned about him, how he was doing, what he was feeling...She sometimes worried more about him that she did her own self. Sometimes? A lot of the time. It wasn't right. And there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it.
"It's never going to be enough, is it?" he said, half to himself.
"What?"
"It's never going to be enough," he repeated. "No matter what I do, I'm never going to be able to fix things, to make them the way they should be." Again, he almost seemed to be speaking with himself.
Maria hesitated, and then said quietly, "I don't know what's going on with you, but I care, Michael. I'm here if you need to talk about it." She chuckled ruefully and added, "Actually, it looks like I'm here whether you need to talk about it or not. So just take your time, okay? I'm not going anywhere."
He nodded, but remained turned away from her.
"So," she ventured, "that was your dream world out there? Lotta sand."
"What were you expecting, giant Tabasco bottles and Playboy bunnies?" She burst into laughter and he spun around, frowning at her. "What?" he said crossly.
Her eyes danced as she answered him coolly. "Oh, nothing. Just a conversation Isabel and I had."
Michael eyed her suspiciously, but decided not to press. It would be better not to know.
He watched her pick up the shoe she'd dropped when she'd body-slammed him into the ground and settle down on the floor to pull it on. Wordlessly, he picked up its mate and bent to hand it to her. She smiled warmly at him and reached for the shoe, and then stopped as she noticed how dirty and torn the sleeve of his long-sleeved T-shirt had become.
Her hands bypassed the shoe he was holding and went straight for his arm. He tensed up and tried to pull away, but she would have none of it. "Hold still! Let me see," she commanded, rising to her knees. Carefully peeling back the ruined cuff of his shirt, she gasped as she saw the angry burns and bruising that covered his forearm. "Michael! What happened to you?" she cried agitatedly.
He shrugged it off. "Tried to use my powers. Backfired."
"Can you heal it?" she asked. He shot her a pointed look and she quickly stifled her next comment. "Well, at least we can clean it up a bit," she finally said. She looked around the room for something to use to clean and bind it, but found nothing there. Nothing except her and Michael and the shoe he was still holding. "I told Isabel we should have brought some bottled water," she grumbled, sitting back on her heels and gently pulling the remains of the sleeve back over his damaged flesh. Taking the shoe he was still clutching from him she dropping it on the floor, then stroked the back of his hand before placing upon it a feather-light kiss. "There. That will help."
He pulled away from her, but not abruptly, and she settled back down to pull on her other shoe. Leaning back against the wall, she watched as he ran his hand through his hair distractedly and then stuffed both hands into his jeans pockets. His eyes moved rapidly around the room as he tried to gaze anywhere she wasn't. Maria chuckled softly and, as his eyes swung back to her, patted the ground next to her. Slowly he moved toward her and sat, making sure to keep several feet between them.
"So, your dream, Michael," she said, determined to draw him back into conversation. "It was...interesting."
"Interesting, huh?"
"Uh huh."
He looked at her, his brow wrinkling. "Why? What'd you see? Wait--how'd you get in, anyway?"
"Isabel brought me. She connected with me and then dreamwalked you. Max somehow strengthened the connection. Michael, I saw flashes."
Michael tensed. She'd seen flashes. She'd gotten flashes from connecting with Isabel. Right. Isabel didn't keep herself shut off from the world. Isabel wasn't so closely guarded it hurt. Isabel could open up to a person without destroying everything. He suddenly realized Maria was still talking.
"...as a little girl, and her and Max at school, and I saw the three of you together. You are so important to her, Michael. You have no idea how important you are. That's why she's been so worried about you the past few weeks. You've been distant all summer, even for you, but when you started being so cold--"
"When I what?" he interrupted, startled.
"You know, when you started avoiding Max and Isabel, not just me. When you started being so...well, so not like you. Like you were in your apartment on Monday. The past few weeks have been really hard on them, Michael."
"The past few..." He stopped and sat there, unmoving, but she could almost see his brain working. His mouth opened, as if to say something, then closed; she watched him curiously. After a few moments, he asked hoarsely, "What day is it, Maria?"
"Friday, October 13. Huh. Friday the thirteenth. Should have seen that one coming."
Practically leaping to his feet, he began to pace back and forth across the small cell-like room. His mouth worked a little more before he was able to continue. "Maria...The last time I was at my apartment was in September. I've been here for almost three weeks."
TBC...