Liz watched fretfully as Isabel sat still in her chair with her head loosely hanging down and her right hand resting on top of her left hand, which she placed in her lap. Liz knew that Isabel essentially went to sleep to invade another's consciousness, but she began to wonder how long a typical dream should be and what a warning of something gone wrong would look like.
Suddenly Isabel burst back into consciousness as if the world's loudest alarm clock just exploded in her ear. She stood up, kicking her chair back in the process. Breathing heavily, Isabel took a few steps forward and then collapsed down to a knee.
Liz sprang up and knelt down beside her. Isabel still took rapid deep breaths.
"Isabel, are you ok?" Liz asked with alarm.
Isabel nodded and her breathing started to slow. "Yes," she replied shakily, "I think so. But Nicholas, he… I think he just forced me out."
"Here," Liz said, grabbing Isabel's arm and gently guiding her to feet.
Liz walked Isabel back to the chair Liz sat in since Isabel's chair partly collapsed when she kicked it over. As Isabel sat down, Liz grabbed the bottle of water she'd been sipping on, unscrewed the cap and offered it to Isabel. As Isabel took a few sips of water, Liz retrieved the kicked over chair and placed it right beside Isabel and sat down.
"Tell me what happened," Liz requested.
Isabel looked up at her with consternation. "I learned a couple things. For one, Kivar's ship didn't crash. That's a trick to make it seem more vulnerable, which may explain why going there was destined to not end well. Also, there are about a dozen shapeshifters, I don't know… deployed all around El Quartelejo."
While she watched Isabel during the dream walk, Liz found herself thinking about the bully encounter with Zan. She never took time to fully examine everything she witnessed, but the sequence of events never all came together for her.
Liz witnessed all four bullies turn the corner to the back alley after Max scared them off by sending sparks spewing from the electrical box. Before she could reach the corner herself, Liz saw a blinding white light. When she arrived around the corner to look down the back alley, a homeless Hispanic man, who presumably slept near the dumpster, fled the scene shouting in Spanish, "The visitors."
A straight-forward explanation was that the bullies got abducted by an alien ship and the incident frightened the old, homeless man. However, that felt obvious and based on pop culture, not Liz's firsthand experience with alien-related matters. She couldn't rule out that the ship rumored to have crashed in the nearby grasslands swooped in and abducted the bullies with a Hollywood-like white anti-gravity tractor beam.
Knowing now that Kivar's ship never sustained damage from a crash seemingly supported that account, but Liz's gut still told her that wasn't quite right. Even before she knew the ship belonged to Kivar, the reveal that Zan was the bullies' victim made Liz question the motivation for any alien ship to abduct them. If anything, they should want to take Zan. So when Isabel mentioned more shapeshifters on the loose in El Quarterlejo, it triggered a new theory for Liz.
"That's really interesting you mention more shapeshifters," Liz started, "something happened near the community college when we first encountered Zan."
Liz proceeded to share the full story with Isabel.
"I never quite put it all together to understand what I witnessed," Liz continued, "but watching how bright it got when Kivar transformed in front of us, it was just as bright in that alley. I think one of the bully's shapeshifted into the old man to elude my pursuit."
"But wait," Isabel interjected, "didn't you say there were four bullies? If one of them shapeshifted, what happened to the other three?"
"Maybe they never left," Liz reasoned. She noticed Isabel still looked puzzled and added, "The shapeshifter could've immobilized and hidden them in the seconds it took me to turn the corner."
"That's true," Isabel agreed. "I just wish I could've learned more to help us come up with a new plan. From what I could gather, Kivar's keeping Nicholas on the ship until Kivar needs him again, but even Nicholas doesn't know what Kivar has in mind."
"At least we have a lead now, though," Liz said, trying her best to come off optimistic because she sensed Isabel's disappointment. "We can try to find out who the three human bullies are, since it doesn't make sense that all four were shapeshifters. Once we find out what happened to them, they may need our help, but they could also provide additional information on Kivar."
Their dialog tapered off and they sat in relative silence. Before too long, Max and Michael emerged from the trailer to take their place on watch duty. Liz informed them that she and Isabel came up with a different approach but that they should wait for morning to discuss with everyone. Liz felt somewhat surprised that neither of them pressed them for more information immediately.
With all the excitement from the last couple days finally catching up with her, Liz fell asleep almost immediately despite plenty of recent developments to keep her mind active. As she felt herself drifting off to sleep, one of her final thoughts was if Isabel was also able to quickly fall asleep.
The next morning, Liz and Isabel gathered the group to review what Liz learned from her vision and what Isabel learned from her dream walk of Nicholas. Max, Michael and Isabel immediately recognized that their original plan of sneaking past the military checkpoint to get to Kivar's ship wouldn't work. Liz felt like this helped Ava, Zan and Serena quickly accept the need to adjust without further discussion.
Max decided they should all head back to the scene of the crime and split into smaller groups once at the park near Northwest Texas Community College to look for clues around. Once there, they divided into three groups: Liz and Serena, Michael and Isabel, and then Max joined Ava and Zan.
"There's a general store on the west end of the park, behind the ice cream stand," Liz told Serena. "Maybe we should buy a newspaper and see if there's anything about the bullies being missing or injured."
"Sounds like a good place to start," Serena agreed.
Liz wondered how engaged Serena remained given this change in direction. In many ways, they already revealed many of the mysteries Serena spent years investigating in one informative conversation. Serena surely realized that she could offer little help in battling Kivar after witnessing what Max, Michael, Isabel and Ava could do. Liz liked that Serena stuck around because Liz felt she could offer an investigative prowess that could prove valuable while the group looked to find a way to defeat Kivar or, at the very least, protect the Granolith.
Liz considered what she would do if her life's work were solved and if she would see out the adventure because that could explain why Serena stayed. It also occurred to Liz that Max healing Serena left her with a sense of obligation to contribute something in return. Despite Max advising Serena not to tell them yet, Liz certainly wouldn't blame Serena if she offered what she learned about the Granolith Chamber from River Dog and then left the group. Beyond her practical usefulness, Liz realized she started to grow quite fond of Serena. And with Max discovering Ava and Zan, who were connected to him much more than to Liz, she also liked having her own new friend.
Inside the general store there were two free floating aisle fixtures with shelving and peg hooks on both sides. With product on the outer walls of the small shop as well, it created four aisles running toward the back wall of the store. The far right wall contained sunscreen, tools, basic supplies like tape and paper towels and some Styrofoam coolers. The rest of the store contained mostly food products, with a freezer unit along the back wall and fridges built into the left wall, taking up the back half of that side of the aisle. Next to the fridges was a door that led to a stock room and on the left side of the door was a wired basket that held a stack of newspapers. Restrooms were located in the back left corner. The cash register was positioned in the front left corner. Liz visited the store several times while in El Quartelejo and knew the newspapers were on that far left wall, so she motioned for Serena to follow her that way.
An older couple, Henry and Anita, owned and ran the store. One of the owners always manned the register. Henry's face lit up with a smile when he recognized Liz coming. Henry sported white hair combed neatly to one side with blue jeans, a green apron and white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
"Well hi there, Liz," Henry greeted her warmly, "what can I do for y'all this mornin'?"
"Just a newspaper today, Henry," Liz answered.
"Why, sure," Henry said.
Before Liz and Serena could walk past the register to the newspaper rack, Henry walked back and grabbed a newspaper for them. He met them back at the register and placed the newspaper near the edge of the counter.
"That'll be $1," Henry announced.
FLASH
Liz viewed the general store from how she saw it moments ago after just walking inside. In the second aisle from the left, just one aisle right of the far left corner where the restrooms were, Liz noticed an area on the floor that looked shiny. She studied it carefully and walked forward slowly, recognizing the illusionary effect was caused by a small pool of liquid. Somehow she knew it was blood. As she reached the edge of the aisle and the pool of what was definitely blood, she peered around the corner to her left. She saw Henry's dead body lying face down on the floor, blood all around his head, which rested right near the base of the end cap separating the left most and second from the left aisles.
WASHOUT
"Again, that's just $1, sweetheart," Liz heard Henry repeating.
"Oh," Liz said with a noticeable lack of liveliness as she reached into her pocket to place a $1 bill on the counter and Serena grabbed the newspaper, "here you go, Henry."
As Liz began to turn toward the door, Henry asked, "Everything all right, Liz?"
"Yeah," Liz replied with a forced smile, "sorry about that. Everything's fine."
As Liz and Serena stepped outside the general store, Serena stopped Liz.
"Let me guess," Serena said, "you had a vision about the old guy, didn't you?"
Liz nodded to confirm. "He's going to die today. I don't know if he'll be attacked or get caught in a cross fire or something, but he was wearing the same clothes. Whatever's going to happen, it will be today."
"What can we do?" Serena asked.
"We need to talk to Max," Liz responded.