Hey guys and gals! Sorry it's taken me so long to update, but I start back to school next week and I've been preparing for that. Thankfully it's my last semester. lol
Ok, so I know this chapter sucks and I want to give my apologies for that. My three year old has been driving me up the wall this week so it hasn't been rewritten 10 times like I normally do. Bare with me guys!
Big thanks to
Whimsicality, garcia88, roswellian love, and pandas2001 for the feedback, and thanks to the lurkers for reading. Hope you guys enjoy!
Chapter 8
“What can we do?” Maria exhaled, sighing as the air rushed out of her lungs. Her head throbbed and she rubbed her temples in frustration. This day was not happening, she thought to herself. Maybe she had a panic attack before her set at the bar and fainted. Maybe this was just some strange hallucination from inhaling to much cypress oil. Whatever it was, she wished she would just wake up already.
“We need to go after her,” Max growled. “It’s been nearly an hour. Ava could be handing her over to Khivar by now.” He’d gone over the past few hours events in his head a million times already. Ava had just showed up when Liz had been in trouble, and she had gone with her. To Max, that only meant one thing….Ava must have mind warped Liz. There was no way the Liz that he knew would ever leave of her own free will.
Michael, who had been crouched in the corner, stood up and glared at Max. “Really, Maxwell?” His eyes narrowed at his brother. “The girls starts sparking and shaking, your touch makes her scream and burn holes in my sheets, and all you can think about is how she might be getting taken to Khivar? Did you ever think that she might be really scared and just needs a little time to herself?”
Max started at Michael, his jaw hard and set. “Liz wouldn’t just run away from me….Liz and I love each other. We handle things together.” A slow smirk pulled at the corners of his mouth, taunting the boy whom he called his brother. “That’s what a real relationship is, Michael…..not that you and you’re dysfunctional girlfriend would know anything about that.”
Blond hair whipped Maria in the face as she whirled her head around to face Max. “Shut up, your royal cluelessness! God forbid you actually place blame on yourself for once! No, you have to make everyone else feel like shit so you can feel better!”
Kyle took his arm from around Isabel’s waist and moved to stand between to the two very pissed of alien males in front of him. They were both breathing heavily and their eyes screamed hostility. They would kill each other if no one interfered, Kyle was sure of.
“Hey, hey. Did anyone ever think that maybe we should be thinking about Liz instead of having a massive fight? Buddha says…”
Four voices echoed in unison, “Shut up, Kyle.”
Kyle threw his hands up in defeat and took a step back. “Ok. Fine. Don’t listen to me. Kill each other for all I care…… At least then I’d be the hottest guy in the room.
Isabel rolled her eyes and chuckled, suddenly glad for Kyle’s unusual sense of humor. “Then you’d be the only guy in the room, Valenti.”
Maria, whose hands refused to stop shaking, forced herself to gather every bit of strength she had left and turned to Isabel. She pushed all thoughts from her head except for thoughts of Liz. “We need to go after her.”
Isabel shook her head and chewed nervously on her bottom lip. The fact that she was nervous made Maria worry even more. “No. We need to let her have a night to herself. Liz will be ok. We just need to give her time.”
“How can you say that, Isabel?” Max asked, his voice breaking. “She needs me. And Ava….”
Isabel waved a hand at her brother, silencing him. “Ava has earned a little trust, Max. She helped us a lot last year.” She took a deep breath and clenched her eyes shut momentarily before opening them to stare straight at Max. “And if Liz really needed you, she would have taken you with her.
Let her have time, Max. For once in your life……don’t be selfish.”
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Liz sat motionless, paralyzed, on the lawn chair on her balcony. Her mind wandered, thinking about Max, Maria, all of the friends whom she had left in a stunned silence nearly an hour before. She had run, which was very unlike her. Liz Parker never ran away from anything. Walk away when the fate of two worlds rested on her doing so, sure, but run away because she was scared? That wasn’t something she did.
“You didn’t run away,” Ava’s voice broke Liz out of her thoughts and she turned to look at the small blonde perched on her windowsill. Ava’s eyes locked on Liz and she looked at her pointedly, making sure she had the girls attention. “You didn’t run away, Liz.”
Liz’s head cocked to the side in confusion. “How did you….”
“Hear what you were thinking?” Ava smiled. Her feet shuffled against the stray bits of dirt and dust on the balcony floor. “Are you ready to know that? Cause once I tell you, you isn’t gonna look at things the same.”
Liz sighed, pushing a stray piece of hair from her face. Not look at things the same? She smirked to herself. To late for that, Ava. “You tell me my father, my real father, is a homicidal maniac, that I’ve always been part alien, and you still ask me that question?” Liz smiled sadly. “Nothing is ever going to be the same ever again, Ava. You might as well tell me the rest.”
Ava picked herself up from the ledge. She had to be strong now, not for herself, but for Liz. If she went about this the wrong way….well, she wasn’t sure how much more information Liz could take before she broke. Maybe it would be better if she omitted some of the more gissely details……
“Don’t leave anything out,” Liz said, picking up on Ava’s inner turmoil.
Ava took a breath and forced herself to stay calm. She settled herself next to Liz on the lawn chair and took her friend’s small hand in her own, squeezing it a bit for reassurance, whether it was to reassure herself or Liz, she wasn’t quite certain.
‘Well, I went to LA when I left…..” Ava closed her eyes and paused. “I went to see my protector. I went to see Kal.”
Liz’s eyes lit up in recognition. She knew that name. “But….he abandoned you. He never did anything for you.”
Ava nodded. “True, Lizzy, all true. But when you have a father like mine, you don’t exactly let you’re guard down. Kal always kept his ear to the ground, making sure they weren’t after us.”
Liz shook her head in confusion. “I don’t….Kal is you’re father?”
A small, sarcastic laugh escaped Ava and she started up at the stars. Her thoughts turned to things that were to dark to ever be fully remembered. All she had were fragments, something she guessed Tess never had. But fragments of a past were all she needed. The rest could stay buried for all she cared.
“The first thing you need to know, Lizzie girl, is that from the moment I met you, I knew who you were to me.”
“And who is that?” Liz asked, her eyes never leaving Ava.
“You’s my sister.” Ava admitted, her eyes turning from heaven to hell, because hell was what she thought of when she remembered her father. “Nicholas is my father too.”
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“You called for me, my lord Khivar?”
Nicholas bowed at the feet of his king, paying no attention to the water soaked carpet of the dingy hotel room. Khivar stood before him, dripping wet and with a look of thorough anger in his eyes.
He looked down on Nicholas, as he always had, but this time, Nicholas held a sneaking suspicion as to what his master was truly angry about.
“You’ve withheld something from me, Nicky.” Khivar accused. “Would you care to tell me again what the power is that has pulled me here?”
Nicholas began to inwardly panic. He couldn’t know, couldn’t have found out so quickly.
“I know nothing, My Lord. But I will continue to search.”
Khivar laughed at him, laughed in a way that terrified Nicholas. He’d only heard that laugh once before….when he had killed Zan so many years ago. He tried to hide his fear, but the sight of Raven stepping out from the shadows made that impossible.
Khivar only called out Raven for torture.
Raven smirked at him, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “My brother has witnessed something tonight, Nicholas. Something that concerns us greatly.” She cracked her knuckles loudly, and moved a step closer to him. “You’ve been very bad, my little Nicho.”
Her hands wrapped around his head and the sense of overwhelming pain came over him before he was pulled into unconsciousness. His screams echoing in his ears were the last thing he heard.