by Melinda Metz
THE LATEST VICTIM . . .
“Max! Help!” Isabel didn’t have enough breath to scream. She was going to suffocate right there in her own kitchen.
No! Isabel would not let that happen. She jammed one of her fingers down her throat. If she could just get a little of the mold out, she’d be able to get some oxygen in.
And then her throat was clear. Her nose was clear. It was as if the mold had never been there. As if it had been a horrible . . . nightmare.
But she was awake. Wide awake. And she’d been awake the whole time. This is what happened to Max when he began to enter his akino, she realized. Heightened physical sensation. Physical sensation — like touch, like smell.
Isabel lowered her head into her hands. Max would tell her not to worry. He’d tell her that connecting to the collective consciousness and sharing your life with all the beings of the home planet — living and dead — was awesome.
To Isabel it sounded like prison. Always being watched. No privacy. No choice about who you let into your life.
And Isabel would rather die than be in prison.
Don’t miss any books in this fascinating series:
#1 THE OUTSIDER
#2 THE WILD ONE
#3 THE SEEKER
#4 THE WATCHER
#5 THE INTRUDER
#6 THE STOWAWAY
#7 THE VANISHED
#8 THE REBEL
#9 THE DARK ONE
#10 THE SALVATION
Available from POCKET PULSE
This book is a work of fiction. Although the physical setting of the book is Roswell, New Mexico, the high school and its students, names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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“All of you, backs against the wall,” Kyle Valenti ordered, his voice harsh. “Now!”
Michael Guerin obeyed, pulling Kevin DeLuca over to the bedroom wall along with him. He didn’t know what that silver disk in Kyle’s hand was, but Michael had seen its power. One blast from it had thrown him across the room and made the Stone of Midnight — the most powerful energy source on Michael’s home planet — go dark and useless.
He positioned Kevin and himself between his brother, Trevor, and his best friend, Max Evans. He still felt the need to keep the two of them separated, even though Michael figured Max and Trevor were through trying to kill each other. For now at least, they had a common enemy.
Michael tightened his grip on Kevin’s shoulder when he realized the kid was trembling. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “We can take this guy.”
Which was so true — usually. Usually Michael could take down Kyle without even using his powers. But with that weapon in Kyle’s possession, who knew what Kyle was capable of?
“I said all of you.” Kyle pulled Maria DeLuca out of the hallway behind him and shoved her into the bedroom. She raced over to Michael and squeezed in between him and Kevin, grabbing their hands.
“Kevin, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” she said as Alex Manes, Liz Ortecho, Isabel Evans, and Adam rushed over and joined the line across the bedroom wall. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
Michael hated hearing the fear in Maria’s voice. Maria shouldn’t have to feel afraid with him around. It was just . . . wrong.
“I’m okay,” Maria’s little brother answered.
Michael squeezed Maria’s hand. “Kevin’s fine,” he promised her.
“Yeah,” Kevin agreed weakly. “Fine.”
“See? He can handle himself,” Michael added, smiling at the little guy. Kevin was ten years old, and even if his words were brave, he was totally freaked. Michael figured the kid needed as much macho pride as he could muster to deal with this nightmare.
“There was an easy way to do this, and there was a hard way,” Kyle announced. He strode from one end of the line to the other, looking each of them in the eye. “You chose the hard way. Fine.”
Michael decided that Kyle was using a little macho pride to stay calm, too. There was no way Kyle could really be so in control, not after what he’d seen. Max and Trevor had been using their powers on each other with a vengeance. Kyle had to know he’d witnessed something a lot stranger than WWF Smackdown.
“But now you’re going to tell me everything you know about my father,” Kyle continued.
“Why should we tell you anything? After you decided to kidnap a little boy to —,” Maria began, her voice edged with hysteria.
“Oh, shut up already!” Kyle barked.
Michael squeezed Maria’s hand harder. She pulled in a deep, shuddering breath, glaring at Kyle.
“I ask the questions. You answer. That’s how this is going to work,” Kyle said.
He’s doing his father, Michael realized. He’s so wigged out that he’s pretending to be big, bad Sheriff Valenti to get himself through this.
“Do you know who your father really worked for?” Max asked suddenly.
Kyle wheeled around and reached Max with three long strides. He pulled back his fist and slammed it into Max’s stomach. “I said I ask the questions.”
Michael could feel everyone in the room tense up as Max almost doubled over. He shot a warning glance at Isabel, and she gave him a reluctant nod. Michael knew it was taking all she had not to hurl herself at Kyle, make the connection, and squeeze one of the arteries in his brain until it popped. Which sounded like a good idea to Michael. He would have done it himself if it wasn’t for the disk.
What was that thing?
It had to be a Project Clean Slate weapon, which meant that it was designed for use on alien life-forms. Michael couldn’t risk going after Kyle as long as he was holding it.
“Anybody else have a question?” Kyle demanded. “Or am I finally —”
Kevin let out a high shriek. It went on and on, shrill as an ambulance siren, and it made all the little hairs on the back of Michael’s neck stand on end.
“Shut him up,” Kyle ordered.
Maria pulled Kevin closer to her, but Kevin kept screaming, his eyes locked on the closet.
No, not the closet. All the saliva in Michael’s throat dried up. Kevin’s gaze was fixed on the network of veins that had begun to materialize in front of the closet.
“We’ve got company,” Michael announced. He jerked his chin toward the veins. The heart was already forming, already beating, and the other organs appeared almost instantaneously — liver, pancreas, stomach, intestines, lungs.
“Dingdong. DuPris calling,” Michael heard Alex mutter.
“What the hell is that?” Kyle bleated as muscle and bone began snaking between the organs. He backed up a step and stumbled, and the silver disk fell from his hand.
Michael didn’t miss a beat. He hit the floor and snatched up the disk. Kyle didn’t even notice. He was transfixed by the body forming in front of him. It was complete now except for the empty eye sockets.
“I’m thinking we need a plan,” Alex said. “I’m thinking it should involve running.”
Too late. The bright green eyes of Elsevan DuPris materialized, and he pinned them with his gaze.
“Well, hello there, sweet children. I’ve missed you somethin’ awful,” he drawled, winking at them. “I thought you might be feeling nostalgic for the accent,” he added, now without a trace of the southern twang he’d used for so long, parading around Roswell as the eccentric owner of the Astral Projector newspaper.
But he wasn’t a reporter. He wasn’t even human. He was, in fact, the being who had murdered Michael, Max, Isabel, and Adam’s parents over fifty years before by causing their spaceship to crash into the desert in what became known as the Roswell Incident.
DuPris reached into his pocket and pulled out the Stone of Midnight he’d stolen from them. Unlike the one in Trevor’s hand, DuPris’s Stone gleamed with a greenpurple light, pulsing with power.
Michael fingered the silver disk. If he could figure out how it worked, it could drain the power of the Stone, and without the Stone’s power they might have at least a snowball’s chance in hell of taking DuPris down. But if Michael made a mistake, the disk might also kill them all.
He was still debating whether to risk it when Trevor stepped away from the wall and moved toward DuPris.
“Trevor! Stay back!” Michael ordered his brother. Trevor didn’t even glance at him.
“You’re the one,” Trevor said, his eyes flicking from DuPris’s face to the Stone of Midnight in his hand. “I came to this planet to deliver this to you.” He held out the lifeless Stone. “But that one destroyed it before I had the chance.” Trevor jerked his chin toward Kyle.
Michael’s mouth dropped open as DuPris took the Stone, his green eyes glistening with eagerness. “It’s not destroyed. It will regenerate its power.”
“I want to be allowed to work with you,” Trevor told DuPris. “I’m willing to give my life to see the collective consciousness shattered.”
This was insane. Trevor was offering to help their enemy? Michael lurched away from the wall, pulling free of Maria. He strode to Trevor, grabbed him by the back of the shirt, and spun him away from DuPris. “You don’t know what he is,” Michael said urgently. “He killed our parents. He —”
“He is the only hope for the beings of our planet,” Trevor interrupted, his gray eyes feverish. “Without him they will all be sucked into the consciousness. That’s worse than death.”
Michael fought for something to say — something to convince Trevor that he had DuPris all wrong, but he didn’t have a chance.
“Oh, look at the time,” DuPris exclaimed sarcastically. “We really must be going.” He grabbed Trevor by the wrist, and their bodies began to disappear.
“No!” Michael yelled. “Trevor, you can’t —”
He tried to make a grab for his brother, but nothing was left of Trevor except his eyes. His gray eyes, almost the exact color of Michael’s. An instant later they vanished, too.
“No!” The scream felt like it ripped pieces of Michael’s flesh from inside his body on the way out. His brother had joined up with DuPris. His brother.
“You want to know what happened to your father, Kyle?” Isabel asked, in full-on ice princess mode. “That thing killed him.”
“He’s dead? My dad’s dead?” Kyle asked, his voice flat. He was still staring at the spot where DuPris and Trevor had been.
“I’m sorry,” Liz told him.
Kyle didn’t answer.
Michael couldn’t help feeling for the guy. He remembered how crushed he’d been when he knew with absolute certainty that his parents were dead. It was like his body had frozen from the inside out, his heart almost too cold to continue beating.
Max walked up to Kyle, guided him over to the bed, and forced him to sit down. Then he sat beside him, glancing warily at his friends.
“I don’t know how much you know, so I’ll start at the beginning,” Max said, his voice low and soothing, the way it would be if he were talking to a hurt animal. “Your father was with an organization called Project Clean Slate. Its mission was to hunt down . . . aliens, for experimentation and possibly extermination. DuPris is an alien. He went after your father and killed him. Destroyed the whole Project Clean Slate compound, too.”
“I was the one who —,” Adam began, sounding young and scared.
“Adam was there,” Michael cut him off. “He was the one who saw what happened to your father.” There was no reason for Kyle to know that DuPris used Adam’s body to commit the murder. And if he had to pound Adam’s pointy little head into the floor, someday Michael was going to get Adam to accept that.
“Aliens,” Kyle repeated. “You expect me to believe that?”
But Kyle clearly did believe it. What choice did he have, after what he’d just seen? Michael wondered how long it would take him to figure out —
Kyle suddenly stood up, practically springing from the bed. “Then you are, too, right?” Kyle asked Max.
Max glanced from Michael to Isabel. Michael shrugged. It’s not like Max really had a choice here. Yeah, he could try and feed Kyle some bull, but Kyle had seen too much.
“Yeah,” Max answered. “I am.”
“Get out of here,” Kyle ordered. “I want all of you gone. I don’t need you to —”
“To what? Get revenge?” Alex demanded. “Grow a brain, Kyle. With that Stone, even without it, DuPris could turn you into a pile of dust in a second, just like —”
Alex stopped before he said “your dad.”
“Out!” Kyle screamed, his voice breaking.
This was one time when Michael was happy to take orders from Kyle Valenti. He took Maria’s hand and headed for the door, but Kyle grabbed his arm as he passed, jerking him to a stop. “I’ll take the device,” he commanded. His voice was solid again, even though his eyes were petrified.
“No, I don’t think you will,” Michael answered.
“Give it to me, or I tell everyone — everyone — exactly what I saw here today,” Kyle shot back. Michael didn’t doubt that Kyle was telling the truth. The guy had nothing to lose, and that made him dangerous. Reluctantly Michael handed him the silver disk.
“With this thing I can turn off the Stone or whatever, right?” Kyle asked.
“Don’t even think about it, Kyle,” Michael warned. But he knew it was all Kyle was going to be able to think about. Michael understood about obsession.
“I think I’m going to go to bed,” Kevin said, the second Maria and Michael got him home.
Maria couldn’t remember a time that her little brother had volunteered to go to bed. “Why can’t I stay up as late as Maria?” had been his constant question since he was old enough to talk. The fact that she was six years older than he was had never been accepted as a reasonable answer.
“Yeah. I’m sure you’re tired. But Kev —” Maria glanced at Michael. “You know you can’t talk about anything that happened, right?”
Kevin actually managed to grin at her. “You’d be in big trouble if Mom found out you let me get kidnapped,” he said. Then the smile kind of slid off his face.
It wasn’t the kidnapping part that bothered him. In some weird way, Kevin probably thought of that as an adventure, especially because the guy who kidnapped him wasn’t much older than Maria. But the other stuff . . . Maria remembered how terrified she was when she had discovered the truth about Max, Michael, and Isabel. Suddenly she had no idea what to say.
“Here’s the deal, Kevin,” Michael said, surprising Maria by taking the initiative. “There are people out there who might want to hurt Max if they knew that he was . . . different. If you tell anybody what happened, they’d probably end up telling someone else — even if they promised they wouldn’t.”
>
He shot a look at Maria, and she knew he was remembering how Liz had broken her promise to Max by telling Maria the truth. And how Maria had then told Alex.
“You get what I’m saying?” Michael asked Kevin. “Eventually the wrong people could find out, and they might come and take Max away. Max, and me, and Isabel, and Adam.”
Maria was surprised that Michael had given Kevin so much information. But it made sense in a way, at least revealing that he and Max were the same. Kevin knew Michael a lot better than he knew Max. Michael was around a lot, and Maria had realized a while ago that Kevin liked having a guy around. Sometimes living with just Maria and their mom got a little too female intensive for him.
“Why are you here?” Kevin blurted out. “I mean, why don’t you live on your own planet?”
“Our parents came to Earth to see if it was a place that would accept colonization. They decided humans weren’t quite, uh, ready to deal,” Michael explained. “They were about to go home and tell everyone that, but their ship crashed. Max, Isabel, Adam, and I were in these incubation pods, and the pods survived. We were inside for more than fifty years, growing. Then we broke free, and —”
Michael must have noticed Kevin’s eyes glazing over because he wrapped it up fast. “And that’s why we live here. We don’t have any way of getting back home.”
Kevin nodded. He backed out of the living room. “I’m going to go to sleep.”
“You want me to come tuck you in?” Maria asked.
Kevin gave her his most disgusted look.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. Kevin turned and jogged down the hall.
“You’re not going to offer to tuck me in, are you?” Michael joked after they heard Kevin’s door shut.
The image of Michael lying in a bed rushed into Maria’s mind. She shoved it right back out as fast as she could. She and Michael were in friend mode. She didn’t know how much he was still thinking of Cameron, the girl that had squished his heart between her fingers, but she did know that whether he was thinking about Cameron or not, he certainly wasn’t thinking about Maria. At least not that way.