The Outsider Read online

  “The ambulance is pulling up out front,” Max heard Michael say.

  But he sounded far away. So far . . .

  Max focused on Liz’s somatic cells. The cells of her body. Of her stomach. Of her muscles and tendons. Of her skin.

  And instead of nudging he squeezed. Squeezed with his mind. Urging the cells closer together. Healing.

  Max felt hands on his shoulders, shaking him. “You’ve got to disconnect. Now, Max,” Michael ordered. “The ambulance crew is coming through the door.”

  And he was out. Separate again. Alone again. A wave of coldness washed through him, and he shivered.

  Max slowly raised his hands and stared down at Liz’s stomach. Under the blood her skin was whole and perfect. He released a shaky sigh of relief.

  Liz opened her eyes and stared at him. “I. . . you . . .”

  “I’ll explain everything later,” Max whispered. “But now I need you to help me.”

  He grabbed a bottle of ketchup off the counter and smashed it against the floor. He dumped the contents over the blood on Liz’s uniform.

  “You broke the bottle when you fell,” Max told her. “Okay, Liz? You broke the bottle when you fell, that’s all.”

  A man and woman dressed in white jumpsuits hurried behind the counter. “Everyone move aside and give us some room,” the woman paramedic instructed.

  Max backed away. Did Liz even understand what he’d asked her to do?

  Liz struggled to sit up. “I’m okay,” she said. Her voice sounded hoarse. “When I heard the gunshot, I jumped. Then I fell I . . . I broke this ketchup bottle and spilled ketchup all over myself.”

  She held up the broken bottle so everyone could see it.

  Then Liz looked straight at Max, her dark brown eyes melting with emotion. He felt his breath catch in his chest.

  “I’m okay,” she repeated.

  2

  Liz couldn’t stop staring at Max. He gave her a tiny smile, a private smile meant only for her. What did you do to me? she thought. How . . .

  Her brain felt like it was humming, vibrating at a really low frequency. It was hard to think.

  The paramedic knelt down in front of Liz, blocking her view of Max. No! Liz thought, struggling to stand up. She needed to keep Max in sight right now. It made her feel . . . safer.

  Lying on the floor, she’d had the feeling of rushing away, being forced away from the cafe, from her father and Maria — from everything and everyone familiar. And somehow Max had brought her back.

  “Don’t try to move yet.” The paramedic grasped Liz firmly by the shoulders.

  Liz tried to focus on the story she was supposed to tell. She brushed her fingers across the front of her uniform, then held her hand up so the woman could see it. “It’s ketchup, just like I told you. I know it looks like blood, like a lot of blood. . . .”

  And there is blood under the ketchup, a lot of blood, she thought. I was bleeding to death. I was dying. A shiver rippled through Liz. She wrapped her arms around herself, but it didn’t help. She still felt cold.

  “I know it’s ketchup — I can smell it. I’m getting the urge for a big plate of fries,” the woman joked. She pulled out a tiny flashlight and shone it into Liz’s eyes. Then she took Liz’s wrist in her hand and checked her pulse.

  “Is she okay?” Mr. Ortecho asked. He was blinking superfast, the way he always did when he was about to lose it.

  Liz felt a rush of protectiveness for her father. He had been devastated when Rosa overdosed. For days after the funeral he had lain on the sofa covered by a red afghan — even though it was the middle of summer. And no matter how many times Liz had gone into the room, she’d always found him in exactly the same position.

  He must be terrified, she thought. I’m the only child he has left. She wished this had happened on his day off.

  “I’m fine, Papi,” she answered. She heard a tiny tremor in her voice, but she thought she’d done a good job of sounding normal. Except for the fact that she had called her father Papi. She hadn’t used that name since she was a little girl.

  “I didn’t ask you,” Papa snapped. “Are you a professional? No. You don’t know if you’re fine or not.”

  “I’m the professional, and I say she’s fine, too,” the woman answered. “I thought she might be in shock. I’d be in shock if someone shot at me. But she’s just fine.” The woman glanced over her shoulder at her partner. “Guess we should head out.”

  “Thanks.” Liz pushed herself to her feet. Her father wrapped her in a hug so tight, her ribs hurt. “Let’s not tell Mama what happened, okay?” she whispered.

  “Are you kidding? There’s no way your mother’s radar would miss this. The second one of us walked in the house, she’d know something was wrong.” He gave a choked laugh as he released her.

  Liz scanned the cafe, searching for Max. She had to talk to him. She had to find out what he did to her. But he was gone. So was Michael.

  Max had sounded so intense when he asked her to lie for him, like it was something really critical. If anyone took a close look at the floor, they would know her ketchup story couldn’t be true. The spatters of blood on the tile floor looked bright red and shiny slick — not tomato red and clumpy.

  “ — I’d better mop up the ketchup. Someone is going to slip.” Liz rushed over to the corner and rolled the big yellow bucket over to the red stains. She drenched the floor with dirty gray mop water.

  “I’ll do that,” her father said. He pulled the mop out of her hands.

  “Come on. Let’s go to the ladies’ room and get you cleaned up,” Maria said, slipping her arm through Liz’s,

  “Good idea.” Liz didn’t know how much longer she could stand here acting calm and talking about ketchup.

  She turned toward her friend. Maria’s face was pale. Her peachy pink blush looked way too dark now. It stood out on her cheeks in ugly splotches.

  Before Liz could take a step, the front door of the cafe swung open and Sheriff Valenti strode in. The heels of his boots echoed on the tile floor as he made his way up to the counter.

  Everyone at Olsen High knew Kyle’s father. He did a locker search practically every week. He stopped anyone under eighteen who was driving even one mile over the speed limit. He showed up at practically every party, checking to see if there was any underage drinking going on.

  “I got a report that there were shots fired at this address,” he told Mr. Ortecho. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  He’s going to ask a billion questions, Liz thought. What if he doesn’t believe the ketchup story? She felt her heartbeat speed up.

  “I was in my office. I heard two men yelling, then a shot,” Mr. Ortecho answered in a shaky voice. “I ran out and saw my daughter . . . I saw my daughter lying on the ground, bleeding.”

  “It was ketchup,” Liz said quickly. “The gunshot scared me. I jumped back, then I fell. I broke this ketchup bottle, and it spilled all over me.”

  Valenti turned toward her. “Is that right?” he asked. He took off his hat, and Liz could see the red band the brim had made across his forehead.

  “Uh-huh,” Liz answered.

  Why did she feel so intimidated? He’d asked the question in a calm voice — he didn’t yell or anything. And it wasn’t like he was some big, powerful-looking man. He was about average height, not much taller than Liz.

  But there was something about him. If Liz had to pick one word to describe Sheriff Valenti, it would be deliberate. She got the feeling that his every word, his every gesture was calculated. And if he was so careful about what he did and said, he must scrutinize every detail about other people.

  Did he notice how wet the floor is? she thought suddenly. Does he wonder why we mopped? It was kind of a bizarro thing to do three seconds after someone tried to shoot at her.

  Valenti didn’t ask another question. He just stood there.

  Did he believe her story? Liz wished she could see the sheriff’s eyes. But he hadn’t removed his mirrored
sunglasses. All she could see in them were reflections of her own face.

  “Two guys in that booth over there were having a fight,” Maria put in. “One was sort of short but not scrawny, more muscular, and the other one was a big beefy guy.”

  “That’s right!” Liz agreed. “They were fighting about money, I think. Yeah, about money.”

  You’re babbling, Liz told herself. Just slow down. The more you say, the easier it will be for Valenti to catch you in a lie.

  Valenti raised one eyebrow. “And then what happened?”

  “And then one of the guys — the short one — pulled out a gun. The other guy tried to take it away from him, and the gun went off,” Liz answered.

  “I’ll need to get a description of both of them.” Valenti pulled a little notebook out of his pocket.

  Liz forced herself to laugh. “Definitely,” she said. “The guy with the gun had shaggy brown hair. He was about five-nine, maybe a hundred and eighty pounds.”

  “Mustache, tattoos, anything like that?” Valenti asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Liz glanced at Maria for help. Dealing with the sheriff was making her nervous.

  “I don’t remember anything, either,” Maria added.

  “What about the other guy?” Valenti tapped his pencil against the notebook.

  “Taller,” Maria answered. “Maybe six-two. And bigger, with a beer belly.”

  Valenti jotted down notes as Maria continued her description. In a few more minutes he’d be out of there. And Liz could find Max.

  “I guess that’s it,” Valenti said. “I just have one more question — where’s the bullet hole?”

  The bullet hole? Oh, my God, Liz hadn’t thought of that. “Uh, it must be in the wall.” She turned around and pretended to search for it.

  Valenti leaned across the counter. “Don’t see anything,” he said.

  Liz could feel his breath against her ear. He was giving her the creeps. Valenti has no way of knowing you’re lying, she reminded herself. She turned back to face him and shrugged. “Maybe I was so freaked out when I saw the gun, I just imagined it went off.”

  “Well, the mind can play tricks on you — especially when you’re under stress,” Valenti answered.

  Yes, he’s buying it, Liz thought.

  “But your father heard the gunshot, too,” Valenti commented. “And so did the woman who called in to report the shot.”

  I didn’t think of that, either. I’m totally losing it, Liz realized. I have to just shut up. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “Do you mind if I go clean up? This ketchup is really sticky.”

  “Go ahead,” Valenti answered. “I know where to find you if I have any more questions.”

  “Come on, Maria.” Liz grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to the ladies’ room. She led the way inside and shut the door behind them.

  Liz scooped her hair up and gathered it into a big Pebbles Flintstone ponytail on the top of her head. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a scrunchie, and used it to anchor the ponytail in place. Somehow she could always think better when all her hair was out of her face. Stupid, but true.

  Maria rolled out a long sheet of brown paper towel and held it under the cold water. Then she wrung it out and handed it to Liz. “So, do you want to tell me why you lied to Valenti and everyone else?” she asked.

  Liz froze with the paper towel halfway to her stomach. She could feel water dripping onto her shoes. “I wasn’t lying,” she answered, but her voice sounded high and fake.

  Maria looked at her for a long moment. “Yeah, right.” She pulled a dish towel out of the side pocket of her uniform. “The red stuff on this isn’t ketchup. It’s blood. Your blood, Liz. I was holding the cloth over your stomach, and I felt the blood soaking into it.”

  Her voice cracked. Tears glistened in her eyes. “I pressed down as hard as I could, but it wouldn’t stop. You were dying, Liz. I was watching you die.”

  Liz grabbed the edge of the sink with both hands. She suddenly needed help standing up. When Max asked her to lie for him, Liz had just turned off her emotions and done what he wanted. It was like she had formed a big glass bubble around herself, keeping all the fear out so she could deal with her father, the paramedics, and Sheriff Valenti.

  But Maria’s words blasted a hole in the bubble. I almost died, Liz thought. The words repeated themselves in her head again and again. She sank down to the floor and leaned against the wall.

  Maria sat down next to her. She wrapped her arm around Liz’s shoulders. “It just hit you, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Liz admitted. Her throat stung, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “So tell me.”

  Liz pulled in a long, hitching breath. “Max healed me. It’s impossible, but he did. I heard you screaming. You sounded really far away. Then I guess I blacked out or something.”

  It felt good to say it out loud. It made her feel less crazy. “The next thing I remember is feeling hands pressed against my stomach. Warm hands,” Liz continued. “That’s all I felt — no pain or anything. I looked up, and I saw Max.”

  “Wow. I just . . . wow. He saved your life.”

  “Yeah, he did,” Liz answered. But she didn’t quite believe it. It was like a dream or something, seeming less real with every passing second. How could Max have healed a gunshot wound? “He told me to lie. He said he’d explain everything — then he disappeared.”

  The smell of ketchup mixed with drying blood wafted up from Liz’s uniform. She felt a wave of nausea. She stood up and soaked another paper towel, scrubbing frantically at her uniform until the towel started to fall apart.

  Maria joined Liz in front of the mirror. She wiped her eyes and gave a shaky laugh. “This is supposed to be waterproof mascara.”

  “I don’t think they’ve invented tear-proof stuff yet.” Liz tore off a strip of paper towel and handed it to Maria.

  Maria’s eyes widened. She leaned toward Liz. “Liz, you shouldn’t even bother trying to get the ketchup out,” she said, pointing to the fabric. “You’ll have to burn that uniform or something. Look.”

  Liz looked down and saw a small round hole in the cloth. She felt her stomach turn over. That’s where the bullet had gone in. That’s the bullet hole Valenti had been hoping to find — and only some blobs of ketchup kept him from spotting it.

  “You’re right,” Liz said slowly. “I have to burn this. And that cloth, too.” She took the blood-soaked dish towel out of Maria’s hand.

  Maria kept staring at the bullet hole.

  “I can’t believe there was really a bullet inside my body.” Liz wrapped her hands protectively across her stomach.

  “Move your hands a second,” Maria said. “There’s something weird. It’s like your skin is shining.”

  Liz lowered her hands. The patch of skin underneath the little hole did look kind of strange — almost silvery. What was going on?

  She slowly unzipped the front of her uniform. When she looked down at her stomach, she began to feel light-headed.

  This wasn’t happening. None of this could be happening.

  But there, on her stomach, were two iridescent handprints. Melded with her flesh. Max’s handprints.

  Isabel Evans pulled out her top dresser drawer and tossed the contents into the center of her bed. Okay: lips, eyes, skin, nails, scent, she thought. She snatched up every lipstick, lip gloss, lip balm, and lip pencil she saw and piled them in the upper-right-hand corner of her mattress.

  Then she picked out all the eye shadows (cream and powder), all the eyeliners (liquid and pencil), all the mascaras, and all the eyebrow pencils. She heaped them in the upper-left corner of the bed, then added two eyelash curlers and a bottle of Visine.

  Max always teased her when she did this. He said Isabel was like a little kid dividing her Halloween candy into categories — plain chocolate, chocolate with nuts, hard candy and licorice. But organizing her makeup and stuff calmed Isabel down whenever she was upset. And she was up
set now. No, more than upset. Totally panicked and heading toward hysterical.

  If her brother didn’t get home soon, he’d never get the chance to tease her ever again — because Isabel would kill him. And Michael, too.

  One of them had used a lot of power — healing, dream walking, something. She could feel the power crackling in the air — all the tiny hairs on her arms and the back of her neck were standing up. And the smell of ozone drifted in through her open window — the same way it did after a thunderstorm.

  That meant something was very wrong, because Max and Michael never used their power just for kicks. And whenever Isabel did — which was a lot because using her powers was fun — they both always chewed her out.

  Something big must have happened. Something that made her brother and her friend risk breaking their own rules. But that wasn’t the scariest part. The scariest part was that she had felt a burst of terror from both of them. Not fear. Terror.

  Isabel couldn’t read Max, or Michael’s thoughts. But she could feel their feelings, always. Most of the time she tuned them out. Who wanted to feel Michael’s annoyance over some argument with his foster parents or Max’s sappy pleasure when Liz Ortecho smiled at him?

  But there was no way to block the terror coming from both of them right now. It would be like trying to ignore a volcano erupting in the middle of town, spewing lava everywhere.

  Isabel scooped up blushes, and moisturizers, and concealers, and foundations (liquid and powder). She shoved them over to the lower-right-hand corner of the bed. She started to add an apricot-and-oatmeal facial scrub, then hesitated. Should she do cleansing stuff separate this time?

  She couldn’t think straight. Where were Max and Michael? They had to know she would be going crazy.

  Isabel threw the facial scrub in the trash. She hated the way it felt on her skin, all gritty and itchy. She shouldn’t have bought it in the first place.

  She heard a car pull up in the driveway. Finally! Isabel bolted out of her room, down the hall, and out the front door. Max and Michael were striding up the front walk toward her. Max avoided looking her in the eye, and Michael’s face was set and grim.