But thank you for all your well wishes!
And thank you for reading this and for all your feedback. I'm glad your still liking it.
Now - here goes. Anyone who's been waiting for Nasedo to get his - this part's for you.
Chapter 49
Nasedo leaned against the boulder outside the pod chamber, eagerly watching Max's car drive up in the distance. Things had gone exceedingly well - easier than he had ever imagined. As he saw Max exit the car with Tess, and to his surprise Michael and Maria Deluca behind him, a slight unease tickled his brain.
He had expected Max to arrive broken, semi-catatonic after having just witnessed the violent death of Liz Parker. By his calculations, her death would serve to squash the budding emotions within his King. He would shut down, close off from the emotional misery. And ultimately cut himself off from his human inclinations, returning to the strong, unaffected leader he had been before the girl's arrival.
He guessed that Max's stoic stance could be fueled from Michael's account of their disagreement the previous day. He was sure Michael had been all too eager to tell him - but he wasn't worried.
He would ask forgiveness for his misguided attempt to protect them. He would explain he had only had their safety in mind, and he was sure Max would be lenient when he attested to the error of his thinking.
And then they got closer.
And Nasedo saw the pure unadulterated rage on Max's face, the murder in his eyes, and he knew somehow his plan had gone very, very wrong.
Nasedo stepped forward and opened his mouth to greet them, but the power of Max's fist connecting with his jaw closed it before he made a sound.
"Where is she?" Max snarled, pulling the shape shifter up by the shirt and slamming him back against the rock.
Nasedo didn't answer, but turned accusing eyes on Tess, who stood just behind Max, "I never took you for a traitor, Tess."
Her eyes stared back at him in defiance, "I'm not one, that's the point."
Max pummeled Nasedo, holding him immobile with one hand, while the other rained down on him unmercifully, pouring all of his fear, all of his anger into every savage blow. "Tell me where she is - and don't fucking lie!" He screamed, punctuating each word with another strike.
"I don't know where she is." Nasedo answered breathlessly.
"Who took her? Nicolas?" Max asked, shaking with rage.
"Yes, but they didn't tell me where."
"So you couldn't be forced to tell me?" Max asked.
"That's right."
With a yell Max threw Nasedo to the ground and kicked up, hitting his stomach, once, twice. "You set me up!" Max screamed, completely out of control.
Nasedo's head flung back as Max's boot connected with his face. "All this time! That's how Nicloas knew to come to the hospital, and the motel, and the desert!" Max raged, changing his angle, no longer kicking the fallen man, but stomping on his back, his neck and his spine furiously.
"It was you outside Michael's apartment last night. And Langley…" Max seethed, beating him with renewed vigor at the mention of the man he hadn't realized he had respected so much…until he was gone. "It was all because of you, you son of a bitch!"
Then he picked the protector up, so they were nose to nose and he demanded, "How could you do this? How could you betray us like this?"
Nasedo coughed weakly and could barely stand, "I've never betrayed you. Everything I have done has been for you, for Antar."
Max pulled back and punched, and continued to do so, even after Nasedo's face had become unrecognizable - a grotesque mask of broken and bloody flesh.
Only Michael's hand on his arm stopped his movements. Afraid Max would kill him before he had told them all he knew, he said, "Max, we may need him, later."
When the beating halted, Nasedo spoke, blood flying out from his split lips and shattered teeth, "I watched you run my planet into the ground with your spoiled indifference. You were a disgrace. But this time, I got to you early. I raised you, taught you the right way. And you were magnificent. You were a masterpiece. Until that sniveling bitch came …"
Max snapped Nasedo's head back against the rock and growled, "Don't call her that."
"Look at yourself!" Nasedo yelled, splattering blood across Max's face as he did, "You're unfocused, indecisive. You're sloppy. Tess is pregnant and you didn't even know - you couldn't feel it because all of your attention was on the human. I made you a King! And she's turned you into a boy. A weak, frightened little boy."
Max grabbed Nasedo's head and focused all of his power on making him suffer. Nasedo screamed in agony and fell to his knees under the onslaught, as Max hissed, "Do I feel weak to you now?"
Though he had heard the words, though his brain had processed what Nasedo had said about Tess, about a baby, Max didn't acknowledge it. He couldn't - not now. His world was crashing in on him - everything he thought he knew, everything he had counted on his entire life had been wrong. All he could do was file the information away in his mind, to be dealt with later, after he had succeeded in saving Liz, after he'd killed the thing kneeling before him.
On his knees, Nasedo looked up at Max and pleaded, "You don't have to do anything Max. I will take care of this for you - let me. You won't have to lay a finger on her. Just wait. By the end of the day, I will have all the answers we need. The Granolith will be yours, at last."
Max shook his head in disgust, "What makes you think Nicolas won't just take it himself?"
Nasedo breathed hard, pain unlike he had ever known reverberating through him, "He needs the seal to activate it. He needs the four of you, to operate the Granolith to its full potential. He can't do it without us. When we have the Granolith we will defeat our enemies, Nicloas included. The heir secures your thrown, Max. We will return to Antar victorious, and restore her to her former glory. All you have to do is wait. Thousands of Antarians are crying out for you. Can you hear them? She is just one person - one life in the face of thousands. She is insignificant."
Max dragged him back up by the head, sending more torturous power through his hand as he did, making the proud protector shriek and writhe once more. His face just inches away, he said, "She is not insignificant to me!"
His eyes drooping, Nasedo argued, "Everyone matters to someone. Grant Sorrenson mattered to someone. It didn't stop you from killing him."
Seeing the manipulation for what it was, Max slammed Nasedo against the rock again, his head hitting the boulder with a sickening crack before rolling to the side, the body it sat upon too weak to hold it up. "I never meant to kill him! I didn't go there to kill anyone that night. It was an accident!"
Nasedo smiled, reminding Max of a bloody serpent when he said, "That doesn't make him any less dead though, does it?"
Realizing there were no more answers to be found here, and refusing to waste Liz's precious time arguing with the fanatic, Max relinquished his hold and let him drop in a heap to the desert floor. He wiped his hands on his shirt in revulsion and carefully choosing his words, said, "Stay right there. Don't move, don't fucking blink until I come back. If anyone tries to move you, kill them."
Max walked a few steps away and then turned back and swore, "I will find her. And if they hurt her before I do, I'm going to come back here and kill you. I will rip you apart, piece by piece and I promise you will be kept alive to feel every single second of it."
Unapologetic, unrepentant, Nasedo looked up from the ground and said nothing, as his eyes rolled back into his head and passed out from his injuries.
**************************************************************
Back down at the car, Max breathed hard, from his exertion, from terror for Liz. Michael, Maria and Tess got in, but Max just stared at the open topped car, at the steering wheel.
He didn't know where to go. He had no idea how to find her.
Tears stung his eyes - at his own stupidity - at his inability to see the deceiver who had been right in front of him all along.
Max kicked the door of his car, then the front above the tire, anywhere he could reach, all the while screaming, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
And then he was punching the unforgiving steel, over and over, until his hand split open, and bone protruded gruesomely, and he dropped to his knees in the sand.
Michael was at his side, "Max."
"She didn't want to go, Michael." Max said in anguish, "She begged me to stay with her and I told her it would be okay. I promised her she would be alright."
"We'll find her." Michael said with absolute certainty.
Max gave a short bitter laugh, "How?"
Maria was out of the car, standing before him, "You can stay here and beat the hell out of your car all day or you can pick yourself up and start looking."
And then Tess joined her, "We have some time. Nasedo said accessing the scion takes time and power. And I believe him, at least about that. You have to believe you will get there in time…or else she's already dead Max."
Max looked up to Tess' face and asked, "Why are you helping me?" His eyes going unbidden to her stomach.
"Because my mistake helped put us here and I want to fix it. Because I'm starting to see that everything changes... and that maybe it's not such a bad thing after all. Because…" her hand dropped unconsciously to her abdomen, "Because if someone I cared about was in trouble, I hope you would help me."
After a moment Max whispered, "I would…I will."
And then he stood, and healed his hand, and shook the sand from his clothes.
Maria said, "Okay, okay - so where would they take her, to do whatever it is they want to do to her?"
Trying to focus, to not let his emotions cloud his thinking, Max said, "Nicolas doesn't care about being discovered - not anymore. He attacked us in the middle of the street."
He started to pace as he spoke, "But, he wouldn't want to be interrupted. He would want somewhere secluded, so he could work her over without anyone hearing."
"Couldn't he just gag her?" Maria asked, flinching when she did, as they were discussing the torture of her friend.
"No," Max said surely, "He would want to hear her scream."
"Oh, God." Maria said. She was going to lose it. She'd tried to be strong, but she didn't think she could take much more.
"Don't think about it Maria," Michael said softly, trying to comfort her, "Max can heal her when we get there. As long as she's alive when we do."
"So, somewhere remote…secluded, somewhere we wouldn't think to look right away." Max said, thinking aloud.
And then his cell phone rang on the dashboard of the car. And the screen read ALEX WHITMAN.
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Isabel closed the phone with a click, as Alex stared at her intently. He was more than a little confused after having listened to her end of the strange conversation with Max.
"Who's Nicolas?" He asked quickly, "And what do you mean he has Liz?"
Isabel took a breath - it was now or never - and it had to be quick, for Liz's sake. She looked Alex in the eyes and asked, "Do you trust me Alex?"
"What? Yes…yeah of course I do."
"Good, because I need you to trust me right now. I need you to help me and not ask any questions about what you see. When it's over, when we're safe, I'll tell you anything you want to know, I swear. But for right now, I just need you to do what I say. Can you do that?"
"Okay." Alex said, having no idea what he was agreeing to.
"Alright. Liz is inside the factory. She's been…kidnapped and they have her in there. We need to create a diversion. We need to keep them busy - too busy to hurt Liz until Max and Michael get here." Isabel explained.
But Alex was already walking towards the factory door, as Isabel followed him yelling, "What are you doing?"
"Liz is in there? You said she's been kidnapped? I'm not just going to sit out here and wait for your brother, Isabel. And why didn't you call the police?"
Knowing there was no way around it, Isabel said, "You can't go in there. The men who have her…aren't really men at all. They're aliens, Alex. Evil aliens."
Alex wanted to laugh and would have if she didn't look so deathly serious. He said, "Is this…is this a joke?"
Not breaking eye contact, Isabel moved her hand over her clothing, changing the red dress to blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Even her shoes were changed.
Feeling like he was losing his mind, all Alex could manage was, "Wow."
"I know, this is a lot to handle. I know how crazy it sounds, but there's no time. Nicloas has Liz and he is going to kill her unless we can do something to distract him. Will you help me do that?" Isabel asked, pleading in her voice.
Realizing that either he had gone completely insane, or Isabel was actually telling him the truth, Alex decided to go with the latter - just in case. He said, "Okay. I'll help you…I'll help Liz. What…What should we do?"
Isabel breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. He seemed to be taking it really well. And then her eyes fell to his car and she had an idea. She turned to Alex and asked, "How attached are you to your car?"
**************************************************************
Inside the factory, Liz was led upstairs to a dimly lit room, a bare light bulb in the center ceiling the only illumination. It reminded her of an interrogation room from some cheesy cop show on cable. She looked around the room, but couldn't see into the corners as they were covered in shadow, and she saw a second door at the far end.
Nicolas closed the door they had just walked through behind him and said, "String her up."
That's when she noticed the rope, one side tied to a spike in the wall, the other looping over a beam in the ceiling and hanging down. The skin tied her wrists with the rope tightly, and her heart started to beat so hard in her chest, she thought it would burst open.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream for Max.
And then she heard Kal say, Easy, take it easy. Deep slow breaths. Keep him talking Liz, throw him off his game.
"So, these husks," She found herself saying, surprised at how calm her voice sounded, "They're like human suits, right?"
"Yeah." Nicloas answered, not knowing where she was going with this.
"Why don't you change yours?" She asked, as the skin began to pull on the rope, raising her off the floor.
She swallowed a gasp as the rope dug into the tender skin of her wrists. She closed her eyes against the piercing burn in her arms and shoulders as her own body weight stretched her joints and ligaments painfully.
"Not that it's any of your business, but the husks contain a biological signature unique to each of us. We are what we came down as. There is no changing." Nicolas answered.
Liz whistled, "And they sent you down as a kid? Someone up there has a sick sense of humor, and you must have pissed him off royally."
"Shut up."
Liz heard the second door behind her open and then close, but she couldn't turn herself to see who had entered the room. So she said, "I mean, it must be hard to maintain your authority. Here I am, your prisoner, but you have to have your lackey tie me up, because…well your just too teeny weeny to get it done."
Liz heard the skin standing behind Nicolas snicker, and with barely controlled fury, he said, "Shut. Up. Or I will rip out your tongue."
Unfazed, Liz rolled her eyes, "Yeah, but to do that, you'd have to have your friend there hold you up to reach me. Oh! Or maybe someone could find you a nice kiddie stool to stand on."
Nicolas's eyes pierced her and his fists clenched. Why the fuck was she talking? Why wasn't she begging him for mercy? She should be scared out of her fucking mind, by now. This was not going the way it was supposed to.
From behind her, Liz heard a deep male laugh, "Girl's got balls, Nick. Ya gotta give her props for that."
Nicolas ignored the comment and said, "You're late. Where is he?"
"Duke'll be here when he's here." Came the clipped response.
Nicolas closed his eyes and fought for composure, "I'm not waiting. I'm starting without him."
A sugary sweet voice came to Liz's ears, again from behind her, "I wouldn't do that, if I was you, Nicky. He won't like it."
"I don't care." Nicolas ground out through clenched teeth.
"You should care. You really, really should." The female voice said.
Liz found herself laughing, almost hysterically, and Nicolas looked at her wondering how he had broken her already, without having touched her yet.
"Of course! I should have known you weren't running this show. So you're waiting for who - your boss?" When her laughter died down, she looked the him over appraisingly and said, "You know, now that I think about it, you do look like you'd be somebody's bitch. He must be so happy with you."
Laughter came from behind her at the comment, but Nicloas just looked at her with deadly eyes, and said, "Lower her."
The skin did what Nicolas ordered, bringing Liz down so she was almost eye level, but still hung high enough that her feet did not reach the ground.
"Do you know what's going to happen to you when I open the scion?" Nicloas asked, his voice low and menacing. "It will pull your brain apart. Literally. The scion will keep you alive, while it happens. It's a fascinating tool really. It will keep you alive for as long as it can - to keep its secret alive. But eventually, I will force it open, and when I do, your brain will split in two. That is, after you become a convulsing, drooling idiot, of course. From the brain damage, from the pain. How do you think that will feel Liz?"
Oh god, oh god. Please come get me Max. Where are you? Please.
Liz thought, but didn't make a sound. She just continued to stare at Nicolas, with what she hoped were brave eyes, her face still devoid of emotion.
"Why so quiet all of a sudden?" He taunted her, "Things don't seem so funny, now, do they?"
When he walked away from her and turned his back, Liz said confidently, "You'll never get that far. Max will be here."
Nicloas laughed, "Max thinks you're dead. He doesn't even know you're here."
He watched as Liz closed her eyes, and then seemed to look even calmer when she opened them and said, "He knows. And he will come. And when he does, I'm pretty sure that's when you get to die. In a particularly painful way, I'd imagine."
As if on cue, an explosion rang out from the outside front of the factory and Liz smiled, "That must be him now."
"You're delusional - he's not coming." Nicolas countered.
"Then why do you look so scared?" Liz challenged him, "Why do you look like you're about to piss your little pants at any second?"
Having taken enough, Nicolas reared back his fist and punched Liz in the face, feeling supremely satisfied when he felt his knuckles crush the bones in her nose and cheek bone.
Her head flung back sharply, and then fell foreword, chin to chest, as she passed out from the pain. Bright red blood poured down from the injury, soaking into her shirt and pooling on the floor below her.
Looking behind where Liz hung, Nicolas said, "You. Meathead. Go see what all that noise is about." And then to the female companion, "And you go find a bucket of water that I can throw at her. It's no fun if they're unconscious."
**************************************************************
Kyle Valenti was not having a good day. Things had started out great, waking with his heart's desire in his arms. But everything since had pretty much sucked.
First he had gotten stuck at the motel, for hours, interviewing several tourists, who had to be on some type of psychiatric medication. All of whom insisted they had heard awful screams in the night, but offered no evidence of who or what may have caused the disturbance, or even what direction they had come from. It had all been a big waste of time.
Then he had been called across town with the report of fireworks going off. What kid got up before eight in the morning to blow up fireworks?
After chasing that goose a while longer, and finding no suspects in the area, he had finally been on his way back home.
Where he had been looking forward to climbing back into bed with a certain blond beauty.
The same beauty he had just seen riding in Max Evans' car, with his step-sister no less, breaking the speed limit three times over. Even if Tess had not been in the car, Kyle would have pulled Evans over for speeding. The fact that she was in the car would just make writing him a ticket and possibly arresting him, so much more fun.
He quickly pulled a u-turn and sped off after them, sirens blaring and lights flashing.
**************************************************************
In the car ahead of Kyle, Max had the pedal down to the floor, the police car screaming behind him not slowing him down in the least.
"It's Kyle." Maria said, from the back seat.
Max made eye contact with her in the rear-view mirror and said, "I'm not stopping."
Michael asked, "What are we going to tell him when we get there?"
"I don't care." Max responded, not seeing the look of worry on Tess' face.
"I'll take care of him" Maria promised, "Just get there Max."
Max nodded and hoping somehow, some way to send her comfort, thought I'm coming Liz. Please hold on, I'm coming for you.
