The Stowaway Page 6

  Only his eyes.

  An instant later they disappeared, too.

  Time to bring him back. Michael focused on Max’s molecules. He could feel them all around him. But there were so many of them, an almost infinite number.

  A wave of dizziness swept through him. Where was he supposed to start? Yeah, he could squeeze some of the molecules together, but which ones? It’s not like they were spread out in exactly the right groups, waiting for Michael to put Max back together like some preschooler’s puzzle where the head goes up there and the feet go down there.

  Michael shoved his hands through his hair and tried to deepen his concentration: But he had no clue which of the billions of molecules came from Max’s brain tissue and which came from the muscle of his heart.

  Why didn’t Max think of this? Max’s whole reason for existence was thinking of things like this. He was always so careful, so logical. Why did he have to choose now to experiment with recklessness? Couldn’t he have just squeezed a toothpaste tube from the middle or something?

  You said you would bring him back, so bring him back, Michael ordered himself.

  He ignored the molecules and concentrated on Max. Just Max. He felt sweat breaking out on his forehead and dripping down his back as he concentrated on willing Max to re-form in front of him.

  He sensed some movement in the molecules but didn’t allow himself to get distracted. He kept one hundred percent of his focus on Max. A network of lines began to form a few feet away, starting about six feet in the air and ending on the ground.

  Not lines, veins and arteries. Michael could see the blood pumping through them. He could feel itpumping through him. The connection with Max was unbroken.

  A pocket of air darkened and began to pulse, and Max’s heart slowly re-formed. Max’s other organs reappeared much faster, almost too fast for Michael to take it in—lungs, liver, pancreas, stomach, intestines, brain.

  Michael felt Max join the effort to pull his molecules together, and bone and muscle appeared, weaving around the organs. The changes happened so quickly, Max’s body began to blur. And then he was complete except for his eye sockets. They were empty, blank and staring.

  “You’re giving me the wiggins, Max,” Michael muttered. And Max’s blue eyes reappeared, gleaming with excitement.

  “That was too cool,” Max cried, just as the cow clock in Ray’s kitchen started to moo. “I’ve got to leave,” he added. “I don’t want to be late for homeroom.” He started for the door.

  “Uh, Max, just a suggestion,” Michael said. “Before you go, you might want to put on some clothes.”

  “What?” Max slapped his hands onto his bare chest. “Oh. Whoa. Maybe next time I can figure out how to take some molecules of clothes with me.” He bolted over to the pile of clothes on the floor and yanked them on. “See you later. We’re all heading over right after school to decide what to do about Adam.”

  Max started toward the door again, then turned around and headed back to Michael. “There’s one more thing I want to say to you, something I should have said the day we all made it out of the compound alive,” Max told him. He gave a loud sniffle and wiped an imaginary tear off his cheek but couldn’t hide his grin. “I love you, man.”

  Michael laughed. “You’re sick—you know that, don’t you?”

  Max clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “But I like it that way.”

  Liz checked the bulletin board, then pushed her way back out of the crowd surrounding it. She almost slammed into Maria.

  “I knew you’d be here,” Maria said. “I don’t know why you’re so obsessive about the class standings. Every month you’re number one. Every month you will continue to be—” She stopped herself. “Wait. Why are you so pale? You are number one, aren’t you? Arlene Bluth didn’t knock you out of first place, did she?”

  “No, I still rule,” Liz joked.

  “Then what’s wrong? I know something is,” Maria insisted, stretching out one of her blond curls and letting it boing back into place.

  “Did you see the bulletin board?” Alex interrupted as he raced up behind them.

  “Yep, we’re standing next to the class valedictorian,” Maria answered. “There’s no way it’s not going to happen.”

  “I’m not talking about that,” Alex burst out. “Although congratulations and everything,” he added to Liz. “I’m talking about the flyer next to the class standings list. The flyer announcing the ROTC program starting at our happy little school. My weasel brothers did it. They managed to talk Principal Shaffer into sending in the application. I am so doomed.”

  “Do you absolutely have to join?” Maria asked.

  “Oh no, I guess not.” Alex slapped his forehead. “What was I thinking? I don’t have to join. I can just change my name and go live in Siberia.”

  “Why Siberia?” Liz asked. She understood why he didn’t think he’d be able to hold out against his the-military-is-life dad.

  “You’ve got a point,” Alex shot back. “Siberia’s probably not remote enough.” He gave a drawn-out groan of frustration. “Maybe it won’t be too bad. Maybe I’ll meet some GI Jane kind of girl. That could make it worthwhile, although I don’t know if I could be with someone who has better abs than mine.” He pushed open one of the cafeteria’s double doors and held it open for them.

  “Look at those biceps. Whoo, baby,” Maria joked as she passed him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Liz as she headed through the door. “You seem kind of … something.”

  “I just had a bad dream,” Liz answered.

  “Liz, you should tell us what it was about,” Maria said over her shoulder. “It will help get it out of your system. I know, we can help you make up a new ending. That’s how you’re supposed to get rid of bad dreams—you make up new endings for them and poof, they’re gone.”

  Liz slid onto the bench at their usual table. Alex and Maria sat across from her. “It was about Adam,” she told them. “He said we were all in danger. He said there was something inside him, but before he could say what, his tongue fell out. Then his whole face started coming apart. A piece of his cheek plopped onto my arm. That’s when I woke up.”

  She could almost feel the piece of flesh against her skin right now. Moist and meaty. She decided to leave her lunch in her backpack.

  “So how would you want the dream to end?” Maria asked. “Actually, you can change more than the ending. You can change the whole thing. Like you can make Adam someone other than Adam.”

  “Wait. Are you sure it was a dream?” Alex interrupted. “I mean, do you think Adam could have used his dream-walking power to try and communicate with you?”

  “I thought of that,” Liz answered. “I’m not sure, but it felt like Adam, the real Adam. He wanted to tell me something. He wanted to give us all some kind of warning.”

  Alex’s green eyes darkened. “Maybe that something inside him found a way to stop him before he could.”

  Isabel handed her dad’s credit card to the Victoria’s Secret saleslady. She already had on her new purchase—a silky, pale pink camisole edged with a thin row of delicate lace. Only the tiniest peek of it was visible under the V neck of her sweater. Just how she wanted it.

  When she showed up at the museum, she didn’t want to look like she was on some kind of manhunt. That kind of desperation was so not Isabel. No, she didn’t want to look like she’d put any special thought into what she was wearing at all. What she did want was for Michael to catch a flash of the camisole and be intrigued.

  The saleslady handed the card back, Isabel signed the slip, and she was out of there. She strolled to the mall exit, not breaking a sweat, and then made her way across the parking lot and over to the bus stop. Usually she would have at least tried to con Max out of the Jeep keys, but he would have totally freaked if he knew she was planning to go out of the house. He thought she was spending the day in bed, recovering.

  “Isabel, I thought you’d still be home in bed,” Michael excla
imed. He ran over to the staircase and watched her climb up the last couple of steps. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? Maybe you should have skipped the meeting.”

  “What meeting?” she asked.

  “Everyone’s coming over after school to figure out the Adam deal,” he explained. “They should be here in about an hour.”

  “Oh, right,” she mumbled.

  “Sit down, at least.” He snatched up three of the beanbags and stacked them.

  “Michael, I’m fine. Relax, okay?” She dropped to the floor, and he positioned himself across from her. “Actually, I hardly remember any of what even happened yesterday. Max had to explain everything to me when I woke up.”

  “Whoa. Well, that’s good, I guess.” He wondered if her mind had blocked out what she’d seen when she connected to Adam because it had been too disturbing for her to handle. He would never forget the expression of raw terror on her face when he burst into the room.

  “So, where’s Cameron?” Isabel asked.

  Michael was glad he couldn’t see the expression on his own face when he heard that question. He wished he could record an answer and play it for everyone who asked.

  “She took off,” he muttered. “Didn’t think Roswell was safe for her anymore.”

  “What? She just took off? I thought you guys had a little something goin’ on,” Isabel said.

  Michael raised an eyebrow at Isabel, then smiled. “Well, we don’t have anything now.”

  Isabel started playing with the neck of her sweater, and he caught a glimpse of some kind of silky thing underneath. He realized his eyes had lingered there a little too long, and he forced them up to Isabel’s face. She was staring at him, an unreadable expression in her eyes. “What?” he asked.

  She raised an eyebrow. “What, what?”

  “You were staring at me,” he answered.

  “I like being able to look at you,” she answered. “I thought I was going crazy when you were in the compound. I kept thinking I might never see you again.” She paused and pulled in a shaky breath.

  “I knew you guys would find a way to get me out of there,” he answered.

  “I could feel you all the time—you know, feel your feelings,” she continued. “Whatever I was doing, it’s like you were with me.”

  Including when I had my tongue in Cameron’s mouth? he thought. An echo of that sensation hit him so hard, he could almost taste her again. He slapped the memory away.

  Michael knew Isabel was waiting for some kind of response. This time he had no idea what to say, so he just nodded. Like a big jerk.

  “So, you know Alex and I broke up, right?” she asked.

  And Isabel takes the gloves off, he thought. “Yeah. I heard.”

  “Michael, I saw your dream,” Isabel blurted out. “You had your arms around me. So now you can’t … Why are you acting like you have no feelings at all for me?”

  “What dream?” he asked, picking the easier of the two questions.

  “The dream,” Isabel repeated, as if that cleared everything up. “It was a little while before you got captured. Maria and I decided to go dream walking just for fun. She picked your dream orb, and we saw you holding me.”

  “Wait a second here,” he said, a smile of recognition spreading across his face. “Isabel, I think you misinterpreted that hug. It was actually part of a nightmare. I dreamed that Max died and we were at his funeral. That’s why I was hugging you.”

  “Oh,” Isabel said. Her face reddened as she looked at the ground.

  “It’s not that—” Michael struggled to find the right words. “It’s just that you’re my Izzy lizard,” he said, using the pet name he’d come up with for her when she was a little gift.

  “And that’s it?” she asked. “You’ve never thought of me any other way?”

  “Okay, yeah, I have,” he answered. He was a guy. He’d thought about a lot of things with a lot of girls.

  But it was different with Isabel. He didn’t think about her in that fast, speculative, pretty much automatic way he thought about a cute girl in the park or whatever.

  “I’ve definitely thought about you as something different from a big brother,” she confessed. “We come from the same place. We understand each other in ways that no human could understand us. That means something.”

  It meant a lot. Isabel would never betray him. It would be like betraying herself. Maybe she was right. Maybe they were capable of something more.

  Michael’s eyes locked with Isabel’s, and when she leaned toward him and found his lips with her own, he didn’t pull away. They kissed—a deep, full kiss.

  But there was nothing there—no chemistry whatsoever. It was like kissing his little sister.

  Michael started to pull back, but Isabel laced her hands behind his neck, keeping their lips pressed together.

  Suddenly an ice pick of pain stabbed into Michael’s brain. He tried to jerk away, but Isabel’s hands were now pressing firmly on his back.

  Michael made one last attempt to get free before his vision dimmed. His world went black.

  6

  Cameron did a quick study of the people scattered around the tiny bus station. Yeah, there were a few good faces. She should have no problem scoring a ticket.

  She headed up to the window, scanned the departure times and the rates, and picked a town that was twelve bucks away Twelve bucks was an amount that a kind stranger would be willing to give to a girl in need.

  “One for Hobbs,” she told the ticket guy. She reached into her pocket and allowed a slight frown to cross her face. Nothing major. She checked the other pocket. She felt her stomach cramp, as if she’d actually expected to find something there and was sort of sickened when she didn’t.

  I should be one of those method actors, she thought. The ones who totally live the parts they play.

  “Something wrong?” the ticket guy asked.

  “My wallet’s gone,” she answered, the tiniest quaver infecting her voice. “I know I had it at breakfast.” She checked her pockets again. “Is the three-fifteen the only bus to Hobbs?”

  “Only one today,” he answered.

  “I really have to get home today. If I called my dad, could he use his credit card to pay for the ticket?” Cameron asked. “I could call collect.”

  “That would be fine,” the guy answered. Not a trace of suspicion on his face.

  Damn, I’m good, she thought as he slid the phone toward her. She punched in the numbers for a collect call, then the numbers for a pay phone in front of a deserted gas station she’d stumbled across three towns ago. She’d been using it as hers ever since. If she happened to get picked up by the cops, she liked being able to give them a number where she was sure it would ring and very sure no one would answer.

  Cameron held the receiver tight to her ear. She knew that made her look really tense. She gave the ticket guy an apologetic smile. “Just let me let it ring a few more times,” she whispered. He nodded, giving her a sympathetic smile back.

  Milk it just a little longer, she coached herself. She counted five more rings, then reluctantly hung up. “I guess he’s not home. He works out of the house, so he should be there, but—”

  Cameron shot a glance at the clock, then she leaned toward the ticket guy. “Um, is the bus station open all night?” she asked, keeping her voice soft, but not so soft the audience behind her in the waiting area couldn’t hear.

  “Only until six,” he answered.

  “Oh. Okay.” Cameron felt her pockets one more time, then turned and headed to the door. She’d figured out that’s how it worked best. No begging. No sob stories. She let the little fishes come to her.

  “Excuse me, miss?” a voice called just as Cameron’s fingers snagged the door handle. She turned around, a who-me expression on her face.

  A middle-aged woman gestured her over. “Why don’t you let me loan you money for the ticket?”

  “Are you sure?” Cameron asked, widening her brown eyes as if she just could not bel
ieve this was happening.

  The maternal-looking woman opened her purse, counted out the bills, and pressed them into Cameron’s hand.

  , thank you so much,” Cameron said graciously. “Please, write down your address so I can send you the money when I get home.”

  The woman dug out a scrap of paper and a pen and wrote down her address. Cameron made a big show of carefully placing it in her pocket. Then she did everything short of grabbing the woman and kissing her. Why not? She deserved to feel good for her twelve bucks.

  And maybe someday Cameron would send her the money back. Cameron had a list of all the people she’d promised to mail money to. If she ever got settled someplace and got a job, she would pay it all back.

  With one last smile over her shoulder at the woman, Cameron rushed up to the ticket window. She bought her ticket and headed straight to the bus. It was more than half empty, so she had no problem finding a seat to herself.

  In less than ten minutes they should be moving out. She couldn’t wait. With the exception of Michael, Roswell had nothing but bad memolies. She focused her gaze on the back of the seat in front of her, trying to imagine that the bus was already on the road. Someone had graffitied a heart and dagger on the thick plastic. Cameron reached out and traced the design with her finger.

  The memory of Michael’s mouth tracing the hummingbird on her shoulder hit her so hard, she almost gasped. She could practically feel the warmth of his lips.

  She dropped her head back on the torn seat cushion and gave a muffled groan. In some ways it was one of her worst Roswell memories because it was always going to be linked to the memory of the shattered look on Michael’s face when he realized she’d betrayed him.

  Maybe someday, when she was, like, forty, scientists would figure out a way to do memory surgery, where they just burned out any piece of brain that held a bad memory. She’d be the first in line. Maybe they could even let her keep the hummingbird memory and destroy the shattered look memory.

  She snorted. Even if the technology did get developed, it’s not like it would work for her. If all her bad memories were lasered out of her brain, she wouldn’t have enough gray matter left to operate a can opener, which meant the image of Michael’s disappointed face would be etched in her head for the rest of her life.