by Melinda Metz
But it wasn't Michael. It was some guy she'd never seen before. About her age. Green, sad eyes. His harsh, ragged breathing. He was really pale.
Max crouched down next to her. He reached out and gently shook the guy's shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked. "What in the…"
Isabel jerked up her head as Max's voice trailed away. She saw his eyes widen, then a horrified expression spread across his face.
"Max, what?" she demanded.
He didn't answer.
"What?" she yelled, jerking his hand away from the guy.
"You're not going to believe this. I think he's one of us," Max told her. "I connected the second I touched him. I saw a pod like ours." He swallowed hard. "I saw Valenti. A glass cell. I think… I think he's from the compound."
Isabel felt all the little hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "How did he survive it?" she whispered. He had lived her worst fear-being held prisoner at Sheriff Valenti's mercy.
The guy's eyes flickered open, but an instant later he squeezed them shut again. "Too big," he whimpered. "Too big."
"Let's get him inside," Max said. He slid his arm under the guy and helped him to his feet. Isabel took the other side, wrapping her arm around his waist. She could feel the guy's tremors as she and Max walked him toward the house.
"You're with us now," Isabel said fiercely. "We're not going to let anything hurt you again."
*** 8 ***
Max led the way to the booth in the back corner of Flying Pepperoni, where he had told Liz and Isabel to meet him. It was less crowded back there, but Max was still worried about Adam. He was getting his I'm-about-to-freak expression again.
And Max didn't blame him. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since Adam had escaped, and he'd already done more new things than most people did in a year. Even stuff as basic as a toaster was strange and amazing to Adam. Yeah, he'd seen pictures of toasters in a book, but he'd never actually used one. He'd loved the popping sound. Max bet between the two of them they'd eaten a loaf of toast that day. Max would have eaten even more, just to witness Adam's pure joy.
"We'll sit here and wait for everyone else to show up," Max told Adam as he slid into the booth. Adam slid in across from him. "So, how are you doing? Do you, uh, have any questions or anything?"
"Not really," Adam answered. He closed his eyes and slid closer to the wall of the booth.
Yeah, he was getting very close to the freak-out zone. Max did a visual sweep of the restaurant. I could use a little help here, guys, he thought. As if in reply to this thought, he saw Liz's grinning face walk through the restaurant.
"Uh, Adam." Max waited for Adam to open his eyes, then continued. "This is Liz. I told you about her, remember?"
"Hi," Adam said nervously. Liz sat next to Max. Adam looked at her and squeezed his eyes shut again.
Liz shot Max a worried look, then she pulled open her bag, rooted around, and pulled out the sunglasses she wore with her Men in Black-style uniform when she was waitressing. She reached across the table and gently slid the glasses on him. He jerked back, startled. "Try opening your eyes now. Everything will look a little less… intense."
Adam glanced around. Max felt himself relax a bit. Maybe Liz had found a way for Adam to be out in public without risking a meltdown.
"Hey, Adam. I've been thinking about you all day," Isabel said as she hurried up to the booth. She slid in next to him. "How did it go? What did you and Max do?"
Max noticed that with Adam, his sister dropped all her I-am-Princess-Isabel-and-all-must-worship-me garbage. She treated him so tenderly, it was almost bizarre to watch.
"We made toast," Adam answered. "And Max taught me how to play poker."
"Great, Max. Toast and poker. I'm glad you covered the essentials. I knew I should have been the one to stay home with him," Isabel said. "You talked to Adam about not using power, right?"
"Yeah." Max's stomach tightened as he remembered that little conversation. "Adam, um, Adam didn't realize that he comes from another place. He didn't realize that most people here can't do the things he can do."
"What does he know?" Isabel asked.
Max explained what he'd covered with Adam-that he and Isabel and Michael and Adam all came from the same planet and that they were probably the only people on earth who did come from there. And he'd told Adam that he shouldn't tell anyone this or use his powers. And then there were all the little things-like toast and poker-that Adam had never seen.
But Max hadn't told Adam what would happen if he did tell people the truth. He didn't tell him that most people would be afraid of him. Or that some would hate him. Or that some would want to kill him. Max knew he'd have to explain this to Adam sometime soon. But not now. He had enough to deal with.
"Here come Maria and Alex," Liz said. She scooted closer to Max to make room, and he looped his arm around her shoulders, just like a normal guy. Max never thought he'd be able to have this, to have a girl-a human girl-know the truth about him and still love him.
I should tell Adam about me and Liz, he thought. He should know that just because he's different doesn't mean he doesn't get any of the good stuff.
Maria went to sit by Liz, but Alex hooked her by the arm. "Sit here," he said, nodding toward the spot next to Isabel. An awkward silence lingered as Maria looked at Alex, confused. Post-breakup weirdness, Max thought. They sat down.
"Adam, this is Alex. And that's Maria," Max told him. "If you need anything, you can come to any of us. You can talk to any of us about anything. You can ask us any questions. You can-"
"You can trust us," Alex interrupted.
"Yeah, that basically covers it. You can trust us," Max agreed.
Adam didn't say anything. He had to be on complete overload. "We need to decide what to do with Adam," Max went on. "Who we're going to say he is, where he's going to live, what he's going to do for-"
Max stopped himself. He was talking like Adam wasn't even there. He had to keep reminding himself that even though Adam acted sort of like a little kid, he wasn't. "Sorry, Adam," he said. "I didn't mean to make it sound like we were just going to decide everything for you. It's just that you're pretty much walking into a whole new world."
"Yeah. It's a place we've lived in all our lives. So we know the basic stuff that you need to get by," Maria added. "Do you think we could say he was an exchange student? If we did, maybe he could just live with us." She turned toward Adam. "An exchange student is someone from another country who comes to live and go to school in a different place for a while."
"Like on TV," Adam said.
"They didn't have TV in the compound, so I was teaching him how to channel surf," Max explained.
"What a mentor," Isabel said, smiling.
"I don't know if the exchange student thing would really work. I mean, where would we say he was from?" Max said.
"Delaware?" Alex joked. Isabel flashed him an annoyed look. "Just kidding. You know, kidding," Alex said.
"We could always take him to the cave," Max offered.
"I don't want him so far away. Not all alone," Isabel answered, her voice rough with emotion.
"We have this little shed out in the backyard that he could stay in until we figure out something better," Liz told them. "It has electricity and everything because once for two seconds my dad thought he wanted to do carpentry and he bought all these electric tools."
"What do you think, Adam? Would you mind living there?" Max asked. "You'd have to stay out of sight when Liz's parents are around."
Adam looked over at Liz. "I would be close to you?"
"Totally close. I could be out to the shed in three seconds if you needed me," she promised him.
"That sounds good," he answered, a slow smile spreading across his face.
Max had felt that same kind of goofy smile on his own face when he looked at Liz. He tried to imagine what it would be like to go sixteen years without ever seeing a girl your own age and then to suddenly be surrounded by them. It might be kind of sca
ry, but fun scary. At least Adam had Liz, Maria, and Izzy to be his training-wheel girls.
"I'm starving. Does anyone actually work here, or are we supposed to take our own order and then make ourselves a pizza?" Alex asked.
"Lucinda Baker is working today. One of you guys take off your shirt. That will get her back here fast enough," Isabel said.
Adam started to tug off his sweatshirt. "No, no. I was just kidding, Adam," Isabel said, stopping him midstrip. The entire table broke into laughter. "Lucinda! If you want anything approaching a tip, get back here," she yelled. Lucinda appeared almost immediately.
"So what do we want?" Alex asked. "Adam, what's your favorite?"
"I don't know," Adam answered, tensing up a little.
"They never let him choose his food," Max told Alex. The second the words were out of his mouth, he realized it was a stupid thing to say.
"He just got out of one of those really strict boarding schools," Liz jumped in.
"Oooh, you must have been a bad boy," Lucinda teased. "I like bad boys."
Uh-oh. Now, Lucinda, she definitely wasn't a training-wheels girl. She had a whole home page on the web describing the kissing technique of the guys at school that made it very clear she had some pretty high standards. She'd eat little Adam alive.
Before Max had a chance to decide what he should be doing about this Lucinda-Adam situation, Lucinda reached out and ran her fingers down Adam's cheek, her screaming red nails looking even brighter against his pale skin. By the enthralled look on Adam's face, Max knew he had connected with her. He's got to get out of that habit, Max thought.
Adam gave a little jerk. "I like that underwear you have," he told Lucinda. "The brown ones with the white squiggly lines. It reminds me of a cupcake."
Max covered his face with his hands. Isabel laughed out loud.
"Hey, how did you know about my underwear?" Lucinda demanded.
Okay, think fast, Max ordered himself. You don't want Adam ending up in the circus. Or with his own nine hundred number.
"Oh, Lucinda, come on," Isabel answered, before Max could formulate some kind of excuse. "You have shown way too many guys your underwear to ask that question. You know how guys like to brag."
"You know what? Could we get that pizza to go?" Max asked.
*** 9 ***
"So, do you want to play truth or dare?" Cameron asked. She leaned back against the glass wall of his cell.
"Do I look like a junior high school girl to you?" Michael answered, although he was already thinking of some pretty interesting ways the game could go.
"Oh, come on," Cameron begged, bouncing her head against the glass. "I'm so bored."
"If you keep doing that, you'll give yourself enough brain damage that you'll never be bored again," he answered. She shot him an annoyed look. "Okay, okay," he relented. "What's the most embarrassing thing that you've ever done? Truth or dare."
"You're supposed to ask if I'm a virgin. That's always the first question," Cameron teased.
"So are you?" Michael asked. Yeah, it was definitely going to be an interesting game.
"Too late," she said. "You already asked something. Most embarrassing, most embarrassing. Let's see."
"Too many to pick from, huh?" Michael asked. He stretched out on the floor, propping himself up with his elbow.
"Okay, I got it. I was at this party. I was about twelve, I think. And I don't know why, but we ended up doing this thing where we got in pairs and had to look into the other person's eyes for a full minute without talking." Cameron took a deep breath and rushed on. "So anyway, my partner was Sean Wentworth, this guy I had a total crush on. We started looking at each other, and I don't know exactly what happened, I guess I just got nervous, because I barfed and some of it splattered on him."
Michael cracked up. He could totally picture it.
"It wasn't funny," Cameron said. "I'd been pigging out at the party, and there were these lumps of half-digested pizza and chicken wings and stuff in there. It wasn't one of those nice, all-liquid deals."
Michael laughed harder. The story seemed like something Maria might tell him. Not Isabel, though. No way. If Isabel ever had a most embarrassing moment, she definitely wouldn't describe it down to the lumps of half-digested pizza.
"If you could manage to stop laughing at me, it's my turn," Cameron told him.
"Go ahead," he said, struggling to control himself.
"So are you a virgin? Truth or dare," Cameron asked.
"Dare," Michael answered without hesitation.
"You realize you answered the question, whether you think you did or not?" Cameron informed him. "Any guy who wasn't a virgin would be totally bragging about it."
He felt his face getting warm. If I'm blushing, then I know for sure what my most embarrassing moment is, he thought.
"I'm one of those sensitive kind of guys who respects women way too much to ever do anything as crude as bragging," Michael said quickly. "Not that I don't have things I could brag about."
"Ooohh. I'll bet you have all kinds of stories about lusty hookups, adoring female fans, and championship football games," Cameron snapped. "Am I right there, cowboy?"
"My turn. What's the worst thing you've ever done? Truth or dare," Michael asked.
Cameron pulled in a sharp breath, and her entire body tensed up.
Way to break the mood, Guerin. Michael shoved his hands through his spiky black hair.
"I'll take a dare," Cameron said.
This didn't seem like the moment to ask to see her tattoos. "Uh, all right, you have to look into my eyes for one minute without puking," Michael told her.
"You like to live dangerously, don't you?"
Michael was happy to see that the tightness in Cameron's body was already starting to go away. He sat up and moved closer until his knees were almost touching hers, then they locked eyes.
He'd always thought he went for blue eyes, like Maria's and Isabel's. But Cameron's brown eyes were pretty amazing. For one thing, they weren't just brown. Or at least not all the same shade of brown.
Michael leaned closer, so close, he could feel Cameron's breath against his face. Her eyes weren't plain brown at all. Right around the pupil there was a little ring of dark chocolatey brown, with sort of an uneven edge. Then most of her eye was a lighter sort of caramel brown, with a really, really thin ring of the dark brown around it.
"Has it been a minute yet?" Cameron asked.
Michael wasn't sure. All he knew was that even if it had been twice that long, he wasn't ready to move away. He moved a fraction nearer, the distance between them practically nonexistent now.
And she pulled away. Jerked away was more like it.
"That was definitely a minute," Cameron said, her voice all shaky. "My turn. Do you ever wish you weren't an alien? Truth or dare."
Michael stared at her. He couldn't believe she was tackling this "forbidden" topic.
"It seemed like we'd decided not to talk about our assorted freakishness," Cameron hurried to say. "I don't even know why I asked that question. I'll give you a different one."
"No, it's too late. You already asked it." Michael had never talked much to humans about that part of himself. It's not like he thought Maria, or Liz, or Alex would get all weird about it. He just never felt like it, that's all.
But why shouldn't he answer Cameron's questions? As she said, they were both freaks. So he should be able to tell her anything, right?
***
Adam clicked off the TV. It was fake, and he hated fake. His whole pathetic life had been fake-from believing that the sun was only something in storybooks to believing Valenti was his father.
He checked the watch that Alex had given him. Almost an hour before school got out. Almost an hour until he would be allowed to go out into the real world. Allowed. Max, Isabel, and the others didn't carry machine guns, but they still wanted to be his guards. Don't go outside unless one of us is with you, Adam. Don't talk to anyone but us, Adam.
They gave
him a TV, a CD player, and real books instead of those picture books Valenti had made him read. But was he supposed to get all excited over a bunch of fake stuff? Should he be happy in his little shed world, kept away from everything real?
He wanted real. He wanted a girl-a girl as pretty as Liz-spinning around on the grass, her head flung back, her arms open wide, her long hair swirling around her. He wanted his own toes in that same grass. He wanted his fingers touching her face.
The more he thought, the antsier he became. Why wait any longer for the real world when he could get a taste of it-right now? He stood up and rushed over to the shed door. He grabbed the handle and froze. Could he really just walk out?
The thought felt shocking. Revolutionary. Miraculous.
Adam flung open the door. Sunny blue sky filled with heaps of fluffy clouds exploded above him. He started to feel a little dizzy, and he wobbled on his feet. He thought about putting on his sunglasses to take the edge off. But no. This was real. This was what he wanted. Straight-up reality.
He crossed the lawn to the back gate, hurried through and slammed it behind him, then headed to the sidewalk and made a left. He had no real plan, but he vaguely remembered that left would take him to the center of town.
As he walked, he was bombarded with new sensations, his knowledge of the real world expanding with every step. He'd seen pictures of ginkgo trees, but now he discovered the sharp, sour smell of the fleshy yellow seeds and the feel of veins in the scalloped leaves. He'd seen cars on TV, but for the first time he smelled the exhaust and felt the little whoosh of air when one passed close by.
He could practically feel his brain growing. He had the feeling that he was becoming more real as his experience of the real world increased.
Turning onto North Main Street, Adam saw a whole row of the fast-food places he'd seen advertised on TV He could eat anything he wanted, anytime he wanted. That was, if he had any money.
He stopped at the corner, listening to the clicking sound as the streetlight changed. Another new thing. When the little walking pedestrian lit up, he crossed the street. He felt like giggling. It was so hard to believe he was really up here. He couldn't decide whether to look in the store windows, at the other people on the street, or at some more cars, so he kept turning his head back and forth, trying to watch everything at once.