Part Eleven
“I cured the symptoms, but not the disease.”
That’s what Max had said to Nate after working his magic on Alyssa. There had been confidence in Max’s tone, but Nate had seen the uncertainty in his eyes. As they always would, Max’s eyes had betrayed what he was thinking inside.
Even though the January air was crisp, the sun was out over Boston and Nate had taken up roost on Jose’s back step. Behind the house was the two-story brick wall of a warehouse, so it wasn’t like he was going to draw anyone’s attention. He’d simply needed to get out of that basement, worrying as the minutes ticked by that Alyssa might never wake up, or that when she did she’d have some disease nobody could fix. It was something that he’d never considered – that powers could have limitations.
The thought of powers made Nate think of his little trip to the hospital. At the time, he hadn’t cared what was going on with the whole “they can’t see me” business – he was getting Alyssa out and that was all that had mattered. But now that he had time to wind down and think, he found the fact that he could simply disappear more than a little disturbing.
“Aubrey,” he said softly.
Within seconds, Aubrey appeared at the gate to the back yard. Reaching over the fence, she unlocked it and came to stand before Nate. “Sir.”
Nate looked up at her, squinted against the sunlight. Odd that winter suns seemed so muted and white while summer suns were always beautiful, vibrant yellows. He scooted over on the step and pointed to the newly vacant spot. “Have a seat, Aubrey.”
With one quick glance around the perimeter she’d set up, Aubrey did as she was commanded. She sat silently, didn’t even ask why he’d told her to sit there. Like she would sit all day if he told her to. Not even curious.
“Can I ask you something?” he finally asked her.
“You don’t need permission to ask me questions, sir,” she replied, her eyes hidden behind her latest pair of Ray-Bans. Her voice was level and official-sounding.
“I know,” he sighed softly, not used to any creature taking direct commands from him. “I do have something to ask you, though.”
She nodded. “Understood.”
“That disappearing/reappearing thing you do.”
“Yes, sir?”
“How do you do it?”
She looked at him motionlessly for a second and he wondered what was going through her head. Even though she was programmed to protect him and answer to his every command, did she still have the capacity to think he was an idiot? “Could you clarify the question, sir?”
Nate realized that asking Aubrey how she disappeared was equivalent to asking him how he breathed – it was just her nature. He kicked at a blob of residual snow on the step at his feet. “I mean, do you just think no one can see you?”
“No.”
He glanced at her. “Then…why can’t people see you?”
“Because I can’t be seen.”
“You can become invisible?”
Aubrey nodded silently.
Nate looked at the brick wall of the warehouse. “Aubrey, do you think I might be able to do that, too?”
“No, sir.”
He looked to her quickly. “Are you that sure?”
“I meant no offense,” she said levelly. “But that skill is inherent to my race, sir, not yours.”
Nate swallowed, not liking the sounds of that. So, either he couldn’t really make himself invisible but for some reason people still couldn’t see him – or his lineage was different than what Max had told him. Was it possible that either Max or Nate’s mother had not really been a hybrid? It was unsettling to think that. It was unnerving to think that perhaps Max had been less than truthful with him.
Jerking back to reality, Nate realized Aubrey was looking at him patiently. “That’s all I really wanted, Aubrey,” he said.
“Sir,” she said, rising to her feet. As she started to walk back toward the gate, Nate called to her and she stopped.
“Thank you,” he said. “You know, for being so efficient and keeping us safe.”
Aubrey’s eyebrows rose slightly above her sunglasses. Surprise? Did she not get compliments? “Okay, sir,” she said, like she was fumbling for a response to that.
Nate gave her a smile and nodded his head, releasing her to go about her business. As she slid through the gate, he watched as she slowly disintegrated, invisible once again. Nate felt a little sick inside. What kind of life did Aubrey’s kind live? They were born to protect and serve. They obviously weren’t used to being commended for a job well done. What did their lives consist of? What thanks did they get? Why was it right for them to basically sacrifice their lives for another race? It just seemed so wrong.
A shadow passed over Nate and he squinted into the sun again, looked up into Max’s face.
“Can I sit?” Max asked.
Nate nodded and his father sat beside him. They sat in silence for awhile, their postures similar, their gazes far-off.
“You going to be okay?” Max finally asked.
Nate nodded silently and looked down at his shoes.
“What you did was really brave, Nate. If I were in your shoes, I would have gone to get her as well.” He paused, then sighed. “Look, I’m not going to tell Michael about the abortion, okay?”
Nate looked at him in surprise – there was just a hint of confusion in his eyes. “She didn’t have an abortion, Max. Jeremy said she miscarried.”
“Oh.” It was obvious Max was struggling with how to react to that. “I’m sorry, Nate.”
Nate snorted bitterly and looked at this shoe again. “I didn’t even know. She didn’t tell me.”
Max hung his head as well. “Maybe she didn’t know yet.”
“Maybe she did and didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to stop me,” Nate snapped. Guilt rushed through him at the outburst and he withdrew slightly. “I’m sorry, Max.”
Max shook his head. “No, it’s okay. I understand that this is difficult. Just tell me one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Were you deliberately trying to make me a grandfather before I turn forty?”
Nate knew Max was joking, but in light of everything else that was going on, he found it difficult to join in the fun. When Nate didn’t even smile, Max’s expression fell serious again, his eyes that so familiar mixture of concern and confusion.
“I have to ask you some things,” Nate confessed.
“Okay,” Max replied, shoving his hands into his coat pockets to ward off the cold.
“Max, you have to be honest with me.”
Max seemed a bit surprised, but offered a light smile and a small shrug. “Nate, since you found out who you really are, I’ve been nothing but honest with you.”
Nate wanted to believe that. He truly did. Maybe it was the vulnerable position he’d put them in, but it seemed that everyone was now a suspect.
“What did you want to ask me, Nate?” Max asked after his son didn’t readily respond.
“Are you really my father?” Nate’s gaze was steady and without accusation.
Max’s eyebrows shot up abruptly and he blinked in surprise. “Well, yeah, Nate.”
“Was Tess Harding really my mother?”
Max’s eyebrows drifted south and drew slightly together. “Well, since she was the only person I’d slept with up until that point, I would have to conclude yes.”
“And she was a hybrid, just like you?”
Max nodded, sadness replacing the surprise.
Nate looked down at his shoes again. At this point, he had no choice but to take Max’s word for everything. With no Tess Harding to ask, Nate was at Max’s mercy.
Inside, Nate kicked himself for being so suspicious of Max. The man had been nothing but kind and generous with him. It was unfair of Nate to blame Max for his sudden invisibility weirdness.
“Nate,” Max said softly, prompting his son to look at him. “What is this all about?”
Nate’s memory slipped back over a year, to when Michael Guerin had wanted to kill Nate for being Tess’s offspring, to when Maria Deluca had explained to Nate that Tess had killed Alex Whitman using one of her powers, to Michael asking Nate in a South Dakota parking lot how he could be sure that he didn’t get his mother’s gifts as well as his father’s. And he simply couldn’t tell Max that he feared the worst, that he was indeed Tess Harding’s son.
And while Max Evans could be truthful, Nate Evans could not, not even on the heels of demanding the truth. “I’m sorry, Max. There’s just so much going on and I haven’t slept and it’s just…everything.”
Max smiled gently and put his hand on Nate’s shoulder. “I know you’re worried, Nate. But right now all we can do is have a little faith. We have to have faith that this thing we did with Susan is the right thing. We have to have faith that we’ll be with our families again. We have to have faith that Alyssa is going to be well.”
Standing, Max clapped Nate’s shoulder, then turned to go into the house. “Don’t stay out here too long. It’s friggin’ cold out here.”
As the door closed behind him, Nate looked down at his feet. Have faith. How was he going to have faith in anyone or anything when he was starting to doubt himself?
Another shadow passed across Nate and this time he found Michael before him. Not even trying to hide his displeasure, Nate blew out an irritated sigh and shook his head.
“Nate, I wanted to talk to you,” Michael said, like someone was holding a gun to his spine and forcing him to do so.
“You know what?” Nate said, rising to his feet and standing on the bottom step so he had a passive-aggressive edge over Michael in the height department. “Why don’t you just stow it?”
“I just –“
“Forget it. I’m done trying to impress you, or make you trust me, or win you over. Done. I’m not doing it anymore because it doesn’t matter what I do, it will never be enough. You will find some selfish, bullish reason to toss me around without thinking twice about it. Then you’ll continue the pattern of coming to me after thinking about your knee-jerk reaction to ask for forgiveness. I’m done forgiving you as well. Want to know why? Because your behavior never changes, Michael. It’s one thing to make a mistake, apologize and never do it again. It’s another thing to make a mistake, apologize, then when the apology is accepted assume it is okay to keep behaving that way because you will ultimately be forgiven in the end. You don’t learn a damn thing. You haven’t learned that I couldn’t give a shit about how you feel about me. I care about Alyssa, period. You can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.” He tossed his hand in the air, dismissing him. “Leave me alone.”
Michael hadn’t really reacted to Nate’s lecture. Unlike Max, who wore his emotions very near the surface, Michael was pretty much a brick wall. Instead of rebutting Nate’s accusations, he simply pointed at the house before turning to go back in.
“Alyssa’s awake,” he said over his shoulder. “She wants to see you.”
tbc
Empire of the Son (CC ALL,MATURE) {Complete} - 04/30/05
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Part Twelve
Nate waited a beat, until he felt Michael had cleared the basement steps. It wasn’t that he was afraid of confrontation with the man – he just wanted him out of the way because once Nate started to move for Alyssa, he wasn’t stopping. For anything.
In a rustle of winter fabrics, Nate spun on his heel and pounded down the steps. About halfway down, he saw Alyssa rise shakily from his cot, her face a mask of desperation and weariness. He picked up the pace, hitting the floor with a thud and reaching her in two long strides. Then his arms were around her, pulling her against him, her body trembling with the effects of her illness and the overwhelming surge of happiness at being reunited.
Behind him, Nate was vaguely aware of Jesse suggesting that the others go upstairs and turn on CNN to see if Susan had been successful with the video. Thoughts of interviews and confessions and coming out of hiding fell to the back of Nate’s mind. All he could concentrate on was Alyssa, in his arms and conscious for the first time since he’d plucked her from the hospital. She was crying openly against his shoulder, her sobs hoarse and racked with grief.
After a few moments, Nate pulled back and took her tear-streaked face between his hands.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, his voice a choked whisper, his own eyes full of tears.
Alyssa looked away, over his shoulder, as her bottom lip quivered.
“I know why,” he answered for her. “You thought if I knew you were pregnant, I’d call off our plans to go public, didn’t you?”
She met his eyes and he could see that he’d hit the nail on the head. There was truth there, but also apology.
“I wouldn’t have,” he explained, prompting a surprised look from her. “Babies are why I was doing this in the first place. Our babies. My baby sister. I didn’t want them to live the life that you have, that I would have had. I want them to be free, Alyssa. Knowing you were pregnant would have made me fight all the harder.”
She looked down at his chest, her eyes fixed on the front of his jacket.
“It’s why people fight, why they go to war,” he explained, tucking a stray strand of her long blond hair gently behind her ear. “They want a better world for their children.” Eyes tearing up, he bit his lip to fight the tears back. “I want better for our children.”
Without a word, Alyssa hung her head and started to sob. Nate knew what she was thinking – their opportunity at having a child was now gone. Not so long ago, they were going to be parents, and now they were just Nate and Alyssa again, unmarried lovers. Reaching down, he tenderly lifted her chin so she’d look at him. Her eyes were so full of tears he could barely see the dark irises beneath. Even though his heart was breaking, he forced himself to smile gently at her as he reached into his pocket for a tissue. He wiped the tracks from her cheeks, then dabbed her nose. She gave a little snort, embarrassed at his mothering.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said.
Nate shook his head. “Don’t be sorry for anything. There’s nothing for you to apologize for…other than the first words you’ve said to me are ‘I’m sorry.’” He grinned at her and after a few seconds she laughed lightly. Pulling her close to his body again, he kissed the side of her head and squeezed her tightly. I’m never letting her go again.
“Why did it happen?” she asked against his chest.
“I don’t know, babe. Mom used to tell me that everything happens for a reason.” Nate swallowed hard, thinking of Emma Spencer back in New York, leading a quiet rural life that was more than likely about to be turned upside down. “I guess this happened because it wasn’t meant to be.” He made a circular motion against Alyssa’s back, soothing her. “We’ll have other opportunities. I promise.”
Alyssa shivered and for the first time since racing into the basement, Nate realized she was still wearing the flimsy hospital gown. He released her reluctantly and searched for the bag Jeremy had brought with them. Inside, he found her clothes and started pulling them out of the bag.
“Jeremy took care of you,” he said after having emptied the bag. “He acted like a real man. I’ll never forget that.” He gave her a glance of sincerity as he picked up her panties – a pair of black lacy ones that he’d always loved. He looked for the tag, then turned them the right way and held them out to her. “Put your hands on my shoulders. I’ll help you.”
Unsteady, Alyssa slipped one leg, then the other into the panties and Nate pulled them up, his hands disappearing beneath the gown. They repeated the process with her jeans. When he came to her bra, he looked at it questioningly, then held it out to her.
“You’d better do this yourself. I think I’d only be a hindrance,” he laughed lightly.
Smiling at him, Alyssa shrugged her shoulders and the gown fell to the floor. Nate moved to block her from the view of anyone descending the stairs – after all, Alyssa was now essentially staying in a fraternity. Her motions slow, she slid the straps up her arms and Nate felt a pang inside – her ribs were more visible than they ever had been, her hip bones pronounced; she seemed to have dropped even more weight in just the past couple of days. Her breasts, oddly enough, had retained their fullness and he enjoyed his short glimpse of them. He would always love Alyssa’s breasts. When she reached behind herself to clasp the bra, she grimaced and he moved to intervene. Then he tugged her sweater over her head and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
Silently, he lay down on the cot and pulled her in beside him. She was shivering – from the chill or exhaustion, he wasn’t sure. Reaching down, he pulled his blanket up over the two of them while kicking his shoes off; they fell at the end of the cot with a thud.
“Let me hold you,” he said quietly, putting his arms around her. He kissed her once, on the lips, a sensation he thought he wouldn’t feel again for a very long time.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, her voice tinged with fear.
Nate met her gaze steadily. He wouldn’t lie to her. He’d never lie to her. “We don’t know, Alyssa. Did Max talk to you?”
She shook her head. “He tried, you know, but he’s Uncle Max and I know he didn’t want to talk about the baby thing with me.”
Nate snorted a little laugh, imagining Max shifting uncomfortably as he tried to tell Alyssa something gynecological. Yeah, definitely not something Uncle Max would feel good doing – especially with Michael hovering around.
The uncertainty returned to Alyssa’s eyes, so Nate smoothed her hair and kissed her on the forehead. “We’ll figure it out. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Promise?” she asked playfully, though it was a weak attempt.
“Definitely,” he answered, tucking her head under his chin. “Sleep, sweetheart. Just rest. We’re safe here.”
Nate fell silent, not sleepy in the slightest. Alyssa fell asleep against him, her breathing a light wheeze that troubled him. Above them, Nate could hear voices in the living area of the house, some words discernable but most not. Most of the voices were masculine, with the feminine accent of Jose’s wife peppered in between. A television was on, but Nate couldn’t really decipher that either.
It’s the calm before the storm, he thought as he looked up at the rafters of the basement. Soon, all hell might break loose and there would be no mid-morning naps with Alyssa in his arms. With that thought, he tightened his grasp on her and vowed he would never forget this moment, this time when things weren’t going so well but could definitely be worse.
*****
“It was an act of God! They was angels! I tell ya! I saw ‘em with my own eyes!”
As Nate neared the living room after leaving Alyssa sleeping in the basement, he felt a jolt inside, a rush of adrenaline. The voice had come from the television and he just knew that someone had noticed that the Old Man of the Mountain had been restored. He picked up his pace and hurried into the room. Before the television, Michael, Max and Jose’s wife Linda sat on the couch; Jeremy and Jesse were sitting on the floor, their identical dark eyes round. On the screen, Nate recognized one of the bums who had been in a cell next to them in the Boston jail and hope deflated quickly. Obviously, the man would be taken as a crackpot. Not wanting to disrupt the broadcast, he sank to a seat on the arm of the couch, nearest to Max.
The newscast flashed to a blond woman walking the sidewalk outside of the police station. “I tried to speak with the Boston PD, but they refused to comment,” she reported. “There is one thing we know for sure – four people being detained in this facility last night were not here this morning. While some speculate that they had been visited by angels, others are concerned that the Boston PD is part of a cover up. Who were those four men? And where have they gone? Only the police can answer that, and this reporter has to question their vow of silence. For news channel WKBN, this is Samantha Myers reporting.”
The next story – about ice jams on the Charles River – went unheard in the house. Nate looked at Max first, who didn’t really look concerned – more speculative than anything. Michael was pursing his lips, so everything was normal there. Jesse’s courtroom poker face was firmly in place, revealing nothing. Jeremy looked at little sick. Linda was glancing at her visitors one by one, without moving her head, like the lack of motion would make her actions inconspicuous.
“I make lunch,” she finally said in a thick accent, pushing herself to her feet and disappearing into the kitchen.
“Gracias, senora,” Jesse said absently.
Silence fell in the room, then Michael gave an uncharacteristic laugh. Nate looked at him sharply, afraid their confrontation that morning had somehow sent the man over the edge. Max lifted his eyebrows questioningly in his friend’s direction.
“I mean,” Michael began, gesturing toward the TV. “It’s…funny.”
Max blinked, apparently failing to see the humor in it.
“Oh, come on, Maxwell! We’re trying to convince the world we’re aliens – and not the spooky, abducting kind – and instead they turn us into warm, fuzzy angels!” With that, he howled with laughter and Jeremy got up and moved to the other side of the room, seeking refuge. “And on top of it – the Boston PD is shitting themselves because they can’t explain it. It’s so fucked up it’s funny!”
Max lifted one corner of his mouth into a half-smile; Nate wondered if it was a patronizing move just in case Michael had really gone off to another realm of existence in his head.
“The Boston PD will have a lot to answer for,” Jesse said, undaunted by Michael’s moment of mania. “If it is true that the FBI was on its way to the station to interrogate us, then the PD is going to be in some deep trouble for losing us. There’s going to be patrols everywhere – we need to be especially careful now. No one leaves alone. No one goes outside.” He glanced pointedly at Nate. “The police don’t like to be made fools of – if you do that, they will make an example of you.”
“Jesse’s right,” Max agreed. “They’re going to be searching everywhere for us.” He swallowed, looked a little nauseated, like he’d just realized the folly of his actions. “And we’ve got a problem.”
“What’s that?” Nate asked.
“I gave them a list of people who needed protection the night they arrested us at the station,” Max reminded them. “They know everyone we’re associated with.”
Nate’s heart gave a heavy thud. Liz, Isabel, little Emily, Maria, the Evanses, the Valentis, the creepy twins – all in very real danger now. “They’re in hiding,” he offered.
“How long will it last?” Max asked. “We don’t know how long it will take for Susan to convince someone to show our interview.”
Dread washed over Nate. It was all going from bad to worse.
“We need to get the list,” Michael said, seeming to have calmed his hysterical outburst.
“How?” Jesse asked, turning his hands palm up.
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. We have to think of something. Ask Junior over there – he’s good at coming up with plans.”
“Fuck you, Michael,” Nate snorted.
“Santa Maria!” Linda declared from the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Nate called, his cheeks reddening at having offended their host. He looked desperately at Jesse. “How do I say sorry?”
Jesse waved him off. “She understood.”
“I was complimenting you,” Michael said levelly.
Nate met his eyes and couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. For the sake of not getting them evicted, he decided not to pursue it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Max said in defeat. “Even if we did get the list back, chances are they have copies. Could be they’ve distributed copies to every post in the Boston area, to New Mexico. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”
Nate looked at the floor. Max was right. Somehow, he’d come up with a plan, sold it well enough that the others had bought it – and now it had all turned to shit.
“In other news,” the news anchor announced, “a historic landmark up north has apparently been restored. Was this also the work of angels? That story’s coming up – after the break.”
Every ear in the room pricked up. The east coast fugitive’s handiwork had been noticed. Maybe everything wasn’t lost after all.
tbc
Nate waited a beat, until he felt Michael had cleared the basement steps. It wasn’t that he was afraid of confrontation with the man – he just wanted him out of the way because once Nate started to move for Alyssa, he wasn’t stopping. For anything.
In a rustle of winter fabrics, Nate spun on his heel and pounded down the steps. About halfway down, he saw Alyssa rise shakily from his cot, her face a mask of desperation and weariness. He picked up the pace, hitting the floor with a thud and reaching her in two long strides. Then his arms were around her, pulling her against him, her body trembling with the effects of her illness and the overwhelming surge of happiness at being reunited.
Behind him, Nate was vaguely aware of Jesse suggesting that the others go upstairs and turn on CNN to see if Susan had been successful with the video. Thoughts of interviews and confessions and coming out of hiding fell to the back of Nate’s mind. All he could concentrate on was Alyssa, in his arms and conscious for the first time since he’d plucked her from the hospital. She was crying openly against his shoulder, her sobs hoarse and racked with grief.
After a few moments, Nate pulled back and took her tear-streaked face between his hands.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, his voice a choked whisper, his own eyes full of tears.
Alyssa looked away, over his shoulder, as her bottom lip quivered.
“I know why,” he answered for her. “You thought if I knew you were pregnant, I’d call off our plans to go public, didn’t you?”
She met his eyes and he could see that he’d hit the nail on the head. There was truth there, but also apology.
“I wouldn’t have,” he explained, prompting a surprised look from her. “Babies are why I was doing this in the first place. Our babies. My baby sister. I didn’t want them to live the life that you have, that I would have had. I want them to be free, Alyssa. Knowing you were pregnant would have made me fight all the harder.”
She looked down at his chest, her eyes fixed on the front of his jacket.
“It’s why people fight, why they go to war,” he explained, tucking a stray strand of her long blond hair gently behind her ear. “They want a better world for their children.” Eyes tearing up, he bit his lip to fight the tears back. “I want better for our children.”
Without a word, Alyssa hung her head and started to sob. Nate knew what she was thinking – their opportunity at having a child was now gone. Not so long ago, they were going to be parents, and now they were just Nate and Alyssa again, unmarried lovers. Reaching down, he tenderly lifted her chin so she’d look at him. Her eyes were so full of tears he could barely see the dark irises beneath. Even though his heart was breaking, he forced himself to smile gently at her as he reached into his pocket for a tissue. He wiped the tracks from her cheeks, then dabbed her nose. She gave a little snort, embarrassed at his mothering.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said.
Nate shook his head. “Don’t be sorry for anything. There’s nothing for you to apologize for…other than the first words you’ve said to me are ‘I’m sorry.’” He grinned at her and after a few seconds she laughed lightly. Pulling her close to his body again, he kissed the side of her head and squeezed her tightly. I’m never letting her go again.
“Why did it happen?” she asked against his chest.
“I don’t know, babe. Mom used to tell me that everything happens for a reason.” Nate swallowed hard, thinking of Emma Spencer back in New York, leading a quiet rural life that was more than likely about to be turned upside down. “I guess this happened because it wasn’t meant to be.” He made a circular motion against Alyssa’s back, soothing her. “We’ll have other opportunities. I promise.”
Alyssa shivered and for the first time since racing into the basement, Nate realized she was still wearing the flimsy hospital gown. He released her reluctantly and searched for the bag Jeremy had brought with them. Inside, he found her clothes and started pulling them out of the bag.
“Jeremy took care of you,” he said after having emptied the bag. “He acted like a real man. I’ll never forget that.” He gave her a glance of sincerity as he picked up her panties – a pair of black lacy ones that he’d always loved. He looked for the tag, then turned them the right way and held them out to her. “Put your hands on my shoulders. I’ll help you.”
Unsteady, Alyssa slipped one leg, then the other into the panties and Nate pulled them up, his hands disappearing beneath the gown. They repeated the process with her jeans. When he came to her bra, he looked at it questioningly, then held it out to her.
“You’d better do this yourself. I think I’d only be a hindrance,” he laughed lightly.
Smiling at him, Alyssa shrugged her shoulders and the gown fell to the floor. Nate moved to block her from the view of anyone descending the stairs – after all, Alyssa was now essentially staying in a fraternity. Her motions slow, she slid the straps up her arms and Nate felt a pang inside – her ribs were more visible than they ever had been, her hip bones pronounced; she seemed to have dropped even more weight in just the past couple of days. Her breasts, oddly enough, had retained their fullness and he enjoyed his short glimpse of them. He would always love Alyssa’s breasts. When she reached behind herself to clasp the bra, she grimaced and he moved to intervene. Then he tugged her sweater over her head and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
Silently, he lay down on the cot and pulled her in beside him. She was shivering – from the chill or exhaustion, he wasn’t sure. Reaching down, he pulled his blanket up over the two of them while kicking his shoes off; they fell at the end of the cot with a thud.
“Let me hold you,” he said quietly, putting his arms around her. He kissed her once, on the lips, a sensation he thought he wouldn’t feel again for a very long time.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, her voice tinged with fear.
Nate met her gaze steadily. He wouldn’t lie to her. He’d never lie to her. “We don’t know, Alyssa. Did Max talk to you?”
She shook her head. “He tried, you know, but he’s Uncle Max and I know he didn’t want to talk about the baby thing with me.”
Nate snorted a little laugh, imagining Max shifting uncomfortably as he tried to tell Alyssa something gynecological. Yeah, definitely not something Uncle Max would feel good doing – especially with Michael hovering around.
The uncertainty returned to Alyssa’s eyes, so Nate smoothed her hair and kissed her on the forehead. “We’ll figure it out. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Promise?” she asked playfully, though it was a weak attempt.
“Definitely,” he answered, tucking her head under his chin. “Sleep, sweetheart. Just rest. We’re safe here.”
Nate fell silent, not sleepy in the slightest. Alyssa fell asleep against him, her breathing a light wheeze that troubled him. Above them, Nate could hear voices in the living area of the house, some words discernable but most not. Most of the voices were masculine, with the feminine accent of Jose’s wife peppered in between. A television was on, but Nate couldn’t really decipher that either.
It’s the calm before the storm, he thought as he looked up at the rafters of the basement. Soon, all hell might break loose and there would be no mid-morning naps with Alyssa in his arms. With that thought, he tightened his grasp on her and vowed he would never forget this moment, this time when things weren’t going so well but could definitely be worse.
*****
“It was an act of God! They was angels! I tell ya! I saw ‘em with my own eyes!”
As Nate neared the living room after leaving Alyssa sleeping in the basement, he felt a jolt inside, a rush of adrenaline. The voice had come from the television and he just knew that someone had noticed that the Old Man of the Mountain had been restored. He picked up his pace and hurried into the room. Before the television, Michael, Max and Jose’s wife Linda sat on the couch; Jeremy and Jesse were sitting on the floor, their identical dark eyes round. On the screen, Nate recognized one of the bums who had been in a cell next to them in the Boston jail and hope deflated quickly. Obviously, the man would be taken as a crackpot. Not wanting to disrupt the broadcast, he sank to a seat on the arm of the couch, nearest to Max.
The newscast flashed to a blond woman walking the sidewalk outside of the police station. “I tried to speak with the Boston PD, but they refused to comment,” she reported. “There is one thing we know for sure – four people being detained in this facility last night were not here this morning. While some speculate that they had been visited by angels, others are concerned that the Boston PD is part of a cover up. Who were those four men? And where have they gone? Only the police can answer that, and this reporter has to question their vow of silence. For news channel WKBN, this is Samantha Myers reporting.”
The next story – about ice jams on the Charles River – went unheard in the house. Nate looked at Max first, who didn’t really look concerned – more speculative than anything. Michael was pursing his lips, so everything was normal there. Jesse’s courtroom poker face was firmly in place, revealing nothing. Jeremy looked at little sick. Linda was glancing at her visitors one by one, without moving her head, like the lack of motion would make her actions inconspicuous.
“I make lunch,” she finally said in a thick accent, pushing herself to her feet and disappearing into the kitchen.
“Gracias, senora,” Jesse said absently.
Silence fell in the room, then Michael gave an uncharacteristic laugh. Nate looked at him sharply, afraid their confrontation that morning had somehow sent the man over the edge. Max lifted his eyebrows questioningly in his friend’s direction.
“I mean,” Michael began, gesturing toward the TV. “It’s…funny.”
Max blinked, apparently failing to see the humor in it.
“Oh, come on, Maxwell! We’re trying to convince the world we’re aliens – and not the spooky, abducting kind – and instead they turn us into warm, fuzzy angels!” With that, he howled with laughter and Jeremy got up and moved to the other side of the room, seeking refuge. “And on top of it – the Boston PD is shitting themselves because they can’t explain it. It’s so fucked up it’s funny!”
Max lifted one corner of his mouth into a half-smile; Nate wondered if it was a patronizing move just in case Michael had really gone off to another realm of existence in his head.
“The Boston PD will have a lot to answer for,” Jesse said, undaunted by Michael’s moment of mania. “If it is true that the FBI was on its way to the station to interrogate us, then the PD is going to be in some deep trouble for losing us. There’s going to be patrols everywhere – we need to be especially careful now. No one leaves alone. No one goes outside.” He glanced pointedly at Nate. “The police don’t like to be made fools of – if you do that, they will make an example of you.”
“Jesse’s right,” Max agreed. “They’re going to be searching everywhere for us.” He swallowed, looked a little nauseated, like he’d just realized the folly of his actions. “And we’ve got a problem.”
“What’s that?” Nate asked.
“I gave them a list of people who needed protection the night they arrested us at the station,” Max reminded them. “They know everyone we’re associated with.”
Nate’s heart gave a heavy thud. Liz, Isabel, little Emily, Maria, the Evanses, the Valentis, the creepy twins – all in very real danger now. “They’re in hiding,” he offered.
“How long will it last?” Max asked. “We don’t know how long it will take for Susan to convince someone to show our interview.”
Dread washed over Nate. It was all going from bad to worse.
“We need to get the list,” Michael said, seeming to have calmed his hysterical outburst.
“How?” Jesse asked, turning his hands palm up.
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. We have to think of something. Ask Junior over there – he’s good at coming up with plans.”
“Fuck you, Michael,” Nate snorted.
“Santa Maria!” Linda declared from the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Nate called, his cheeks reddening at having offended their host. He looked desperately at Jesse. “How do I say sorry?”
Jesse waved him off. “She understood.”
“I was complimenting you,” Michael said levelly.
Nate met his eyes and couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. For the sake of not getting them evicted, he decided not to pursue it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Max said in defeat. “Even if we did get the list back, chances are they have copies. Could be they’ve distributed copies to every post in the Boston area, to New Mexico. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”
Nate looked at the floor. Max was right. Somehow, he’d come up with a plan, sold it well enough that the others had bought it – and now it had all turned to shit.
“In other news,” the news anchor announced, “a historic landmark up north has apparently been restored. Was this also the work of angels? That story’s coming up – after the break.”
Every ear in the room pricked up. The east coast fugitive’s handiwork had been noticed. Maybe everything wasn’t lost after all.
tbc
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Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
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- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Thirteen
Alyssa was awake, staring at the rafters of the basement. Above her, she heard the TV and a few voices every now and then. Her arms were empty – Nate must have gone upstairs with the others.
Drawing in a deep breath of courage, she swung her legs over the side of the cot and immediately regretted it – the room spun and she had to lower her head to keep from passing out. It wasn’t the disease this time – she was just really hungry. Thinking back over the last couple of days, she realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. In response, her tummy rumbled and she put her hand over it in a reflex to stop it.
Thoughts of an empty belly vanished quickly, however, as she realized she was now empty in more ways than one. Max’s powers had healed the trauma from the DNC, but he couldn’t mend the emotional impact of having lost Nate’s child. It was too soon in their relationship to have a baby; she knew that much. Hell, she couldn’t even explain how it had happened. She’d been nothing but diligent about taking her pills, but somehow she’d managed to conceive anyway.
Then again, every protective method known to man hadn’t prevented Liz Evans from becoming pregnant.
Nate had told Alyssa that his mother had always told him that everything happened for a reason. What was the reason for this? If they weren’t meant to have a baby yet, then why had she gotten pregnant? What had been the purpose of that pregnancy if she was only going to lose the baby in the end?
It had brought her and Nate back together.
A little startled, Alyssa lifted her head and looked at nothingness while the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Was that it? Was Nate destined to pluck her from that hospital because there was some need for them to be together? Had some force out there in the cosmos used an innocent life as an means to an end?
Alyssa shivered against the creepiness of the thought and decided she didn’t like being alone in the basement anymore. Cognizant of her haste in sitting up, she slowly pushed herself to her feet and padded over to the steps. She took them slowly until she was at the top, slightly winded. She gripped the door handle for a moment, then slid outside.
Bright sunlight greeted her and she winced against it. She hadn’t planned on the stairwell leading to the outside, but it had. Only a few feet away were the steps to a side door, so she bounded over the snow on her bare tiptoes and hopped up the steps. Soon she was inside of a warm kitchen, a Latino woman looking at her in surprise.
“Linda,” the woman said in a heavy accent.
“Oh, um, Alyssa,” she offered, trying to smile in a friendly, we-come-in-peace kind of way. Past the woman’s shoulder, she saw Jeremy peek around the doorway and excused herself.
In the living room, Nate immediately jumped to his feet and met her at the doorway. His face was full of worry but it wasn’t exclusively for her this time – he’d looked that way before he’d caught sight of her.
“Sit here on the couch,” he offered, helping her into a seat beside Max.
“Offspring,” Michael said, grinning at her.
Inside, Alyssa glowed. She knew that Nate hated Michael. She knew that sometimes Max only tolerated Michael. But she loved her dad, more than she could make them understand. Well, maybe not Max because Max had been with Michael since the beginning. But Nate would never get it.
There was no way she could make him see that when Maria had been out pushing her album, when Maria had been out trying to get a record contract, it had been Michael who had cared for their daughter. He fed her and bathed her and put ribbons in her hair. It had been Michael who read bedtime stories to her, who had checked the closet for monsters every night before turning out the light. Michael had bandaged her skinned knees and let her cry on his broad shoulder when kids at school picked at her for being a little odd.
Alyssa would never be able to make Nate see those things because Michael never let Nate see that he was anything but a brute.
“Parental Unit,” she replied.
Michael winked at her, but his attention was soon turned back to the television. Alyssa followed his line of site and saw that their handiwork from the night before had been noticed. She smiled to herself, pleased that Max’s plan was working.
“It’s a miracle,” a woman on the television said, her eyes glazed over. “Only God could have done such a thing.”
“Tired of God taking all the credit for your work?” Michael asked Max with a snort.
“That’s sacrilegious,” Max chided lightly.
Michael shrugged. “First a whole ward of sick kids and now this.”
Max gave him a glance of dismissal and returned to the television. The rest of the story panned out that there were those who believed it a miracle, those who believed a magician was at work – and of course those who now believed the original collapse of the Old Man had been a government conspiracy and subsequent cover up that it had never actually fallen.
“How could the government conspire to hide something that big for that long?” Michael scoffed as the news anchor switched to another story.
“I guess it’s possible with the technology we have now,” Jesse mused. “You could always cover the mountain with an elaborately painted covering of some kind, to give the illusion it’s not there anymore.”
“And it wouldn’t blow off in twenty year’s time?” Michael countered.
“Sh!” Max said suddenly, sitting forward on the couch and turning up the volume on the television.
“In other news,” the anchor began, “New Hampshire authorities are on the lookout for two men who abducted a patient from her bed last night.”
Alyssa looked quickly to Nate, who had gone pale.
The television showed a jerky, black and white surveillance recording of Nate carrying Alyssa down the hall, Jeremy in tow. The images were blurry, but anyone who knew Nate or Jeremy would immediately recognize them. Alyssa watched in disbelief as they walked right by a couple of nurses who didn’t even give them a second glance. The images shifted to a view of the emergency room, of Nate simply walking out the door with her, no one even looking their way.
“It is unclear how the men managed to get in and out of the hospital unseen, and the hospital has declined to comment at this time. If you recognize the men seen in the surveillance recording, or have any information, please contact the Portsmouth Police Department immediately.”
The room had fallen deathly silent. Alyssa could hear Nate breathing beside her, his breath uneven and nervous. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that both Michael and Max were looking at Nate. She turned slowly in their direction and found two different expressions – Max’s was questioning while Michael’s was accusing. On the floor, Jesse’s eyes were round and somewhat spooked. Jeremy was covering his face with one hand.
Alyssa slid her hand into Nate’s in an act of support. His palm was starting to sweat – he was hiding something.
After a few tense moments, Max cleared his throat. “I think we were all so happy to see Alyssa here and so anxious to help her that we never stopped to ask you how you’d managed to get her here, Nate.” His words were soft and non-confrontational.
Nate swallowed and looked down at the worn carpet.
“What the fu-“ Michael started, but Max held up a hand in his direction, silencing him.
Alyssa tensed, waiting for another Max and Michael argument or another Nate bashing from her father. There was only one way Nate had managed to get her past those nurses – and when that fact was finally spoken aloud, there was going to be hell to pay. Inside, her heart sank to her toes.
One of Nate’s worst fears had come true.
She gripped her fingers tighter around his and tried to paste on a smile. “Does it matter how he got me out of the hospital?” she offered meekly.
The silence that ensued answered her question. Yes, it mattered. A lot.
Jesse turned to Jeremy. “Jeremy, what did you have to do with this?”
Jeremy dropped his hand and gave Nate a glance that said it all – Sorry, Dude. “Not much, Dad,” he mumbled.
Every eye in the room shifted back to Nate. Alyssa felt the sudden need to protect, like at any moment someone was going to try to shoot him and she was going to need to block the bullet.
“What did you do?” Michael demanded, his voice low but strained.
Nate looked helplessly at Alyssa, apology evident in his blue eyes. At times like these, she thought he looked so like his father it was uncanny – that need to take responsibility and atone for things simply being the way they were.
“I don’t know,” Nate finally answered. He glanced at Michael, then to Max. “That’s the truth. I just told myself that they couldn’t see me…and they couldn’t.”
Michael jabbed a finger at the television. “Well, apparently you don’t have the ability to go invisible because the fucking security camera caught you, Junior!”
Nate cringed and Alyssa looked down in embarrassment, embarrassment for Nate’s ass-chewing and embarrassment for her father’s behavior.
Without reprimand, Max rose to his feet and gestured to Nate. “Come with me,” he said quietly.
Nate gave Alyssa a startled glance then looked up at Max, whose expression had gone gentle and kind once again.
“Let’s go talk, Nate,” Max offered.
Nate stood up, gave Alyssa’s fingers one last squeeze before letting go of her.
Max looked pointedly at Michael. “I’ll take care of this,” he said, his voice no-nonsense. “You stay out of it. Understood?”
Michael pursed his lips but didn’t respond otherwise.
As Alyssa watched Nate disappear outside with Max, she realized her heart was thumping erratically in her chest – too much stress and lack of food. As a result, her head was light again and she felt the urge to put her head between her knees.
“I knew it,” Michael mumbled. “I fucking knew it.”
Jesse pushed himself from the floor and turned off the television set. “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on the kid?”
“That’s just grand,” Michael spat at the attorney. “You weren’t around for Alex’s death. You didn’t see what that little bitch did to him.”
“You’re right, I didn’t,” Jesse agreed calmly.
“Then how about you not judge me for ‘being too hard on the kid’? I lived it, Jesse. I know what mindwarping can do to people.”
“I realize that. But guns don’t kill, Michael – people do.”
Michael blew out a sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve told Maxwell all along that even though Nate is his kid, he’s Tess’s too. Don’t you think that he inherited some of her personality traits as well?”
Alyssa felt a stab inside that Michael could speak so badly of the man she loved and bitter tears rose to her eyes.
“Tess didn’t raise Nate,” Jesse argued easily.
“You’re assuming that nurture trumps nature, Jesse,” Michael said. “Well, I think we just saw that Nate definitely inherited some of Tess’s nature, regardless of how he was nurtured.”
Jesse gave up the argument, whether to save having a scene while they were guests in someone else’s home, or if he saw it was pointless, Alyssa wasn’t sure. Shortly, Linda appeared at the door and said something in Spanish to him.
“Linda has lunch prepared,” he announced quietly. “She says we can eat in the kitchen.” Jesse gave Michael one final glance, then motioned for Jeremy to follow him into the other room.
Alyssa wanted to follow them simply because she was famished. But now a black cloud hung over the couch, over her and her father. It was the proverbial elephant in the living room.
“Nate’s a good man, Daddy,” she offered softly.
“Nate’s a mindwarper,” Michael threw back. “That in itself will keep him from being a good man.”
tbc
Alyssa was awake, staring at the rafters of the basement. Above her, she heard the TV and a few voices every now and then. Her arms were empty – Nate must have gone upstairs with the others.
Drawing in a deep breath of courage, she swung her legs over the side of the cot and immediately regretted it – the room spun and she had to lower her head to keep from passing out. It wasn’t the disease this time – she was just really hungry. Thinking back over the last couple of days, she realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. In response, her tummy rumbled and she put her hand over it in a reflex to stop it.
Thoughts of an empty belly vanished quickly, however, as she realized she was now empty in more ways than one. Max’s powers had healed the trauma from the DNC, but he couldn’t mend the emotional impact of having lost Nate’s child. It was too soon in their relationship to have a baby; she knew that much. Hell, she couldn’t even explain how it had happened. She’d been nothing but diligent about taking her pills, but somehow she’d managed to conceive anyway.
Then again, every protective method known to man hadn’t prevented Liz Evans from becoming pregnant.
Nate had told Alyssa that his mother had always told him that everything happened for a reason. What was the reason for this? If they weren’t meant to have a baby yet, then why had she gotten pregnant? What had been the purpose of that pregnancy if she was only going to lose the baby in the end?
It had brought her and Nate back together.
A little startled, Alyssa lifted her head and looked at nothingness while the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Was that it? Was Nate destined to pluck her from that hospital because there was some need for them to be together? Had some force out there in the cosmos used an innocent life as an means to an end?
Alyssa shivered against the creepiness of the thought and decided she didn’t like being alone in the basement anymore. Cognizant of her haste in sitting up, she slowly pushed herself to her feet and padded over to the steps. She took them slowly until she was at the top, slightly winded. She gripped the door handle for a moment, then slid outside.
Bright sunlight greeted her and she winced against it. She hadn’t planned on the stairwell leading to the outside, but it had. Only a few feet away were the steps to a side door, so she bounded over the snow on her bare tiptoes and hopped up the steps. Soon she was inside of a warm kitchen, a Latino woman looking at her in surprise.
“Linda,” the woman said in a heavy accent.
“Oh, um, Alyssa,” she offered, trying to smile in a friendly, we-come-in-peace kind of way. Past the woman’s shoulder, she saw Jeremy peek around the doorway and excused herself.
In the living room, Nate immediately jumped to his feet and met her at the doorway. His face was full of worry but it wasn’t exclusively for her this time – he’d looked that way before he’d caught sight of her.
“Sit here on the couch,” he offered, helping her into a seat beside Max.
“Offspring,” Michael said, grinning at her.
Inside, Alyssa glowed. She knew that Nate hated Michael. She knew that sometimes Max only tolerated Michael. But she loved her dad, more than she could make them understand. Well, maybe not Max because Max had been with Michael since the beginning. But Nate would never get it.
There was no way she could make him see that when Maria had been out pushing her album, when Maria had been out trying to get a record contract, it had been Michael who had cared for their daughter. He fed her and bathed her and put ribbons in her hair. It had been Michael who read bedtime stories to her, who had checked the closet for monsters every night before turning out the light. Michael had bandaged her skinned knees and let her cry on his broad shoulder when kids at school picked at her for being a little odd.
Alyssa would never be able to make Nate see those things because Michael never let Nate see that he was anything but a brute.
“Parental Unit,” she replied.
Michael winked at her, but his attention was soon turned back to the television. Alyssa followed his line of site and saw that their handiwork from the night before had been noticed. She smiled to herself, pleased that Max’s plan was working.
“It’s a miracle,” a woman on the television said, her eyes glazed over. “Only God could have done such a thing.”
“Tired of God taking all the credit for your work?” Michael asked Max with a snort.
“That’s sacrilegious,” Max chided lightly.
Michael shrugged. “First a whole ward of sick kids and now this.”
Max gave him a glance of dismissal and returned to the television. The rest of the story panned out that there were those who believed it a miracle, those who believed a magician was at work – and of course those who now believed the original collapse of the Old Man had been a government conspiracy and subsequent cover up that it had never actually fallen.
“How could the government conspire to hide something that big for that long?” Michael scoffed as the news anchor switched to another story.
“I guess it’s possible with the technology we have now,” Jesse mused. “You could always cover the mountain with an elaborately painted covering of some kind, to give the illusion it’s not there anymore.”
“And it wouldn’t blow off in twenty year’s time?” Michael countered.
“Sh!” Max said suddenly, sitting forward on the couch and turning up the volume on the television.
“In other news,” the anchor began, “New Hampshire authorities are on the lookout for two men who abducted a patient from her bed last night.”
Alyssa looked quickly to Nate, who had gone pale.
The television showed a jerky, black and white surveillance recording of Nate carrying Alyssa down the hall, Jeremy in tow. The images were blurry, but anyone who knew Nate or Jeremy would immediately recognize them. Alyssa watched in disbelief as they walked right by a couple of nurses who didn’t even give them a second glance. The images shifted to a view of the emergency room, of Nate simply walking out the door with her, no one even looking their way.
“It is unclear how the men managed to get in and out of the hospital unseen, and the hospital has declined to comment at this time. If you recognize the men seen in the surveillance recording, or have any information, please contact the Portsmouth Police Department immediately.”
The room had fallen deathly silent. Alyssa could hear Nate breathing beside her, his breath uneven and nervous. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that both Michael and Max were looking at Nate. She turned slowly in their direction and found two different expressions – Max’s was questioning while Michael’s was accusing. On the floor, Jesse’s eyes were round and somewhat spooked. Jeremy was covering his face with one hand.
Alyssa slid her hand into Nate’s in an act of support. His palm was starting to sweat – he was hiding something.
After a few tense moments, Max cleared his throat. “I think we were all so happy to see Alyssa here and so anxious to help her that we never stopped to ask you how you’d managed to get her here, Nate.” His words were soft and non-confrontational.
Nate swallowed and looked down at the worn carpet.
“What the fu-“ Michael started, but Max held up a hand in his direction, silencing him.
Alyssa tensed, waiting for another Max and Michael argument or another Nate bashing from her father. There was only one way Nate had managed to get her past those nurses – and when that fact was finally spoken aloud, there was going to be hell to pay. Inside, her heart sank to her toes.
One of Nate’s worst fears had come true.
She gripped her fingers tighter around his and tried to paste on a smile. “Does it matter how he got me out of the hospital?” she offered meekly.
The silence that ensued answered her question. Yes, it mattered. A lot.
Jesse turned to Jeremy. “Jeremy, what did you have to do with this?”
Jeremy dropped his hand and gave Nate a glance that said it all – Sorry, Dude. “Not much, Dad,” he mumbled.
Every eye in the room shifted back to Nate. Alyssa felt the sudden need to protect, like at any moment someone was going to try to shoot him and she was going to need to block the bullet.
“What did you do?” Michael demanded, his voice low but strained.
Nate looked helplessly at Alyssa, apology evident in his blue eyes. At times like these, she thought he looked so like his father it was uncanny – that need to take responsibility and atone for things simply being the way they were.
“I don’t know,” Nate finally answered. He glanced at Michael, then to Max. “That’s the truth. I just told myself that they couldn’t see me…and they couldn’t.”
Michael jabbed a finger at the television. “Well, apparently you don’t have the ability to go invisible because the fucking security camera caught you, Junior!”
Nate cringed and Alyssa looked down in embarrassment, embarrassment for Nate’s ass-chewing and embarrassment for her father’s behavior.
Without reprimand, Max rose to his feet and gestured to Nate. “Come with me,” he said quietly.
Nate gave Alyssa a startled glance then looked up at Max, whose expression had gone gentle and kind once again.
“Let’s go talk, Nate,” Max offered.
Nate stood up, gave Alyssa’s fingers one last squeeze before letting go of her.
Max looked pointedly at Michael. “I’ll take care of this,” he said, his voice no-nonsense. “You stay out of it. Understood?”
Michael pursed his lips but didn’t respond otherwise.
As Alyssa watched Nate disappear outside with Max, she realized her heart was thumping erratically in her chest – too much stress and lack of food. As a result, her head was light again and she felt the urge to put her head between her knees.
“I knew it,” Michael mumbled. “I fucking knew it.”
Jesse pushed himself from the floor and turned off the television set. “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on the kid?”
“That’s just grand,” Michael spat at the attorney. “You weren’t around for Alex’s death. You didn’t see what that little bitch did to him.”
“You’re right, I didn’t,” Jesse agreed calmly.
“Then how about you not judge me for ‘being too hard on the kid’? I lived it, Jesse. I know what mindwarping can do to people.”
“I realize that. But guns don’t kill, Michael – people do.”
Michael blew out a sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve told Maxwell all along that even though Nate is his kid, he’s Tess’s too. Don’t you think that he inherited some of her personality traits as well?”
Alyssa felt a stab inside that Michael could speak so badly of the man she loved and bitter tears rose to her eyes.
“Tess didn’t raise Nate,” Jesse argued easily.
“You’re assuming that nurture trumps nature, Jesse,” Michael said. “Well, I think we just saw that Nate definitely inherited some of Tess’s nature, regardless of how he was nurtured.”
Jesse gave up the argument, whether to save having a scene while they were guests in someone else’s home, or if he saw it was pointless, Alyssa wasn’t sure. Shortly, Linda appeared at the door and said something in Spanish to him.
“Linda has lunch prepared,” he announced quietly. “She says we can eat in the kitchen.” Jesse gave Michael one final glance, then motioned for Jeremy to follow him into the other room.
Alyssa wanted to follow them simply because she was famished. But now a black cloud hung over the couch, over her and her father. It was the proverbial elephant in the living room.
“Nate’s a good man, Daddy,” she offered softly.
“Nate’s a mindwarper,” Michael threw back. “That in itself will keep him from being a good man.”
tbc
Last edited by Midwest Max on Sun Mar 27, 2005 8:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Fourteen
Nate dropped down to the bottom step of the basement stairs, his head falling into his hands as he sat. Max had descended the stairs in front of him and Nate got the sense of him turning around to address his son…or grill him, he wasn’t sure which. When neither inquisition nor grilling came, Nate lifted his head in curiosity, his face wrought with a mix of anger, shame and trepidation.
“How long has this been happening?” Max asked quietly, his voice holding no accusation or confrontation.
Nate frowned. Sometimes he thought it might be better if Max just went off on him. Always being the negotiating kind of parent was starting to become hard to deal with. Simply because Nate wanted to be defensive and Max never gave him an avenue by which to do that. Michael Guerin was capable of letting Nate be irrational, but never understanding, cautious Max.
“Just this morning,” Nate answered somberly. “I didn’t even know what I was doing. It just happened. At the time, I didn’t really care, but then…” His words drifted off as every uncertainty that had been plaguing him all morning came back to him.
Max sat down on one of the nearby cots and folded his hands between his knees. “Is that why you were asking me who your parents were?”
Nate nodded, looked away in shame.
“You thought maybe you weren’t really the son of a hybrid?”
Nate shrugged. “Well, Aubrey’s not a hybrid, but she can disappear. It’s a part of her race, apparently.”
“And you thought maybe Tess Harding wasn’t your mother and that you were born of someone like Aubrey?”
Nate nodded and turned his eyes to the floor. Even though Max’s tone didn’t hold any ridicule, having Nate’s fears voiced aloud made them sound ridiculous enough. Max sighed heavily, prompting Nate to look at him and what he saw there was a surprise. Max was disappointed. Max was disappointed in him.
“I haven’t lied to you,” Max said levelly. “Anything you’ve asked me, I’ve answered honestly. Tess was your mother. I am your father. Plain and simple. I’m sorry if that upsets you.”
Nate sat up a little straighter. I wasn’t disappointment on Max’s face – it was hurt. He had taken Nate’s questioning as an insult. “Max, I’m not sorry you’re my dad. I didn’t mean that.”
Max was silent as he waited for his son to continue.
“I just…it was just easier…” Nate sighed and looked back to the floor. There was no way he could say this without doing more damage.
“It was easier to believe I lied to you than to accept that you got Tess’s power.” Max’s words were quiet, understanding.
Nate met his eyes and nodded. Inside, he felt a pang of guilt and another jab of shame – every ounce of immaturity he possessed had come to the fore in the last few hours.
Max’s gaze was steady while he contemplated his son’s feelings. “I thought maybe this might happen some day,” he confessed after a long silence. Nate lifted his eyebrows in interest. “You are your mother’s son, Nate. Genetically speaking. I have wondered if maybe you got one of her gifts, and now I can see that you did.”
Nate snorted. “Gift? You call this a gift?”
“Well, it’s all in how you look at it. Any gift can be a curse, if you let it be. It all depends on how you use it, what you do with it. Healing can be a curse – that’s why we decided not to let the real world know we can heal. Once the world knew that, we would stand the chance of being exploited or blackmailed, or God knows what. I’ve already seen it, Nate. I’ve already been coerced into using my power by some pretty nasty people.” Max shook his head in disgust. “And just because we can heal, doesn’t that mean that we can also kill pretty easily?”
Nate sat silently, listening to Max’s years of experience on the subject.
“You’re a good man,” Max continued. “I know you wouldn’t use a power to do bad things.”
“Michael doesn’t agree with you,” Nate pointed out.
At that, Max bit the inside of his mouth and let out a deep breath. “Nate, you don’t understand about Michael.”
“I don’t want to understand about Michael.” Ugh! Was he really going to defend the guy now?
“You need to.”
Nate scowled.
“I’m not going to make apologies for Michael. He can be a jerk – I won’t argue with you there. But Michael doesn’t trust anyone. Not anymore. It was hard for him to trust anyone at all, and once he decided he could, he saw some very bad things happen. He won’t make that mistake again.”
“I don’t want his trust,” Nate said. He’d meant what he’d said earlier in the day – he was done dealing with Michael Guerin.
“You’re going to need it.”
Nate stopped short, the tone in Max’s voice putting a halt to his next protest.
“Michael’s suspicious attitude has kept him – and the rest of us – alive for a long time. When push comes to shove, you’re going to want him on your side, Nate.”
Nate cocked his head, eyes narrowed. “And if push came to shove and he wasn’t on my side, are you saying he would let me die? Or that he’d kill me himself?”
“Michael isn’t going to kill you.”
“But he’d let someone else.”
Max ran a hand through his dark hair and stared at the wall for a long moment; Nate had to wonder if his patience was finally coming to an end. It must be an uncomfortable place to be in – between your best friend and your son.
“He – he just associates you with Tess,” Max finally said, struggling for an explanation. “He knows what that power is capable of. He lost a good friend because of it.”
“I’m not Tess,” Nate said, his jaw set.
Max sighed. “I know. I know you’re not.”
“Well, that’s comforting, Max. How do I get the rest of the world to know it?”
“Stop keeping secrets for one. It makes you look guilty.”
Nate threw a hand into the air. “What was I supposed to do? Come waltzing in here and just announce that I thought maybe I could mindwarp? It wasn’t the first thing on my mind, Max. In case you’ve forgotten, Alyssa was pretty sick when I got here this morning.”
Max set his jaw and paused for a moment. “There’s no talking to you like this, Nate.”
“What does that mean?” Even as the words left his mouth, Nate realized he sounded childish and defensive.
“You’re irritated. You’re angry with Michael. You’re confused about this new power you have. I’m trying to talk to you man to man, but you’re being belligerent and argumentative.” Max’s words were slow and no-nonsense, but without reprimand and Nate hung his head. “When you decide you want to talk about this, let me know. But for now I think you need some time to cool off.”
Max rose to his feet and approached the stairs, waited for Nate to move out of his way. Guilt flooding his body, Nate sighed instead.
“I wish this all could have been different,” he said glumly. “I wish that so much”
To Nate’s surprise, Max chuckled. “I know the feeling, Nate.” Offering an unspoken truce, he reached out and put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “You’re not alone in this. We’ve all had to learn to use our powers, to learn to trust one another.”
“But…who am I going to learn from?” Nate asked in despair. “From what I gather, I’m the only one with this mindwarping thing. There’s no one to help me.”
At that comment, Max withdrew slightly, sending a surge of disbelief through Nate.
“Max?”
Max swallowed as a look of absolute reluctance passed over his handsome face. “As I said before, Nate, you’re not alone in this.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying there’s someone who can help you.”
Nate was about to inquire further, but the door at the top of the stairs opened with a rush of cold winter air. Both men turned to look up at Jesse, who was standing in the doorway.
“Max,” he called. “Susan is on the phone. She wants to talk to you.”
Nate felt a jolt of excitement inside. Was she calling to tell them that their interview had been accepted somewhere? The excitement turned to worry – what if she was calling to set a trap of some kind? Immediately, his stomach hurt. Was the rollercoaster ride never going to end?
“Let’s go,” Max urged, gesturing for Nate to move out of his way.
The men raced up the stairs and into the kitchen, where Linda was holding out the phone for Max. Michael, Jeremy and Alyssa had gathered in the doorway, their expressions identical in their mixture of curiosity and anxiety.
Ignoring several glares from Michael, Nate crossed the room and put his arm around Alyssa. She still seemed weak on her feet and there was no way he was going to let Neanderthal Guerin keep him from supporting her. The group listened intently while Max conversed with Susan, his words and expression not revealing much as to what was going on. After a few minutes, he hung up and turned to face the group.
“Well,” he sighed. “I guess that’s that.”
“What happened?” Michael demanded.
Max glanced at them in turn as he spoke. “CNN has agreed to air our interview. Tonight, we officially come out of the closet.”
tbc
*borrowed a line from "Departure"
Nate dropped down to the bottom step of the basement stairs, his head falling into his hands as he sat. Max had descended the stairs in front of him and Nate got the sense of him turning around to address his son…or grill him, he wasn’t sure which. When neither inquisition nor grilling came, Nate lifted his head in curiosity, his face wrought with a mix of anger, shame and trepidation.
“How long has this been happening?” Max asked quietly, his voice holding no accusation or confrontation.
Nate frowned. Sometimes he thought it might be better if Max just went off on him. Always being the negotiating kind of parent was starting to become hard to deal with. Simply because Nate wanted to be defensive and Max never gave him an avenue by which to do that. Michael Guerin was capable of letting Nate be irrational, but never understanding, cautious Max.
“Just this morning,” Nate answered somberly. “I didn’t even know what I was doing. It just happened. At the time, I didn’t really care, but then…” His words drifted off as every uncertainty that had been plaguing him all morning came back to him.
Max sat down on one of the nearby cots and folded his hands between his knees. “Is that why you were asking me who your parents were?”
Nate nodded, looked away in shame.
“You thought maybe you weren’t really the son of a hybrid?”
Nate shrugged. “Well, Aubrey’s not a hybrid, but she can disappear. It’s a part of her race, apparently.”
“And you thought maybe Tess Harding wasn’t your mother and that you were born of someone like Aubrey?”
Nate nodded and turned his eyes to the floor. Even though Max’s tone didn’t hold any ridicule, having Nate’s fears voiced aloud made them sound ridiculous enough. Max sighed heavily, prompting Nate to look at him and what he saw there was a surprise. Max was disappointed. Max was disappointed in him.
“I haven’t lied to you,” Max said levelly. “Anything you’ve asked me, I’ve answered honestly. Tess was your mother. I am your father. Plain and simple. I’m sorry if that upsets you.”
Nate sat up a little straighter. I wasn’t disappointment on Max’s face – it was hurt. He had taken Nate’s questioning as an insult. “Max, I’m not sorry you’re my dad. I didn’t mean that.”
Max was silent as he waited for his son to continue.
“I just…it was just easier…” Nate sighed and looked back to the floor. There was no way he could say this without doing more damage.
“It was easier to believe I lied to you than to accept that you got Tess’s power.” Max’s words were quiet, understanding.
Nate met his eyes and nodded. Inside, he felt a pang of guilt and another jab of shame – every ounce of immaturity he possessed had come to the fore in the last few hours.
Max’s gaze was steady while he contemplated his son’s feelings. “I thought maybe this might happen some day,” he confessed after a long silence. Nate lifted his eyebrows in interest. “You are your mother’s son, Nate. Genetically speaking. I have wondered if maybe you got one of her gifts, and now I can see that you did.”
Nate snorted. “Gift? You call this a gift?”
“Well, it’s all in how you look at it. Any gift can be a curse, if you let it be. It all depends on how you use it, what you do with it. Healing can be a curse – that’s why we decided not to let the real world know we can heal. Once the world knew that, we would stand the chance of being exploited or blackmailed, or God knows what. I’ve already seen it, Nate. I’ve already been coerced into using my power by some pretty nasty people.” Max shook his head in disgust. “And just because we can heal, doesn’t that mean that we can also kill pretty easily?”
Nate sat silently, listening to Max’s years of experience on the subject.
“You’re a good man,” Max continued. “I know you wouldn’t use a power to do bad things.”
“Michael doesn’t agree with you,” Nate pointed out.
At that, Max bit the inside of his mouth and let out a deep breath. “Nate, you don’t understand about Michael.”
“I don’t want to understand about Michael.” Ugh! Was he really going to defend the guy now?
“You need to.”
Nate scowled.
“I’m not going to make apologies for Michael. He can be a jerk – I won’t argue with you there. But Michael doesn’t trust anyone. Not anymore. It was hard for him to trust anyone at all, and once he decided he could, he saw some very bad things happen. He won’t make that mistake again.”
“I don’t want his trust,” Nate said. He’d meant what he’d said earlier in the day – he was done dealing with Michael Guerin.
“You’re going to need it.”
Nate stopped short, the tone in Max’s voice putting a halt to his next protest.
“Michael’s suspicious attitude has kept him – and the rest of us – alive for a long time. When push comes to shove, you’re going to want him on your side, Nate.”
Nate cocked his head, eyes narrowed. “And if push came to shove and he wasn’t on my side, are you saying he would let me die? Or that he’d kill me himself?”
“Michael isn’t going to kill you.”
“But he’d let someone else.”
Max ran a hand through his dark hair and stared at the wall for a long moment; Nate had to wonder if his patience was finally coming to an end. It must be an uncomfortable place to be in – between your best friend and your son.
“He – he just associates you with Tess,” Max finally said, struggling for an explanation. “He knows what that power is capable of. He lost a good friend because of it.”
“I’m not Tess,” Nate said, his jaw set.
Max sighed. “I know. I know you’re not.”
“Well, that’s comforting, Max. How do I get the rest of the world to know it?”
“Stop keeping secrets for one. It makes you look guilty.”
Nate threw a hand into the air. “What was I supposed to do? Come waltzing in here and just announce that I thought maybe I could mindwarp? It wasn’t the first thing on my mind, Max. In case you’ve forgotten, Alyssa was pretty sick when I got here this morning.”
Max set his jaw and paused for a moment. “There’s no talking to you like this, Nate.”
“What does that mean?” Even as the words left his mouth, Nate realized he sounded childish and defensive.
“You’re irritated. You’re angry with Michael. You’re confused about this new power you have. I’m trying to talk to you man to man, but you’re being belligerent and argumentative.” Max’s words were slow and no-nonsense, but without reprimand and Nate hung his head. “When you decide you want to talk about this, let me know. But for now I think you need some time to cool off.”
Max rose to his feet and approached the stairs, waited for Nate to move out of his way. Guilt flooding his body, Nate sighed instead.
“I wish this all could have been different,” he said glumly. “I wish that so much”
To Nate’s surprise, Max chuckled. “I know the feeling, Nate.” Offering an unspoken truce, he reached out and put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “You’re not alone in this. We’ve all had to learn to use our powers, to learn to trust one another.”
“But…who am I going to learn from?” Nate asked in despair. “From what I gather, I’m the only one with this mindwarping thing. There’s no one to help me.”
At that comment, Max withdrew slightly, sending a surge of disbelief through Nate.
“Max?”
Max swallowed as a look of absolute reluctance passed over his handsome face. “As I said before, Nate, you’re not alone in this.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying there’s someone who can help you.”
Nate was about to inquire further, but the door at the top of the stairs opened with a rush of cold winter air. Both men turned to look up at Jesse, who was standing in the doorway.
“Max,” he called. “Susan is on the phone. She wants to talk to you.”
Nate felt a jolt of excitement inside. Was she calling to tell them that their interview had been accepted somewhere? The excitement turned to worry – what if she was calling to set a trap of some kind? Immediately, his stomach hurt. Was the rollercoaster ride never going to end?
“Let’s go,” Max urged, gesturing for Nate to move out of his way.
The men raced up the stairs and into the kitchen, where Linda was holding out the phone for Max. Michael, Jeremy and Alyssa had gathered in the doorway, their expressions identical in their mixture of curiosity and anxiety.
Ignoring several glares from Michael, Nate crossed the room and put his arm around Alyssa. She still seemed weak on her feet and there was no way he was going to let Neanderthal Guerin keep him from supporting her. The group listened intently while Max conversed with Susan, his words and expression not revealing much as to what was going on. After a few minutes, he hung up and turned to face the group.
“Well,” he sighed. “I guess that’s that.”
“What happened?” Michael demanded.
Max glanced at them in turn as he spoke. “CNN has agreed to air our interview. Tonight, we officially come out of the closet.”
tbc
*borrowed a line from "Departure"
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Fifteen
The dream came to him again, the one where his people walked in peace among the peoples of earth. A feeling of calm, of relief washed over him as he accepted the fact that he’d been correct in taking the risk to expose his people.
A new facet came to the dream this time – as he strolled down a sunny city street, he could see Alyssa walking before him, her long blond hair bouncing in the bright sunlight. Laughing, he called her name. She turned, her pretty face bursting wide with a grin. He held out his arms for her, welcoming her into his life, into his soul. Stopping momentarily in her tracks, she changed direction and ran for him, dodging nameless, faceless strangers along the way.
Just out of his grasp, however, she stopped running, her hair settling mournfully around her shoulders as her smile faded and her eyes became wide with regret. He frowned and urged her forward with his hands. Sullen, she turned her gaze to the sidewalk and he followed with his own eyes. Her feet were mired in the cement, so deep that he could no longer see her shoes.
Come to me, Alyssa, he urged, but she simply started to cry, shaking her head. He tried to take another step toward her, but found that the soles of his shoes were glued to the sidewalk. Panic flared inside of him as he strained to reach her.
Then with a shriek, the ground opened up and swallowed her whole…
With a jerk, Nate awoke in the basement of the cameraman’s house. His body was slick with sweat and his heart was doing a mad dance against his ribs. It took a moment for him to realize where he was and when he did, he felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding wash over him. What had he done?
Crammed against him on the tight confines of the cot, Alyssa slept soundlessly, like she was dead. The dream came back to him and for one moment he feared that was truth. Irrationally frantic, he placed his hand against her neck, felt her slow pulse and relaxed a tad. Blowing out some of his anxiety in a long breath, he tried to relax, tried to go back to sleep.
But the memory of the dream, the fear for Alyssa’s health and the chorus of snores around him prevented him from doing so. As it turned out, Jeremy Ramirez had inherited his human father’s nasal issues and had joined the group serenading Nate in the basement. Only Alyssa seemed capable of sleeping without disturbing others.
Sleeping for Nate was futile. After a half hour of struggling with all of his distractions, he disentangled himself from Alyssa, kissed her on the cheek, then slowly padded up the stairs. He tiptoed hurriedly across the cold ground and then entered the kitchen. Linda had left the light on above the stove as a nightlight for her guests, so Nate assumed that movement in that room wouldn’t disturb anyone else in the house. Exhausted, he sat down at the old kitchen table and buried his head in his hands.
Not five hours before, CNN had aired his and Max’s interview, the one where Max claimed responsibility for the reconstruction of the Old Man of the Mountain. Nate hadn’t like the sarcastic tone of the CNN reporter, but Susan had been there to defend her subject and that had been a good thing. She was good at arguing and she’d made them look credible.
But there had been no word since. Nothing. Not a visit from the police, the government or Susan herself. No phone call. Zilch. That troubled Nate.
And it seemed like Nate’s troubles of late were indeed mounting. In fact, he wasn’t sure things had ever been worse – not even when Max had gone missing. At least then, they’d been able to move about freely to look for him. In the end, Max had been found unhealthy but fixable and a mini war had ensued, but it had all turned out okay in the end. Now, everything looked grim.
Alyssa was sick. Alyssa had lost a baby. Various contingents of the alien conspiracy were scattered throughout the country, unreachable. Emma and Jonathan Spencer were finding out in a rather cruel fashion that they’d harbored a fugitive alien for nineteen years. Liz Parker-Evans’ parents were finding out that their daughter had been involved with one for twenty plus. The group who had commandeered the television station was now living in someone’s basement for fear of their lives – and from the lack of contact with the outside world, that didn’t look like it was about to change. Somewhere along the way Nate had developed the power to mindwarp and now Michael Guerin seriously wanted him dead.
Max had alluded to there being another mindwarper, but had been interrupted before he could tell Nate who it was. And with Michael’s murderous streak toward those with that power, Nate could only assume that person’s identity had been kept from him.
Mindwarping wasn’t the only power coming to Nate. As he sat in the stillness of the kitchen, he was suddenly excruciatingly aware of the tick of the clock on the stove, the gentle hum of the refrigerator and the slight buzzing noise of the light over the stove. It was suddenly very clear why all of the snoring had become so distracting – Nate was developing Max’s superhuman hearing.
Lifting an eyebrow in surprise, Nate tried to pick up other sounds, things he might not have noticed normally. Within a few seconds, he realized he could hear Linda breathing softly in her bedroom upstairs. He grinned momentarily, but the glee fell away as he realized that Linda was alone – Jose the cameraman had not returned that day. Which was odd, considering Susan didn’t need a cameraman with her to deliver a tape to CNN…
Before the creepy-crawlies could invade entirely, Nate picked up footsteps on the short expanse of ground between the basement and kitchen doors. As a reflex, he held up his hand palm-out, preparing to raise a shield if he had to in order to defend himself. As he commanded himself to stop hearing other sounds in the house, the back door opened and Alyssa slid in quietly.
“Alyssa,” Nate said in a hurry, dropping his hand and meeting her at the door. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, her eyes puffy with sleep. Unable to stop himself, he placed his palm against her forehead, checking for signs of fever. She laughed lightly and playfully batted his hand away.
“I’m just thirsty,” she said groggily, making her way to the sink.
“Here, sit,” he commanded, pulling out a chair and gesturing for her to sit. “I’ll get your water.”
She rolled her eyes in mock disgust, but sat anyway. Nate retrieved a glass from the drainer and filled it with tap water. As he sat it before her, he gave a little smile.
“I thought maybe all of the snoring down there woke you up,” he said.
Alyssa gulped half the glass thirstily, then looked at him over the rim. Swallowing, she put the glass on the table. “Is that what woke you up?”
Shaking his head, he sat back down in his chair and crossed his arms on the table. “No, not really.” The dream was still vivid and he felt a bit betrayed by it – it was this vision of a peaceful future that had prompted him to concoct this whole scheme, and now it had rudely changed direction on him. He wasn’t sure how to interpret it. “But those guys snore loud enough to wake the dead, don’t you think?” he joked.
Alyssa’s dark eyes were round as she blinked. “Sweetie?”
“Hmm?”
“You snore louder than all of them.”
Nate opened his mouth to protest, then realized that he didn’t have a leg to stand on – how could he tell how loud he snored? Instead, he looked sheepish. “Really?”
Alyssa laughed and nodded her head. Pushing herself from her chair, she rounded the table and climbed into his lap, circled his neck with her arms. “But that’s one of the reasons I love you,” she murmured against his ear.
Closing his eyes, Nate breathed in her scent, wished they were alone somewhere – perhaps a cottage by the sea – without all of the conflict swirling around them. As if in response to his thoughts, she nuzzled his ear with her nose, planted a tiny kiss against his neck.
“Why can’t you sleep?” she whispered to him.
Nate tightened his grasp on her, tried to ignore how close they were in some stranger’s house. “I just think…” he began. “That something’s wrong.”
Alyssa sighed softly and laid her head against his shoulder. “Everything’s wrong, Nate.” Her voice held no accusation, but Nate felt the blame clear down to his bones.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I really thought I was doing something right this time.”
She gently caressed his chest, used her fingertips to outline the muscles he’d spent so much time defining. “You don’t know that you didn’t do something right, Nate. It’s too soon to tell.”
He frowned, knowing she spoke the truth but unable to deny the creeping sensation at the back of his mind. “Why didn’t Jose come home?”
Alyssa lifted her head, thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe he went to New York with Susan.”
“Why? What does she need a cameraman for?”
Another moment while she thought. “Maybe she’s loyal – if this is a break for her, she’ll let the little people come with her. Who knows?” Her brow furrowed. “Are you awake because you’re worried that Jose didn’t come home?”
Nate let out a heavy sigh. “No, it’s not just that.”
Alyssa touched his face with her soft fingers, planted a small kiss against his lips. “What else?” she asked gently. “Tell me, Nate. Let me in.”
He met her dark eyes with his blue ones and saw only a need to help there. If there were a dozen wrong things in Nate’s life, Alyssa was the one true thing that would trump them all. “I can mindwarp,” he said in shame.
There was no judgment in her eyes, however. She studied him silently for a few moments, then gave a light shrug. “Okay.”
“But it’s not okay, Alyssa. Your dad is going to kill me.”
Alyssa frowned slightly. “He’ll have to get through me first.”
Nate’s eyebrows rose in surprise. This was the first time Alyssa had chosen a definite side between Nate and her father. It should have filled him with pride and reassurance, but he only felt guilty about it.
“I can’t ask you to turn on your father,” he said firmly.
“I’m not going to turn on him. I’m just not going to let him hurt you.” She adjusted herself so that she was straddling him, her hands folded behind his neck. Her position may have been overtly sexual, but her expression was all business. “You and I had this discussion, Nate. You powers are what you make them. Anything we can do can be used for evil. And I know you don’t have an evil heart, Nate. You’re not going to use your mindwarping ability to harm anyone.”
He wanted to believe her, he truly did. But he could still see her mother’s face as she’d described Alex Whitman’s early demise. Maria Deluca hated Tess Harding and what she could do. So did Michael. And on some level, Nate had to wonder if Max hated her as well, regardless of the fact that he claimed to be proud to have fathered Nate.
“Who is the other mindwarper?” Nate asked, assuming Alyssa would know. But when her brow furrowed, Nate had the feeling he’d let the cat out of the bag.
“What?”
“Is it you, Alyssa?” He decided to forge ahead, to play out his hand in spite of the fact that he’d just shown his cards.
Alyssa looked no less confused. “I can’t mindwarp, Nate. No one can but you.”
Nate looked past her shoulder, at the clock on the stove - 2:37 A.M. So she didn’t know either. Max’s secret was extremely secure, it would seem.
“Baby,” Alyssa said softly, drawing his attention. “What are you talking about?”
Nate had vowed he would never lie to her. He was going to start now. “Don’t repeat this, okay? I think I may have said something I shouldn’t have.”
She nodded gravely.
“Max told me that he knew of someone who could help me learn to use my power. I assumed it was someone who could mindwarp.”
Alyssa’s mouth was open in shock. She searched his face for a long moment, perhaps looking for insincerity, then let out a breath and looked away. Nate watched her, could practically see the gears turning in her head as she tried to imagine who it could be.
After a long silence, Nate felt weariness sinking into his body and pulled Alyssa tight to him. “It doesn’t matter right now,” he said against her ear. “I’m tired now. Let’s go back to bed – we can deal with this in the morning.”
And when morning came, they had plenty to deal with. Susan called with the news that their interview had reached its target audience.
They finally had the attention they’d been seeking.
tbc
The dream came to him again, the one where his people walked in peace among the peoples of earth. A feeling of calm, of relief washed over him as he accepted the fact that he’d been correct in taking the risk to expose his people.
A new facet came to the dream this time – as he strolled down a sunny city street, he could see Alyssa walking before him, her long blond hair bouncing in the bright sunlight. Laughing, he called her name. She turned, her pretty face bursting wide with a grin. He held out his arms for her, welcoming her into his life, into his soul. Stopping momentarily in her tracks, she changed direction and ran for him, dodging nameless, faceless strangers along the way.
Just out of his grasp, however, she stopped running, her hair settling mournfully around her shoulders as her smile faded and her eyes became wide with regret. He frowned and urged her forward with his hands. Sullen, she turned her gaze to the sidewalk and he followed with his own eyes. Her feet were mired in the cement, so deep that he could no longer see her shoes.
Come to me, Alyssa, he urged, but she simply started to cry, shaking her head. He tried to take another step toward her, but found that the soles of his shoes were glued to the sidewalk. Panic flared inside of him as he strained to reach her.
Then with a shriek, the ground opened up and swallowed her whole…
With a jerk, Nate awoke in the basement of the cameraman’s house. His body was slick with sweat and his heart was doing a mad dance against his ribs. It took a moment for him to realize where he was and when he did, he felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding wash over him. What had he done?
Crammed against him on the tight confines of the cot, Alyssa slept soundlessly, like she was dead. The dream came back to him and for one moment he feared that was truth. Irrationally frantic, he placed his hand against her neck, felt her slow pulse and relaxed a tad. Blowing out some of his anxiety in a long breath, he tried to relax, tried to go back to sleep.
But the memory of the dream, the fear for Alyssa’s health and the chorus of snores around him prevented him from doing so. As it turned out, Jeremy Ramirez had inherited his human father’s nasal issues and had joined the group serenading Nate in the basement. Only Alyssa seemed capable of sleeping without disturbing others.
Sleeping for Nate was futile. After a half hour of struggling with all of his distractions, he disentangled himself from Alyssa, kissed her on the cheek, then slowly padded up the stairs. He tiptoed hurriedly across the cold ground and then entered the kitchen. Linda had left the light on above the stove as a nightlight for her guests, so Nate assumed that movement in that room wouldn’t disturb anyone else in the house. Exhausted, he sat down at the old kitchen table and buried his head in his hands.
Not five hours before, CNN had aired his and Max’s interview, the one where Max claimed responsibility for the reconstruction of the Old Man of the Mountain. Nate hadn’t like the sarcastic tone of the CNN reporter, but Susan had been there to defend her subject and that had been a good thing. She was good at arguing and she’d made them look credible.
But there had been no word since. Nothing. Not a visit from the police, the government or Susan herself. No phone call. Zilch. That troubled Nate.
And it seemed like Nate’s troubles of late were indeed mounting. In fact, he wasn’t sure things had ever been worse – not even when Max had gone missing. At least then, they’d been able to move about freely to look for him. In the end, Max had been found unhealthy but fixable and a mini war had ensued, but it had all turned out okay in the end. Now, everything looked grim.
Alyssa was sick. Alyssa had lost a baby. Various contingents of the alien conspiracy were scattered throughout the country, unreachable. Emma and Jonathan Spencer were finding out in a rather cruel fashion that they’d harbored a fugitive alien for nineteen years. Liz Parker-Evans’ parents were finding out that their daughter had been involved with one for twenty plus. The group who had commandeered the television station was now living in someone’s basement for fear of their lives – and from the lack of contact with the outside world, that didn’t look like it was about to change. Somewhere along the way Nate had developed the power to mindwarp and now Michael Guerin seriously wanted him dead.
Max had alluded to there being another mindwarper, but had been interrupted before he could tell Nate who it was. And with Michael’s murderous streak toward those with that power, Nate could only assume that person’s identity had been kept from him.
Mindwarping wasn’t the only power coming to Nate. As he sat in the stillness of the kitchen, he was suddenly excruciatingly aware of the tick of the clock on the stove, the gentle hum of the refrigerator and the slight buzzing noise of the light over the stove. It was suddenly very clear why all of the snoring had become so distracting – Nate was developing Max’s superhuman hearing.
Lifting an eyebrow in surprise, Nate tried to pick up other sounds, things he might not have noticed normally. Within a few seconds, he realized he could hear Linda breathing softly in her bedroom upstairs. He grinned momentarily, but the glee fell away as he realized that Linda was alone – Jose the cameraman had not returned that day. Which was odd, considering Susan didn’t need a cameraman with her to deliver a tape to CNN…
Before the creepy-crawlies could invade entirely, Nate picked up footsteps on the short expanse of ground between the basement and kitchen doors. As a reflex, he held up his hand palm-out, preparing to raise a shield if he had to in order to defend himself. As he commanded himself to stop hearing other sounds in the house, the back door opened and Alyssa slid in quietly.
“Alyssa,” Nate said in a hurry, dropping his hand and meeting her at the door. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, her eyes puffy with sleep. Unable to stop himself, he placed his palm against her forehead, checking for signs of fever. She laughed lightly and playfully batted his hand away.
“I’m just thirsty,” she said groggily, making her way to the sink.
“Here, sit,” he commanded, pulling out a chair and gesturing for her to sit. “I’ll get your water.”
She rolled her eyes in mock disgust, but sat anyway. Nate retrieved a glass from the drainer and filled it with tap water. As he sat it before her, he gave a little smile.
“I thought maybe all of the snoring down there woke you up,” he said.
Alyssa gulped half the glass thirstily, then looked at him over the rim. Swallowing, she put the glass on the table. “Is that what woke you up?”
Shaking his head, he sat back down in his chair and crossed his arms on the table. “No, not really.” The dream was still vivid and he felt a bit betrayed by it – it was this vision of a peaceful future that had prompted him to concoct this whole scheme, and now it had rudely changed direction on him. He wasn’t sure how to interpret it. “But those guys snore loud enough to wake the dead, don’t you think?” he joked.
Alyssa’s dark eyes were round as she blinked. “Sweetie?”
“Hmm?”
“You snore louder than all of them.”
Nate opened his mouth to protest, then realized that he didn’t have a leg to stand on – how could he tell how loud he snored? Instead, he looked sheepish. “Really?”
Alyssa laughed and nodded her head. Pushing herself from her chair, she rounded the table and climbed into his lap, circled his neck with her arms. “But that’s one of the reasons I love you,” she murmured against his ear.
Closing his eyes, Nate breathed in her scent, wished they were alone somewhere – perhaps a cottage by the sea – without all of the conflict swirling around them. As if in response to his thoughts, she nuzzled his ear with her nose, planted a tiny kiss against his neck.
“Why can’t you sleep?” she whispered to him.
Nate tightened his grasp on her, tried to ignore how close they were in some stranger’s house. “I just think…” he began. “That something’s wrong.”
Alyssa sighed softly and laid her head against his shoulder. “Everything’s wrong, Nate.” Her voice held no accusation, but Nate felt the blame clear down to his bones.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I really thought I was doing something right this time.”
She gently caressed his chest, used her fingertips to outline the muscles he’d spent so much time defining. “You don’t know that you didn’t do something right, Nate. It’s too soon to tell.”
He frowned, knowing she spoke the truth but unable to deny the creeping sensation at the back of his mind. “Why didn’t Jose come home?”
Alyssa lifted her head, thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe he went to New York with Susan.”
“Why? What does she need a cameraman for?”
Another moment while she thought. “Maybe she’s loyal – if this is a break for her, she’ll let the little people come with her. Who knows?” Her brow furrowed. “Are you awake because you’re worried that Jose didn’t come home?”
Nate let out a heavy sigh. “No, it’s not just that.”
Alyssa touched his face with her soft fingers, planted a small kiss against his lips. “What else?” she asked gently. “Tell me, Nate. Let me in.”
He met her dark eyes with his blue ones and saw only a need to help there. If there were a dozen wrong things in Nate’s life, Alyssa was the one true thing that would trump them all. “I can mindwarp,” he said in shame.
There was no judgment in her eyes, however. She studied him silently for a few moments, then gave a light shrug. “Okay.”
“But it’s not okay, Alyssa. Your dad is going to kill me.”
Alyssa frowned slightly. “He’ll have to get through me first.”
Nate’s eyebrows rose in surprise. This was the first time Alyssa had chosen a definite side between Nate and her father. It should have filled him with pride and reassurance, but he only felt guilty about it.
“I can’t ask you to turn on your father,” he said firmly.
“I’m not going to turn on him. I’m just not going to let him hurt you.” She adjusted herself so that she was straddling him, her hands folded behind his neck. Her position may have been overtly sexual, but her expression was all business. “You and I had this discussion, Nate. You powers are what you make them. Anything we can do can be used for evil. And I know you don’t have an evil heart, Nate. You’re not going to use your mindwarping ability to harm anyone.”
He wanted to believe her, he truly did. But he could still see her mother’s face as she’d described Alex Whitman’s early demise. Maria Deluca hated Tess Harding and what she could do. So did Michael. And on some level, Nate had to wonder if Max hated her as well, regardless of the fact that he claimed to be proud to have fathered Nate.
“Who is the other mindwarper?” Nate asked, assuming Alyssa would know. But when her brow furrowed, Nate had the feeling he’d let the cat out of the bag.
“What?”
“Is it you, Alyssa?” He decided to forge ahead, to play out his hand in spite of the fact that he’d just shown his cards.
Alyssa looked no less confused. “I can’t mindwarp, Nate. No one can but you.”
Nate looked past her shoulder, at the clock on the stove - 2:37 A.M. So she didn’t know either. Max’s secret was extremely secure, it would seem.
“Baby,” Alyssa said softly, drawing his attention. “What are you talking about?”
Nate had vowed he would never lie to her. He was going to start now. “Don’t repeat this, okay? I think I may have said something I shouldn’t have.”
She nodded gravely.
“Max told me that he knew of someone who could help me learn to use my power. I assumed it was someone who could mindwarp.”
Alyssa’s mouth was open in shock. She searched his face for a long moment, perhaps looking for insincerity, then let out a breath and looked away. Nate watched her, could practically see the gears turning in her head as she tried to imagine who it could be.
After a long silence, Nate felt weariness sinking into his body and pulled Alyssa tight to him. “It doesn’t matter right now,” he said against her ear. “I’m tired now. Let’s go back to bed – we can deal with this in the morning.”
And when morning came, they had plenty to deal with. Susan called with the news that their interview had reached its target audience.
They finally had the attention they’d been seeking.
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Sixteen
Nate’s stomach was in knots.
Night had fallen on Boston once again, but there would be no hiding in the basement of an ancient New England house this evening. Tonight they would go to meet their possible savior – a government official not associated with the FBI who was intrigued with their story. Outside of the home, an unmarked van waited at the curb, ready to whisk away the conspirators.
Hurried, hushed, foreign conversation in the kitchen drew Nate’s attention from the window. He could see Linda clearly, her face wrought with worry as she spoke rapidly. Every so often, he could see Jesse’s arm or hand at the other side of the doorway as he tried to placate her. Jesse’s words were soft and calm, his tone kind; even though Nate couldn’t understand what he was saying, he imagined that Jesse was trying his best to settle the woman’s nerves.
After all, Jose hadn’t been seen since he’d left the house the day before. Nor had he called.
Nate’s belly clenched again, this time hard enough that he grimaced and placed his palm over it.
“You okay?” Max asked as he shrugged into his coat.
“Yeah, I think I’m fine,” Nate said uneasily. “Just a stomach ache.”
Max gave him a half-smile, possibly remembering Nate’s perpetual stomach ailments and in particular the day they’d met one another – in the guise of a handshake, Max had managed to alleviate his son’s stomach ache without Nate being the wiser.
“We’ll be okay as long as we stick together,” Max reminded, touching his son briefly on the shoulder. “Stay on your toes. And remember that we have Aubrey to help us out.”
Nate nodded mutely, the unknown events to come making him queasy still. God, what if he’d been wrong about all of this… “Isn’t the van a little obvious?” he asked.
Max laughed. “It was the only thing big enough to fit all of us. Relax, Nate. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”
Nate tried to give him a reassuring look, but the threat he saw on Michael Guerin’s face as he entered the room squelched it. On his heels, Jeremy was wide-eyed and curious, though not particularly anxious–looking. Nate would never stop marveling at his cousin’s matter-of-factness when it came to his alien situation. It was like Jeremy had been doing this his whole life.
“Listen, Max,” Nate said quietly. “I wanted to ask you about…um, you know, the person you said could help me.”
Max shot him a surprised glance and gave a shake of his head. “Not now, Nate.” Never before had Nate seen so much pleading in the man’s eyes.
Nate withdrew slightly, his face showing he understood completely. No one else in the room knew about the other mindwarper. Only Max. That narrowed down the field considerably…
Shortly, Jesse entered the living room, ran a hand through his graying, wavy hair. He looked exhausted, like he was a surgeon who’d just told a family that the surgery was a success but the patient died anyway.
“Our ride is here,” Michael said to the attorney.
“Good,” Jesse replied absently.
“What was that all about?” Michael gave a sideways nod toward the kitchen.
“Linda’s worried about Jose,” Jesse confessed.
And so am I, Nate thought grimly.
Michael shrugged. “Didn’t Susan say that they were all okay when she called?”
“Yes, but Linda says that Jose always calls her, even when he’s away.” Jesse glanced at Max. “She’s pretty worried, Max. And pretty convincing.”
Max gave a somber nod of his head. “Noted. For now, we have to play this through. But everybody keep on your guard. Are we ready to go?” He took a quick inventory. “Where’s Alyssa?”
Somewhere, a toilet flushed and Alyssa emerged from the hallway, looking pale and weak. A knife drove straight through Nate’s heart as he moved to help her. He was barely aware of the fact that he’d cut Michael off at the pass, effectively blocking him from his daughter.
“You okay, sweetie?” Nate said softly, taking her warm hand in his.
Alyssa nodded weakly and tried to smile at him, but he could see that her eyes were sort of dull. And her skin was warmer than it should have been – she was running a fever again. But there was no way he was leaving her behind.
“Come on,” he said close to her ear. “I’ll help you.” Then he put his arm around her and started for the door. Along the way, he caught sympathetic looks from Jesse and Max and ignored them – he couldn’t deal with any ill thoughts at this moment.
Outside, the group piled into the van. Behind the wheel was Patrick, Susan’s second camera man. Jesse looked at the others in surprise.
“Hey, man,” he said as he climbed into the middle seat. “Have you seen Jose? Because his wife is really worried.”
Patrick turned slowly to regard him, a process that took way longer than it should have, and gave him the once over. “He’s with Susan. They had work to do.”
Nate felt a shiver crawl up his spine as he pulled Alyssa close to him; she immediately laid her head on his shoulder. The Patrick he’d met before had been a little boisterous and it didn’t make sense that if someone needed to go to Jose’s house, that they wouldn’t send Jose himself. He shot Max a wary glance and Max nodded. The guard was officially up.
Once the side door slid shut, the van jerked into motion, sliding into the night like a thief.
“So, where are we headed?” Michael asked casually, looking out the side window like he hadn’t a concern in the world.
Patrick looked at him in the rearview. “You’ll see when we get there.”
Max glanced at Michael, then gave a friendly chuckle. “We’re kinda at your mercy here. Couldn’t you at least give us a hint?”
“A warehouse,” was all the driver offered.
Nate drew Alyssa closer to him, squeezed her tightly, tried to ignore the nervous thump of his heart. Every one of his senses was on alert and the farther they moved through the dark, the more alert he became.
Within a half hour, the van pulled to a stop before the same warehouse where the interview had been filmed. Nate frowned – why wouldn’t Patrick have told them that? Obviously, he’d been there the night they’d filmed the interview and he’d have known they’d all been there before.
“Ah, the old studio – eh, Patrick?” Michael said as he undid his seatbelt. Nate glanced at him, realized he was baiting their driver. Michael knew something was amiss as well.
Patrick didn’t respond, other than to open his door and step out of the van. “The senator is waiting inside.” With that, he disappeared into the building.
“Senator,” Michael said, giving a tip of his head. “There’s a new detail.”
“Max, I don’t like this,” Jesse said urgently, a perfect contrast to Michael’s cool cynicism.
Max eyed the front of the building, looked toward the roof as though he was looking for snipers.
“Let’s just take the van and go,” Jesse urged.
“Go where?” Michael countered. “Everyone in the fucking world knows who we are now.”
Alyssa cringed at her father’s sudden shift in tone; Nate rubbed her arm in reassurance.
“Michael’s right,” Max agreed. “It could be that we’re all being overly suspicious right now – and for good reason. But we have to go inside just in case this is on the up and up. If it is and we bolt, we automatically become fugitives.”
“And if it’s not on the up and up?” Jesse asked. For the first time, Nate saw a hint of fear in his eyes.
“Then we’re going to be running anyway,” Michael said, giving a nonchalant shrug. “After all, it’s what we do best…” His words trailed off and Nate had to wonder if he was thinking of Maria, of the fact that they might never run into one another again.
“We’re looking suspicious by just sitting here,” Max pointed out as he reached for the door handle. “Keep your eyes open. Michael, you come up front with me. Everyone else stay back until we’re sure what’s going on.”
The night air was crisp as Nate slid onto the street, pulling Alyssa behind him. She shivered once and he grabbed her hand in his, silently telling her that he was going to be there for her. Behind him, Jesse and Jeremy brought up the rear – Nate could hear Jesse muttering something under his breath. A few prayers, perhaps?
Inside of the warehouse, the air seemed colder and damper than it had the night they’d filmed the interview. It was also darker and Nate had to squint to make out anything at all. From the direction of the interview room, they heard voices and started toward that area of the warehouse.
The first face Nate saw belonged to Susan Moore and his stomach unclenched just a tad. She was wearing a stunning Armani suit and a pair of ridiculously high heels – she already looked the part of the successful network news anchor. Behind her was a pudgy, older man, Patrick, and the missing Jose. Nate blew out a sigh of relief – Jose was accounted for now, so maybe everything was okay.
“Hey, there’s my favorite network news anchor,” Michael said in greeting, picking up right where he left off with the flirting.
Alyssa shot him a look of semi-disgust and Nate felt a childish spark of glee that Michael could churn his daughter’s stomach.
Susan turned on one heel and looked skeptically at Michael. Nate expect some flirtatious come back, since the two of them seemed to be sniffing around one another a few nights ago, but Susan’s expression somewhat resembled Alyssa’s in the disgust factor.
“Ah, come on,” Michael said, spreading his arms wide. “You can’t tell me you’re over me already.”
The alarms started to go off in Nate’s head again. Apparently the others were feeling the same way as the air in the room suddenly felt like it was buzzing.
“This is Senator Hodges,” Susan said, ignoring Michael completely.
The senator nodded in their direction, but didn’t address them.
“He’s interested in your cause.”
As Nate studied the woman, he realized that something was missing, something was different. He narrowed his eyes, concentrating.
“You could say he’s very interest in your cause,” she practically purred, approaching Max slowly.
In a move that may have been hierarchy-driven, Michael stepped slightly in front of Max, blocking part of his friend with his body.
The cigarettes! Nate’s eyes popped wide open. The last time he’d seen Susan, she’d been a nervous wreck, knocking down cigarette after cigarette. This person was way too calm. One sniff of the air told Nate that this person hadn’t smoked a cigarette that day.
This person was not Susan!
Before Nate could even lend voice to that thought, “Susan” thrust her hand forward, a bright bolt of energy erupted from her palm.
And hit Michael Guerin in the stomach.
tbc
Nate’s stomach was in knots.
Night had fallen on Boston once again, but there would be no hiding in the basement of an ancient New England house this evening. Tonight they would go to meet their possible savior – a government official not associated with the FBI who was intrigued with their story. Outside of the home, an unmarked van waited at the curb, ready to whisk away the conspirators.
Hurried, hushed, foreign conversation in the kitchen drew Nate’s attention from the window. He could see Linda clearly, her face wrought with worry as she spoke rapidly. Every so often, he could see Jesse’s arm or hand at the other side of the doorway as he tried to placate her. Jesse’s words were soft and calm, his tone kind; even though Nate couldn’t understand what he was saying, he imagined that Jesse was trying his best to settle the woman’s nerves.
After all, Jose hadn’t been seen since he’d left the house the day before. Nor had he called.
Nate’s belly clenched again, this time hard enough that he grimaced and placed his palm over it.
“You okay?” Max asked as he shrugged into his coat.
“Yeah, I think I’m fine,” Nate said uneasily. “Just a stomach ache.”
Max gave him a half-smile, possibly remembering Nate’s perpetual stomach ailments and in particular the day they’d met one another – in the guise of a handshake, Max had managed to alleviate his son’s stomach ache without Nate being the wiser.
“We’ll be okay as long as we stick together,” Max reminded, touching his son briefly on the shoulder. “Stay on your toes. And remember that we have Aubrey to help us out.”
Nate nodded mutely, the unknown events to come making him queasy still. God, what if he’d been wrong about all of this… “Isn’t the van a little obvious?” he asked.
Max laughed. “It was the only thing big enough to fit all of us. Relax, Nate. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”
Nate tried to give him a reassuring look, but the threat he saw on Michael Guerin’s face as he entered the room squelched it. On his heels, Jeremy was wide-eyed and curious, though not particularly anxious–looking. Nate would never stop marveling at his cousin’s matter-of-factness when it came to his alien situation. It was like Jeremy had been doing this his whole life.
“Listen, Max,” Nate said quietly. “I wanted to ask you about…um, you know, the person you said could help me.”
Max shot him a surprised glance and gave a shake of his head. “Not now, Nate.” Never before had Nate seen so much pleading in the man’s eyes.
Nate withdrew slightly, his face showing he understood completely. No one else in the room knew about the other mindwarper. Only Max. That narrowed down the field considerably…
Shortly, Jesse entered the living room, ran a hand through his graying, wavy hair. He looked exhausted, like he was a surgeon who’d just told a family that the surgery was a success but the patient died anyway.
“Our ride is here,” Michael said to the attorney.
“Good,” Jesse replied absently.
“What was that all about?” Michael gave a sideways nod toward the kitchen.
“Linda’s worried about Jose,” Jesse confessed.
And so am I, Nate thought grimly.
Michael shrugged. “Didn’t Susan say that they were all okay when she called?”
“Yes, but Linda says that Jose always calls her, even when he’s away.” Jesse glanced at Max. “She’s pretty worried, Max. And pretty convincing.”
Max gave a somber nod of his head. “Noted. For now, we have to play this through. But everybody keep on your guard. Are we ready to go?” He took a quick inventory. “Where’s Alyssa?”
Somewhere, a toilet flushed and Alyssa emerged from the hallway, looking pale and weak. A knife drove straight through Nate’s heart as he moved to help her. He was barely aware of the fact that he’d cut Michael off at the pass, effectively blocking him from his daughter.
“You okay, sweetie?” Nate said softly, taking her warm hand in his.
Alyssa nodded weakly and tried to smile at him, but he could see that her eyes were sort of dull. And her skin was warmer than it should have been – she was running a fever again. But there was no way he was leaving her behind.
“Come on,” he said close to her ear. “I’ll help you.” Then he put his arm around her and started for the door. Along the way, he caught sympathetic looks from Jesse and Max and ignored them – he couldn’t deal with any ill thoughts at this moment.
Outside, the group piled into the van. Behind the wheel was Patrick, Susan’s second camera man. Jesse looked at the others in surprise.
“Hey, man,” he said as he climbed into the middle seat. “Have you seen Jose? Because his wife is really worried.”
Patrick turned slowly to regard him, a process that took way longer than it should have, and gave him the once over. “He’s with Susan. They had work to do.”
Nate felt a shiver crawl up his spine as he pulled Alyssa close to him; she immediately laid her head on his shoulder. The Patrick he’d met before had been a little boisterous and it didn’t make sense that if someone needed to go to Jose’s house, that they wouldn’t send Jose himself. He shot Max a wary glance and Max nodded. The guard was officially up.
Once the side door slid shut, the van jerked into motion, sliding into the night like a thief.
“So, where are we headed?” Michael asked casually, looking out the side window like he hadn’t a concern in the world.
Patrick looked at him in the rearview. “You’ll see when we get there.”
Max glanced at Michael, then gave a friendly chuckle. “We’re kinda at your mercy here. Couldn’t you at least give us a hint?”
“A warehouse,” was all the driver offered.
Nate drew Alyssa closer to him, squeezed her tightly, tried to ignore the nervous thump of his heart. Every one of his senses was on alert and the farther they moved through the dark, the more alert he became.
Within a half hour, the van pulled to a stop before the same warehouse where the interview had been filmed. Nate frowned – why wouldn’t Patrick have told them that? Obviously, he’d been there the night they’d filmed the interview and he’d have known they’d all been there before.
“Ah, the old studio – eh, Patrick?” Michael said as he undid his seatbelt. Nate glanced at him, realized he was baiting their driver. Michael knew something was amiss as well.
Patrick didn’t respond, other than to open his door and step out of the van. “The senator is waiting inside.” With that, he disappeared into the building.
“Senator,” Michael said, giving a tip of his head. “There’s a new detail.”
“Max, I don’t like this,” Jesse said urgently, a perfect contrast to Michael’s cool cynicism.
Max eyed the front of the building, looked toward the roof as though he was looking for snipers.
“Let’s just take the van and go,” Jesse urged.
“Go where?” Michael countered. “Everyone in the fucking world knows who we are now.”
Alyssa cringed at her father’s sudden shift in tone; Nate rubbed her arm in reassurance.
“Michael’s right,” Max agreed. “It could be that we’re all being overly suspicious right now – and for good reason. But we have to go inside just in case this is on the up and up. If it is and we bolt, we automatically become fugitives.”
“And if it’s not on the up and up?” Jesse asked. For the first time, Nate saw a hint of fear in his eyes.
“Then we’re going to be running anyway,” Michael said, giving a nonchalant shrug. “After all, it’s what we do best…” His words trailed off and Nate had to wonder if he was thinking of Maria, of the fact that they might never run into one another again.
“We’re looking suspicious by just sitting here,” Max pointed out as he reached for the door handle. “Keep your eyes open. Michael, you come up front with me. Everyone else stay back until we’re sure what’s going on.”
The night air was crisp as Nate slid onto the street, pulling Alyssa behind him. She shivered once and he grabbed her hand in his, silently telling her that he was going to be there for her. Behind him, Jesse and Jeremy brought up the rear – Nate could hear Jesse muttering something under his breath. A few prayers, perhaps?
Inside of the warehouse, the air seemed colder and damper than it had the night they’d filmed the interview. It was also darker and Nate had to squint to make out anything at all. From the direction of the interview room, they heard voices and started toward that area of the warehouse.
The first face Nate saw belonged to Susan Moore and his stomach unclenched just a tad. She was wearing a stunning Armani suit and a pair of ridiculously high heels – she already looked the part of the successful network news anchor. Behind her was a pudgy, older man, Patrick, and the missing Jose. Nate blew out a sigh of relief – Jose was accounted for now, so maybe everything was okay.
“Hey, there’s my favorite network news anchor,” Michael said in greeting, picking up right where he left off with the flirting.
Alyssa shot him a look of semi-disgust and Nate felt a childish spark of glee that Michael could churn his daughter’s stomach.
Susan turned on one heel and looked skeptically at Michael. Nate expect some flirtatious come back, since the two of them seemed to be sniffing around one another a few nights ago, but Susan’s expression somewhat resembled Alyssa’s in the disgust factor.
“Ah, come on,” Michael said, spreading his arms wide. “You can’t tell me you’re over me already.”
The alarms started to go off in Nate’s head again. Apparently the others were feeling the same way as the air in the room suddenly felt like it was buzzing.
“This is Senator Hodges,” Susan said, ignoring Michael completely.
The senator nodded in their direction, but didn’t address them.
“He’s interested in your cause.”
As Nate studied the woman, he realized that something was missing, something was different. He narrowed his eyes, concentrating.
“You could say he’s very interest in your cause,” she practically purred, approaching Max slowly.
In a move that may have been hierarchy-driven, Michael stepped slightly in front of Max, blocking part of his friend with his body.
The cigarettes! Nate’s eyes popped wide open. The last time he’d seen Susan, she’d been a nervous wreck, knocking down cigarette after cigarette. This person was way too calm. One sniff of the air told Nate that this person hadn’t smoked a cigarette that day.
This person was not Susan!
Before Nate could even lend voice to that thought, “Susan” thrust her hand forward, a bright bolt of energy erupted from her palm.
And hit Michael Guerin in the stomach.
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Seventeen
Everything happened so quickly, the next few moments were a blur. Tucking Alyssa beneath him, Nate fell to the floor and threw up his right hand; the green shield immediately presented itself before them. Even as the realization that they’d walked into a trap was taking hold in his mind, he heard Alyssa’s shriek of horror at having seen her father struck down. Panicked but having enough sense of mind to keep the shield in place, Nate quickly looked to his right, where Max had also put up his barrier. Jesse and Jeremy were kneeling beside Michael, who was gasping and making unhealthy, ungodly noises deep in the back of his throat; his dark eyes were fixed blindly on the ceiling.
“Aubrey!” Nate shouted, realizing that these things that were attacking them shouldn’t have been able to get past the protector and her army. He cocked his head, waiting for some response and got none. Frantic, he looked to Max again.
Max’s expression was a stark contrast to Nate’s – while the younger seemed petrified, the elder seemed more than a little pissed at the situation. Nate had never seen so much vengeance, so much hatred in his eyes.
The imposter that called herself Susan let out a little chuckle, which only seemed to infuriate Max more. “Well, well,” she said as she stood without intimidation on the other side of Max’s shield. “The king himself.” She cocked her head in Nate’s direction. “And the boy king. My lucky day.”
“Who are you?” Max asked, his voice strained.
Beneath Nate, Alyssa struggled to get up, her face tear-streaked as she started to crawl toward her father. Nate almost dropped his shield due to the distraction, but managed to keep it up as he reached for her with his free hand. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her back to safety, much to her protests. “Aubrey!” he whispered, his voice strained.
“Who would you like me to be?” the imposter asked. With a light flash, she was suddenly the spitting image of Liz Evans. “Is this more to your liking?”
Max appeared on the verge of vomiting.
“Or maybe – this?” Isabel suddenly appeared, all golden hair and pretty smile.
“What do you want?” Max asked, his words practically strangling in his throat.
The shapeshifter was Susan again and she did not look pleased. “You’re a dumb man, Max Evans. You live with these pie-in-the-sky expectations and yet you can never achieve them. Did you honestly think the rest of the alien nation would go along with your little plan to out yourselves? Did you forget you’re not the only race on this planet?”
Michael gave a choked, gurgling sound and Alyssa let out a cry of grief. “Let me go, Nate!” she begged, reaching for her fallen father.
“I’m sorry, babe. Stay with me,” he whispered, not wanting to draw the attention of Max’s interrogator. After all, he didn’t want to risk seeing Alyssa blasted by this creature.
“The word is already out,” Max said in defiance. “The CNN interview aired last night – the world knows about us.”
Susan laughed. “You saw a CNN interview last night, Max. The world did not.”
Inside, Nate felt hopelessness starting to set in. It had been a trap, from the beginning.
“But Boston knows about us,” Max countered. “That broadcast wasn’t a fake – we did it ourselves. The Boston PD knows about us.”
She waved her hand in the air. “Boston thinks you’re a bunch of crack pots that went off their meds and hijacked a television station. You have quite a following on the internet. It’s really quite amusing.” She put a hand to her mouth as though she was hiding a grin.
Max said nothing, simply set his jaw and chanced a glance at the group on the floor. Nate followed his line of sight and knew exactly what he was thinking – Michael wasn’t going to last much longer if Max didn’t help him, but Max couldn’t drop the shield and expose all of them in order to go to Michael’s aid. The proverbial rock and a hard place.
“I can wait all night,” Susan said, crossing her arms casually. “You’re strong, Max – I know you can keep that shield up for a long time.” She glanced at Nate. “But what about him? How long can he keep it up?”
Nate swallowed, doubt of his abilities rushing to the fore. He commanded himself not to think about her words or he would definitely drop the shield.
“And your friend there? Your second in command?” She shook her head, mocking him. “He’s not looking so good, Max. Then again, he always was the weaker of you two.”
“Where’s Susan?” Max asked, an obvious switching of the subject.
The imposter Susan shrugged. “Dead. She was of no use to us any more.”
“And Patrick and Jose?”
“Feeding the same fishes as the missus.” The shapeshifter gave a giggle that was just off-kilter, not quite human.
“What do you want?” Max repeated.
“What I’ve already got, apparently,” she sighed. “You made a huge mistake, coming forward like you did. We can’t trust you anymore, Max. The threat needs to be eliminated.”
Nate looked anxiously toward the door. Where was Aubrey? He had an irrational fear that she’d somehow betrayed them as well – until now, the protector had seemed infallible, nothing ever got the drop on her.
But something had gotten the drop on Agent Darmon back in South Dakota.
Fear surged through Nate’s veins. He knew, deep inside, that Aubrey was dead. Whatever method they’d used to get to Darmon had been used on her as well. Aggrieved and frightened all at once, he closed his eyes and hung his head. It couldn’t get any worse.
But it did.
Michael’s body convulsed once, twice, then fell silent.
“Michael,” Jesse said, giving him a little shake. “Come on, Michael.” The attorney’s eyes searched the alien’s face, then he deflated visibly.
“Oh, God, no!” Alyssa shrieked. “Daddy!” Tears flooded her eyes as she tried to break away from Nate’s grasp.
“Alyssa, no,” he said firmly, struck to the core that he had to speak so harshly to her to get her to listen to him. “You can’t help him, Alyssa!”
“No! Daddy!” She struggled for a few more moments, then fell into sobs, burying her face in her hands on the cold cement floor.
Susan turned her attention casually toward Nate and Alyssa. “How are you feeling, your highness?” she asked Nate. “Getting tired yet?”
Nate looked away, started counting backwards from one hundred in order to block out her words.
“How about a blast from your past? We already know where Papa’s heart lies. But how about yours?” She looked maliciously at Alyssa, gave Nate a grin and shifted into a visage of Annie O’Donnell.
Nate gasped, the shield momentarily going a little thin before he caught himself and put it back up full force.
“Don’t listen to her, Nate,” Max warned.
“Yes, don’t listen to me, Nate.” Susan walked over to where he was crouched with Alyssa and squatted before him. “After all, you never listened to Annie either, did you? She told you to stay in Roswell and wait for the FBI and you didn’t. She told you not to turn yourself in to the FBI and yet you did. And then you traded her for this –“ She jabbed a finger toward Alyssa.
Nate was on about number seventy-three when Susan did something he totally didn’t expect. She righted herself and slowly transformed into a short, blond woman, someone who should have been familiar to him but wasn’t.
“Oh, Christ!” Max spat. “Nate – don’t listen to her!”
“Do you know who I am, Nate?” Susan asked, her blue eyes innocent, her hair hanging in loose curls around her face.
I’m not going to look at her, Nate decided, knowing Max’s reaction was anything but good.
“Oh,” she cooed dejectedly. “It hurts that you don’t remember me. After all, I did everything I could to protect you.”
Nate’s head snapped up and he looked at her fully. She did seem familiar, sort of…
Susan’s hands roamed over her abdomen. “I carried you here, felt you kick, felt you come alive. Didn’t you always want to meet your mama, Nate?”
Nate let out a startled gasp and started to drop his hand.
“Nathan!” Max shouted. “Don’t listen to her! Goddammit, Nate – look at me!”
“Haven’t you always wanted to give me a hug, ask me about how you were born?” Susan continued, ignoring Max and slowly drawing Nate in. “Don’t you want to know what your home planet is like?”
“Nate!” Max shouted. “She is NOT your mother! She’s playing tricks with your head!”
Nate was mesmerized by her, by the blueness of her eyes. He’d been right – he did have his mother’s blue eyes after all. He was just about to let the shield drop so that he could touch her when something knocked him in the shoulder, nothing more than a strong bolt of static electricity.
Blinking, Nate looked over to see Jeremy with his hand raised, his expression one of relief and disbelief. Nate jerked his head, trying to clear the confusion there, and looked to find the blond woman gone. Susan was there instead, and Alyssa was still on the floor sobbing uncontrollably.
Susan watched him for a moment, then gave another little shrug and walked unhurriedly away. “You did a poor job of hiding the families, Max,” she said.
Max closed his eyes slowly, not wanting to hear what she had to say.
“You had a beautiful baby girl,” she said and Nate cringed at the past tense. “And such a pretty wife.” She cocked her head toward Jesse, who was round-eyed and anxious. “And some day you need to explain why your sons were so weird.” She shuddered. “They were disturbing even by alien terms.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Max said to the group. “She’s just playing games with our heads.”
She smirked lightly. “I thought you’d say that.” She motioned over her shoulder and Jose stepped forward with a bundle of items, which he dumped on the floor.
Nate watched in horror as familiar artifacts spilled onto the concrete – Liz’s journal, Emily’s Winnie the Pooh rattle, a Gameboy belonging to one of the twins. Jesse reached for his son, wrapped his arm around his shoulders and started crossing himself.
“Don’t worry – we’ve caught up with the other group out west as well,” Susan said. “So, I guess it’s just down to you five, eh?” She smiled widely.
“Yeah, but it’s us five against you three!” Jeremy taunted in defiance.
Susan lifted an eyebrow. “Three? Is that what you think?” Her face stretched into a wider grin this time, victory evident in her inhuman eyes.
Nate’s attention shifted over her shoulder, where he could just make out movement in the shadows. He squinted, trying to bring the objects into focus, then realized that the walls themselves were moving. A new level of fear came crashing over him as he saw that little by little, there were beings slowly pulling themselves from the walls, that they had managed to flatten themselves to the structure of the building and blend in with the old, rusty beams.
And there were hundreds of them.
They were going to die. Reaching down, he grabbed Alyssa by the arm and pulled her up against him. She was still racked with grief, her body limp and tired from the illness she’d been suffering. If they were going to die, then they were going to die together.
Behind the other shield, Max turned a resigned, defeated look to his son. Though he didn’t speak, Nate heard his message loud and clear.
Run.
tbc
Everything happened so quickly, the next few moments were a blur. Tucking Alyssa beneath him, Nate fell to the floor and threw up his right hand; the green shield immediately presented itself before them. Even as the realization that they’d walked into a trap was taking hold in his mind, he heard Alyssa’s shriek of horror at having seen her father struck down. Panicked but having enough sense of mind to keep the shield in place, Nate quickly looked to his right, where Max had also put up his barrier. Jesse and Jeremy were kneeling beside Michael, who was gasping and making unhealthy, ungodly noises deep in the back of his throat; his dark eyes were fixed blindly on the ceiling.
“Aubrey!” Nate shouted, realizing that these things that were attacking them shouldn’t have been able to get past the protector and her army. He cocked his head, waiting for some response and got none. Frantic, he looked to Max again.
Max’s expression was a stark contrast to Nate’s – while the younger seemed petrified, the elder seemed more than a little pissed at the situation. Nate had never seen so much vengeance, so much hatred in his eyes.
The imposter that called herself Susan let out a little chuckle, which only seemed to infuriate Max more. “Well, well,” she said as she stood without intimidation on the other side of Max’s shield. “The king himself.” She cocked her head in Nate’s direction. “And the boy king. My lucky day.”
“Who are you?” Max asked, his voice strained.
Beneath Nate, Alyssa struggled to get up, her face tear-streaked as she started to crawl toward her father. Nate almost dropped his shield due to the distraction, but managed to keep it up as he reached for her with his free hand. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her back to safety, much to her protests. “Aubrey!” he whispered, his voice strained.
“Who would you like me to be?” the imposter asked. With a light flash, she was suddenly the spitting image of Liz Evans. “Is this more to your liking?”
Max appeared on the verge of vomiting.
“Or maybe – this?” Isabel suddenly appeared, all golden hair and pretty smile.
“What do you want?” Max asked, his words practically strangling in his throat.
The shapeshifter was Susan again and she did not look pleased. “You’re a dumb man, Max Evans. You live with these pie-in-the-sky expectations and yet you can never achieve them. Did you honestly think the rest of the alien nation would go along with your little plan to out yourselves? Did you forget you’re not the only race on this planet?”
Michael gave a choked, gurgling sound and Alyssa let out a cry of grief. “Let me go, Nate!” she begged, reaching for her fallen father.
“I’m sorry, babe. Stay with me,” he whispered, not wanting to draw the attention of Max’s interrogator. After all, he didn’t want to risk seeing Alyssa blasted by this creature.
“The word is already out,” Max said in defiance. “The CNN interview aired last night – the world knows about us.”
Susan laughed. “You saw a CNN interview last night, Max. The world did not.”
Inside, Nate felt hopelessness starting to set in. It had been a trap, from the beginning.
“But Boston knows about us,” Max countered. “That broadcast wasn’t a fake – we did it ourselves. The Boston PD knows about us.”
She waved her hand in the air. “Boston thinks you’re a bunch of crack pots that went off their meds and hijacked a television station. You have quite a following on the internet. It’s really quite amusing.” She put a hand to her mouth as though she was hiding a grin.
Max said nothing, simply set his jaw and chanced a glance at the group on the floor. Nate followed his line of sight and knew exactly what he was thinking – Michael wasn’t going to last much longer if Max didn’t help him, but Max couldn’t drop the shield and expose all of them in order to go to Michael’s aid. The proverbial rock and a hard place.
“I can wait all night,” Susan said, crossing her arms casually. “You’re strong, Max – I know you can keep that shield up for a long time.” She glanced at Nate. “But what about him? How long can he keep it up?”
Nate swallowed, doubt of his abilities rushing to the fore. He commanded himself not to think about her words or he would definitely drop the shield.
“And your friend there? Your second in command?” She shook her head, mocking him. “He’s not looking so good, Max. Then again, he always was the weaker of you two.”
“Where’s Susan?” Max asked, an obvious switching of the subject.
The imposter Susan shrugged. “Dead. She was of no use to us any more.”
“And Patrick and Jose?”
“Feeding the same fishes as the missus.” The shapeshifter gave a giggle that was just off-kilter, not quite human.
“What do you want?” Max repeated.
“What I’ve already got, apparently,” she sighed. “You made a huge mistake, coming forward like you did. We can’t trust you anymore, Max. The threat needs to be eliminated.”
Nate looked anxiously toward the door. Where was Aubrey? He had an irrational fear that she’d somehow betrayed them as well – until now, the protector had seemed infallible, nothing ever got the drop on her.
But something had gotten the drop on Agent Darmon back in South Dakota.
Fear surged through Nate’s veins. He knew, deep inside, that Aubrey was dead. Whatever method they’d used to get to Darmon had been used on her as well. Aggrieved and frightened all at once, he closed his eyes and hung his head. It couldn’t get any worse.
But it did.
Michael’s body convulsed once, twice, then fell silent.
“Michael,” Jesse said, giving him a little shake. “Come on, Michael.” The attorney’s eyes searched the alien’s face, then he deflated visibly.
“Oh, God, no!” Alyssa shrieked. “Daddy!” Tears flooded her eyes as she tried to break away from Nate’s grasp.
“Alyssa, no,” he said firmly, struck to the core that he had to speak so harshly to her to get her to listen to him. “You can’t help him, Alyssa!”
“No! Daddy!” She struggled for a few more moments, then fell into sobs, burying her face in her hands on the cold cement floor.
Susan turned her attention casually toward Nate and Alyssa. “How are you feeling, your highness?” she asked Nate. “Getting tired yet?”
Nate looked away, started counting backwards from one hundred in order to block out her words.
“How about a blast from your past? We already know where Papa’s heart lies. But how about yours?” She looked maliciously at Alyssa, gave Nate a grin and shifted into a visage of Annie O’Donnell.
Nate gasped, the shield momentarily going a little thin before he caught himself and put it back up full force.
“Don’t listen to her, Nate,” Max warned.
“Yes, don’t listen to me, Nate.” Susan walked over to where he was crouched with Alyssa and squatted before him. “After all, you never listened to Annie either, did you? She told you to stay in Roswell and wait for the FBI and you didn’t. She told you not to turn yourself in to the FBI and yet you did. And then you traded her for this –“ She jabbed a finger toward Alyssa.
Nate was on about number seventy-three when Susan did something he totally didn’t expect. She righted herself and slowly transformed into a short, blond woman, someone who should have been familiar to him but wasn’t.
“Oh, Christ!” Max spat. “Nate – don’t listen to her!”
“Do you know who I am, Nate?” Susan asked, her blue eyes innocent, her hair hanging in loose curls around her face.
I’m not going to look at her, Nate decided, knowing Max’s reaction was anything but good.
“Oh,” she cooed dejectedly. “It hurts that you don’t remember me. After all, I did everything I could to protect you.”
Nate’s head snapped up and he looked at her fully. She did seem familiar, sort of…
Susan’s hands roamed over her abdomen. “I carried you here, felt you kick, felt you come alive. Didn’t you always want to meet your mama, Nate?”
Nate let out a startled gasp and started to drop his hand.
“Nathan!” Max shouted. “Don’t listen to her! Goddammit, Nate – look at me!”
“Haven’t you always wanted to give me a hug, ask me about how you were born?” Susan continued, ignoring Max and slowly drawing Nate in. “Don’t you want to know what your home planet is like?”
“Nate!” Max shouted. “She is NOT your mother! She’s playing tricks with your head!”
Nate was mesmerized by her, by the blueness of her eyes. He’d been right – he did have his mother’s blue eyes after all. He was just about to let the shield drop so that he could touch her when something knocked him in the shoulder, nothing more than a strong bolt of static electricity.
Blinking, Nate looked over to see Jeremy with his hand raised, his expression one of relief and disbelief. Nate jerked his head, trying to clear the confusion there, and looked to find the blond woman gone. Susan was there instead, and Alyssa was still on the floor sobbing uncontrollably.
Susan watched him for a moment, then gave another little shrug and walked unhurriedly away. “You did a poor job of hiding the families, Max,” she said.
Max closed his eyes slowly, not wanting to hear what she had to say.
“You had a beautiful baby girl,” she said and Nate cringed at the past tense. “And such a pretty wife.” She cocked her head toward Jesse, who was round-eyed and anxious. “And some day you need to explain why your sons were so weird.” She shuddered. “They were disturbing even by alien terms.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Max said to the group. “She’s just playing games with our heads.”
She smirked lightly. “I thought you’d say that.” She motioned over her shoulder and Jose stepped forward with a bundle of items, which he dumped on the floor.
Nate watched in horror as familiar artifacts spilled onto the concrete – Liz’s journal, Emily’s Winnie the Pooh rattle, a Gameboy belonging to one of the twins. Jesse reached for his son, wrapped his arm around his shoulders and started crossing himself.
“Don’t worry – we’ve caught up with the other group out west as well,” Susan said. “So, I guess it’s just down to you five, eh?” She smiled widely.
“Yeah, but it’s us five against you three!” Jeremy taunted in defiance.
Susan lifted an eyebrow. “Three? Is that what you think?” Her face stretched into a wider grin this time, victory evident in her inhuman eyes.
Nate’s attention shifted over her shoulder, where he could just make out movement in the shadows. He squinted, trying to bring the objects into focus, then realized that the walls themselves were moving. A new level of fear came crashing over him as he saw that little by little, there were beings slowly pulling themselves from the walls, that they had managed to flatten themselves to the structure of the building and blend in with the old, rusty beams.
And there were hundreds of them.
They were going to die. Reaching down, he grabbed Alyssa by the arm and pulled her up against him. She was still racked with grief, her body limp and tired from the illness she’d been suffering. If they were going to die, then they were going to die together.
Behind the other shield, Max turned a resigned, defeated look to his son. Though he didn’t speak, Nate heard his message loud and clear.
Run.
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Eighteen
Nate wished he didn’t comprehend what he saw in Max’s eyes. He didn’t want to understand what Max was saying -
Nate should save himself. Max’s destiny had come, the final chapter of his life was about to be written.
Defiant, Nate shook his head vigorously.
Max’s eyes were sad, forgiving, grieving all at once. It was the forgiveness that bit Nate straight to the bone. Even now, with death eminent for all of them, Max could find it in his heart to forgive his son for getting them into this mess. Of course, if he were to be asked the reason for that, he would simply shrug and say that the others had followed by choice. Such was Max’s penchant for never placing blame on anyone.
Not even his son, whose bright ideas had gotten them into this predicament.
And that was what hurt Nate the most. If somehow they managed to survive this, he’d never forget the selfless absolution in his father’s eyes. It would haunt him until the day he finally died, because he didn’t deserve to be excused of this. If anyone should stay until the bitter end, it was Nate, not Max.
“You’re losing your concentration, little boy,” Susan the imposter taunted and Nate quickly snapped his attention to her.
Indeed, his shield did look a little less sturdy than it had before. Silently, he sent more energy to it, but fell into despair when he saw it increase only a little.
Susan smiled. “What if I did – this?” With her thumb and forefinger, she made a flicking motion and a tiny bolt of energy flew toward the shield.
Nate cringed but the bolt bounced off harmlessly. It wasn’t without effect however – he felt like someone had just chinked his armor.
And Susan could apparently tell that as her smirk widened. “Or maybe – this?” Another bolt, bigger this time, and Nate had to struggle to keep from letting it break through the barrier.
“Leave him alone!” Max called, drawing Susan’s attention. “Your dispute is with me, not him.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow, then walked without a worry up to Max’s shield – when she stopped, she was all but a few inches from it. “Dispute? I have a dispute with you? How formal of you, Max. The time for discussing disputes is over. Tonight, our biggest dispute will be settled. Once the earth-bound Antarians are eliminated, I’ll have no more disputes.”
Max looked pleadingly at Nate again, who was starting to feel his powers wane. Please run.
Nate’s eyes shifted to the others in the group. Michael was now entirely motionless, the life having left him minutes before. For some reason, Nate was sadder about that than he anticipated he would be. Sure, Michael was an ass and tormented him to no end, but to see him laid out on the floor in a puddle of blood, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, ripped a whole straight through him.
Jesse and Jeremy were now standing behind Max. Jesse looked cool under pressure. Jeremy had the expression of a frightened bunny rabbit.
Quickly, Nate took inventory. Max’s only real defense was to put up the shield. Jesse was human and without powers. Jeremy could blast – there was a plus. Alyssa could blast as well, but Nate doubted she had the strength or the presence of mind to do so – she was still crumbled against his shoulder in grief. And Nate, of course, had the same limitations as his father. That meant that the only weapon the group had was Jeremy.
And it was extremely unfair to leave them in this position.
Max closed his eyes slowly, then looked at the artifacts on the floor – Liz’s journal and the baby rattle. Nate understood that as well – it was possible that Liz and Emily were still alive and Max wasn’t planning on getting out of this one alive. As he had asked Nate once before, he was begging him to take care of his girls.
“I can’t,” Nate whispered, unwelcome tears coming to his eyes.
Susan looked his way, mistaking the failure to mean that he was losing his grip on the shield. Behind her, a hundred conspirators waited to rip him to pieces. “You can’t do it any longer, Boy Wonder?” she asked snidely, flicking another blast his way, taunting him.
Nate set his jaw and didn’t answer her.
Susan began a steady flicking of power bolts, slowly wearing down Nate’s ability to hold the shield.
“Let me get her,” Jeremy sneered.
Max shook his head. It was suicide. He looked pleadingly at Nate again.
Alyssa lifted her head, her eyes nearly swollen shut from crying, her gaunt cheeks streaked with her tears. She hiccupped a couple of sobs as she watched the bolts bouncing from Nate’s shield. Silently, she slid her hand over his and he felt a whole new burst of energy race through him. A grin spread his lips as the shield was reinforced, stronger than it had ever been.
“Thank you, baby,” he murmured gleefully.
Susan cocked one corner of her mouth and snorted. Obviously she wasn’t impressed. “Oh, go ahead,” she said. “Wear yourselves out. You’ll weaken eventually and in the end you’ll be mine. I can wait.” With that, she sat down on an old wooden crate and began to swing her legs back and forth.
Nate’s joy was fleeting as he had to accept that she was right. They couldn’t do this forever. Even though Max showed no signs of tiring, he was beginning to feel the fatigue in his body and Alyssa was so depleted that she probably wouldn’t last much longer either.
Max was looking at him again, pleading.
I can’t do it, Nate thought in anguish. I can’t do it.
“What the fuck?!” Susan suddenly yelped, jumping from the crate. Her gaze was fixed over Nate’s shoulder and he whipped around in search of the disturbance.
Broken, bleeding, and barely alive, Aubrey limped toward him. Pain struck Nate right through the heart to see his loyal servant coming to his rescue, even as she was so clearly dying. Just like her husband had come to Max’s aid as he was dying…
“Nate, go with her!” Max bellowed, his tone making Nate jump visibly.
Aubrey held out a shaking hand to him and he found it unnerving that even as she stood bleeding to death, her expression revealed none of the pain she must have been feeling inside. “Come with me, sir,” she said, her voice hoarse and weak.
Nate shook his head. “I can’t. No. I can’t.” He whipped around to look at Max. “No, Max, I won’t do it.”
A little flicker of anger flared in Max’s eyes. “Aubrey, remove Nate from the premises.”
Nate wanted to laugh in victory. Aubrey answered to him, not Max. Max’s protector, Jackson, was the one who took the king’s orders. Somehow, though, Aubrey was wrapping her hands around Nate’s arm and tugging him to his feet. He looked down at her bloody fingers in disbelief, then shot a betrayed look to his father.
All of the anger was gone from Max’s eyes. All Nate saw there was goodbye.
“No,” Nate begged, struggling to keep the shield up. “Please, no!”
But Aubrey had enough strength left to lift one of her hands toward Susan as she started to pull Nate toward the exit. Nate desperately grabbed for Alyssa – he wasn’t leaving without her.
“Drop him!” Susan commanded.
Aubrey continued her backward retreat and Nate thought how overly confident Susan’s men must have been to not have blocked the entrance. Not very good establishment of a perimeter – Aubrey would be appalled.
Another stab of guilt surged through Nate as he met Jeremy’s frightened eyes. It wasn’t fair that Jeremy should be left here and Nate got to go.
“Aubrey, not without everybody,” Nate pleaded.
“She can’t help everybody,” Jeremy observed, resigned to his fate.
“Jeremy, no!” Nate cried, struggling both with Aubrey and the shield. “Come with us! Max, Jesse, please!” Hot tears burned his cheeks.
The trio behind Max’s shield simply watched with sadness.
Inside, Nate felt his powers waning. Susan must have felt it too, as a bolt raced across the warehouse and blasted his shield into oblivion. Nate’s mouth dropped open in surprise as he grabbed Alyssa closer to him. Her shrieks echoed in the chamber as he waited for the death blow to strike them all.
Within a heartbeat, a blast struck Susan in the shoulder and she fell to the ground, injured but alive. Nate quickly looked to Max and found that he’d dropped his shield – Jeremy had blasted Susan as a distraction.
“Nate, run!” Max shouted, throwing the shield back up.
The army behind Susan started to advance at a steady, menacing pace.
“Goddammit, Nate, I mean it!”
Buoyed by a hope that there might still be a chance to get out of this, that maybe once outside Aubrey had some reserve soldiers or something, Nate quickly began his mantra – They can’t see us. They can’t see us.
“They can’t see us!” Alyssa hissed closed to his ear.
Nate saw that the soldiers had stopped in their tracks, that they were looking around aimlessly. Susan regained her feet, holding her damaged shoulder, and joined the group in looking for her prey.
“Shh,” Nate warned. Even though they couldn’t be seen, they could still be heard.
With an ailing Aubrey leading the way, Nate and Alyssa slid out the front door and into the cold night air. He hadn’t realized how stifling it was in the warehouse until the fresh air touched his skin, filled his lungs. They moved quickly down the block and slid into an alley. Aubrey slumped to the ground, limp as a rag doll.
“Where are the others?” Nate asked quickly, kneeling down next to her.
She blinked slowly as the life drained out of her.
“The others, Aubrey,” he pressed. “Tell me where they are. We have to get back in there and help – “
“No others,” she wheezed tiredly.
“Wh -? No, there has to be more,” Nate protested, glanced at Alyssa, who was nervously surveying the ends of the alley for unexpected guests. “All of those soldiers in the desert that helped save Max. Where are they? We can’t let Max and Jeremy and Jesse die, Aubrey.”
She closed her eyes and showed the first signs of pain. “No others,” she repeated.
Nate’s heart dropped to his toes. The army was gone. There was no one left to command. Fully realizing that his protector was in her last minutes, he quietly took her hand in his.
“I’m sorry,” he said, closing his eyes and squeezing out the tears in them. “I’m sorry I’ve led you to this, Aubrey.”
Aubrey opened her eyes and gave something resembling a smile. The act was so out of place that Nate thought he must have imagined it. “It’s been an honor…sir.” With that, she let out a low gurgle.
And crumbled into dust, some of which was immediately scattered across the alley by the winter winds of Boston.
Nate rose, devastation clouding his being. Alyssa was beside him, looking down at the pile of ash that was Aubrey.
“We’re alone,” he said as she slipped her hand into his. He looked down at her, at her sickly, pale face. “It’s up to us to save them, Alyssa.”
Alyssa’s dark eyes fixed on his chest and she gave a short shake of her head.
“We can’t leave them there. We have to help them.”
She shook her head again, then covered her eyes with her hands as she burst into tears.
Nate followed her gaze and felt his knees wobble beneath him. The seal had returned.
Max was dead.
tbc
Nate wished he didn’t comprehend what he saw in Max’s eyes. He didn’t want to understand what Max was saying -
Nate should save himself. Max’s destiny had come, the final chapter of his life was about to be written.
Defiant, Nate shook his head vigorously.
Max’s eyes were sad, forgiving, grieving all at once. It was the forgiveness that bit Nate straight to the bone. Even now, with death eminent for all of them, Max could find it in his heart to forgive his son for getting them into this mess. Of course, if he were to be asked the reason for that, he would simply shrug and say that the others had followed by choice. Such was Max’s penchant for never placing blame on anyone.
Not even his son, whose bright ideas had gotten them into this predicament.
And that was what hurt Nate the most. If somehow they managed to survive this, he’d never forget the selfless absolution in his father’s eyes. It would haunt him until the day he finally died, because he didn’t deserve to be excused of this. If anyone should stay until the bitter end, it was Nate, not Max.
“You’re losing your concentration, little boy,” Susan the imposter taunted and Nate quickly snapped his attention to her.
Indeed, his shield did look a little less sturdy than it had before. Silently, he sent more energy to it, but fell into despair when he saw it increase only a little.
Susan smiled. “What if I did – this?” With her thumb and forefinger, she made a flicking motion and a tiny bolt of energy flew toward the shield.
Nate cringed but the bolt bounced off harmlessly. It wasn’t without effect however – he felt like someone had just chinked his armor.
And Susan could apparently tell that as her smirk widened. “Or maybe – this?” Another bolt, bigger this time, and Nate had to struggle to keep from letting it break through the barrier.
“Leave him alone!” Max called, drawing Susan’s attention. “Your dispute is with me, not him.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow, then walked without a worry up to Max’s shield – when she stopped, she was all but a few inches from it. “Dispute? I have a dispute with you? How formal of you, Max. The time for discussing disputes is over. Tonight, our biggest dispute will be settled. Once the earth-bound Antarians are eliminated, I’ll have no more disputes.”
Max looked pleadingly at Nate again, who was starting to feel his powers wane. Please run.
Nate’s eyes shifted to the others in the group. Michael was now entirely motionless, the life having left him minutes before. For some reason, Nate was sadder about that than he anticipated he would be. Sure, Michael was an ass and tormented him to no end, but to see him laid out on the floor in a puddle of blood, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, ripped a whole straight through him.
Jesse and Jeremy were now standing behind Max. Jesse looked cool under pressure. Jeremy had the expression of a frightened bunny rabbit.
Quickly, Nate took inventory. Max’s only real defense was to put up the shield. Jesse was human and without powers. Jeremy could blast – there was a plus. Alyssa could blast as well, but Nate doubted she had the strength or the presence of mind to do so – she was still crumbled against his shoulder in grief. And Nate, of course, had the same limitations as his father. That meant that the only weapon the group had was Jeremy.
And it was extremely unfair to leave them in this position.
Max closed his eyes slowly, then looked at the artifacts on the floor – Liz’s journal and the baby rattle. Nate understood that as well – it was possible that Liz and Emily were still alive and Max wasn’t planning on getting out of this one alive. As he had asked Nate once before, he was begging him to take care of his girls.
“I can’t,” Nate whispered, unwelcome tears coming to his eyes.
Susan looked his way, mistaking the failure to mean that he was losing his grip on the shield. Behind her, a hundred conspirators waited to rip him to pieces. “You can’t do it any longer, Boy Wonder?” she asked snidely, flicking another blast his way, taunting him.
Nate set his jaw and didn’t answer her.
Susan began a steady flicking of power bolts, slowly wearing down Nate’s ability to hold the shield.
“Let me get her,” Jeremy sneered.
Max shook his head. It was suicide. He looked pleadingly at Nate again.
Alyssa lifted her head, her eyes nearly swollen shut from crying, her gaunt cheeks streaked with her tears. She hiccupped a couple of sobs as she watched the bolts bouncing from Nate’s shield. Silently, she slid her hand over his and he felt a whole new burst of energy race through him. A grin spread his lips as the shield was reinforced, stronger than it had ever been.
“Thank you, baby,” he murmured gleefully.
Susan cocked one corner of her mouth and snorted. Obviously she wasn’t impressed. “Oh, go ahead,” she said. “Wear yourselves out. You’ll weaken eventually and in the end you’ll be mine. I can wait.” With that, she sat down on an old wooden crate and began to swing her legs back and forth.
Nate’s joy was fleeting as he had to accept that she was right. They couldn’t do this forever. Even though Max showed no signs of tiring, he was beginning to feel the fatigue in his body and Alyssa was so depleted that she probably wouldn’t last much longer either.
Max was looking at him again, pleading.
I can’t do it, Nate thought in anguish. I can’t do it.
“What the fuck?!” Susan suddenly yelped, jumping from the crate. Her gaze was fixed over Nate’s shoulder and he whipped around in search of the disturbance.
Broken, bleeding, and barely alive, Aubrey limped toward him. Pain struck Nate right through the heart to see his loyal servant coming to his rescue, even as she was so clearly dying. Just like her husband had come to Max’s aid as he was dying…
“Nate, go with her!” Max bellowed, his tone making Nate jump visibly.
Aubrey held out a shaking hand to him and he found it unnerving that even as she stood bleeding to death, her expression revealed none of the pain she must have been feeling inside. “Come with me, sir,” she said, her voice hoarse and weak.
Nate shook his head. “I can’t. No. I can’t.” He whipped around to look at Max. “No, Max, I won’t do it.”
A little flicker of anger flared in Max’s eyes. “Aubrey, remove Nate from the premises.”
Nate wanted to laugh in victory. Aubrey answered to him, not Max. Max’s protector, Jackson, was the one who took the king’s orders. Somehow, though, Aubrey was wrapping her hands around Nate’s arm and tugging him to his feet. He looked down at her bloody fingers in disbelief, then shot a betrayed look to his father.
All of the anger was gone from Max’s eyes. All Nate saw there was goodbye.
“No,” Nate begged, struggling to keep the shield up. “Please, no!”
But Aubrey had enough strength left to lift one of her hands toward Susan as she started to pull Nate toward the exit. Nate desperately grabbed for Alyssa – he wasn’t leaving without her.
“Drop him!” Susan commanded.
Aubrey continued her backward retreat and Nate thought how overly confident Susan’s men must have been to not have blocked the entrance. Not very good establishment of a perimeter – Aubrey would be appalled.
Another stab of guilt surged through Nate as he met Jeremy’s frightened eyes. It wasn’t fair that Jeremy should be left here and Nate got to go.
“Aubrey, not without everybody,” Nate pleaded.
“She can’t help everybody,” Jeremy observed, resigned to his fate.
“Jeremy, no!” Nate cried, struggling both with Aubrey and the shield. “Come with us! Max, Jesse, please!” Hot tears burned his cheeks.
The trio behind Max’s shield simply watched with sadness.
Inside, Nate felt his powers waning. Susan must have felt it too, as a bolt raced across the warehouse and blasted his shield into oblivion. Nate’s mouth dropped open in surprise as he grabbed Alyssa closer to him. Her shrieks echoed in the chamber as he waited for the death blow to strike them all.
Within a heartbeat, a blast struck Susan in the shoulder and she fell to the ground, injured but alive. Nate quickly looked to Max and found that he’d dropped his shield – Jeremy had blasted Susan as a distraction.
“Nate, run!” Max shouted, throwing the shield back up.
The army behind Susan started to advance at a steady, menacing pace.
“Goddammit, Nate, I mean it!”
Buoyed by a hope that there might still be a chance to get out of this, that maybe once outside Aubrey had some reserve soldiers or something, Nate quickly began his mantra – They can’t see us. They can’t see us.
“They can’t see us!” Alyssa hissed closed to his ear.
Nate saw that the soldiers had stopped in their tracks, that they were looking around aimlessly. Susan regained her feet, holding her damaged shoulder, and joined the group in looking for her prey.
“Shh,” Nate warned. Even though they couldn’t be seen, they could still be heard.
With an ailing Aubrey leading the way, Nate and Alyssa slid out the front door and into the cold night air. He hadn’t realized how stifling it was in the warehouse until the fresh air touched his skin, filled his lungs. They moved quickly down the block and slid into an alley. Aubrey slumped to the ground, limp as a rag doll.
“Where are the others?” Nate asked quickly, kneeling down next to her.
She blinked slowly as the life drained out of her.
“The others, Aubrey,” he pressed. “Tell me where they are. We have to get back in there and help – “
“No others,” she wheezed tiredly.
“Wh -? No, there has to be more,” Nate protested, glanced at Alyssa, who was nervously surveying the ends of the alley for unexpected guests. “All of those soldiers in the desert that helped save Max. Where are they? We can’t let Max and Jeremy and Jesse die, Aubrey.”
She closed her eyes and showed the first signs of pain. “No others,” she repeated.
Nate’s heart dropped to his toes. The army was gone. There was no one left to command. Fully realizing that his protector was in her last minutes, he quietly took her hand in his.
“I’m sorry,” he said, closing his eyes and squeezing out the tears in them. “I’m sorry I’ve led you to this, Aubrey.”
Aubrey opened her eyes and gave something resembling a smile. The act was so out of place that Nate thought he must have imagined it. “It’s been an honor…sir.” With that, she let out a low gurgle.
And crumbled into dust, some of which was immediately scattered across the alley by the winter winds of Boston.
Nate rose, devastation clouding his being. Alyssa was beside him, looking down at the pile of ash that was Aubrey.
“We’re alone,” he said as she slipped her hand into his. He looked down at her, at her sickly, pale face. “It’s up to us to save them, Alyssa.”
Alyssa’s dark eyes fixed on his chest and she gave a short shake of her head.
“We can’t leave them there. We have to help them.”
She shook her head again, then covered her eyes with her hands as she burst into tears.
Nate followed her gaze and felt his knees wobble beneath him. The seal had returned.
Max was dead.
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Nineteen
Nate and Alyssa spent the night running when they could, walking when they tired. When she became too weary to continue, he’d hoist her onto his back piggy-back style and carry her until she had regained enough strength to carry herself. There was no time for grief and for that Nate was happy – he didn’t want to think about the carnage that lay behind them.
They weaved their way through Boston’s deserted streets, seeking out every dark alley they could find. They had no way of knowing if they were being followed so every time they sensed someone around them, Nate would immediately begin his mindwarping mantra, hoping to conceal them from unwanted eyes.
To travel north would have been obvious. If Liz and the others were still alive, then the aliens who had disposed of Max, Michael and probably Jesse and Jeremy would assume that Nate and Alyssa would travel that direction. With the Atlantic Ocean on Boston’s front doorstep, going east was out of the question. Moving west was in the direction of New Mexico and if the same held true for the western contingent of hybrids as did for the northern, they stood a good chance of being found there as well.
So they moved south, stealthily skipping through the cold city streets. After a seeming eternity, the sun started to break over the horizon and Nate knew that they couldn’t stay out in plain sight. They were in a poor neighborhood, chuck full of rundown buildings with plywood over the windows; one of them would become home until darkness fell again.
With a faint swathing of pinkish morning light, Nate turned to Alyssa and felt his heart lurch in his chest. She was barely staggering on her feet, but she hadn’t muttered a word of discomfort. She needed rest. And food.
The only money the couple had was fifty dollars they’d found in her coat pocket. All of Nate’s belongings were still the property of the Boston PD. They weren’t going to get far on fifty dollars and he dreaded knowing that the time would come when they would have to continue Michael’s string of petty crimes in order to survive.
“You need to eat,” he said to her as they huddled at the end of a litter-strewn alley.
Alyssa shook her head and looked to the ground.
Nate swallowed hard, biting back his emotions. She couldn’t even bear to look at him anymore. Not that he blamed her. Pushing those thoughts aside, he peeked around the building wall and saw a familiar sight across the street. Familiar, albeit with bars over the windows.
“There’s a McDonald’s over there,” he said, turning back to his companion. “I can’t go in there – all of Boston saw that broadcast the night we highjacked the station. You have to go, Alyssa.”
Her head snapped up, her blond hair swaying with the motion. “No,” she said in a half-frightened, half-defiant tone. “I can’t go in there.”
Nate nodded. “You can. You have to. Get yourself something to eat, then we’ll go rest, okay?”
It took another few minutes of cajoling to get her to agree. Finally, reluctant, she raced across the street, dodging a few very early morning commuters. Nate pinned his eyes to her, watched her every move in case she should need him. He hated that they couldn’t get her anything better than a fast food breakfast, but at this point they needed to be as economical with their visible time as possible. Sneak into the light to get what they needed, scurry back into the dark when they had it. Just like rats. Or cockroaches.
Nate frowned, crippling self-doubts trying desperately to invade his mind. He couldn’t let that happen. Not until they knew they were safe.
Safe? He snorted. They were never going to be safe again. And in his heart he knew that their demise was only a matter of time. If there was any saving grace in all of this, he knew that sometime soon he and Alyssa would be reunited with their loved ones.
Nate snapped to attention when he saw Alyssa exit the restaurant with a bag and a cup holder, which held two cardboard cups. She ran more gingerly across the street so as to not spill the cups, then met him breathlessly in the alley. Quickly, he grabbed her hand and pulled her in the opposite direction.
“Let’s go,” he said quietly, tugging her toward one of the rundown buildings.
He found a house that looked abandoned but structurally sound. With minimal effort, he forced open the back door and they cautiously entered. The dwelling smelled old and musty, like the roof had been leaking for the past twenty years. Like cats, they crept stealthily from room to room until they verified that no one else was there.
Relaxing just a little, they settled into the room Nate guessed had once been the living room. Taking off his coat, he spread it on the dirty floor for her.
“You’re going to get cold,” she said mechanically.
“I’ll be fine,” he lied, the chill already sinking into his bones. “Go ahead and eat your breakfast.”
Alyssa sank to the floor, the bag and drink tray before her. She simply stared at the food for a long time while Nate paced the floor, peeked through a crack in the boards covering the windows to make sure no one was hunting them. When he turned around, he saw that she was hadn’t started eating yet.
Mustering all of the gentleness he could, he knelt before her and brushed her hair away from her face. Surprisingly, she didn’t flinch away from his touch. “You have to eat,” he warned her. “You’re getting so weak, Alyssa. Please.”
Another long silence while she stared at the bag, then pulled it open. She retrieved an Egg McMuffin and handed it to him. “For you,” she said quietly. Then she pulled one of the cups from the tray and handed it to him – coffee.
Nate looked at the food in surprise. He hadn’t intended for her to waste money on him – he’d wanted her to help herself. He’d even told her to get food for herself. And yet she still wanted to take care of him.
Unable to hold it back any longer, Nate fell backward onto his butt, his hands coming up to cover his eyes as he fell into sobs of grief. He was responsible for so many horrible things that had happened to her and yet she was still worried enough about him to make sure he ate. One little act of kindness was all it had taken for Nate’s wall of stone to crumble.
In his mind, he saw his sister, the adorable baby Emily, gurgling and doing things that babies do. She was the most innocent of all of them and yet she was probably dead now, just because of who she was. If she’d been born to someone back in Nate’s hometown of Chautauqua, she’d still be alive and doing those baby things. But now she was gone.
And so were Nate’s father and Alyssa’s father and all of their cousins. All of their aunts and uncles. Their grandparents. Nate and Alyssa were alone.
Never before had Nate felt so utterly helpless. They truly were alone and the world had never seemed bigger or badder. There was no guiding hand, no kindly father figure to explain that things would work out. They were going to have to piece everything together themselves.
And it was all Nate’s fault. If he hadn’t left New York to find Max, if he hadn’t turned himself in to the FBI, if he hadn’t convinced all of them that outing themselves was best, then everyone would still be alive and happy.
If his fledgling mindwarping power had been strong enough to hide them all…
Alyssa was in his arms, crying softly. The time to grieve had come and he clutched her to him for dear life. He could never ask forgiveness for the havoc he’d wreaked. He would never be able to mend her heart. The damage was done. Alyssa was ruined because of him.
Surprisingly, Nate found himself wishing that he could have worked things out with Michael, for Alyssa’s sake. She didn’t need to see them arguing and swearing at one another. Why hadn’t he tried harder? Why couldn’t he just turn a blind eye, turn the other cheek and accept Michael for what he was? All of the others seemed able to do that, but not Nate. And now there was no opportunity to try to make things work.
All opportunities were gone. Nate would never find out who the other mindwarper was. He would never be able to sit down with Jonathan and Emma Spencer and explain to them why he’d become a stranger to them over the last year and a half. He’d never be able to tell Max that he was glad they’d met, that he’d always feel a special connection with his biological father.
If they lived, he and Alyssa would have grandparent-less children. If Alyssa could conceive again, that was. Add that little mishap to the torrid events of the last few days and Nate was surprised that she was speaking to him at all.
And she was speaking to him, her words soft and choked against his ear, her fingers in his hair.
“I’m-I’m so sorry, Alyssa,” he stammered, pulling back from her. “I was so…wrong about everything. I thought I knew, I thought I understood but I was just wrong. I know you can’t ever forgive me and I don’t want you to. I’ve ruined everything. You’ve lost everything…” He shook his head in grief and looked toward the dusty old floor.
“I’ve still got you,” she attempted, but her eyes showed her true feelings – she was hollow inside, gutted like a Halloween pumpkin. “I haven’t lost everything if I haven’t lost you.”
Nate drew in a deep breath, her words opening a dozen new wounds inside of him. “But, your mom and Michael…how can you ever forgive me for them being dead?”
She worked her mouth, her gaze flitting away briefly. “We don’t know that Mom’s dead,” she finally answered, her jaw tight. The remainder of her thought hung in the air between them like a dense, nasty fog – they might not know Maria was dead but they sure as hell knew Michael was. The sight of him lying dead was still fresh in both of their minds.
“You’re right – we don’t,” Nate responded, wiping his cheeks on the cuffs of his shirt and sniffling. “We don’t know anything other than what we saw.” The unspoken translation – they’d only seen Michael’s demise, no others.
Alyssa’s eyes shifted to Nate’s shirt and she frowned sadly. Reaching out, she touched his chest, her fingers lingering near his heart. “We know,” she said quietly.
Nate wanted to believe the maybe Max wasn’t dead – because he had acquired the seal in South Dakota when Max had been merely incapacitated – but he knew better. The odds were too great. Max, Jesse and Jeremy were certainly gone by now. Unable to keep positive, he placed his hand over Alyssa’s and dropped it to his knee.
“What about the others?” he said somberly. “Liz and Isabel –all of them?”
Alyssa shrugged uncertainly. “It’s hard to say. It could be that the items they had were stolen or similar to the ones that belonged to them.”
“How can we tell?” he probed. “It’s not like we can just call them.”
She looked away for a moment, thinking. “Tonight, I can dreamwalk them. If they’re alive, I should at least be able to find them, if not get into their heads.”
Nate nodded gravely. There was hope. “And your mom and the Valentis – that group, too?”
Alyssa mimicked his nod.
He reached out and cupped her cheek, smoothed her skin with his thumb, effectively brushing the tears from her face. “Are you strong enough for this? I hate to put you through it.”
She nodded numbly. “I’ll be okay. I’m just tired now, Nate.”
“I know you are,” he agreed. They’d run all night – it had been nearly twenty-four hours since they’d slept. Gingerly, he kissed her forehead. “Let’s lay down. I’ll stay awake and watch over you while you rest. Then later we can try the dreamwalk thing.” He gave her a weak smile. “It has to work – right?”
But it didn’t work. After a restless nap that was filled with nightmares, Alyssa tried to contact each member of the western brigade and located no one. The results for the New Englanders were no better.
They were truly alone, adrift. The last of their race.
Panic took control of Nate as he paced frantically in the living room of the ramshackle house. Night was falling and soon they needed to move. They didn’t have a plan. They didn’t have a friend in the world.
“God, Alyssa,” he breathed, his chest constricting with anxiety. “What are we going to do?”
Alyssa watched him pace, her dark eyes round. “I don’t know, Nate.”
“Where are we going to go? What are we going to do when the money runs out?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
He stopped and looked at her in exasperation. “Help me,” he pleaded. “I can’t do this alone. We need a plan. It’s not like either of us can turn back time and just fix everything.”
As he continued his fruitless pacing, Alyssa felt a cold chill run down her spine. Suddenly she knew why she’d been dealt a bad hand, why her baby had died, why The Powers That Be had forced her back to Nate. Because she held the answer.
“Nate,” she said, her voice quivering. “We need to get to Roswell.”
tbc
Nate and Alyssa spent the night running when they could, walking when they tired. When she became too weary to continue, he’d hoist her onto his back piggy-back style and carry her until she had regained enough strength to carry herself. There was no time for grief and for that Nate was happy – he didn’t want to think about the carnage that lay behind them.
They weaved their way through Boston’s deserted streets, seeking out every dark alley they could find. They had no way of knowing if they were being followed so every time they sensed someone around them, Nate would immediately begin his mindwarping mantra, hoping to conceal them from unwanted eyes.
To travel north would have been obvious. If Liz and the others were still alive, then the aliens who had disposed of Max, Michael and probably Jesse and Jeremy would assume that Nate and Alyssa would travel that direction. With the Atlantic Ocean on Boston’s front doorstep, going east was out of the question. Moving west was in the direction of New Mexico and if the same held true for the western contingent of hybrids as did for the northern, they stood a good chance of being found there as well.
So they moved south, stealthily skipping through the cold city streets. After a seeming eternity, the sun started to break over the horizon and Nate knew that they couldn’t stay out in plain sight. They were in a poor neighborhood, chuck full of rundown buildings with plywood over the windows; one of them would become home until darkness fell again.
With a faint swathing of pinkish morning light, Nate turned to Alyssa and felt his heart lurch in his chest. She was barely staggering on her feet, but she hadn’t muttered a word of discomfort. She needed rest. And food.
The only money the couple had was fifty dollars they’d found in her coat pocket. All of Nate’s belongings were still the property of the Boston PD. They weren’t going to get far on fifty dollars and he dreaded knowing that the time would come when they would have to continue Michael’s string of petty crimes in order to survive.
“You need to eat,” he said to her as they huddled at the end of a litter-strewn alley.
Alyssa shook her head and looked to the ground.
Nate swallowed hard, biting back his emotions. She couldn’t even bear to look at him anymore. Not that he blamed her. Pushing those thoughts aside, he peeked around the building wall and saw a familiar sight across the street. Familiar, albeit with bars over the windows.
“There’s a McDonald’s over there,” he said, turning back to his companion. “I can’t go in there – all of Boston saw that broadcast the night we highjacked the station. You have to go, Alyssa.”
Her head snapped up, her blond hair swaying with the motion. “No,” she said in a half-frightened, half-defiant tone. “I can’t go in there.”
Nate nodded. “You can. You have to. Get yourself something to eat, then we’ll go rest, okay?”
It took another few minutes of cajoling to get her to agree. Finally, reluctant, she raced across the street, dodging a few very early morning commuters. Nate pinned his eyes to her, watched her every move in case she should need him. He hated that they couldn’t get her anything better than a fast food breakfast, but at this point they needed to be as economical with their visible time as possible. Sneak into the light to get what they needed, scurry back into the dark when they had it. Just like rats. Or cockroaches.
Nate frowned, crippling self-doubts trying desperately to invade his mind. He couldn’t let that happen. Not until they knew they were safe.
Safe? He snorted. They were never going to be safe again. And in his heart he knew that their demise was only a matter of time. If there was any saving grace in all of this, he knew that sometime soon he and Alyssa would be reunited with their loved ones.
Nate snapped to attention when he saw Alyssa exit the restaurant with a bag and a cup holder, which held two cardboard cups. She ran more gingerly across the street so as to not spill the cups, then met him breathlessly in the alley. Quickly, he grabbed her hand and pulled her in the opposite direction.
“Let’s go,” he said quietly, tugging her toward one of the rundown buildings.
He found a house that looked abandoned but structurally sound. With minimal effort, he forced open the back door and they cautiously entered. The dwelling smelled old and musty, like the roof had been leaking for the past twenty years. Like cats, they crept stealthily from room to room until they verified that no one else was there.
Relaxing just a little, they settled into the room Nate guessed had once been the living room. Taking off his coat, he spread it on the dirty floor for her.
“You’re going to get cold,” she said mechanically.
“I’ll be fine,” he lied, the chill already sinking into his bones. “Go ahead and eat your breakfast.”
Alyssa sank to the floor, the bag and drink tray before her. She simply stared at the food for a long time while Nate paced the floor, peeked through a crack in the boards covering the windows to make sure no one was hunting them. When he turned around, he saw that she was hadn’t started eating yet.
Mustering all of the gentleness he could, he knelt before her and brushed her hair away from her face. Surprisingly, she didn’t flinch away from his touch. “You have to eat,” he warned her. “You’re getting so weak, Alyssa. Please.”
Another long silence while she stared at the bag, then pulled it open. She retrieved an Egg McMuffin and handed it to him. “For you,” she said quietly. Then she pulled one of the cups from the tray and handed it to him – coffee.
Nate looked at the food in surprise. He hadn’t intended for her to waste money on him – he’d wanted her to help herself. He’d even told her to get food for herself. And yet she still wanted to take care of him.
Unable to hold it back any longer, Nate fell backward onto his butt, his hands coming up to cover his eyes as he fell into sobs of grief. He was responsible for so many horrible things that had happened to her and yet she was still worried enough about him to make sure he ate. One little act of kindness was all it had taken for Nate’s wall of stone to crumble.
In his mind, he saw his sister, the adorable baby Emily, gurgling and doing things that babies do. She was the most innocent of all of them and yet she was probably dead now, just because of who she was. If she’d been born to someone back in Nate’s hometown of Chautauqua, she’d still be alive and doing those baby things. But now she was gone.
And so were Nate’s father and Alyssa’s father and all of their cousins. All of their aunts and uncles. Their grandparents. Nate and Alyssa were alone.
Never before had Nate felt so utterly helpless. They truly were alone and the world had never seemed bigger or badder. There was no guiding hand, no kindly father figure to explain that things would work out. They were going to have to piece everything together themselves.
And it was all Nate’s fault. If he hadn’t left New York to find Max, if he hadn’t turned himself in to the FBI, if he hadn’t convinced all of them that outing themselves was best, then everyone would still be alive and happy.
If his fledgling mindwarping power had been strong enough to hide them all…
Alyssa was in his arms, crying softly. The time to grieve had come and he clutched her to him for dear life. He could never ask forgiveness for the havoc he’d wreaked. He would never be able to mend her heart. The damage was done. Alyssa was ruined because of him.
Surprisingly, Nate found himself wishing that he could have worked things out with Michael, for Alyssa’s sake. She didn’t need to see them arguing and swearing at one another. Why hadn’t he tried harder? Why couldn’t he just turn a blind eye, turn the other cheek and accept Michael for what he was? All of the others seemed able to do that, but not Nate. And now there was no opportunity to try to make things work.
All opportunities were gone. Nate would never find out who the other mindwarper was. He would never be able to sit down with Jonathan and Emma Spencer and explain to them why he’d become a stranger to them over the last year and a half. He’d never be able to tell Max that he was glad they’d met, that he’d always feel a special connection with his biological father.
If they lived, he and Alyssa would have grandparent-less children. If Alyssa could conceive again, that was. Add that little mishap to the torrid events of the last few days and Nate was surprised that she was speaking to him at all.
And she was speaking to him, her words soft and choked against his ear, her fingers in his hair.
“I’m-I’m so sorry, Alyssa,” he stammered, pulling back from her. “I was so…wrong about everything. I thought I knew, I thought I understood but I was just wrong. I know you can’t ever forgive me and I don’t want you to. I’ve ruined everything. You’ve lost everything…” He shook his head in grief and looked toward the dusty old floor.
“I’ve still got you,” she attempted, but her eyes showed her true feelings – she was hollow inside, gutted like a Halloween pumpkin. “I haven’t lost everything if I haven’t lost you.”
Nate drew in a deep breath, her words opening a dozen new wounds inside of him. “But, your mom and Michael…how can you ever forgive me for them being dead?”
She worked her mouth, her gaze flitting away briefly. “We don’t know that Mom’s dead,” she finally answered, her jaw tight. The remainder of her thought hung in the air between them like a dense, nasty fog – they might not know Maria was dead but they sure as hell knew Michael was. The sight of him lying dead was still fresh in both of their minds.
“You’re right – we don’t,” Nate responded, wiping his cheeks on the cuffs of his shirt and sniffling. “We don’t know anything other than what we saw.” The unspoken translation – they’d only seen Michael’s demise, no others.
Alyssa’s eyes shifted to Nate’s shirt and she frowned sadly. Reaching out, she touched his chest, her fingers lingering near his heart. “We know,” she said quietly.
Nate wanted to believe the maybe Max wasn’t dead – because he had acquired the seal in South Dakota when Max had been merely incapacitated – but he knew better. The odds were too great. Max, Jesse and Jeremy were certainly gone by now. Unable to keep positive, he placed his hand over Alyssa’s and dropped it to his knee.
“What about the others?” he said somberly. “Liz and Isabel –all of them?”
Alyssa shrugged uncertainly. “It’s hard to say. It could be that the items they had were stolen or similar to the ones that belonged to them.”
“How can we tell?” he probed. “It’s not like we can just call them.”
She looked away for a moment, thinking. “Tonight, I can dreamwalk them. If they’re alive, I should at least be able to find them, if not get into their heads.”
Nate nodded gravely. There was hope. “And your mom and the Valentis – that group, too?”
Alyssa mimicked his nod.
He reached out and cupped her cheek, smoothed her skin with his thumb, effectively brushing the tears from her face. “Are you strong enough for this? I hate to put you through it.”
She nodded numbly. “I’ll be okay. I’m just tired now, Nate.”
“I know you are,” he agreed. They’d run all night – it had been nearly twenty-four hours since they’d slept. Gingerly, he kissed her forehead. “Let’s lay down. I’ll stay awake and watch over you while you rest. Then later we can try the dreamwalk thing.” He gave her a weak smile. “It has to work – right?”
But it didn’t work. After a restless nap that was filled with nightmares, Alyssa tried to contact each member of the western brigade and located no one. The results for the New Englanders were no better.
They were truly alone, adrift. The last of their race.
Panic took control of Nate as he paced frantically in the living room of the ramshackle house. Night was falling and soon they needed to move. They didn’t have a plan. They didn’t have a friend in the world.
“God, Alyssa,” he breathed, his chest constricting with anxiety. “What are we going to do?”
Alyssa watched him pace, her dark eyes round. “I don’t know, Nate.”
“Where are we going to go? What are we going to do when the money runs out?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
He stopped and looked at her in exasperation. “Help me,” he pleaded. “I can’t do this alone. We need a plan. It’s not like either of us can turn back time and just fix everything.”
As he continued his fruitless pacing, Alyssa felt a cold chill run down her spine. Suddenly she knew why she’d been dealt a bad hand, why her baby had died, why The Powers That Be had forced her back to Nate. Because she held the answer.
“Nate,” she said, her voice quivering. “We need to get to Roswell.”
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Twenty
It was an age-old trick – as long as trains had been around, people had been stealing rides on them. Once it became dark, Nate used his burgeoning acute hearing to locate a train depot then he and Alyssa walked there, looking to be westward bound. On their way, they bought essentials – bottles of water and a few rations that would have to hold them over in the coming days. When all was said and done, they had a mere twenty five dollars left.
As they waited in the shadows, the yard workers checked the box cars for stowaways, their flashlights swaying in the night as they moved from car to car. It was cold and Nate found himself shivering against the elements. Protective, he wrapped an arm around Alyssa’s shoulders in an attempt to keep her warm. It couldn’t be good for her to be out in the cold, to be as run down as she was.
Eventually the workers drifted away, leaving the rear of a west-bound train unattended as they prepared for departure. A half hour later, the train jerked and started a slow, squeaky crawl.
“Come on,” Nate said, grabbing Alyssa’s hand and stepping out from the shadows. “Watch your step.”
Together, they skipped over the steel tracks as they raced for the creeping train. Nate’s eyes settled on a red box car he’d seen the men inspecting – it wasn’t full at all and there should be plenty of room in there for the two of them. By the time they got to it, the train had started to gain momentum and he had to pick up the pace in order to grab the handle to the door. Soon the door was sliding open as he ran along side of it.
“Here we go,” he said over his shoulder to Alyssa.
Quickly, he hoisted himself into the car, then grabbed the frame of the door with one hand, reaching for her hand with the other. He’d already decided if she didn’t have the strength to keep up, then he would abort this mission and stay behind with her. They’d have to find some other way. But she kept up just fine and soon he was tugging her into the car with him. As soon as she was clear of the door, he slid it shut and they were in nearly total darkness.
Breathing heavily from the running, Nate groped around in an attempt to get his bearings. He felt something soft but rough under his fingers but couldn’t tell what it was. He was about to lose all sense of direction when a faint glow illuminated the car. He turned in surprise to see Alyssa holding a glowing rock before her.
“I picked some up while we were waiting,” she said, smiling self-consciously.
He returned her smile and gave an appreciative nod as he dropped their pack of supplies to the floor. “You need to teach me how to do that some day,” he said.
She nodded, then plopped down on the thing Nate had been feeling before the light came on – a stack of bags of grain or something. He felt a small surge of relief at their good fortune – it would make perfect beds for them. In only minutes, Alyssa was asleep.
Nate stayed up most of the night, his body swaying with the motion of the train. They had no idea where the train was headed – they only knew which direction and at this point, that was all that mattered. Getting to exactly where they needed to be was going to be the challenge. They didn’t have the cash to take a bus or rent a car and they didn’t really want to do that anyway – there were still shape-shifting enemies out there who could be masquerading as anyone at any time.
Nate frowned. The creature who had so efficiently disposed of Susan and her crew obviously knew Max. Which meant that Max probably had known her. If he knew her, then he probably knew how ruthless she could be. So why had he ever agreed to go along with Nate’s plan?
Somewhere along the way, Nate had managed to appeal to Max’s sense of wanting to be a good father to Emily and the more Nate talked, the more Max had become convinced that his son’s ill-conceived plan would work. In hindsight, Nate couldn’t believe that he himself had believed in it.
It had been a pipe dream to think that peace was even possible. War and conflict had always existed and would continue to exist. Nathan Spencer from Yokelville, New York wasn’t about to change that.
Nate’s eyes fell on Alyssa and his brow furrowed slightly. She thought that he’d been “the one.” And she’d said it in a positive tone, too. But the one to do what? Bring utter destruction to their whole race? That didn’t sound like the good thing she made it out to be. This couldn’t have been what she had in mind.
Weary, Nate crawled onto the stack of bags and slid in behind her. It had been so long since they’d been alone and yet the fact that they were all alone was little comfort. As he tenderly wrapped his arm around her waist, he realized that he’d give anything to have Jeremy come busting in on them at the absolute wrong moment. He’d give anything to be in that apartment above Isabel’s massive garage, trying to find ways to dispose of his cousin so that he and Alyssa could be alone. Now they could be alone all they wanted and he never wanted anything less in his life.
Fatigue finally claimed him and he didn’t awaken until he heard the door of the car start to slide open. As a reflex, he covered Alyssa’s mouth with his hand and started begging to not be seen again. She flinched against him and he could only guess the dream he’d interrupted, but he held steadfast and she remained silent if tense.
A face appeared at the door and bright sunlight filtered in. Nate squinted against it and was happy to see that the man at the door didn’t see them. If nothing else, he’d mastered the ability to make himself disappear. In a few minutes, the door slid shut again and he relaxed, releasing Alyssa while he did so. She let out a long breath and relaxed into him, still sleepy.
They lay together for a long time, listening to the men working outside. Nate didn’t know how much time had passed but he had to guess it was a few hours. Then they were moving again and they felt confident enough to stretch their legs and move about the box car.
Neither of them talked much. A sense of stunned grief still hung over them like a cloud, dampening their spirits, quelling their joy of one another’s company. Nate found himself coming to peace with the silence, with the fact that this once-gregarious girl no longer had much to say to him. Bittersweetly, he remembered the first time he saw her – cracking gum and wise-cracks while wearing the tackiest waitress uniform he’d ever seen. It seemed an eon ago, that a lifetime had passed. He wasn’t the naïve country boy anymore and she wasn’t the happy-go-lucky teenager. Once again he had to wonder what life would hold if he’d never traveled to Roswell.
As the train continued on its bumpy ride, Nate thought that maybe they should discuss what was to come. After all, what they were about to do would change everything, and that wasn’t something to take lightly. Then again, neither of them knew how to do what they wanted, so what was the point in talking about it? They were grabbing at the proverbial straws, hoping that this half-hatched plan would work in some way to their advantage.
Of course, it also stood the chance of making things worse.
If things could get worse. Nate wasn’t sure how that was possible, but he had a pretty good track record of finding out the worst possible scenario in any situation. Maybe that was his special gift – to always be able to turn things on their ear.
Day slipped into night again and they ate quietly on water and granola bars. Inside, Nate’s stomach clenched from lack of food and anxiety over what lay ahead – not to mention what lay behind them. He didn’t feel like eating anything, but Alyssa pleaded gently with him. He needed to keep up his strength.
After eating their sparse meal, they lay down on the grain sacks again, facing one another in the dim light from the rocks Alyssa had picked up at the train station in Boston.
“What would you do differently?” Nate asked quietly. “I mean, if we can do this thing, what would you change?”
Alyssa worked her mouth, looked into the darkness as she thought. “I think I’d try to be a better person.”
Nate lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “You don’t think you’re a good person?”
She shrugged lightly. “Sometimes, no.”
“Why? I think you’re great.”
She gave him a little smile. “Thank you, Nate. But sometimes I think bad thoughts, mean things about people.”
“Like what?”
She looked a little sheepish. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“Oh, okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
Alyssa bit her lip. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I’m afraid you’ll think I’m horrible for some of the things I think.”
Reaching out, he brushed a stray hand of hair over her shoulder. “I’d never think that.”
“Okay.” She blushed. “Don’t laugh.”
Nate shook his head. “I won’t.” Like anything could make him laugh at this point…
“Well, you know how Aunt Isabel’s twins are a little…um, different?”
Well, yeah – three seconds with them would tell anyone that. He nodded his head in agreement.
“Well, sometimes I imagine what it’s going to be like when they start dating.”
Nate’s eyebrows drew together in amusement and curiosity. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, well, for starters – who would go out with them?”
He fumbled for an answer but couldn’t come up with one. At a loss, he tossed one hand into the air. “A set of identical girls?”
Alyssa grimaced. “Yeah, maybe. Okay, so let’s say they do get dates. Can you image them parking?”
Nate withdrew slightly and found that he did indeed have to fight off the urge to laugh.
“I’m serious, Nate. Can you see Jason and Justin going at it? Better yet – can you see one of them going at it without the other one around somewhere?”
“Alyssa!” Nate gasped at the thought.
“See? I told you I had mean thoughts.”
Nate shook his head, trying to will the image away. Alyssa thought those ideas were mean. Twisted, maybe, but never mean. Mean were the thoughts he’d had about Michael Guerin. Unwanted, images of Michael lying dead rushed into his mind and he closed his eyes in a feeble attempt to keep them at bay.
“Alyssa?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you know what I’d do differently?”
She shook her head.
Nate met her gaze, his serious. “I’d try to be more understanding with your father.”
Alyssa looked stunned, her lips parting slightly. Against her will, a tear escaped from the corner of her eye.
Nate brushed it away. “I mean that. I know that he and I just didn’t click, but there after awhile I started to like pushing his buttons. And I know that put you in the middle. I know that you love your dad, Alyssa. I’m sorry if we hurt you. If I have the chance again, I promise you I’ll try to understand where he’s coming from. I’ll try not to let him get to me and maybe eventually I won’t get to him.”
She leaned in and put her arms around his body. “Thank you, Nate,” she said against his ear.
Nate pulled her to him, just held her for a long time. Deep down, he didn’t think their plan would work, he didn’t think he’d get the chance to make amends with Michael. But he had to hold onto that one sliver of hope that lived beside all of the doubt. It was all he had.
“Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember The X-Files?”
He nodded against the top of her head. Even though he’d been too young to watch the first-run episodes of that series, every Sci-Fi and syndicate station had been running them for the last twenty years. Besides, he’d always been mysteriously drawn toward movies and shows about aliens.
“Well,” Alyssa continued. “Do you remember how Mulder was always certain the government was transporting aliens on trains?” Her question hung like a punch line.
Nate’s brow furrowed, then he realized the irony of it – and laughed like he hadn’t in days.
tbc
It was an age-old trick – as long as trains had been around, people had been stealing rides on them. Once it became dark, Nate used his burgeoning acute hearing to locate a train depot then he and Alyssa walked there, looking to be westward bound. On their way, they bought essentials – bottles of water and a few rations that would have to hold them over in the coming days. When all was said and done, they had a mere twenty five dollars left.
As they waited in the shadows, the yard workers checked the box cars for stowaways, their flashlights swaying in the night as they moved from car to car. It was cold and Nate found himself shivering against the elements. Protective, he wrapped an arm around Alyssa’s shoulders in an attempt to keep her warm. It couldn’t be good for her to be out in the cold, to be as run down as she was.
Eventually the workers drifted away, leaving the rear of a west-bound train unattended as they prepared for departure. A half hour later, the train jerked and started a slow, squeaky crawl.
“Come on,” Nate said, grabbing Alyssa’s hand and stepping out from the shadows. “Watch your step.”
Together, they skipped over the steel tracks as they raced for the creeping train. Nate’s eyes settled on a red box car he’d seen the men inspecting – it wasn’t full at all and there should be plenty of room in there for the two of them. By the time they got to it, the train had started to gain momentum and he had to pick up the pace in order to grab the handle to the door. Soon the door was sliding open as he ran along side of it.
“Here we go,” he said over his shoulder to Alyssa.
Quickly, he hoisted himself into the car, then grabbed the frame of the door with one hand, reaching for her hand with the other. He’d already decided if she didn’t have the strength to keep up, then he would abort this mission and stay behind with her. They’d have to find some other way. But she kept up just fine and soon he was tugging her into the car with him. As soon as she was clear of the door, he slid it shut and they were in nearly total darkness.
Breathing heavily from the running, Nate groped around in an attempt to get his bearings. He felt something soft but rough under his fingers but couldn’t tell what it was. He was about to lose all sense of direction when a faint glow illuminated the car. He turned in surprise to see Alyssa holding a glowing rock before her.
“I picked some up while we were waiting,” she said, smiling self-consciously.
He returned her smile and gave an appreciative nod as he dropped their pack of supplies to the floor. “You need to teach me how to do that some day,” he said.
She nodded, then plopped down on the thing Nate had been feeling before the light came on – a stack of bags of grain or something. He felt a small surge of relief at their good fortune – it would make perfect beds for them. In only minutes, Alyssa was asleep.
Nate stayed up most of the night, his body swaying with the motion of the train. They had no idea where the train was headed – they only knew which direction and at this point, that was all that mattered. Getting to exactly where they needed to be was going to be the challenge. They didn’t have the cash to take a bus or rent a car and they didn’t really want to do that anyway – there were still shape-shifting enemies out there who could be masquerading as anyone at any time.
Nate frowned. The creature who had so efficiently disposed of Susan and her crew obviously knew Max. Which meant that Max probably had known her. If he knew her, then he probably knew how ruthless she could be. So why had he ever agreed to go along with Nate’s plan?
Somewhere along the way, Nate had managed to appeal to Max’s sense of wanting to be a good father to Emily and the more Nate talked, the more Max had become convinced that his son’s ill-conceived plan would work. In hindsight, Nate couldn’t believe that he himself had believed in it.
It had been a pipe dream to think that peace was even possible. War and conflict had always existed and would continue to exist. Nathan Spencer from Yokelville, New York wasn’t about to change that.
Nate’s eyes fell on Alyssa and his brow furrowed slightly. She thought that he’d been “the one.” And she’d said it in a positive tone, too. But the one to do what? Bring utter destruction to their whole race? That didn’t sound like the good thing she made it out to be. This couldn’t have been what she had in mind.
Weary, Nate crawled onto the stack of bags and slid in behind her. It had been so long since they’d been alone and yet the fact that they were all alone was little comfort. As he tenderly wrapped his arm around her waist, he realized that he’d give anything to have Jeremy come busting in on them at the absolute wrong moment. He’d give anything to be in that apartment above Isabel’s massive garage, trying to find ways to dispose of his cousin so that he and Alyssa could be alone. Now they could be alone all they wanted and he never wanted anything less in his life.
Fatigue finally claimed him and he didn’t awaken until he heard the door of the car start to slide open. As a reflex, he covered Alyssa’s mouth with his hand and started begging to not be seen again. She flinched against him and he could only guess the dream he’d interrupted, but he held steadfast and she remained silent if tense.
A face appeared at the door and bright sunlight filtered in. Nate squinted against it and was happy to see that the man at the door didn’t see them. If nothing else, he’d mastered the ability to make himself disappear. In a few minutes, the door slid shut again and he relaxed, releasing Alyssa while he did so. She let out a long breath and relaxed into him, still sleepy.
They lay together for a long time, listening to the men working outside. Nate didn’t know how much time had passed but he had to guess it was a few hours. Then they were moving again and they felt confident enough to stretch their legs and move about the box car.
Neither of them talked much. A sense of stunned grief still hung over them like a cloud, dampening their spirits, quelling their joy of one another’s company. Nate found himself coming to peace with the silence, with the fact that this once-gregarious girl no longer had much to say to him. Bittersweetly, he remembered the first time he saw her – cracking gum and wise-cracks while wearing the tackiest waitress uniform he’d ever seen. It seemed an eon ago, that a lifetime had passed. He wasn’t the naïve country boy anymore and she wasn’t the happy-go-lucky teenager. Once again he had to wonder what life would hold if he’d never traveled to Roswell.
As the train continued on its bumpy ride, Nate thought that maybe they should discuss what was to come. After all, what they were about to do would change everything, and that wasn’t something to take lightly. Then again, neither of them knew how to do what they wanted, so what was the point in talking about it? They were grabbing at the proverbial straws, hoping that this half-hatched plan would work in some way to their advantage.
Of course, it also stood the chance of making things worse.
If things could get worse. Nate wasn’t sure how that was possible, but he had a pretty good track record of finding out the worst possible scenario in any situation. Maybe that was his special gift – to always be able to turn things on their ear.
Day slipped into night again and they ate quietly on water and granola bars. Inside, Nate’s stomach clenched from lack of food and anxiety over what lay ahead – not to mention what lay behind them. He didn’t feel like eating anything, but Alyssa pleaded gently with him. He needed to keep up his strength.
After eating their sparse meal, they lay down on the grain sacks again, facing one another in the dim light from the rocks Alyssa had picked up at the train station in Boston.
“What would you do differently?” Nate asked quietly. “I mean, if we can do this thing, what would you change?”
Alyssa worked her mouth, looked into the darkness as she thought. “I think I’d try to be a better person.”
Nate lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “You don’t think you’re a good person?”
She shrugged lightly. “Sometimes, no.”
“Why? I think you’re great.”
She gave him a little smile. “Thank you, Nate. But sometimes I think bad thoughts, mean things about people.”
“Like what?”
She looked a little sheepish. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“Oh, okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
Alyssa bit her lip. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I’m afraid you’ll think I’m horrible for some of the things I think.”
Reaching out, he brushed a stray hand of hair over her shoulder. “I’d never think that.”
“Okay.” She blushed. “Don’t laugh.”
Nate shook his head. “I won’t.” Like anything could make him laugh at this point…
“Well, you know how Aunt Isabel’s twins are a little…um, different?”
Well, yeah – three seconds with them would tell anyone that. He nodded his head in agreement.
“Well, sometimes I imagine what it’s going to be like when they start dating.”
Nate’s eyebrows drew together in amusement and curiosity. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, well, for starters – who would go out with them?”
He fumbled for an answer but couldn’t come up with one. At a loss, he tossed one hand into the air. “A set of identical girls?”
Alyssa grimaced. “Yeah, maybe. Okay, so let’s say they do get dates. Can you image them parking?”
Nate withdrew slightly and found that he did indeed have to fight off the urge to laugh.
“I’m serious, Nate. Can you see Jason and Justin going at it? Better yet – can you see one of them going at it without the other one around somewhere?”
“Alyssa!” Nate gasped at the thought.
“See? I told you I had mean thoughts.”
Nate shook his head, trying to will the image away. Alyssa thought those ideas were mean. Twisted, maybe, but never mean. Mean were the thoughts he’d had about Michael Guerin. Unwanted, images of Michael lying dead rushed into his mind and he closed his eyes in a feeble attempt to keep them at bay.
“Alyssa?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you know what I’d do differently?”
She shook her head.
Nate met her gaze, his serious. “I’d try to be more understanding with your father.”
Alyssa looked stunned, her lips parting slightly. Against her will, a tear escaped from the corner of her eye.
Nate brushed it away. “I mean that. I know that he and I just didn’t click, but there after awhile I started to like pushing his buttons. And I know that put you in the middle. I know that you love your dad, Alyssa. I’m sorry if we hurt you. If I have the chance again, I promise you I’ll try to understand where he’s coming from. I’ll try not to let him get to me and maybe eventually I won’t get to him.”
She leaned in and put her arms around his body. “Thank you, Nate,” she said against his ear.
Nate pulled her to him, just held her for a long time. Deep down, he didn’t think their plan would work, he didn’t think he’d get the chance to make amends with Michael. But he had to hold onto that one sliver of hope that lived beside all of the doubt. It was all he had.
“Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember The X-Files?”
He nodded against the top of her head. Even though he’d been too young to watch the first-run episodes of that series, every Sci-Fi and syndicate station had been running them for the last twenty years. Besides, he’d always been mysteriously drawn toward movies and shows about aliens.
“Well,” Alyssa continued. “Do you remember how Mulder was always certain the government was transporting aliens on trains?” Her question hung like a punch line.
Nate’s brow furrowed, then he realized the irony of it – and laughed like he hadn’t in days.
tbc