Nobody's Son - CC - MATURE - [COMPLETE]

[Midwest Max]

Part Twenty One

“Who the hell is that?” Kyle shrieked.

Isabel scanned the faces of the group until she came to one she didn’t recognize – Nate’s. “Tell them who it is, Nate.”

All eyes shifted to Nate, who had yet to tear his gaze from the girl on the floor. “It’s Annie,” he said quietly.

There was a collective gasp and then a barrage of questions and accusations.

“What were you thinking?” Max chastised his sister.

“You kidnapped her?” Maria screeched.

“Is she hurt?” Liz asked, her eyebrows lifted in concern.

“Did you drag her here all of the way from Pennsylvania?” Michael asked.

Alyssa remained uncomfortably silent, and if Nate wasn’t hallucinating – she’d just inched slightly away from him. Annie’s eyes darted around the room and he was reminded of a frightened, cornered rabbit.

“Enough,” Isabel said, holding up her hands. “Just be quiet for a moment and let me explain.”

“It better be good,” Max said in a clipped tone, his hands on his hips.

“Okay, just back off,” Isabel said, her voice losing some of its confrontational tone. She leaned forward and gave a reluctant Max a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Nate found it an odd gesture in light of the situation. “It’s good to see you, Max.”

Max rolled his eyes slightly. “Yeah, you too, Iz.”

“I hate to break up the family reunion and all, but can we talk about the body on the floor?” Michael asked, gesturing toward Annie, who cringed.

“Yes,” Max agreed. “Where did you find her?”

Nate imagined the tall, blond woman breaking into Annie’s dorm room in Clarion and then dragging her halfway across the country by her hair…because it didn’t seem likely that Isabel would have been able to force Annie onto an airplane without attracting a lot of attention.

“Outside of the Tumbleweed,” Isabel answered.

Nate’s stomach lurched. Annie had been at the motel?

“There was a swarm of them,” Isabel continued. “A bunch of feds, going through a truck with New York plates.” She glanced at Nate. “I assumed it was yours. I’m your Aunt Isabel, by the way.”

“Nate,” he responded weakly. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Annie or his mind off the many questions that were circling around in his brain. But the one that kept coming around was the shortest one of all – why?

“So they know where Nate was staying,” Liz recapped.

“Apparently,” Isabel confirmed.

“I should have changed the plates on the truck,” Max said, running his hand through his hair.

“They would have found it anyway,” Isabel disagreed. “Eventually. Through motel receipts or phone logs or something. Anyway, I was scouting it out, watching to see what was going on, and I recognized this one.” She pointed toward Annie, who was now searching the walls, possibly for another way out.

“Recognized her?” Nate managed.

Isabel gave a little laugh. “From your dreams.”

Okay, he had no idea what that meant. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“She wandered a little too far into the shadows,” Isabel continued.

“And you abducted her?” Maria concluded.

Annie’s eyes lit on Maria and her brow furrowed for a moment, then recognition lit up her features. “Hey, aren’t you –“ she began.

“Shut up!” Michael snapped. Annie cringed away from this loud man.

Max gave him a warning glance and returned his attention to his sister. “Are you saying she’s FBI?”

Isabel shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s ask her. I know she can talk – she screamed most of the way out here.”

Nate swallowed hard as he watched Max, Michael and Isabel kneel before the girl who still wore his engagement ring. She recoiled, backing herself into a corner.

“Are you a member of the FBI?” Max asked.

Annie shook her head.

“Then why are you with them?” Michael asked and Nate was surprised he was asking for an explanation – to him, Michael seemed like the shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy.

Annie brushed a hand across her face and Nate noted that her hands were trembling. “Because of my dad.”

“Who’s your dad?” Isabel asked.

Annie looked past her shoulder and gave Nate an apologetic look. “My dad is not a lawyer like I’ve told Nate before. He is a member of the FBI.”

Nate felt like someone had punched him in the gut – the air rushed out of him and he suddenly felt very, very sick.

“What about you?” Michael asked. “What do you have to do with this?”

Annie kept eye contact with Nate a few seconds longer, then looked away to answer Michael’s question. “My dad came to me about a year ago. He explained to me what he really was, that he’d been working with the government for a very long time…tracking Nate’s movements.”

A year ago. In that time, Nate had asked Annie to marry him and she said yes all the while knowing she was spying on him. It had all been one big lie.

“What else?” Max prodded.

“They’ve always known who Nate was,” Annie explained, her voice a little desperate. “You guys think you’re so smart, that you’re so above what anyone else is capable of. Well, I can tell you this – they never lost track of Nate. They knew the Spencers adopted him. They knew every move he made.”

Nate suddenly felt very small, like the walls were closing in around him. He’d been spied on – his entire life. It must have been so easy for them – disguising themselves as tourists, vacationers, Flatlanders. He thought of all of the people who’d crossed his path during his lifetime – it could have been any of them.

“How did they know?” Isabel asked.

Annie closed her eyes and squeezed them tightly shut. “Because my grandfather handled the adoption. And he was in on everything.”

Nate watched as Max fell backward onto his butt, his expression one of utter defeat. All of those years without his son, only to find out he was being watched anyway.

“Who is William Dwyer?” Max asked.

Annie sniffled and Nate felt an ironic pang of sympathy for her. “He was an honest man,” she said. “He contacted my grandfather and asked him to arrange the adoption, thinking that having a third party handle it there would be no way to trace Nate back to you. But the FBI got to my grandfather before he’d ever contacted the Spencers and convinced him to do what they wanted.” She bit her lip and when she looked at Nate, her eyes showed pain he’d never seen there before. “They added the stipulation that you not find out you were adopted until you were eighteen.”

“Why not?” Max asked, voicing the question for his stunned son.

Annie’s face contorted as she started to sob. “Because they knew you’d come here, that they would have confirmation of who you really were. Because an adult can go missing but a minor can not.”

The weight of her words lay heavily upon Nate’s chest, so heavily that he couldn’t breathe. Go missing. Meaning the FBI was planning on snatching Nate off the face of the earth. Never before had he felt so threatened, so alone…

Alyssa slipped her hand into his and he turned surprised eyes in her direction. She gave him an understanding smile and suddenly he didn’t feel so alone any more.

“So they come here and take Nate,” Michael said. Nate had the idea that that scenario would make Michael very happy. “And us in the process?”

Annie shook her head. “No. They don’t care about you. They only care about Nate. He’s the one who was on the ship that returned to earth in 2002. He’s the one who was born on another planet.”

“Then why not take him when he was in New York?” Isabel queried, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Because they knew that if he really was who they thought he was, one of you would reveal yourself to him. If he wasn’t who they thought, then you wouldn’t. Then they would have confirmation they still had the right person.” Annie turned to look at Max. “And you gave them that.”

Max’s eyes were grief-stricken. All of his best-laid plans, crumbling to the ground.

The group sat silent for a long while, each lost in their own thoughts.

“What do we do?” Isabel asked her brother.

Max shook his head. “We can’t let them take Nate.” He glanced at Annie. “We can’t take her word that they only want him, anyway.”

“I’m telling the truth!” Annie protested.

“Just like you told the truth to Nate all of these years?” Michael snapped and Annie looked to the floor.

“We stick to our plan,” Max said. “We set up a perimeter for the night. Tomorrow we found out what they know and decide where to go from there. Kyle, you head back to town now. Find out if the situation has changed.”

There was no sarcastic salute this time as Kyle nodded his head and then left immediately.

“Liz and Michael,” Max said, “you’re on first watch. The rest of us, get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

Isabel pointed at Annie. “What do we do with her?”

Max worked his mouth, then said, “Stand back.” Isabel and Michael did as they were told and Max raised his hand.

Words of protest were perched on Nate’s lips as he imagined Max obliterating his ex-fiancé. What came out of Max’s hand, however, was not a death ray. Instead, it was that mist-like shield, barricading Annie into the corner. She looked around like a trapped rat, frightened.

“It won’t hurt you,” Max said as he lowered his hand. “But you won’t be able to get past it either, so I wouldn’t even try if I were you.”

Liz and Michael left to set up watch. The others grabbed blankets and sleeping bags and took up spots near the fire. Nate watched silently as one by one they fell into troubled slumber, the last to nod off being Alyssa.

Behind the shield, Annie was curled up defensively, still wide awake. Nate never thought he’d be here, holed up in a cave with his girlfriend being held prisoner. As he looked around the chamber, he realized that all of these people were here because of him and he knew what it was that he had to do. In a way, it was his penance – for all of the bad that his mother had done, for letting that boy drown in Lake Chautauqua.

His movements slow, Nate slid from inside of his sleeping bag and crept over to where Annie was trapped. She looked at him warily.

“Did you come to kill me?” she asked bluntly, her voice tinged with anxiety.

Nate shook his head and held his finger to his lips. “Try to be quiet,” he advised. “Is what you told me the truth? Are they only after me?”

Annie nodded.

“If I can figure out how to get you out of there, will you help me?”

Her smooth brow furrowed. “Help you how?”

Nate drew in a breath, mustering as much courage as he could. “Take me to them.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Wow - thanks for all of your interest in this story! I'm glad some of you have come out of hiding to post comments! And welcome to all of the new readers as well

Part Twenty Two

Nate studied the green shield closely, looking for seams or flaws or anything that would allow him to move it out of the way. Frustrated, he found nothing. On the other side of the barrier, Annie waited anxiously. Every now and then, Nate would glance over his shoulder, making sure he hadn’t awakened any of the others sleeping in the cave.

“What are you planning to do, Nate?” Annie whispered.

“Turn myself in,” he said in a tone that stated he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Are you insane?” she hissed.

He shook his head. “Try to be quiet, Annie. I don’t want anyone to wake up.”

As his eyes skimmed over the shield, Nate had to wonder if maybe only Max could dissolve it. Chewing his lip, he remembered Alyssa changing her nail polish…how had she done that? It seemed like she had merely run her hand over her fingernails. She’d also said that the aliens’ powers were cerebral, probably meaning it was some type of telekinesis or esp or something. Maybe if he just thought about dissolving the shield…

Nate closed his eyes and flatted his palm parallel with the green force field between him and Annie. He tried to think about it melting away, like warm Jell-O, washing to the floor and vanishing.

“Nate!”

His eyes popped open and he found that there was no barrier between them any longer. Giving a gasp of disbelief, he jumped to his feet and grabbed Annie’s hand.

“Let’s go,” he commanded quietly.

“How did you do that?” she asked, her green eyes round.

“I don’t know.” And he didn’t. Not really.

Nate and Annie crept to the entrance of the cave. Once they got there, however, Nate realized the folly of his thinking – Liz and Michael were patrolling, looking for things out of the ordinary. There was no way they were ever going to get past them.

Nate pulled Annie aside, into a rather dark shadow. “You have to do me a favor, Annie,” he said, his voice no-nonsense.

“What?” she asked.

“I need you to create a diversion. I need you to draw their attention so that I can get out of here.”

She cocked her head to the side, her expression sickened. “I don’t like this, Nate. I don’t like what you’re planning on doing.”

“Please, Annie, if you ever loved me at all – even a little – do this for me.”

“Why are you protecting them?” Her voice took on a defensive tone. “Why do you care if something happens to them? What do you owe them?”

Nate drew in a breath of patience. “If it is true that the FBI only wants me, then I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, regardless of who they are. That includes you as well, Annie.”

“You don’t want the FBI to hurt me, but you’ll send me out to create a diversion knowing that those people out there could blast me into bits?”

“They won’t hurt you.”

“No?” She gave an ironic laugh. “Did you already forget that one of them mugged me and stuffed me in the trunk of her car?”

Nate’s eyebrows lifted sharply. Isabel had left out the part about the trunk. Maybe it was exhaustion, but for some reason he wanted to laugh about that…

“I can’t speak for Isabel,” he said. “Those people out there aren’t her.” Of course, one of them was Michael Guerin, who had put the hurting on Nate not too long ago…not that Annie needed to know that. “Do this for me, Annie.”

She sighed in resignation. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just run. I’m sure as soon as you move, they’ll notice.”

“And blast me in the back.”

Nate looked down at their hands, still grasping each other. Once upon a time, he’d thought that the world revolved around this feisty little strawberry blond, the sun came up with her every morning and the stars came out just for her every night. Now he saw her in a much different, much narrower light.

“Just do it,” he finally said. “Run to the left because I need to go to the right to get to one of the cars. Run as hard and as fast as you can – I need as much time as possible. Do you understand, Annie?”

She pursed her lips and nodded her head. “Yeah, I got it.”

He gave her one last, lingering look, then said, “Go!”

Annie jumped through the cave opening and took off running. Nate stayed in the shadows, waiting until he heard some confirmation that she had been spotted.

“What the fuck?” came Michael’s startled voice. “How did she get loose?”

“Come on, Michael!” was Liz’s response, her voice fading as she moved away from the pod chamber.

Nate bolstered his confidence, then sprang from the cave. He could just make out three figures in the distance, quickly disappearing into the night. It had worked. With no time to waste, he ran rapidly down the cliff face to where they had camouflaged the cars. Putting his hands out before him, he felt for the vehicles until he stumbled into one of them. As soon as he touched it, the cloak fell away and Max’s car was clearly visible.

Grinning, Nate jumped behind the wheel and could hardly believe his good fortune – in anticipation of a hasty get-away, Max had left the keys in the car. Nate winced as he turned the engine over – that was bound to draw some attention. He didn’t waste time waiting to see if he’d been heard, however – he threw the car into reverse and did a quick 180, flooring the car and jumping back onto the desert path that had led them to the chamber.

In his head, Nate tried to recall the route Max had taken into the desert. Surprisingly, it all came back to him rather easily. Turn right here, left there, all the while checking his mirror to see if he was being followed. He knew that all he needed to do was get back into the Roswell city limits and none of them would come anywhere near him.

Of course, he had no idea where the FBI had officially set up shop. That’s what he’d needed Annie for. But he did know one thing – they’d been surrounding his motel room earlier in the evening; chances were, they were still there in some capacity.

The weight of what he was about to do suddenly hit home. He was actually turning himself over to the FBI, the same group who had once tortured Max Evans. But Max was an alien and Nate was not. Surely it wouldn’t be so bad…would it?

Nate shifted in his seat and pushed the thought from his head. If he kept thinking like that, he was sure to lose his will to carry out this deed. He needed to stay focused on his mission.

Within a half hour, the lights of Roswell loomed dimly ahead and Nate smiled – the aliens wouldn’t come for him now. They wouldn’t risk such close contact with the FBI. He would succeed.

The Tumbleweed seemed deserted, especially in comparison to the description Isabel had given about hoards of suits invading the place. Nate’s truck was gone, however – towed, he assumed, for evidence. He swung Max’s car into the empty parking spot and then got out on shaking knees.

The night air was silent, not even a breeze disturbing it. As he walked to the motel room door, the heels of his shoes made crunching noises against the sand and stone of the parking lot. A hint of hesitation started to spark in his gut. Maybe he’d acted rashly…

Inside, the motel room was in a state of upheaval, all of Nate’s belongings gone – including the brown envelope with his adoption papers in it. With a hint of the ridiculous, he realized the even the bed sheets had been stripped. What evidence did the FBI hope to glean from his sheets?

“I knew you’d come back eventually.”

Nate jumped slightly, then swiveled to see Annie’s father standing in the doorway. “Mr. O’Donnell,” he said, using everything in his power to keep his voice from cracking.

“Agent O’Donnell,” he corrected, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette lighter. He lit his smoke, inhaled deeply, then regarded Nate through the bluish-grey fog. “Where’s my daughter, Nathan?

Nate shrugged. “I don’t know.” And that was the truth. For all he knew, Annie could still be running like a jackrabbit in the desert.

“You don’t know,” O’Donnell repeated slowly, shaking his head. “Not sure I believe you, Nate.”

“Did you do this to my room?” Nate asked, switching subjects. “And where are my belongings?”

“Property of the US government now.” The agent gave Nate the once-over. “As are you.”

There was something about the finality of that statement that sent dread coursing through Nate’s veins. “What do you mean by that?”

O’Donnell took another drag of his cigarette, then crushed it beneath his shoe. “Nate, why weren’t you surprised to see me here?”

Nate swallowed. He was absolutely right – Nate hadn’t even acted startled that his future father-in-law had appeared in Roswell. So early in the game and he’d already shown his hand.

“See,” the agent continued, “the way I see it is this – I think you know where Annie is. I think she told you that I was here. I think you know who took her.”

Maybe silence was the best defense…

“If any harm comes to my daughter, Nathan, I won’t envy what will become of you.” The man’s voice was level and yet still laced with threat.

“I really don’t know where she is,” Nate reiterated. “If I knew, I’d tell you.”

A half smile that was totally devoid of mirth curved the lips of Agent O’Donnell. “Oh, I know you would. And I also know you’ll tell me much more than that. Eventually.”

Nate’s eyes shifted over the agent’s shoulder, to two large men who had appeared there. Like Agent O’Donnell, they were dressed in dark suits, their expressions harsh and full of malice. Involuntarily, Nate took a step backward.

“Ever been on a military base before?” Annie’s father asked.

Nate shook his head, his eyes flitting between the agent and the men at the door.

“Well, I think tonight you’ll get the grand tour.” O’Donnell turned around and gestured to the man, then exited the room.

As the men approached, Nate took a couple of steps back, thinking that maybe this had been a poor idea. He wondered how his mother had felt, breaking through that chain link fence and walking down that embankment to meet her destiny. Had she been as terrified as Nate was now? Or had she been courageous until the end? How had Max felt when he’d been abducted by the FBI? Was he brave in the face of danger, or had he simply wanted to wake up and find it all a bad dream?

Two strong hands grabbed Nate around the upper arms, a goon on either side of him.

“Don’t give me an excuse to kill you,” one of them spat.

Nate swallowed hard, realized that there was something very large in his throat that was preventing him from doing so.

The other man snickered as they started hauling the boy toward the door. “Don’t worry. Pretty soon you’ll beg one of us to kill you.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

On my way to lunch, but I thought I'd get this posted before I go I'll comment on comments later

***Warning*** There's some violence in here, so consider yourself warned

Part Twenty Three

They drove for what seemed to be hours, traveling in a black luxury car with darkly tinted windows. Nate, sandwiched in the backseat between the two burly men who had so roughly ushered him from the Tumbleweed, could see nothing of where they were going. When they reached their destination, the men placed a hood over his head until they were inside of the facility.

Once inside, they took a vial of blood from him; why, he wasn’t sure. Then they cast him into a dark, cold room, the only light being the small strip that filtered in from beneath the door. Without it, Nate knew the room would have been pitch black and he would have quickly lost his bearings. Then they left him alone.

Sitting as still as a mouse, Nate listened for any kind of movement out in the hallway and heard none. In fact, the silence was almost deafening. Swallowing past his fear, he felt about the room and determined that there wasn’t any furniture and he couldn’t locate the door handle. Starting in a corner, he counted paces until he reached the next corner, then repeated his actions with the next wall – the room was roughly twelve feet by twelve feet, a relatively small space.

At some point, the bodily need to sleep finally overtook him and he sank into one of the corners and drifted into slumber…

His first dreams of the night were plagued with visions of helicopters and men in suits coming to drag him away. Unlike reality, in his dreams he kicked and fought against them, unwilling to go. Terror and panic raged through his veins, awakening a primal instinct to protect his life.

Then the images of blood and violence slowly filtered away like sand through a sieve, until Nate felt a sense of calm washing over him, a feeling that there was still hope and that not all was lost.

She came to him again, that pretty blond woman with her bare feet and soundless footsteps. Stopping before him, she touched his face, her fingers warm and cool all at the same time, and offered him a smile of peace. Nate couldn’t help but smile back at her, closing his eyes to savor her loving touch. When he reopened them, however, there was a different pretty blond woman before him, one that he recognized as the girl who had unabashedly kissed him while his laundry was on the spin cycle. Nate was surprised to see her there inside of his head.

Standing on her tiptoes, the girl laid a kiss against his lips and he heard her voice inside of his brain. It told him not to worry, that he would not be abandoned to his fate. Have faith, they were coming for him. Her dark eyes searched his and then she gave him a more intimate kiss, wrapping her tanned arms around his neck…

Nate jerked awake. The room was no longer dark, but rather bright and unwelcoming. Having slept on the floor for an undetermined amount of time, his back and shoulders ached. For one split second, he forgot what had happened and where he was, but when he saw Agent O’Donnell leaning against a far wall, it all came back to him in a rush.

“Good morning, Nate,” he said, his face expressionless. “Sleep well?”

Like anyone could sleep well on a cold tile floor. Nate pushed himself up so that he was sitting, his back in the corner.

“I hope you did,” O’Donnell continued. “We have a lot to talk about today and I need you nice and rested.”

Nate’s stomach rumbled and he wondered what the chances were that they’d give him something for breakfast. He thought the odds probably weren’t much in his favor.

O’Donnell flicked his lighter, the flame shooting up and then disappearing into the canister. “Recognize any of these people?” he asked casually, gesturing towards the walls.

For the first time, Nate realized that the walls had pictures on them – tons of photographs, looking to have been taking during surveillance. Some of the faces were definitely familiar – a lot younger, but still recognizable. He cocked his head to the side and studied one in particular carefully – it looked like Max, Michael and Isabel…walking home from school? How old were these pictures?

“I can see from your face that you do recognize them,” Agent O’Donnell observed.

Nate swallowed and realized how thirsty he was.

“So, who are they, Nate?”

He shook his head in denial.

“Oh, come on. You must know at least one of them, don’t you?”

Another shake of the head. His eyes drifted to a photo that looked like it had come from a laboratory – it looked like green flower petals magnified a thousand times.

O’Donnell pulled an envelope from his pocket and tapped his fingers on it. “Know what this is?”

Nate shook his head.

“These are lab results, a DNA profile. We found a strange thing, Nate. It seems that you share many DNA characteristics with -” The agent searched the wall until he’d found a photo of Max. “This guy.”

Nate looked silently at Max’s picture and said nothing.

“Do you know who that guy is?”

No response.

“Okay. Maybe you don’t, but I doubt that’s true. That’s Max Evans. An alien.”

Nate raised his eyebrows sharply, hoping that it was at least a good bluff.

Agent O’Donnell pointed to the green flower petal picture. “These are his blood cells. Weird, huh? And yet he walks around here just like you and me. You couldn’t tell by looking at him what he was.” He pulled a slide from a larger envelope and stuck it up beside Max’s blood cells. This one was red, looking like things Nate had seen in biology class. “These are your blood cells. And yet you and Max Evans share a similar DNA profile. How do you think that can be?”

Nate looked at the floor. He didn’t want to give these people any information. Not so much as a connection that he was indeed Max’s son.

Agent O’Donnell crossed the room and squatted before him. Nate flinched involuntarily.

“Do you know about shape shifters, Nate?” the agent asked.

Nate shook his head.

“They have them. We have evidence of them. They’re walking around in the world today, taking on whatever form they wish to. Think about that. Think about how easily they could infiltrate our government, kill the powers that be and take their positions. No one would ever be the wiser, Nate. Right now, we could have an alien sitting at the highest level of power and have no idea that it’s not really the person we elected. Is that a comforting thought, Nate?”

Nate averted his eyes and shook his head.

“No, I don’t think so either. And since we’re in agreement, I would think that you would want to help me find the others.”

A cold knife of realization suddenly stabbed Nate in the heart. The others? But Annie had said that the FBI only wanted him, that if they had him they’d leave the others alone. He shot the agent a genuinely surprised look.

“You know where they are, don’t you?” O’Donnell asked, his gaze penetrating.

Nate looked away and shook his head again, Annie’s latest betrayal still warming his blood.

“Come on, Nate. I know you do. I know you know where Annie is as well. One of them took her, didn’t they?”

He swallowed and continued to stare at the floor.

O’Donnell sighed. “I don’t want to have to hurt you, Nate.”

Nate met his gaze, trying to put up a good, brave front. But in the back of his head, Max’s words came back to him - They tortured me, threatened to kill my friends. They sucked the innocence out of me. I was never the same. Nate’s heart began to thump a little quicker.

“Where are they?” the agent asked levelly.

“I don’t know,” Nate lied.

O’Donnell held his gaze for a long moment, then pushed himself to his feet. “Okay. We can play your way. I’ve got nowhere to be, Nate. I’ve got all day to play your games. So, play we will.”

A door that had seamlessly blended in with the wall slid open and Nate’s head swiveled in that direction. In walked a man carrying what appeared to be a toolbox. Fear and dread ran rampant through Nate’s veins – whatever was in that case couldn’t be good.

“This man is an expert at extracting answers,” Agent O’Donnell explained. “He’s made the bravest of men talk.” He snorted. “Some of them even whimpered like babies before he was done.” He paused for effect, then continued. “So, you can either cooperate with me or we can let him do his job. Which is it going to be?”

Nate’s blue eyes flitted between the agent and the man as if he was watching a tennis match. These people were serious – deathly serious.

“I’ll ask one more time,” the agent said, his voice low and threatening. “Where are they hiding?”

Nate closed his eyes, knowing he had gotten himself into this position, knowing that no matter the subconscious messages Alyssa was sending him no one was going to get here in time to save him. But this is what he’d set out to do – he’d believed Annie when she’d said that they only wanted him and he had been willing to sacrifice himself to save the others. This is what he’d signed on for. And now he had to accept the consequences.

“Do it.”

Nate’s eyes popped open and immediately shot to the man who was about to harm him. The man knelt before his toolbox, opened it and started rummaging around inside, the sound of metal on metal deafening in the small chamber. Nate’s heart started to jerk wildly in his chest, the uncertainty of what was to come absolutely terrifying.

The hidden door slid open once again and two other men entered. Nate’s frantic gaze jerked to them, then back to the man with the toolbox. The newest arrivals walked straight over to Nate and grabbed him by the arms, shoving him to the floor; they used their legs to pin his legs beneath them. Nate struggled against them and found himself powerless.

The man at the toolbox rose and Nate’s eyes quickly went to his hand – he held what looked to be an ordinary pair of pliers.

“What hand do you write with?” O’Donnell asked.

Frantic, Nate shook his head in denial. This wasn’t happening to him!

“Doesn’t matter. We can always do both if we have to,” the agent said, his voice almost cheerful.

Do both? Do what to both what?

“Start with the right one, boys,” O’Donnell ordered. “Odds are, he’s right-handed.”

Nate squirmed beneath the men, trying to get away, as they yanked his right arm out to the side. The man with the pliers paused over him, then knelt on one knee over Nate’s hand.

“No,” Nate protested, shaking his head vigorously.

“We don’t have to do this,” the agent said. “You can tell me where they are and we can avoid all of this unpleasantness.”

Not once did Nate’s resolve falter. He set his jaw and tried to calm his rapid breathing. Maybe if he tried to remain calm, whatever they were about to do wouldn’t hurt so badly.

He was wrong.

The man with the pliers picked up Nate’s hand and Nate immediately formed a tight fist, protecting his fingers. Undeterred, the man swiftly brought his fist down on the back of Nate’s hand, forcing him to open up in an attempt to ease the pain. The man opened the pliers and slid the knuckle of Nate’s right thumb between them.

“No!” Nate shouted.

The sound of crunching bones permeated the room, followed a split second later by Nate’s cries of anguish. Searing, blinding pain radiated through his fingers, up his arm and straight into his shoulder. The pain was accompanied by the knowledge that they’d crushed his knuckle and that he’d never be able to use that thumb again.

The pain and the realization were so intense that a black cloud invaded Nate’s mind, and he slowly slipped into unconsciousness…

tbc

Oy...it was a struggle not to repeat dialogue from the White Room I need to watch that ep so I don't accidentally do that

[Midwest Max]

Hey everyone - I really want to comment on comments, but I have a very sick (ready for the graveyard) PC right now. I'm getting a new one at the end of the week, but right now I'm just doing good to get the chapters written and posted. I do appreciate all of your feedback and I'm glad that you guys are enjoying this!

More violence at the end of the chapter


Part Twenty Four

The sun sparkled happily on the surface of the lake, the trees rimming its shores already glowing in the wonderful colors of autumn. Nate sat on the pier he and his father fished from and swung his legs back and forth, his boots missing the water entirely. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky on this cool, crisp October morning, and Nate turned his face to the sun, enjoying its fleeting warmth.

She was beside him again, a woman who had penetrated his dreams for awhile now. She looked very familiar, but Nate’s subconscious wouldn’t bring her name to him. In this world, she was nothing but a visitor, but on the outside world he thought perhaps she was something more to him. A relative of some kind?

Unlike her other visits, this time she seemed unhappy, her dark eyes filled with worry. She reached out and touched Nate’s arm, but he couldn’t feel anything. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear her either.

Not that he cared. He liked it here on this dock, waiting for his father to wander by with his fishing pole and a cooler of ice cold Budweiser…

“Nate.”

Startled, Nate realized that the woman had once again been replaced by that girl who invoked visions and scents of the laundromat. And he’d heard her loud and clear.

Not that he cared about that, either. All he cared about was that she was here with him, on this pretty day.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, grinning, reaching over to take her hand.

“Nate, you can hear me!” she said, her words coming out in a rush.

“Of course I can hear you, silly. Why wouldn’t I be able to hear you? You’re sitting right beside me.”

She shook her head, her blond hair swaying. “Listen to me, Nate. You’re only dreaming. I’m not sitting beside you right now. Aunt Isabel has been trying to talk to you, but she can’t make you hear her. The FBI has you somewhere and you need to tell me where you are.”

Nate frowned. “I’m at home. On the lake. Dad and I are going to fish…”

The whole time he spoke, the girl was shaking her head. “No, Nate. I need you to concentrate.” Dropping his hand, she reached up and held his face between her hands. “Look at me. You’re not where we thought you’d be. Tell me where you are.”

Not where we thought you’d be…Nate felt this dream quickly slipping into nightmare as bits and pieces of reality started to come back to him.

“That’s good,” she encouraged. “Anything you can remember will be a great help, Nate.”

He tried to concentrate but found that he couldn’t. As soon as he thought he was remembering something, it would flit away as quickly as it came.

The girl’s brow furrowed, as though she’d realized something he hadn’t. “They’re hurting you,” she breathed.

Hurting him…in a rush, Nate recalled an excruciating pain and the terror of what had happened to him came flooding back. Unable to stop it, he felt himself propelled away from this helpful soul and back into an extremely brightly lit room.

Gasping, Nate sat up quickly, his thoughts turning to the throbbing ache in his right hand. As soon as he’d acknowledged that, he realized that his shirt and shoes had been stripped away, leaving him shivering in the chilly room.

“Where am I?” he moaned to no one in particular.

“What’s that, Nate?”

He swiveled his head around to find Agent O’Donnell pointing towards his chest. Dread filled Nate as he could only imagine that his little “birthmark” had drawn some attention. When he looked down, however, he saw that the glowing spots on his chest had gone dormant – and there was a silver mark in the shape of Max Evans’s hand on his ribcage.

“We’ve seen that before, you know,” O’Donnell said, crossing his legs. It wasn’t until he did that that Nate realized the agent had afforded himself the luxury of a chair, a luxury that hadn’t been passed Nate’s way.

“I don’t know what it is,” Nate said quietly.

“I might be able to help you figure that out. You see, we’ve determined that only direct contact with an alien life form can cause such a mark. Which means that you have been in direct contact with them and you also know where they are.” The agent gave a little shrug. “So, which one of them leaves the print?” He glanced over his shoulder at the twisted collage he’d created on the walls. “You don’t have to say the name – you could just point if you wanted.”

Nate pulled his wounded hand up to his chest and wished that they’d just amputated his thumb instead of crushing it – it couldn’t possibly hurt as badly as it did now.

Agent O’Donnell rubbed his face, seemed to think for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a remote control of sorts. “I want to show you something, Nate.”

Nate swallowed and felt a ping of worry at what that might mean.

The man pushed a button on the remote and a flat television screen dropped slowly from the ceiling. Without looking at the screen, he pushed another button and a film began to play. It looked like a security recording of some kind, blurry picture and no sound. Nate noticed a date in the corner – some time in 2002.

The recording looked like it had been taken in an airplane hanger, with workers reconstructing the plane from a mountain of debris. There were people in white hazmat suits and men in military uniforms. For a long while, the film played without much action – until one of the men happened to do something to the wreckage that caused a panel to pop open. Nate strained to make out what was beneath the panel, but the image was too blurry to discern.

Then all hell broke loose. Bodies flew in every direction, blood splattering the security camera. In the midst of the carnage, there was a blur that seemed to preamble each new slaying, an image moving so fast that the camera couldn’t pick it up cleanly. Nate’s eyes grew round as he watched the destruction unfold in a very short period of time. Just as the blur was moving to the lower right corner of the screen, Agent O’Donnell hit the pause button, freezing the blur in place.

“Some show, huh?” he asked Nate.

Nate looked at him questioningly.

“Have any idea what that was?”

Nate shook his head.

The agent put the remote back in his pocket, leaving the image on the screen. “Annie thought otherwise.”

At the mention of her name, Nate felt the walls start to close in around him. Whatever was coming his way was not good. “What do you mean?”

“One night by the lake,” the man said casually. “Not so long ago. She thought that you’d received a repressed memory of some kind. A memory of this.”

Nate swallowed hard, remembering that night and the things he’d seen in his head; only his memories weren’t silent – they’d been filled with screams and the sounds of people dying abruptly. “How would I remember this?” he asked, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“Because you were there,” O’Donnell said, his voice no-nonsense.

Nate attempted a laugh and failed. “How could I have been there?”

“Because that –“ he pointed to a grayish blur on the screen – “is you.”

Nate studied the image hard and couldn’t make out the image of anything, but he had the feeling that these men had been studying this film for the last seventeen years and could probably give him a frame-by-frame description of it.

Agent O’Donnell uncrossed his legs and folded his hands between his knees. “See, Nate, the day that this unfortunate event happened, audio recordings indicate that the workers had found a child on board this spaceship. Yes, that’s a spaceship, recovered from the desert. Anyway, as soon as they opened that door and found the baby, well, that’s when everything went to hell. Something primeval attacked those men, killed every last one of them and then disappeared. With no baby to be found.”

Nate cleared his parched throat. “Why do you think I was the baby?”

The agent eyed him harshly for a moment. “Don’t think you’re smarter than me, Nate. You and I both know that the baby was you, that you were put up for adoption to protect who you were.”

Nate looked at the floor, too weary to deny it.

“What we don’t know is who your parents were.” He pointed over his shoulder at the screen. “Who that person was. From your DNA, we know that you’re closely related to Max Evans. We’ll deal with him eventually. In the meantime, we want to know who your mother was.”

Nate thought back to the data that had been given to him, the missing pieces of information that had given him too few answers. He’d felt betrayed that day, to know that his lineage had been kept a mystery. Now, however, he realized what an advantage incomplete paperwork could be.

Lifting his head, he gave the agent a tired grin. “You have my adoption papers.”

The agent shrugged. “Yes, but they don’t list your parents.”

Nate snorted a laugh. “Because I don’t have any. I’m nobody’s son.” The irony of that hit him hard in his depleted state and he fell into a hysterical giggling fit.

A giggling fit that Agent O’Donnell didn’t find funny. “Agent Darmon,” he called over his shoulder.

Nate’s laughter fell away as a burly individual appeared through the sliding door. The man was massive, his shoulders easily twice as wide as Nate’s. But it wasn’t just his physical girth – it was the deadness of his eyes that made Nate’s blood run cold.

“This is Agent Darmon,” O’Donnell said. “He is unlike any other agent we have. Do you want to know why?”

Nate’s blue eyes were round as he glanced at O’Donnell, then the looming leviathan that had just entered the room.

“Agent Darmon,” O’Donnell began, “is what you would call not of this earth.”

An alien. The FBI had an alien working for them. Max’s words came back to Nate, his explanation of how he’d spent his life, protecting earth from an invasion. If Max only knew that the US government had already been invaded…

“Agent Darmon is rather skilled at getting answers, too. He has methods none of the rest of us can replicate.” Annie’s father looked at the alien. “Why don’t you give Mr. Spencer a little preview, eh?”

Without a word, Darmon reached for Nate, who immediately tried to backpedal, his aching thumb forgotten. The alien never touched him, however. Instead, he stopped with his hand over Nate’s chest. A moment later, Nate’s pounding heart felt like someone had grabbed it in a vise, the muscle struggling to function normally. Fear ripped through his veins, only heightening the sensation. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, he felt his heart stop completely, just long enough that his world started to go dim…

Nate’s head suddenly cleared, his heart jack hammering painfully against his ribs. As his vision cleared, he saw the alien taking a few obedient steps away from him.

Agent O’Donnell rose from his chair and knelt over Nate. “Now, listen to me, Nathan. I want answers. And I want them in this order. I want to know who your mother was. I want to know for sure who your father was. And I want to know where the rest of them are hiding. If you don’t answer me immediately, I won’t stop Agent Darmon from killing you next time.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Mild violence

Part Twenty Five

For one very long moment, Nate panicked in the knowledge that in the same room was a being that could stop his heart without even touching him and that Annie’s father had pretty much promised that would happen if Nate didn’t cooperate.

But after that moment was over, Nate realized that it was all just smoke and mirrors. If they killed him, then they’d never get the answers they so desperately desired. From the way he saw it, the FBI was banking on him being a frightened kid – which he was – who would believe anything they told him – which he didn’t.

“No,” Nate said in defiance. “I’m not going to answer any of your questions. Instead, you are going to answer mine.”

Agent O’Donnell withdrew slightly, a very small look of surprise in his eyes.

Inside, Nate felt a surge of confidence. “I want to know where I am and I want to know why an alien is working for the FBI. I want to know why you care so much about Max Evans. I want to know how long you’re intending on keeping me here. I want to know why you think you have the right to incarcerate me without my ever having done a crime. But most of all, I want to know how old your daughter was before you started pimping her out for your own bloody purpose.”

O’Donnell’s reaction was swift, his first connecting squarely with Nate’s jaw, his lip once again split in the same spot where Michael Guerin had injured him. As blood splattered his shirt, he fell back against the floor with a thud, the air rushing out of his lungs. A split second later, he felt an agonizing pain in his right hand and looked down to see that his injured thumb was trapped beneath Agent O’Donnell’s knee and he was putting all of his weight down on it. Nate’s face contorted in misery as he struggled to free his wounded hand.

“You listen to me, you little shit,” O’Donnell hissed close to Nate’s ear, his reserved demeanor finally diminished. “I’ll tell you where you are – you’re in Area 51. Heard of it, haven’t you? Well, I can promise you this – nothing that goes on here ever makes it to the outside world. No one comes in and no one gets out. It’s as simple as that. This is your home now, kid – your permanent home. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to resort to harsher methods, but I can see I was wrong. You’re a stupid, arrogant boy, Nate. It will cost you in the end.” Jerking his head up, O’Donnell barked at Darmon, “Bring them in!”

Nate squirmed, still trying to get his hand loose as the door slid open and the man with the toolbox re-entered, followed by the goons who had held him down earlier. Painful memory centered in Nate’s thumb and he desperately tried to wrench away from the agent. There was no telling what he was in for this time.

The two men quickly replaced Agent O’Donnell, holding Nate flat against the floor. One of them gripped his wounded thumb and gave it a hearty twist, evoking a growl of anguish from his victim. Toolbox Man set the box on the floor again and started rummaging through it, his expression as neutral as a man reading the morning paper. Nate watched in horror as the man pulled out a vial and a syringe.

Agent O’Donnell stood a short distance away, his hands crossed behind his back, composure fully restored. “There are other methods,” he said to Nate as Toolbox Man began filling the syringe. “I don’t care for the use of drugs, but since you can’t seem to cooperate on your own, I guess they’ll have to do.”

Toolbox Man approached Nate and he began to squirm violently, afraid of what might be in the needle. Was it something that would indeed kill him? Was it some narcotic that they wanted to get him hooked on, only to string him out and make him talk in order to get his next fix? Nate’s blue eyes were round as the needle came closer and closer to his arm.

“No,” he protested. “No!”

The needle pierced his skin and he struggled to get away, but to no avail. In a very short amount of time, he felt his limbs go weak and he no longer had it in him to fight back. He got the sense that the men holding him down had moved away, and yet he had no desire to try to move.

“Sodium pentothal,” came Agent O’Donnell’s voice from very far away. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

Nate’s eyes fixed on the ceiling, on the light fixture directly above his head. He felt so relaxed, so content, not afraid of anything. He could lie here all day – just staring at that bright light above him.

“Can you hear me, Nate?”

Someone was speaking to him…or were they? His brow furrowed and he tried to remember what had happened only seconds ago.

“Nate, answer me.”

He blinked slowly and forced himself to nod.

“Tell me your name.”

He drew in a sleepy breath. “Nathan Spencer,” he slurred tiredly.

“Good. You want to cooperate with me, don’t you, Nate?”

He nodded drunkenly.

“Tell me who your parents are.”

His parents. What were they doing right now? Nate had a vision of his father stocking supplies for winter, talking to the locals about the recently ended tourist season, and putting away his fishing gear for the year. His mother was probably baking. Oh, how Emma Spencer loved to bake. Pies, breads, and Nate’s favorite – chocolate chunk cookies. She made the best cookies ever.

“Nate, concentrate. Who are your parents?”

“Emma,” he breathed.

“Yes, yes, go on.”

“Emma and Jon Spencer.”

Nate drifted into thoughts of them, those two wonderful people who had led a simple but loving life, and he suddenly felt very sad. He was never going to live that life – his very condition was proof of that. Unable to stop himself, he let out a little sob.

“Nathan.” The voice was stricter this time. “Emma and Jonathan Spencer are not your parents.”

“They raised me,” he answered slowly.

“That doesn’t make them your parents.”

But it did. Someone else may have given Nate life, but the Spencers had given him a family. For that, he would always consider them to be his parents.

“Forget about that.” There was utter disgust in the voice now. “Tell me where the others are.”

The others? What others? A face drifted across Nate’s brain, a pretty young girl with a whip-sharp wit. He smiled at the memory of her.

“Where are they, Nate?”

“In the desert,” he sighed, wanting very much to go to sleep.

“Where? Where in the desert, Nate?”

“In the desert,” he repeated, then slowly lost consciousness…

The girl wavered before him, her balance unsteady. Nate reached out and took her arm, but she lost her footing and fell to her butt anyway. Appearing nauseous, she clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, God,” she moaned. “You’re drugged, aren’t you?”

He wasn’t sure. Was he?

“I can’t stand up,” she said. “Sit with me, Nate.”

He did as he was told, happy to see her. She was such a ray of sunshine, this pretty girl. Only because he wanted to, he put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her tightly.

“I think you’re so pretty,” he told her, punctuating his compliment with a laugh.

“Uh, thanks, dude,” she answered uncomfortably.

“And you have much bigger boobs than my last girlfriend.”

The girl looked confused for a moment, then gave a shake of her head. “That’s nice, Nate. But I didn’t come here to talk about my boobs. I need to know where you are. It’s been two days and if we don’t get to you soon, we’re afraid of what might become of you.” She paused as if to compose herself. “Have you found out any clues about where they’re keeping you?”

He thought for a moment, as well as his drugged state would allow. “A number.”

“A number?”

“Fifty…fifty something.”

“Oh, shit. Area 51? Is that where you are, Nate?”

He grinned. “Yeah! That’s it.”

She appeared disappointed, but that mood was quickly extinguished. “I have to go,” she said. “I have to get out of your head and let the others know what you’ve found out.”

“Aliens.”

“Yes, Nate, they’re aliens. Really, I gotta go.”

His brow furrowed and he shook his head. “No, the FBI has aliens working for them.”

The girl’s jaw dropped open in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

Nate nodded and put a hand on his chest. “It stopped my heart. Without ever touching me.”

Fear and alarm raced across the girl’s face. “I gotta go, Nate. Now. Be strong. We’re coming for you.”

With that, she was gone and Nate was left floating alone…

When Nate awoke, he felt incredibly cold and couldn’t stop the shaking in his arms and legs. Bile rose to his throat and he quickly swallowed it back down.

“You like movies, don’t you, Nate?”

He lifted his head weakly, saw Agent O’Donnell perched in his chair again. Behind him, the screen no longer held the blurry images of the airplane hangar; it held no image at all.

“I think you like visual aids,” O’Donnell decided. “They can be very compelling. Did you know Max Evans was once a ward of the old FBI Special Unit?”

Nate’s blue eyes drifted to the blank screen and then back to the agent. He felt so cold…

“He was,” the agent confirmed. “For one wonderful weekend, the FBI had him in their grasp. He was about your age, I guess. We preserved his vacation here on video tape just in case we wanted to relive old times.” With that, he pressed a button on the ubiquitous remote and the screen jumped to life.

Nate blinked hard, trying to clear his blurry vision. Once again, the images appeared to be from a security camera, though this time in color. There was a dark-haired man in a pair of scrubs, wandering around a totally white room. If Nate strained hard enough, he could discern that this person was indeed a much younger, more clean-shaven Max Evans. The fear on his face was paralyzing.

“Pretty boring, eh?” O’Donnell said, pushing a button to fast forward the recording. “Just some guy in a room walking in circles. Let’s get to the good stuff.”

What Nate saw nearly brought the bile back to his throat. He somewhat knew this person they were torturing and it hit him what a strong person Max must be to have endured this. Nate saw Max drugged, electrocuted, and cut open while he was alive and fully coherent.

But that wasn’t what hit Nate the hardest.

The worst was watching two men repeatedly force Max into a tub of ice water, dunking him beneath the surface just long enough that he thought he was going to drown, letting him up just long enough to gather one gasp of air before shoving him beneath the surface again. Nate’s memories jerked painfully back to Lake Chautauqua, to that little boy slipping out of his grasp, sliding helplessly into the freezing water to meet his death.

Nate began to shake uncontrollably.

Agent O’Donnell climbed out of his chair and came to squat before him. Nate didn’t even have the energy or the will to try to move away.

“You and I need to talk, Nate.” His voice was calm, calmer than it had been since Nate had arrived here. “I think you can see from the tape what may become of you. Yes, Max Evans escaped. But he’s not human, is he? And you definitely are.” The agent cocked his head slowly to the side. “You need a friend right now, Nate. More than you need a nice warm blanket to take away those chills.”

Nate closed his eyes against the thought of being wrapped in his fleece comforter at home – the denial of such a basic survival need was too much to bear.

“You need a friend because you’re very close to meeting an ugly fate,” Agent O’Donnell continued. “I might be able to negotiate getting you out of here, if you agree to help me. And if you give me what I need to know, I might be able to help you with the murder rap.”

Nate’s eyes popped open and he looked questioningly at the agent.

“Annie, it seems, has been a victim of foul play.” Agent O’Donnell delivered the news as casually as a man delivering the weather forecast. “Her body was found in the desert two hours ago.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

So, Gateway called today to let me know that my PC wasn't coming today...but they'd get to it in the next two weeks. In the meantime, I'm rebooting every time I sign in and out of MSN. So I guess at this point MSN and Gateway are on my shit list


Part Twenty Six

“So which one of your new friends do you think killed my daughter, Nate?”

Nate couldn’t – didn’t want – to believe his ears. Annie couldn’t be dead and none of the people he’d met while in Roswell seemed capable of killing her. Yes, that Michael guy seemed pretty volatile, but more in the school yard bully kind of way than in the murdering alien kind of way.

“I see doubt in your eyes,” Agent O’Donnell observed, his own eyes astoundingly cool. “It’s okay – I understand that with you, seeing is believing.” He clicked the remote and Nate’s eyes immediately went to the screen.

A slideshow of sorts scrolled across the monitor, stills that looked to be taken with a high intensity zoom lens. There were images of the desert and police vehicles, then a picture of a body lying on its side, its face covered by a curtain of strawberry blond hair. Nate’s stomach lurched as he recognized the clothes Annie had been wearing the last time he’d seen her.

“You see,” O’Donnell said levelly. “That is her. The odd thing is that there is no apparent cause of death – no gunshot wound, no bruising, nothing. But the way I see it, your DNA is going to be all over her – along with fibers from the clothes we confiscated from you. It looks like an open and shut case to me, Nate, even though I don’t believe you have it in you to kill anyone. So, either you tell me which one of your new buddies did this, or you’re going to take the rap.”

The slideshow stopped and Nate’s eyes fixed on the final picture – paramedics loading a body bag into the back of the coroner’s van. The sheriff’s deputy standing to the right of the van looked very familiar, but Nate didn’t really care that Kyle Valenti had been at the scene of Annie’s apparent murder.

He didn’t care because grief had started to form a ball in his undernourished belly, twisting and writhing like an unwanted parasite. It was true that Annie had betrayed him but now Nate would never know why. She had to have had some reason to treat him this way – he refused to believe that she was as evil as she seemed. Had her father been pressuring her, threatening her, manipulating her? Did she feel any remorse for what she’d done? Would she have some day asked for Nate’s forgiveness?

He would have granted her that much, simply based on what she had once meant to him. Annie O’Donnell was his first love, the only person he ever thought he could be attracted to. He’d shared many firsts with her, in fact – his first kiss, his first dance, his first intimate experience. She would forever be a part of him, regardless of her apparent treachery.

Feeling an empty, desolate hole opening inside of him, Nate rolled over onto his side and drew his knees up to his chest. “Leave me alone,” he said to Agent O’Donnell.

The agent snorted softly. “That’s what you don’t understand, Nate. I can’t leave you alone.” He stooped so that his face was very close to his prisoner’s. “You’re not a dumb kid, I get that. I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that we can’t kill you. I’m sure that you’ve realized that we want to study you. You know what you are – you’re the only human being ever born outside of earth’s atmosphere. As far as we know, you’re the only child born of two alien hybrids. From what Annie told us, you seem to have some ability to access repressed memories, even from infancy. Don’t you understand how import that is, Nate? Do you not have any idea how ground breaking it would be to discover how the brain is capable of doing such a thing?”

Nate simply stared into space, his body weak and tired.

Agent O’Donnell drew in a breath, his jaw set authoritatively. “Your life is here now. You’re never getting out of here. You can cooperate and live relatively comfortably – we might even decide to clothe and feed you. Or you can choose the hard way and live through hell. It’s up to you, but I can promise you this – if you don’t comply, you will wish you were dead and we will not kill you nor will we give you any means by which to do it yourself.” He waited a beat, then repeated, “Where are the aliens, Nate? And which one of them killed my daughter?”

Nate’s blue eyes moved from the spot he’d been staring at and met the agent’s head on. “Go fuck yourself,” he said.

O’Donnell’s eyes narrowed, then he jerked upright, motioning for the door again. Nate lifted his head and saw that Toolbox Man had entered without him being aware of it and was once again digging through his box of goodies. Nate swallowed hard, his vision blurry and his ears buzzing. Shortly, the man produced a small device, not unlike a radio transistor with a needle protruding from one end.

As the man approached, Nate gave Agent O’Donnell a frantic glance.

The agent took his feet and made way for the two thugs who had become Nate’s personal restraining devices. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but it has,” he said.

The men grabbed Nate by the arms and flipped him onto his stomach. He struggled against them, but lack of food, the use of drugs and the continual pain in his hand had weakened him considerably. Continuing to squirm, he tried to turn his head to one side, but someone grabbed it and held it straight so that his nose was touching the floor.

“Do it,” O’Donnell said and Nate realized that it was the agent who had a grip on his head.

A sharp object suddenly penetrated the back of Nate’s neck, making him scream in protest. But the object didn’t stop once it had broken the skin – it kept going until it slid painfully between the vertebrae in Nate’s neck, making his body twitch involuntarily. Too late he realized that they had implanted the transistor device into his spine. With dread, he realized what their plan was -

They were going to paralyze him so that he couldn’t get away.

“No!” Nate screamed, clenching his eyes against the blinding pain. “Let me up! NO!”

The men released his arms, but the device was firmly in place. Nate rolled away from them and tried to reach the back of his neck to pull the device free.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Agent O’Donnell said casually as he waved the men away. “If you pull it out at the wrong angle, you’re going to be a quadriplegic for the rest of your life. So, I wouldn’t touch it if I were you.”

Nate stopped squirming, his breath coming in exhausted, panicked pants. “What is it? What did you do to me?”

The agent shrugged. “Think of it as a restraining collar people put on their dogs. It’s nothing more than that.”

Nate looked up at him, confusion in his eyes.

“Would you like a demonstration?”

Before Nate could protest, Agent O’Donnell produced a small, garage-door-opener sized remote from his pocket and pushed a button. Immediately, shards of electricity raced through Nate’s nervous system, convulsing his muscles and ripping through his brain. Nate screamed, his cries those of the sick and dying.

The agent squatted down beside him after he released the button, the pain in Nate’s body leaving quickly but draining him of all remaining strength.

“You see, Nate,” he said coolly. “This is what I was talking about. This is what I meant by not cooperating. That thing on your neck is now a permanent part of your body. Any time I want, I can do to you what I just did. And I’m not in the slightest bit afraid to do it.

Everything and everyone has their breaking point. It was in this moment that Nate finally met his. The days of abuse he’d endured, the denial of basic human survival needs, and the loss of a lifestyle he had once known and enjoyed finally broke his will. Unable to stop himself, he began to sob, a broken, hopeless man.

Agent O’Donnell watched with grim satisfaction. It wouldn’t be long now before Nate started to spill all of the information he held so closely guarded.

“I know, it’s been a long few days, hasn’t it?” he asked sympathetically, though his compassion was less than sincere.

A few days? Nate realized that he had no idea how many days had passed since he’d been here. For all he knew, it could be weeks.

“But I think maybe now you see the kind of life that you don’t want to live,” O’Donnell continued. “You want to be warm and have a full belly, don’t you?”

Sniffling away some of his tears, Nate nodded against the floor.

“I can give you that,” the agent promised. “But you have to cooperate. If you don’t, then I will have to use this again and I really don’t want to.” He paused, then got to his feet. “I’ll leave you alone for awhile, let you think. The choice is all yours, Nate.”

The agent left and Nate heard the door slide shut behind him.

Nate lay on the floor for a long time, just staring at the wall on the opposite side of the room. His stomach was beginning to burn, as though the acid had been left too long without work to do and was chewing on the lining of his stomach instead. It was a constant presence, trying to send a warning to his brain that he was in danger of starving to death.

He didn’t want to cooperate, but he might not be given any choice if they didn’t feed him soon. And what he wouldn’t give for clean, dry clothes and pillow and blanket!

As soon as he had the thought of those comforts, he remembered that in order to get them he’d have to turn in people who had so far proven innocent in the greater scheme of things. They were people that he didn’t even really know – how was it possible to really know someone in a matter of days? And yet he felt compelled to protect him, as if they were a part of him.

Pulling his knees up to his chest again, trying to retain as much body heat as possible, Nate waited for Agent O’Donnell’s return. He examined his broken thumb, which had now ballooned to twice its normal size and had taken on a deep purple and black hue; the bone ached, but not as much as his neck now did.

With sadness, Nate realized that the agent had been absolutely correct – the implant in Nate’s neck had reduced him to being the FBI’s dog, a pet as it were. Maybe even a lab rat, waiting to get shocked if it did the wrong thing. There simply hadn’t been a lower point in Nate’s life.

Eventually, the lights went dim and Nate realized that the facility was closing down for the night – he’d seen the same thing happen several times, the lights would go out and then all movement outside of his prison would cease. Apparently the agent had no further plans to torture him this evening.

Alone, in the dark, Nate’s thoughts shifted back to Annie and he felt a deep pang within. He knew he should hate her, that someone like Michael Guerin and probably even Max’s sister Isabel would definitely despise her for what she did. But they hadn’t known Annie, they hadn’t practically grown up with her and there was no way Nate could hate her in the end.

If indeed this was the end. The pictures that O’Donnell had shown Nate of the crime scene had looked authentic enough – especially considering the fact that Kyle Valenti had been on the scene. It seemed unlikely that the agent would know that Kyle had met Nate and would then conclude it was convincing to superimpose him into the pictures. No, Nate was pretty confident that what he had seen was real, that Annie was truly dead.

Unable to stop them, tears flooded Nate’s eyes again. In his mind, he saw a homemade montage of Annie memories – her smile, her laugh, the sun glinting off her pretty hair, her in the tree house looking down at her breasts as they reacted to the cold autumn air before he’d left on this journey. That was the Annie he had known – not the Benedict Arnold, not the vile betrayer.

And that’s the way he wanted to remember her.

Thoughts of Annie and paralysis and an empty belly kept Nate from falling asleep that night. He lacked the energy to move, so he simply lay in a fetal position on the floor, his eyes fixed on that one comforting band of light beneath the door. It was affirmation that there was life outside of this prison of his. As long as the light glowed, the world was still going on.

Nate’s eyes grew round as the strip of light expanded into a wedge, then into a triangle as the door slid soundlessly open. Being at floor level, his eyes first spied a pair of well-polished shoes, which he traveled all of the way up to a staggering height, a massive form haunting the doorway.

Immediately, Nate’s heart began to pound in his chest as though mere memory could evoke such a reaction. The man in the door was Agent Darmon and Nate knew that his purpose there could not be good. It all made sense – Agent O’Donnell had never returned, probably because he’d been meeting with this menacing alien to plan what torture to inflict next.

Gasping in fright as the alien stepped into the room, Nate started to scramble for one of the corners. Darmon closed the door behind him and the room fell into darkness. Fear jerked inside of Nate and threatened to take his last ounce of strength. His eyes darted about the room, desperately trying to get a fix on the alien.

“Be quiet,” Darmon whispered in a baritone voice that made Nate jump. He was closer than Nate had anticipated.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Nate begged, clenching his eyes shut and praying for all he was worth. Subconsciously, his hands rose to cover his heart, irrational since Darmon could harm him without even touching him.

But the alien’s next words surprised Nate and made him realize that all was not as it seemed –

“Trust me if you want to live.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Yeah, bad me - missing a day without posting a part


Part Twenty Seven

Trust him?! Nate tried to retreat farther into his corner, but his back was firmly against the wall. He was in complete darkness with a creature that by all means appeared to actually be able to maneuver in the dark – the same creature that had nearly killed him not long ago. And he wanted Nate to trust him?

“Listen to me,” Darmon said, his voice authoritative. “I only have a few moments. Something is going to happen tonight. Be ready.”

Nate’s brow furrowed as his eyes searched the darkness for his visitor. “What’s going to happen?”

“Just be ready. I’m on your side.”

Nate snorted in disbelief. No one who was on his side would have done to him what this creature had.

“I could have killed you but I did not,” Darmon said bluntly. “Trust me. Hold out your hand.”

Even though he couldn’t see the agent, Nate shook his head anyway. There was no way he was giving this thing access to his body again.

Darmon’s voice was stern when he spoke again. “Hold out your hand.”

Swallowing past his fear, Nate held out his undamaged hand, but kept his elbow close to his body so that he could quickly jerk away if Darmon was out to hurt him. Something heavy and smooth dropped into his palm, its surface cool.

“Remember,” Darmon said, his voice already moving away. “Be ready.”

Nate saw the door open and close soundlessly, the hulk of an alien gone. He sat in the dark for a long time, his fingers wrapped around the object Darmon had given him, listening for any other movement. When he detected nothing, he took the item between both of his hands to try to determine what it was. A weapon of some kind? It didn’t feel like it – it was oddly shaped and seemed to have a short stick protruding from one end. Curious, Nate held the object to his nose.

Immediately Nate’s mouth watered and his stomach lurched, ironically giving him the urge to vomit. It was an apple. So hungry was he that he wanted to bite into it immediately, but caution made him think otherwise. What if it was poisoned? What if Darmon’s peace offering was a Trojan horse?

Nate was simply too hungry to care. He bit into the apple and the sweet juices filled his mouth, nearly bringing tears to his eyes. He made himself eat the fruit slowly, savoring each bite, for fear that consuming it too quickly would make him sick and then he’d be right back to being hungry again.

The tears finally came when Nate realized that the first act of kindness he’d received since being held prisoner had come at the hands of an alien.

After he had finished the apple – core and all, to hide the evidence – Nate waited for whatever it was that Darmon had said was going to happen. He waited a long time with nothing happening and rationalized that maybe things hadn’t gone as planned. Maybe someone had seen the alien agent leaving Nate’s room and had done something to him. Maybe nothing was ever going to happen at all.

Nate eventually fell asleep, his dreams haunted by images of Annie lying dead in the desert, of Max Evans being filleted like a Lake Erie perch. The visions floated through Nate’s brain, sometimes at a harried pace, sometimes agonizingly slow. Until she was before him again, that pretty woman with the long golden hair.

“Sh – be quiet,” she whispered. Her long fingers were curved over his face, staunching any attempt he might make to speak.

Nate blinked and realized that she looked like she was holding a flashlight below her chin or something – the kind of thing he and his buddies did when they camped out. It was then that he realized he was no longer dreaming and that Isabel was really before him, ordering him into silence.

“Max,” she hissed, looking over her shoulder. “I’ve got him!”

Shortly, another shadowy figure appeared behind her. “Good work, Iz!” came Max’s voice, tinged with relief and excitement. “Let’s get him up.”

Nate felt hands wrap around his upper arms and he let out a yelp of pain – apparently the device Agent O’Donnell had planted in his spinal column had some lingering effects. Pain shot down his arms and into his fingers, across his shoulder blades and into his breastbone.

“Max, he’s hurt,” Isabel whispered hurriedly, her voice full of pain for her nephew.

“All right,” Max replied, his voice close to Nate’s ear. He gave a little sigh and paused only for a moment. “Nate, can you hear me?”

Nate’s neck seemed unable to support his head as he turned in the direction of Max’s voice. Max’s face loomed in the flashlight-like glow that was coming from Isabel. Nate nodded his head drunkenly.

“I’m sorry if this hurts you,” Max said. “But we’ve got a very small window of time to get you out of here. Can you put your arm around my shoulder?”

Nate felt like he was pulling his arm out of a vat of cold tar. Giving it all of his might, he slung his arm over Max’s shoulder and fell limply into him.

“Good,” Max said, a smile in his voice. “Can you put the other one over Iz’s shoulder?”

It took a moment, but Nate managed to get his other arm around his aunt.

“All right,” Max said. “We’re going to stand up now. Ready, Iz?”

Together, Max and Isabel stood slowly, straining under Nate’s dead weight. It had been days since he’d been on his feet and the movement made his world spin – the trio swayed on their feet, moving together like palm trees in a hurricane.

“Whoa, you’re okay,” Isabel said, putting a hand on his stomach to steady him. “We’ll rest here just a second until you get your balance. Okay?”

They stood there for a couple of seconds, until Max spurred them into action again.

“We gotta go,” he said. “Come on, Isabel. You ready?”

She nodded her head. “Let’s do it.”

Max and Isabel started to make their way toward the door, the light that Isabel carried slowly going dim – it reminded Nate of a Coleman lantern running out of fuel. He winced with every step they took, his body protesting the days of abuse it had endured.

“When we get outside of this room,” Max began, whispering to him, “we’re going to have to move quicker than this. Don’t worry – we’re not going to leave you behind.”

“No one comes it, no one gets out,” Nate said, Agent O’Donnell’s words echoing in his head.

“What?” Isabel whispered.

“Just keep moving,” Max replied, obviously deciding that Nate wasn’t in the best frame of mind at the moment. “Nate, just try to stay quiet, okay?”

They reached the door and Max slowly pulled it open. Isabel poked her head into the hallway and then gave Max a short nod; he pushed the door the rest of the way open. Immediately, harsh, bright light hit Nate directly in the face and he recoiled from the sting.

“It’s okay,” Max hurriedly whispered. “Just come with us. Everything is going to be okay.”

The group moved hastily down the stark white hallway, as hastily as they could considering Nate was pretty much helpless when it came to carrying himself. For days he’d wondered what was beyond his room – were there desks and chairs and a whole office atmosphere going on only mere feet from where he was being held prisoner?

What he found was that there was nothing outside of his room. Nothing but a long, concrete tunnel. The gray walls were damp with condensation, the air thick with mildew. Nate recalled once going to Niagara Falls and taking the ‘behind the Falls’ tour – the tunnels had looked oddly like these.

“Let’s hope Michael still has those cameras disabled,” Max whispered to Isabel.

“Let’s hope,” she repeated, her voice strained from supporting Nate’s weight. “Come on, not much farther.”

In the distance, Nate could see a door, possibly a door to the outside world and decided at that point that this was all a dream. There was no way that escaping could be this easy. All it had taken was someone to open his door and show him the way out? That was it? Nope – this had to be a dream.

“Shit!” Max suddenly spat. “Over here!” With that, he yanked the group into a small recess in the wall. Nate moaned from the sudden movement.

The group fell to the floor, trying to squeeze out of sight. Isabel took Nate’s face between her hands.

“Listen to me,” she said, though her lips didn’t move – was she talking in his head? “You have to stay very quiet. If they catch us, all is lost.”

They huddled together and eventually Nate could hear the slow, steady sound of shoes on the concrete floor of the tunnel – more than one pair of shoes, he guessed. Max’s eyes were round as he exchanged a worried glance with his sister.

“I think we should try the Series A tests first,” came the voice of Agent O’Donnell, approaching them from down the hall. “They’re not too invasive – it might help warm him up to us a bit if we start with something painless.”

Nate swallowed hard – they were talking about what they were going to do to him, their resident lab rat. And it was obvious that they had no idea their rat had found its way out of their cage. He turned his head tiredly to Isabel, who put a finger to her lips.

Shortly, the agent and his crony passed the alcove where the trio was hiding. Their paces were slow, not hurried like people who knew that they’d lost their prize victim. Apparently Michael still had the cameras disabled. All three of their heads turned in unison, watching the FBI men continue down the long hallway. The bad thing was with no curves or bends in the hall, there was a clear line of sight between the exit door and where Nate’s room stood.

“Isabel,” Max whispered. “We’re going to have to go. They’re going to find out he’s gone here in a couple of seconds and we’re going to be trapped.” He glanced apologetically at Nate. “We’re going to have to make a run for it.”

Isabel nodded in agreement, though Nate could see apprehension in her dark eyes. “I’m sorry, Nate,” she said. “Just do the best you can – Max and I will be here to help you.”

The siblings pulled Nate to his feet once again, then peeked into the hallway. Max gave a nod of his head and they quickly jumped into the hall, moving as fast as they could for the exit. Every bone and muscle in Nate’s body protested and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out.

“Almost there,” Isabel murmured. “Almost there.”

They were within a couple of yards of the door when the lights suddenly went out. The hallway fell into complete darkness for a few agonizingly long moments, then everything was awash in a deep red hue, a color of imminent danger.

“Search everywhere!” they heard O’Donnell bark, followed by the sounds of many footsteps in the hallway.

“Shit!” Max said, pushing for the door. “Move!”

They struggled forward, the door almost within reach. Nate could see freedom on the other side, could almost feel cool, fresh air on his face. There was food and shelter and warmth waiting for him out there. Hope sprang within him, like a football player sprinting for the goal line…

Excruciating, debilitating pain shot down Nate’s spine, forcing his body into convulsions. He fell away from his rescuers, his seizure too violent for them to maintain their grasp on him.

“What the fuck!” Max screeched, his voice full of disbelief.

“Oh, my God!” Isabel said as she fell to her knees beside him. “Max, he’s having a seizure of some kind.”

Max fell to his other side, his head swiveling to glance down the hallway. “Come on, Nate, snap out of it! We’re so close!”

Nate continued to convulse, his eyes rolling back in his head, his spine bending backward at a severe angle. He could hear their voices, but he could do nothing to control his own body.

Then it was over and he was lying limply, staring at the ceiling.

“Oh God,” Isabel breathed, reaching for his arm. “Let’s get him out of here.”

Max nodded, reaching for his son’s arm. But Nate couldn’t regain his feet – his limbs were too weak from the shock he’d just received. Cursing under his breath, Max bent at the waist and hoisted Nate over his shoulder.

“Get the door, Iz!” he ordered.

Isabel raced for the door and quickly ripped it open – and immediately recoiled. On the other side were several men in suits, their weapons drawn. She let out a gasp and quickly looked the other way down the hallway. Nate followed her line of sight and saw O’Donnell and his henchmen quickly approaching.

They were trapped.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Twenty Eight

Isabel took a couple of quick steps backward to avoid the men at the exit door, accidentally running into her brother, who still had Nate slung over his shoulder like a sack of feed grain.

“Max…” she said tentatively.

Max spun to look down the hallway, at the approaching army of agents O’Donnell was bringing with him; the motion made Nate’s stomach churn. Inside, he started to resolve himself to his fate – they were never getting out of here. He’d come here to give himself up so that the FBI would leave Max and the others alone – but now it looked like Max and Isabel had walked right into a trap.

“Max,” Isabel repeated, her voice a little more worried.

The men at the door were forcing them back, forcing them closer to Nate’s torturer and his minions. Max closed his eyes as though he was counting, then there was a snap of electricity in the air and one of the men who had descended on Isabel fell to the floor. A split second later, the other man fell.

“Go!” Max shouted.

Isabel started for the exit, but as she did so, she raised her hand to the ceiling, sending a blast of white light upward. Nate’s tired eyes watched it go, too sick to care about retinal damage, and when it hit the ceiling, thousands of pieces of concrete started falling to the floor – Isabel had managed to create a barricade between them and O’Donnell.

Once outside, they were greeted by two familiar faces – Liz and Alyssa. Immediately, the group began to move quickly away from the building.

“Baby, did you do that?” Max half-laughed, referring to the two fallen FBI men.

“I did one of them,” she answered, disgust in her voice. “Don’t worry, I only stunned him, though he deserved to die. Fucker.”

“Liz!” Max shrieked, then laughed lightly. Apparently Max was as aghast at Liz swearing as Nate had been when Annie had done it.

“I got the other one!” Alyssa chimed in happily, trotting along behind them. Her dark eyes landed on Nate slung over Max’s shoulder and her grin turned upside down. “Is he okay, Uncle Max?”

“Sure he is,” Max answered, but Nate thought he detected a sense of false optimism in his voice. “Let’s hurry up and get outta here, okay? It won’t take them long to catch us.”

As the group moved through some brush and a poorly maintained fence, Nate started to wonder just where they were. He didn’t see any type of military vehicle – no helicopters, no Jeeps, nothing – and the area didn’t seem as secure as he had imagined Area 51 would be. It was possible that Agent O’Donnell had lied to him about his location…and yet Max and crew had still been able to find them.

After a short, tiring jog through the knee-high brush, the group came to a van parked on a dusty road. Behind the wheel was Maria Deluca, her hands firmly planted in the “ten o’clock/two o’clock” position. Upon seeing them in her side view mirror, she stuck her head out of the window and gave a gasp.

“Oh my God!” she squealed. “You got him!”

Liz jerked open the sliding side door and Max plopped Nate onto the seat, his body aching with the movement.

“Get ready to move,” Liz ordered Maria, who started fumbling to turn the keys in the ignition.

“Is he okay?” Maria asked, searching for the switch to turn on the lights.

“No lights!” Isabel warned.

Maria swiveled and looked at the leggy alien, who had jumped into the far back seat, Max climbing in beside her; Alyssa took the middle seat with Nate, immediately cradling his aching head in her lap.

“I can’t drive in the dark!” Maria whined.

Liz hopped into the passenger seat. “Just go, Maria.”

Maria turned around, her face wrought with worry, and put the van into drive. “Where’s Michael?” she said, her voice sounding scared and lost.

“We pick him up at the gate,” Max informed, leaning over the seat Alyssa and Nate occupied.

Nate closed his eyes, the rocking motion of the van making him nauseous.

“Maria, can you drive any faster?” Liz asked, leaning over to look at the gauges. “You’re going 25 miles an hour, Maria! Have you forgotten the FBI is behind us?”

“Don’t yell at me!” Maria whined. “I told you I can’t see in the dark!”

“Jesus Christ, let me drive!” Isabel said, starting to climb over Alyssa and Nate’s seat.

Nate watched her boot loom over head, then everything went blurry again. The now-familiar pain shot down his arms and into his legs, sending his body back into convulsions. This time, he heard Alyssa shriek in horror.

“What!” Maria shriek from the driver’s seat in the exact same tone of voice. “What happened!”

“Uncle Max!” Alyssa said, groping for Max without turning around to look at him. “Something’s happening!”

“Fuck!” Max spat, shoving Isabel out of the way and climbing over the seat himself. “Nate! Nate, can you hear me!”

Yes, he could hear them, but he could do nothing to answer them. He could do nothing to control anything his body did at this point.

“Is he okay?” came Liz’s voice.

“Is that the gate?” a question from Maria.

“Pull over and get Michael,” Isabel ordered.

Shortly after the van came to a stop, Nate’s seizure subsided and he was barely able to keep conscious this time. He heard Michael demanding for Maria to let him drive, a short argument ensued, then the side door of the van slid open and shut. From the speed with which the van took off, Nate assumed that Maria had lost that argument.

“What’s wrong with him?” Alyssa asked, her voice worried and frightened.

“I don’t know yet, sweetie,” Max said, his hands skimming over Nate’s limp body.

“Can you fix him?” She sounded like a five-year-old whose favorite doll had lost an arm. She continued to smooth Nate’s hair, trying to comfort him.

“Sure I can,” Max replied, sounding like the doting uncle who would make everything all right for her. Beneath his breath, he muttered, “What did they do to you, Nate?”

Nate wanted to tell him. He wanted to tell him that there was a chip of some kind implanted in his spinal column and that if anyone touched it, he was probably going to die or be paralyzed. He wanted to tell him that he’d probably never be able to hold a pen in his dominate hand again. He wanted to tell him that he’d seen first-hand what they’d done to Max and that he never could have endured that much pain.

Nate wanted to tell Max all of those things, but he could no longer find the energy to speak for himself.

“Uh, Uncle Max?” Alyssa said.

“Yeah?”

“There’s…something in his neck.”

Internally, Nate started to squirm. Don’t touch it! You’ll kill me!

“There is?” Max asked, carefully taking Nate by the shoulders and rolling him onto his side. He ran his fingers along Nate’s vertebrae until he touched where the device had been implanted – as soon as he touched it, Nate flinched.

“Iz,” Max said in a hurry. “I need a light.”

Within seconds, that strange dying flashlight glow illuminated the inside of the van.

“Make that quick,” Michael warned from the driver’s seat.

Nate closed his eyes and winced as Max touched the device again.

“It’s in his spinal column,” Max observed softly.

“Can you get it out?” Alyssa’s voice was a little more panicked.

“I think so, I think –“

“No,” Nate moaned.

Max leaned close to him. “What did you say, Nate?”

“No,” he repeated. “You can’t…”

“I have to,” Max said apologetically. “This is probably why you’re having those seizures. If we don’t get it out, it’s only going to get worse.”

Nate shook his head, felt tears start to sting his eyes. They were going to cripple him – all of them.

“What do I need to do to help?” Alyssa asked, a brave tone replacing the panic in her voice.

“Just hold his hand,” Max said. “Give him something to hold onto. I don’t know how badly this is going to hurt.”

“Okay,” she said, reaching down and taking Nate’s hand.

Nate tried to push her away, to tell her that what they were doing was a bad idea, but she was steadfast and gripped his fingers a little tighter. At least she’d grabbed the uninjured hand…

“Hurry it up,” Michael warned again.

“Iz, I need more light,” Max said.

The interior of the van lit up and Alyssa leaned close to Nate’s ear. “I feel like there’s a connection between us,” she whispered, repeating the words she’d spoken in the laundromat. “Do you feel it, Nate?”

Unable to stop himself, he let out a little sob, knowing that this might be the end of his life, that he’d never get to experience any of his unordinary connection with this extraordinary girl.

“Give me your pain,” she said, her voice even softer. “We’re connected. Your pain is my pain.”

“Here we go,” Max warned, his hand positioned over Nate’s neck.

In anticipation, Alyssa squeezed his fingers tightly. “I’m here,” she said in assurance.

With a sickening scrape of metal on bone, the device slowly slid from Nate’s neck. Previously voiceless, he now found that he could speak loudly if he wanted to – his cries of pain echoed in the van as every nerve in his body reacted to the removal of the object. Nate squeezed Alyssa’s fingers until he thought they would break, his shouts of agony only increasing as the device neared complete removal. It was almost as though his body had become acclimated to it and didn’t want to give it up.

With one last pop, the device slid free of Nate’s spine. He would have to wait, however, to find out if its removal had crippled him.

Because the unbearable pain had finally caused him to lose consciousness, sinking deep into a dreamless sleep…

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Hey everyone! Thanks for your continued support and interest in this story! The new PC is supposed to be here Friday (yep - that's what they said about LAST Friday ) so hopefully this one will last until then.

There are a lot of questions to be answered, so don't be upset if they don't all come out in the next part - I'll need time to reveal all of them

Thank my muse and a lot of vacation time for the quick updates. It's either write or sit on my ass and watch TV


Part Twenty Nine

Nate awoke with a start, his breath drawing into his body in a harsh gasp. Still slightly incoherent, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, on strange little triangles of light dancing across a sea of white. He blinked several times, then realized that he wasn’t in his prison cell any longer, that he wasn’t lying on a hard, cold floor. Quite the contrary – he was in a bright, very girlie room, with a soft mattress beneath his abused body.

Not that his body felt all that bad at the moment. In fact, if it weren’t for the lingering memory of the tortures he’d endured, he had no physical proof that anything had occurred at all. Well, except for the shivering. He was never going to be warm again.

Alyssa Guerin’s face loomed over him, her smile wide, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. “See?” she said in that playful tone she’d been lacking of late. “I knew I’d get you into my bed eventually.”

Nate tried to smile, but it was weak. Shaking, he rolled onto his side and pulled his knees up to his chest, trying to burrow under the blanket that was over him. “I’m so cold,” he shivered.

Alyssa jumped to her feet, went to her closet and yanked out a down comforter. Nate followed her steps around the room and discovered that the triangles on the ceiling were reflections coming from a mobile hung by the window.

Spreading the blanket over her patient, Alyssa said, “You’re running a fever. Uncle Max was afraid you might have an infection of some kind.”

Nate watched her as she tucked the blanket around him. “Where is he?”

“He and Daddy are taking care of some unfinished business.” She stopped and gave Nate an apologetic look. “I don’t know where they went - They don’t always tell me what they do.”

He nodded against his pillow and it wasn’t until then that he realized he had full mobility in all of his limbs which meant that Max removing the device from his spine hadn’t paralyzed him. Like sand filtering through an hourglass, Nate’s memories of escaping from the FBI facility were starting to come back to him.

“How long have I been out?” he asked as Alyssa picked up a magazine and reclaimed her chair beside the bed.

“Just overnight. Twelve hours, probably,” she answered, tossing her magazine aside.

Nate’s eyes roamed past her, to the pink flowered wallpaper and lacy white curtains. “Where am I?”

Alyssa beamed. “My room. At my mom’s house.”

Her mom’s house? This place looked to be fifty years old at least, a humble abode for someone who had once sold a million records.

“It was my grandma’s house,” Alyssa explained. “Before she died.” She glanced away for a moment and Nate wondered if the death was recent. “That’s why my mom hasn’t had another album in five years. Grandma had cancer and Mom quit her career to come home and take care of her.”

“I’m sorry,” Nate said, frowning slightly.

“It’s okay.” Alyssa gave him a weak smile. “At least we got a few extra years with her, ya know?” Her dark eyes shifted away from Nate, then she looked down at her hands. “Nate, do you know…um, do you already know about Annie?”

A little rush of sadness ran through Nate’s body as he nodded his head.

Alyssa bit the corner of her lip, her dark eyes sad. “I’m sorry about her, Nate. I know she was your girlfriend and all…”

Nate hated that Alyssa was the one who would have to answer the question, but he needed to ask it anyway. “Who killed her?” he asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.

Alyssa’s brow furrowed. “Huh?”

“Was it your dad? Max? Isabel? Or was it someone from the FBI?”

“Nate, I don’t know what you’re talking about –“

At that moment, the door swung open and Liz walked in.

“Alyssa, your mom wants you,” she said, moving around so that she could take Alyssa’s bedside chair.

“Okay,” Alyssa said, getting up and moving for the door, but not before she gave Nate a quick glance of confusion.

Nate matched her expression, wondering why she thought his question was so odd. But then she was gone and Liz Evans was sitting beside him. Before he could even greet her, he felt a cool cloth on his forehead, the sensation extremely soothing.

“How are you?” Liz asked as she lightly brushed the cloth over his forehead.

“I’ve been better,” he answered, trying to draw the blanket closer. Then he gave a little shrug. “I’ve been worse.”

Liz gave a half smile at that.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “For coming to help me. I know what I did was stupid and that you all were in danger because of me.”

“But you thought you were doing the right thing,” she finished for him, sitting back in her chair and leaving the cloth on his forehead.

Nate’s brow furrowed slightly. “Why aren’t you mad at that?”

Liz gave a little laugh. “Because you and Max were cut from the same cloth, Nate. I’ve been putting up with his self-sacrificing sense of responsibility for two decades now.”

He wasn’t sure if that was a complaint or a compliment. One thing he was sure of, however, was that he’d seen apprehension in this woman’s eyes when she’d first met him. “But I’m also cut from my mother’s cloth,” he said cautiously.

Liz remained silent, her face expressionless.

“I know how you must have felt about her,” Nate continued. “Maria told me about what happened, about how I was the insult to the injury of my mother’s betrayal. I wouldn’t blame you for hating me.”

Liz looked down at the floor for a long moment before responding. “I don’t hate you, Nate,” she said, lifting her head. “It’s true that I didn’t like your mother. If Maria told you what happened, then you already know the many reasons why and there’s no reason for me to rehash them. But it would be unfair for me to hate you because I hated her.”

“But I must be a constant reminder of what she did,” Nate said quietly.

Liz gave a little nod of agreement. “For a long time maybe you were. But as you get older you realize that maybe there’s a reason for everything that happens and that holding a grudge against a child who had nothing to do with his own existence is not right.”

“What reason could there be for any of this?”

She lifted one corner of her mouth into a knowing smile. “Maybe we’ll never know. I told your father once that there just might be some greater force out there that is planning everything for us. Maybe there’s a reason for everything but maybe we aren’t meant to always understand it.”

Nate’s eyes drifted back to the sparkling mobile hung by the window. What reason could there be for him to be tortured the way he was? In the end, what good – or bad – would come of it? To him, it seemed senseless and pointless, with the only outcome being a raw sense of dissolution and depression deep inside of his soul.

Warm fingers caressed his cheek and he looked up to see Liz leaning over him, her expression gentle.

“Why are you being nice to me?” he asked, his voice small and curious.

“Because you’re just a kid who thought he was doing the right thing. You didn’t deserve what came your way, Nate.” A look of grief passed through her dark eyes. “I can sense what you’re feeling inside. I know that you’re grieving for many reasons. I know that you think the world is a pretty shitty place right now. But I encourage you not to bottle it all up. Let us help you, okay?”

Nate felt a stinging sensation at the back of his eyes. Liz Evans was a stranger, a person his mother had treated rather poorly – and yet she was offering to help him through the nightmare he’d just survived. The stinging took full liquid form when she removed the cloth from his forehead and laid a gentle kiss there.

Liz tilted her head to the side, her smile warm. With the tips of her fingers, she brushed his tears away. “Feel like getting up?” she said. “Maria made some soup and you could stand to eat something.”

He nodded and sniffed back the remainder of his tears.

Liz pulled back the blankets and Nate immediately felt a cold blast, which produced another shiver. For the first time, he looked down at his clothes and saw that he was wearing a pair of sweats and an ancient Metallica T-shirt, its decal worn and faded – both the pants and the shirt were huge on him.

“Those are Michael’s,” Liz laughed. “It was either that or something pink and frilly.”

As Nate slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed, he grimaced and breathed a laugh simultaneously. Liz took his hands and helped him to stand up, his legs shaking slightly beneath him.

“You okay?” she asked, her voice encouraging.

He nodded and drew in a deep, tired breath.

“Here, let me help you,” she said, slinging his arm around her shoulders. She was such a tiny woman, but Nate was grateful for the support nonetheless. “We’ll go slowly. Nice, slow steps.”

Together, they made it to the hallway and Nate was relieved to see that the Deluca house was small and the kitchen wasn’t far from his bed. He and Liz shuffled a few steps at a time until they made it to the table, where she pulled out a chair and helped him into it.

“Hey, look who’s up!” Maria chimed from the stove.

Nate gave her a small smile. The smell of chicken broth was thick in the air and it made his mouth water.

“Maria makes the best chicken soup,” Liz said. “The best!”

Maria went to the cupboard and retrieved a bowl. “I sent Alyssa’s surly ass to the store to get some crackers, but she should be back soon,” she explained. Standing before the stove, she pulled a ladle of soup from the stock pot and poured it into the bowl. Then she placed the bowl before Nate.

Steam rose from the dish and Nate closed his eyes to savor the aroma of the soup. Maria laid a spoon and a napkin beside him and he gave her a grateful smile.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

Maria snorted, then laughed aloud. “Ma’am,” she echoed, returning to pour herself and Liz a bowl.

Nate’s ears reddened.

Liz chuckled at his embarrassment.

“He called me ma’am, Liz!” Maria laughed, setting a bowl before her friend.

“It’s better than what I would have called you,” Liz replied, giving Nate a conspiratorial wink.

Nate smiled at their gentle teasing.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve been called worse,” Maria said, sitting down with her own bowl. She cracked Nate on the arm, making him flinch. “For Christ’s sake, skinny! Eat that!”

“Yes, ma – um, Maria,” he sputtered, grabbing his spoon and dipping his head to his bowl.

Maria laughed openly at him, reaching over to pinch his cheek. “God, if you aren’t like your daddy.”

Nate laughed in embarrassment, then concentrated on eating his soup and being inconspicuous. Maria and Liz chatted and picked on one another like old friends will, most of their banter going over his head. After all, these were relative strangers – both figuratively and nearly literally.

But they’d taken him into their home to nurse him back to health. It almost seemed as though they understood and forgave him of his tactical blunder of turning himself in to the FBI. At least Alyssa, Maria and Liz did.

Nate wasn’t so sure the same could be said for Michael Guerin. Somehow Annie O’Donnell had wound up dead and Michael would be Nate’s prime suspect. And if Michael was capable of killing a girl, then he was definitely capable of killing Nate.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

To answer why Max didn't heal Amy - he's not God. Also, Liz reiterated in the last part that there might be a greater scheme of things at work, and (like she told him in ARCC) it wasn't up to him to mess with that.


Part Thirty

Nate was floating, his body finally warm. His eyes were closed lightly as the gentle waves washed over him, smelling slightly of rose petals. At first he’d protested the addition of the salts, but now that his aching muscles were starting to unknot, he was glad for them. His belly full, his body warm, Nate was almost able to relax.

Almost.

A little piece of Nate knew that he’d never be able to relax again, that the blissful feeling he used to get while fishing on the dock with his father would now be replaced with the constant urge to look over his shoulder. The FBI knew about him, had known about him his entire life. The injustice of it all was that they had known about him before he’d even known about himself.

Once upon a time, Nate had thought that his future meant Annie, perhaps a business of their own, and a pack of red-headed children. Now he had to wonder if his future meant constantly being afraid of one of his loved ones being tortured the way he had been. Nate could understand why it was that Liz Evans had decided to remain childless – he could never endure the thought of a child of his going through what he had.

Not that the threat of that had stopped Michael and Maria or Isabel from having offspring. While Nate understood that parenthood was a personal decision, he wasn’t sure what made Liz so uncomfortable about it and yet the others not.

The bathroom door suddenly flew open and Nate jerked, some water sloshing over the side of the tub. To his horror, Alyssa had barged in, not even seeming to care that he was naked in the bath.

“Uh, hello?” he said, lowering his hands to cover himself and raising his eyebrows in bewilderment.

“What?” she asked, then realization flooded her face. “Oh. Sorry.” Giggling lightly and closing her eyes, she groped for the towel bar, her hands landing on a wash cloth. She blindly felt for its edges then felt her way to the tub. Holding the cloth over the tub, she hesitated. “Uh, is this big enough?”

Nate blinked in disbelief. “Yeah. Can you just drop it please?”

Alyssa laughed lightly and dropped the cloth, which Nate quickly retrieved and used to cover himself. She took a couple of steps back to what he suspected she thought was a respectable distance and opened her eyes.

“You have a visitor,” she said.

Nate lifted an eyebrow. A visitor? That was odd since he didn’t really know anyone else in Roswell. For one moment, he hoped that it was Jonathan and Emma, simply because he missed them horribly.

“I do?” he managed, trying to make sure the wash cloth didn’t float away.

“It’s just me,” a voice came from the doorway and Nate and Alyssa both turned to find Deputy Valenti there.

Alyssa gave Nate one last glance, her eyes falling teasingly to the washcloth before she excused herself with a grin. Kyle stepped forward and removed his hat.

“I have some information for you, Nate,” he said and Nate knew immediately this was an official visit and not a social one.

“What is it?” he asked.

Kyle gestured toward the door. “Why don’t you get dressed and meet me in the kitchen? Some things are better talked about clothed.” He glanced at the washcloth and gave a little smirk. “Didn’t need anything bigger than that, huh?”

Nate reddened as the officer moved for the door. Kyle Valenti was the strangest lawman he’d ever met.

Worry clouded Nate’s mind as he dressed as quickly as possible. He was feeling better, but still not one hundred percent. In fact, he’d been hoping that after his bath he could take a nap, but the deputy’s visit was sure to quell that desire.

He found the officer sitting at the kitchen table alone, sipping a cup of coffee. Liz, Maria and Alyssa had apparently vanished.

“Have a seat, Nate,” Kyle said, gesturing to a chair opposite him.

Nate pulled out the chair and sat down slowly. Whatever news this man had was not good.

“Look, I’ll cut straight to the chase – mainly because I lack the creativity to beat around the bush.” Kyle gave him a wink, then fell serious. “I got Annie O’Donnell’s autopsy results back from the coroner.”

Nate felt a lump form in his throat. It was a question he wanted answered, but also one he didn’t want answered. He didn’t want to hear the details of how she had died – he only really wanted to know who was responsible. “Yes?” he said quietly.

“Anaphylactic shock,” Kyle announced, his voice professional, the prankster cast aside.

Nate’s brow furrowed in confusion. He didn’t know what that was.

Kyle gave a nod of his head, knowing he needed to provide an explanation. “It’s an allergic reaction, most common with bee stings.”

“Annie died from a bee sting?” Nate asked, disbelieving. “But Annie’s not allergic to bees.”

Kyle shook his head. “No, she died from an allergic reaction to something like a bee sting. The coroner thinks it was either a scorpion sting or a snake bite.” The officer paused a moment, his blue eyes filled with more compassion than Nate had ever witnessed from him. “I’m sorry, Nate.”

Nate’s eyes fixed on the sugar bowl, thoughts of Annie being stung or bitten running rampant through his head. After all, he’d been the one to make her take off running through the desert. Michael Guerin and the FBI weren’t to blame here – Nate was. Grief and self-accusation ripped a hole in Nate’s heart.

The deputy pushed his chair out and stood, his hat held before him. “I just thought you’d like to know.”

Nate nodded without looking at him, his eyes still fixed on the sugar bowl, which had a green alien stenciled on the side of it. Kyle lingered for a moment, then put his cup in the sink and let himself out.

Nate sat for a long time, staring without seeing. An army of “what ifs” marched through his head. What if he hadn’t told her to run? What if Michael or Liz had caught her? What if she had turned around and returned to the cave? Then again, she’d seen what the aliens could do – they kidnapped her and barricaded her into a corner without so much as a brick to their name. She had to have been terrified of them. In his mind, Nate saw her running through the desert, panicked to go back, afraid of what lay ahead…until something had struck her.

And she’d died alone.

Alyssa’s bizarre reaction to his question about who had killed Annie came back to him. At the time, he thought that maybe Alyssa hadn’t known that Annie was dead – but now he realized that her reaction was due to Nate’s belief that one of them had killed her. For some reason, Alyssa was still naïve enough to believe that no one she knew was capable of that.

Nate wished he was still that naïve.

That night, sleep evaded him. Thoughts of Annie’s death, of the mysterious disappearance of the hybrids, and of his own mental state filled Nate’s mind. He didn’t want to think about what had happened to Annie – to dwell on it was to go mad, especially when he thought that maybe the others would think that she got what she’d deserved. Nate knew what it was to be alone and to think he was going to die, and he didn’t feel it was a punishment suitable for anybody.

Since he’d been sprung from the FBI facility, Nate had yet to see Max, Michael or Isabel. The only explanation he’d received was that they were ‘taking are of things.’ Obviously he wasn’t meant to know what that was, and in a way it was upsetting. Liz and Maria seemed not to be worried, though, which was a small comfort.

As for what was going on in his head, Nate couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of grief. A month ago, he was selling bait in his father’s store, engaged to a pretty young college student and working his way toward going to school himself. He had loving parents who doted on him but never spoiled him all the same. He was just Nathan Spencer, non-Flatlander.

Now he didn’t know who he was. His fiancé was dead and returning to a simple life seemed impossible. Maybe Agent O’Donnell had been more prophetic than he’d known when he’d told Nate that no one gets in and no one gets out, because Nate felt like he was never going to get out of this situation, that he was never going to be able to return to the simple life he’d always loved.

It was like one Nate had died and another had been born.

The door to Alyssa’s bedroom slid open and Nate jerked, memories of that horrible door to his cell at the compound coming back to him in a rush. Pushing aside the rush of anxiety, he realized that the person at the door was not some FBI interrogator, but rather Alyssa herself.

“Nate,” she whispered. “You awake?”

“Yeah,” he answered softly, no sleep in his voice.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

He couldn’t see her face in the dark, but he could imagine her grin as she scooted into the room and closed the door behind herself. Without invitation, she pulled up the covers and slid in with him, rolling onto her side to face him. Nate felt a twinge of amusement at her boldness.

“Don’t worry,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I’m not here to rape you or anything.”

“Thank God for that,” he teased dryly.

“We have to keep quiet – if my mom finds me in here, she’ll go ballistic. And that’s not something you want to see, trust me.” She burrowed deeper into her pillow. “I just wanted to come in and check on you, see how you’re doing.”

He gave her a small smile. “I’m okay.”

She tilted her head slightly. “Are you really?” Reaching down, she picked up his hand and held it between both of hers. Her thumb caressed his now-healed hand. “I felt your pain,” she said softly.

Until she said that, Nate hadn’t recalled that she’d been with him when Max had removed the device from his neck, but now he remembered her soft voice against his ear, comforting him, telling him to give his pain to her.

“You were with me,” he said somewhat in awe. As the words left his mouth, he realized that not only had she been there in the van, but she’d been with him throughout most of his ordeal. “You were in my head. How was that possible?”

Alyssa smile softly. “Aunt Isabel can go into peoples’ dreams. She tried to go into yours to find out where you were, but you wouldn’t hear her.”

Nate’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”

She shrugged. “Maybe you didn’t trust her. When she couldn’t break through, she asked me to try. She took me with her.”

“Into my head?”

She nodded.

“But why could I hear you and not her?”

Alyssa’s smile widened as she straightened out their hands, matching palm to palm, finger to finger. “Because we’re connected, Nate. We’re the same.”

Nate did feel an unusual connection to this girl. He didn’t understand it and he knew that some of his thoughts about her were inappropriate considering her age and the timing of Annie’s recent death. But for some reason he knew that his feelings weren’t entirely based in the physical, that their relationship was bound by something much bigger than that.

“I broke up with my boyfriend,” Alyssa announced, her eyes fixed on his chest.

“You did?”

She nodded.

“Good,” Nate said, stretching slightly. “That guy was a Neanderthal.”

She giggled, burying her face against his shirt to muffle her voice. When she resurfaced, there was a little spark of mischief in her eyes. “So, is it true that my boobs are bigger than your other girlfriends’?”

Nate was glad the room was dark as it concealed the sudden color of his cheeks. “What?”

“Isn’t that what you said?”

He laughed nervously. “When did I say that?”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said, her sudden realization anything but convincing. “You were drugged at the time. Nasty things, those drugs – you never know what truths are going to come tumbling out of your mouth.”

Nate laughed again, wondering what else had come tumbling out of his mouth while drugged.

Alyssa put her arm around him and inched closer to him. “I said I didn’t come to rape you, Nate,” she said softly against his ear. “I don’t want anything from you. I just want to stay here with you for a little bit. Is that okay?”

He nodded in response, grateful for her company. If nothing else, it had taken his mind off all of the other doubts that were swirling in his head.

tbc


Yes, Annie is really dead