Roswell Fanatics

I'm a hopeless romantic sometimes. *sigh* - April




He held her tightly and watched as she closed her eyes. He listened as her breathing became heavier and sleep drew nearer to her. He watched as her lips curved upwards slightly and she smiled.

“Michael?” she whispered, barely awake.

“Yeah?”

Her smile grew. “You’re my hero.”

He felt shock and disbelief engulf him. Her hero? How could he be her hero? He wasn’t worthy of that. She’d been told by everyone she knew that he was a monster. How did she ever start to think of him as her hero?

How did he ever fall so deeply in love with her?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Images . . . violent, painful images . . . his smile . . . his hands . . . screams . . . a knife . . . pain . .

Maria awoke with a start, shooting straight up in the bed. She held her hands to her chest and gasped for air desperately, the realization hitting her like a bullet that it was only a dream.

“What is it?” Michael asked her, sitting up beside her at once. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the images that were permanently stored in her brain. “It was just a dream,” she told herself more than him. “It was just a dream.”

His hands encompassed her body, and she fell back into him, leaning her back against his chest. “Please hold me, Michael,” she whispered. She needed to feel him. The reassurance that he was there was the only thing that was keeping her going right now.

“I’m holding you,” he said, rubbing his hands across her stomach as if to inform her of that.

“Hold me tighter.”

He tightened his hold on her, rocking back and forth a little to calm her.

“Please don’t leave me, Michael,” she begged of him. She knew her desperation for him was obvious, but she didn’t care. She needed him.

“I’m not leaving,” he reassured her. “I’m right here.” He took her hands within his own, entwining her fingers with his. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told her, bending down and murmuring the words against her cheek.

Maria felt a shiver run through her body as his breath tickled her skin. He felt so good. So safe and warm and so . . . right.

Slowly, she turned around in his arms, keeping her hands locked within his. She met his eyes, and she was lost. She forgot about everything else. She forgot about her father, she forgot about her weaknesses, she forgot about all the pain, and there was only Michael Guerin.

She could feel her passion burning inside of her, and she saw it in his eyes. It ran so deep that it hurt. She couldn’t remember ever wanting something so bad that it hurt.

He brought his face closer to hers, tightening his grip on her hand. Maria let her eyes fall closed, and let her uncertainties disappear.

His lips touched hers, and a flood of euphoria smashed into her. She had never felt anything so perfect.

As the kiss intensified, Maria let her hand wander up into Michael’s hair, pushing and pressing his lips down harder onto hers. She felt his hands moving up her sides and then sliding around to caress her back, pulling her closer to him, almost as if her were trying to meld their bodies together. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

He drew back a little then, and looked at her. She snaked one hand up his chest, already missing the loss of contact. Her touch should have hurt him, for he was wounded, but it didn’t seem to. When he felt her doing this, he crushed his lips to hers again, tracing her bottom lip with his tongue before submerging it into her mouth.

Her hands ran up and down his chest and burrowed themselves in his hair while he withdrew his mouth and kissed a trail down her cheek and to her neck. She moved her head to the side, giving him more access. She couldn’t stop a soft moan from escaping her lips as he brought his lips down to her skin, sucking it into his mouth. She could hardly breathe. Everything was so much, but she needed more.

His hand slid around to her stomach, lingering just below her breasts as if he were uncertain. She took his hand in hers and led it upward until it came into contact. Obviously surprised by this, his head came up and he stopped kissing her. He opened his mouth as if to ask her a question, but she arched herself up into his hand as he did so, and he soon seemed to forget about his question. His lips began to devour hers again as one hand held her to him, the other touching her gently.

They were a mass of arms and hands and lips until Maria heard laughter not far off in the distance. She pulled away abruptly, much to Michael’s surprise. “They’re back,” she told him hurriedly, rising to her feet and pulling him with her. “You have to leave.”

As they ran through the house, Maria remembered what she’d said just a short time earlier.

“Please don’t leave me, Michael.”

It didn’t seem that he had a choice now.

They reached the back door just as Maria heard the front door open. She met Michael’s eyes and let her hand fall from his as he left in a hurry. She shut the door just as she heard Liz’s voice.

“Hey!”

Maria whirled around and faced her friend, still a bit surprised. “Hey, um . . . where . . . where were you guys?” She found herself fixing her hair as she spoke, knowing that it must be a complete disaster.

“We headed out to Motion,” Liz replied, taking her jacket off and setting it on the counter. “We were gonna ask you if you wanted to come, but you were asleep, so . . .”

Maria nodded. Thanks for leaving me a note, she thought sarcastically.

“So I’m just gonna go back to sleep,” she told Liz, already making her way up the stairs. “Later.”

She went back up to her room and crawled back under the covers. She almost thought she could still feel Michael there, and she wished he was. He’d had to leave in such a hurry. She wanted more time with him.

She smiled to herself as she thought about him. She thought about kissing him, she thought about touching him, and she thought about how happy she would be if he was always around.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Where the hell have you been?”

Michael had expected this. The questions. The interrogation. This was the first time he’d been back to BlackCon since the night he was stabbed. He’d been gone for four days.

“Relax, Isabel,” Michael said, sitting down on the couch. “I had some stuff I had to do. That’s all.”

“We were worried!”

Max and Tess joined them downstairs soon after hearing the yelling. “Have you completely lost it, Michael?” Max asked him right away.

Michael was getting fed up with this. “I left for a few days! That doesn’t mean I’ve lost anything!”

“Do you know how pissed off Nix is right now?” Tess joined in the conversation. “He was planning a huge fight this weekend, but we had to delay it because you weren’t fuckin’ here!”

“It isn’t that big of a deal,” Michael told her. “You guys just need to let it go.”

“I’ll let it go,” Isabel said, “if you tell me what was so important that you had to leave, just like that, without tellin’ anyone.”

Michael searched his brain for excuses. He couldn’t tell them that he had been out selling. They knew by now that he wasn’t.

“What are you not telling us, Michael?” Max continued with the interrogation when he didn’t answer. “What’s goin’ on with you?”

“I’m sick of this,” Michael said, rising to his feet. “I don’t have to tell any of you anything.”

Tess shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’m sure Nix is gonna wonder. What’re you gonna tell him?”

Michael ignored her question. “Get outta my way,” he said, pushing past Max on his way to the stairs.

“Fuck you, Michael!” Max shouted.

At that, Michael spun around and let his fist collide with Max’s face. He watched as his best friend stumbled backwards from the impact clutching his nose and blood began to flow. Tess was by his side at once, her hands bracing himself on his back, glaring daggers at Michael. They all stared at each other like this in silence for a long time, ignoring the crowd of people that was forming downstairs because of the commotion. Finally, Isabel broke the silence. “What about my money?”

“Isabel, don’t start with me,” Michael warned her.

“What’s goin’ on down here?” Once voice was all it took for the crowds to break into parts. Nix made his way down the stairs, keeping his eyes locked with Michael’s. “You’re back,” he commented, “and you just hit your best friend in the face.”

Michael ran his hands through his hair, making it spikier than ever. He was feeling like they were all ganging up on him. He was feeling like an outsider, and he’d never felt like that before.

“I think you’ve gone crazy,” Max said, standing upright and wiping the blood from his nose. “You’ve hit me twice in the past two weeks.”

“I didn’t mean to--”

“Whatever, Michael,” he said, cutting him off. “I’m tired of your bullshit.” He took Tess’s hand and led her past Michael. They started up the stairs, but Max stopped midway up, turning back to Michael. “By the way, good luck with that novel of yours.”

He knows, Michael thought. He knows something, at least.

“Tell me what’s going on with you, Michael,” Nix ordered, “‘cause, honestly, you are really makin’ me mad right now.”

Michael wanted to punch him in the face to and tell him to forget about it, but punching Nix was different than punching Max.

“I just . . .” he started, stuttering, “. . . I was . . .”

“Don’t give me any crap.”

“I . . . I was . . . nowhere . . .” He couldn’t let him know the truth. That he’d lost another fight. Third one in about two weeks.

Out of nowhere, Nix hit him in the stomach, unaware that he was hitting his stab wound. Michael doubled over, holding his hand to his stomach, unable to mask the pain on his face.

“What the fuck? That didn’t even hurt!”

Nix was unaware of how much it did.

“Michael, what’s wrong with you?” Isabel asked him, coming closer to him. “Are you hurt?” She reached out her hands and lifted up his shirt before he could stop her, revealing the jagged scar. The bruises on his face had healed, but that would always be there now, a reminder of his victory that never was.

“What happened?” she asked him.

He didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want to tell her or Nix or Max or anyone. It’d been humiliating enough to have Maria witness his defeat.

“Got in a fight, down at the south side,” he lied. “I don’t know what happened, but they beat me. Guess I’m not sleepin’ enough or something.”

Isabel seemed more disappointed than concerned. “I can’t believe they beat you.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Michael lied again. “I just didn’t want anyone to know.” Embarrassed and ashamed, he turned and made his way up the stairs slowly, still feeling the pain from the impact of Nix’s fist.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The phone rang, but Maria didn’t bother to pick it up. She was too busy thinking about what had happened with Michael to waste time with communication. It was doubtful, anyway, that whoever was calling wanted to talk to her anyway. After three years of living with BlackCon, she still couldn’t remember anyone calling for her. Not once.

That’s why she was so surprised when she heard Liz calling up to her room that the phone was for her. Maria made her way down to the kitchen, taking the phone from Liz. “Hello?”

“Ms. DeLuca?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“This is Deputy Wood. I was calling to let you know that we captured the man that attacked you a few nights ago, the one that you described to us.”

“Oh, yeah, him. You found him?”

“Yes, we did. When we questioned him, he told us that he was your father.”

Maria tried to laugh it off. “He seems kind of crazy.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Well, we thought you would like to know.”

“Yeah, um, thanks. Thank you for letting me know.” Without even saying good-bye, Maria hung up the phone. She didn’t want to talk about that man. There was a reason why she’d abandoned the use of his last name and took to her mother’s after the divorce. She didn’t want anyone knowing who she came from.

“So they found that guy?” Liz asked when Maria was off the phone. Apparently she’d been listening in and figured it out.

“Yeah,” Maria said. “They found him.”

“I thought you’d be jumping for joy now that he’s off the streets and in custody.”

Of course she was happy about it all. Knowing that her father couldn’t get to her, it was a wonderful, safe feeling. “I guess . . .” she said, thinking of Michael briefly. “I guess I’ve just got other things on my mind.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Look, I think I’m just gonna head out for a while,” Maria told Liz. She slipped on her jacket and then took it off again, figuring that if she saw Michael, she didn’t want to be so conservative. She waved good-bye to Liz, putting on her shoes as she made her way out the door.

She passed many guys on her way, guys who gave her suggestive looks and kept their eyes on her far longer than necessary, but, for the first time, she ignored the way they looked at her, because there was one man who looked at her and made her feel special.

That one man was sitting on a bench at their street corner when Maria arrived down at the borderline. He wasn’t doing anything special. Just sitting, and waiting.

Waiting for her.

Looking around to make sure that no one from BlackCon or Darkstreet was around, Maria stepped forward. Even if someone had been around, that wouldn’t have stopped her. Not now. Not with this crazy desire running through her veins that she’d been feeling ever since the night before.

She stood before him, waiting for him to look at her. He didn’t for a long time, and she worried. Was he uncomfortable around her now?

Finally, his chocolate brown eyes met her emerald green ones, and she was lost. She wanted to speak, but just looking at him was making her feel dizzy—dizzy in a good way—and words were seeming impossible.

He stood up slowly and walked across the street, obviously expecting that she would follow. He started making his way to their away place, pushing his way past trees and bushes and whatever else was lurking in there that was any sort of obstacle.

She followed.

He stood by the water, and she moved to stand beside him. He stared at her for quite some time before speaking.

“We should talk.”

She nodded in agreement. “We should.”

His lips crashed onto hers at once, and the idea of talking was completely abandoned.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Michael bent down and pressed his lips to Maria’s shoulder gently as she sat in his arms under the stars. She fell into his embrace, and he was grateful for her closeness. He had not even had time to think about this, to think about what it would feel like to kiss her again and touch her again and hold her in his arms again. He had been so busy dealing with everyone from Darkstreet that he had not even gotten to imagine how euphoric he would feel because of her, but he was sure that if he had imagined it, it wouldn’t have come close to feeling like this.

Her skin was like porcelain. Her lips were like velvet. He was well aware of the fact that his skin had become calloused and rough over the years, that his lips were not of the same velvet that hers were, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. Whatever it was that he had, she wanted it. She wanted him.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Maria said quietly as Michael rubbed her arms, trying to generate some sort of heat into her on this very cold night, “but I feel really good. Really happy.” She turned her head to the side a little, resting it on his shoulder. “I feel that way whenever I’m with you.”

“Why?” he couldn’t help but ask.

She shrugged the best she could while in his arms. “I don’t know. It’s like, I just forget about everything else. I can’t think about anything except for you.” A few seconds after she spoke, she laughed lightly, embarrassed. “Sorry,” she apologized. “That was stupid.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he told her, bending down and whispering in her ear. “I’m glad to hear it, actually. Now I know that I’m not the only one who can’t think straight, can’t focus on anything. Except you.” As he spoke, the reality of the effect that she was having on him, the reality of what loving her was doing to him, hit him. “Right now,” he said, “I should be thinking about what Nix thinks of me, and I should be apologizing to Max, but I’m not. Because I just can’t. And I don’t want to.”

“I get that,” she told him. “Just last night, I was running through the house terrified because of my dad, remember?”

He nodded. He remembered. How could he forget? He could never forget the fear and panic that had been written across her face and etched into her eyes.

“They called today,” she told him. “The police. They called today, and they told me that they found him, and that’s great, and I’m happy about that, but I still can’t keep myself from thinking about you and about us for two seconds at a time.”

Us. Michael liked that word. He’d never been part of an us before. He’d always been an I, a me, a solo person, a complete individual. No attachments, no links. He had friends like Max, and he had worthless causes like Isabel, but he’d never had anybody who he’d felt so connected with. He’d never had anybody who he felt was a part of him. Until now. Until Maria.

“It’s getting late,” she commented, gazing up at the sky.

“I have to go soon,” he told her sadly, locking their hands together.

“No,” she said, turning around in his arms to look at him, her face begging with him. “Please don’t go.”

“I don’t want to,” he said, “but I have to. Nix is gonna be wondering where I am.”

She sighed and hung her head. She seemed so disappointed, and he understood that. He was disappointed, too. He didn’t want to leave her, but he felt that, right now, with Nix and the others being as suspicious as they were, it would be smart to seem at least a bit loyal.

Loyal. Loyalty. The words were foreign to Michael. He was a traitor to Darkstreet. He knew that. He’d spent years hating the enemy. Hell, he’d even given speeches about their death from time to time, and now he was sitting in the middle of some secluded forest with a girl who was supposed to be the enemy, a girl who many had expected him to kill a long time ago just for the hell of it. He was in the midst of a romantic atmosphere playing out a romantic scene with her, and he was loving every second of it.

He was loyal only to her.

It took them quite a long time to part, and when they finally did, Michael immediately missed the feel of her body, her warmth seeping into him. He missed running his fingers across that porcelain skin of hers and kissing those velvet lips.

He would see her again soon. He had to.

Nix was waiting for him when he returned to the crib. He didn’t look mad or angry, but he did look confused. “I don’t know what’s going on with you,” he said when Michael was beside him, “but I think it’s got something to do with this losing streak you’ve been on.”

As much as Michael hated talking about losing fights and losing battles, he did welcome the distraction. As long as Nix and the others thought that Michael’s behavior had something to do with his lack of victory, they wouldn’t suspect anything else.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Yeah, it does.” It wasn’t a complete lie. In a sense, it was the truth. He’d lost the battle with Rick at the bank trying to get himself and Maria out of there. He’d lost the battle with Kyle because he had been out looking for Maria. He’d lost the battle with Maria’s father because he’d been protecting her. It all had to do with Maria in the end, so what he was telling Nix was sort of the truth, in a twisted sense.

“But we need you back,” Nix told him, placing his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “We need you back and we need you stronger than ever, because we’re expecting BlackCon to show up tomorrow night. Without you in the game, we’re not as strong.”

“There’s gonna be a fight?” Michael asked.

Nix nodded. “Yeah. You’re in, right?”

Michael nodded right away. “Of course.” He didn’t add that he wasn’t in it for the actual fighting part anymore. He was in it to see Maria.

Thanks for the feedback!




News was circulating through the BlackCon crib when Maria got back that there was going to be a fight tomorrow night. Maria heard talk of it right when she stepped into the door. Apparently it was to be one hell of a fight now that Kyle was back and stronger than ever. Some were starting to believe that it was going to be the final battle. Maria wasn’t that deluded. She knew it wouldn’t be.

She walked up the stairs, calling or Slick. She wanted to know if this fight business was true or not. If it was, she would be expected to gather up any weapons she had and get in the best shape she could in such a short amount of time by getting plenty of rest, even though she never fought anyway.

“Slick!” she called, heading down the hallway towards his bedroom. “Slick, is this fight stuff true?” She stopped at his door when she heard sounds coming from inside. Moaning. Groaning. Occasional screaming. “Slick?” No answer.

Curiosity got the best of Maria and she opened up the door to his room, just to see who he was with now. If it was Tijuana, she wouldn’t be surprised. That girl was always desperate for somebody. She wouldn’t turn down Slick even if he . . .

Maria stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who Slick was with. Liz Parker. The same Liz Parker who was supposed to be devoted to Kyle.

“Maria!” Liz shrieked when she spotted her best friend. She immediately pushed Slick off of her and smoothed her hair down, covering herself up with the blankets. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” Maria apologized. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just . . . I . . . the fight . . . I . . . I’m just gonna go.” She turned and headed out of the room in a hurry, practically running down the hallway to her room. That was a sight she never wanted to see again. Liz and Slick going at it. Not only did it look completely uncomfortable and unnatural, but it was sad. Liz and Kyle had always been so perfect for each other.

Liz knocked on Maria’s door a few minutes later and came in, uninvited. She was fully clothed now, but she was still sweating, and she looked exhausted from the sex she and Slick had been having. “I guess that was kind of a shock, huh?” she said.

Maria nodded, picking up a magazine and starting to flip through it. Anything to distract her from what she’d just walked in on was a good thing and definitely needed.

“I, um . . . I don’t really know how to explain it,” Liz continued.

“You don’t need to explain it,” Maria assured her. “Trust me, it was pretty self-explanatory.”

Liz shook her head and sighed. “No, it’s not, Maria. I don’t even understand it myself. Why would I do that with Slick when I have Kyle?”

“I don’t know, Liz.”

“I love Kyle,” she told herself more than Maria. “I love, love, love Kyle. But . . . there’s just . . . something’s missing.”

“Like what?” Maria had to pretend to be interested. She honestly wouldn’t mind if this conversation stopped right now.

“Like passion,” Liz answered. “Like this outrageous, crazy passion. I guess I was looking for that with Slick, but . . . nothing.” All at once, something hit her, and her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Maria! I’m so sorry! You and Slick! You guys are a couple! I can’t believe I . . .”

“Relax,” Maria told her. “Slick and I are in no way a couple. He may think we will be someday, but we won’t. Liz, I understand why you did what you did. You were looking for passion. That’s fine with me. That might not be fine with Kyle, though.”

Liz sighed again. “Passion. That’s so lame. Everything about me is lame and stupid, Maria. Especially my love life.”

Maria didn’t quite understand. “But I thought you guys were happy.”

“We are,” Liz said, “sometimes. Maria, let me tell you something. You will be the luckiest girl in the history of the world if you can be happy with someone in this gang.”

Maria smiled inwardly, thinking to herself about how happy she was with Michael, about how happy she was with someone that was not part of this gang at all, but part of the other gang. The supposed enemy gang.

God, her life was so crazy. Everything with Michael was so crazy.

She was loving every second of it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The battle that next night was a brutal one, just as many had said it would be. There were more weapons being used this time. Most of the time, both BlackCon and Darkstreet fought hands on—most of the time—but this time, gunshots were ringing through the air, one right after the other. People were getting hurt. Maybe some people were even dying.

Maria was living. She and Michael had found each other and escaped from the chaotic battle. They flung themselves into an alley only a few feet away from the raging battle and flung themselves into each others arms. Before Maria could even form a coherent greeting, Michael’s lips were on hers, kissing her passionately. She let her hands find their way into his hair, urging him to kiss her harder.

His hands were doing marvelous things. Simple things, but marvelous things. They trailed up and down her sides, once in awhile slipping back to slide across her ass.

For the first time in her life, a guy was touching her, and she wanted him to.

“How can they not know?” Michael asked her, pulling away for air. “How can they not know about us?”

Maria smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, trailing a hand down his cheek, feeling a days worth of stubble. “Maybe they just don’t care.”

“Maybe.” He came in again, pressing his lips to hers. She felt his tongue tracing her lips, and she opened her mouth wider in invitation. One of his hands snaked up her sides and cupped one of her breasts through the fabric of her tank top. She had to suppress a groan at his touch.

“I love this,” Michael told her, releasing her mouth for air again. “I love how we can just get away with this and they have no idea.”

“I know,” she agreed, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. She wanted his clothes gone, and she wanted him to know it. “I love it how you’re all romantic with me one minute,” she told him, stretching herself up to nibble on his earlobe, “and the next, you’re making me completely crazy.”

All at once, Michael’s lips were on her neck, sucking the flesh into his mouth. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” Maria murmured. She felt him smile against her skin when she said that, the thought of leaving a mark on her appealing to him.

A gunshot rang out in the air, followed by a scream. It might have been Liz who screamed. It might have been someone Michael cared about.

The gunshot didn’t even register with them.

“We have got to get out of here,” Maria told him in a breathy voice as he sucked harder on her neck, pushing her farther back against the wall. She loved doing this with Michael, and she didn’t want to stop, but the smell of trash coming from the dumpster sitting right next to her was really starting to kill the mood.

“Where do you wanna go?” Michael asked her, his breath tickling he neck. “Carnival? Comedy club? Maybe one of your rap dance clubs?”

Maria hit him playfully on the shoulder. “Rap is awesome,” she said. “I’ll take that with me to the grave.”

Michael stopped kissing her and pulled back, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close to him. “And I’ll take it with me to the grave that rock and roll beats all. Now, where do you wanna go, DeLuca?”

There was no doubt in her mind where she wanted to go. She’d been thinking about it all morning and all afternoon. “Do you have money?” she asked him with her sweetest smile.

“Yes, I have money,” he replied, “because you never do. Why?”

“Because,” she said, “I wanna get a hotel room.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Where the hell is Michael?”

Max looked around when he heard Isabel ask the group where Michael was. It was raining now, and it was foggy, and the fight was still tapering off, but he could see very clearly that Michael Guerin was nowhere in sight.

“He isn’t here,” he told Isabel.

“Where is he?” Isabel asked him, like he was supposed to have all of the answers.

Max reached up and touched the cut on his forehead. He and Whitman had been fighting again that night. The dude had come with a vengeance for his brutal beating the time before. They’d fought hard, and Michael hadn’t fought at all.

“I don’t know,” he told Isabel. In reality, he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t know what was going on with Michael, but it was his own problem. He was through trying to reach the guy, trying to understand what was up with him, and he was done with the stupid lies. Fuckin’ novel . . .

“I thought you said you was gonna convince him to fight tonight!” Isabel shouted, turning to Nix now. “I thought you said he was in it!”

“Apparently he wasn’t!” Nix shouted back. “Don’t go fuckin’ blaming me, Isabel!”

“You’re our leader! You’re supposed to---”

Max placed his hand on her shoulder to calm her down as best he could. The last thing they needed right now was a fight between themselves.

“I don’t know where the hell he is,” Nix told everyone, mainly Isabel. “We’ll deal with it when we need to.” He wiped some blood from his hand and turned, continuing on his way towards the crib.

Isabel sighed and shook her head, watching him go. “We need to deal with this now,” she muttered so that only Max could hear her.

Max agreed with his sister, but he remained silent. He didn’t want to get involved with this right now, not when his life was actually going somewhere. He had Tess, and he had his job, and that was enough.

Besides, he knew he could rely on Isabel to figure out what was up with Michael someday.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The moment Maria stepped into the hotel room, she felt like she was living the high-life. Michael had shelled out the big bucks for this room. It was said to be one of the nicest rooms there was to offer, and it was certainly living up to its rave reviews. The bed was a gigantic canopy, the bathroom was a practically a spa all by itself, the pictures that hung on the walls were valued at around 2000 a piece, and they had a view of almost the entire city from their balcony.

“This is so awesome,” Maria commented as she stood outside on the balcony, overlooking the city. The cold, evening wind was blowing hard, but Michael was standing behind her, holding onto her tightly, and he made the wind almost nonexistent. “I love the south side of LA.” The south side of LA was the only part of the city that Maria actually enjoyed being in. It was where she had lived back when her mother had still been alive, back when life was simple.

“Yeah, I could get used to this,” Michael agreed, stroking her stomach with his fingers.

“I wish we could stay.” She knew quite well that they could not stay. The south side was for sophisticated, classy, rich people, and they didn’t fit that description.

At one time, she had.

She wanted to thank him for brining her there, for taking her back to a time when all things had been wonderful, and for making her feel so happy, but he was kissing his way down her neck to her shoulder, and this was enough to distract words from finding their way across her lips.

Turning in his arms, she pushed him back into the room, crashing her lips onto his. He kissed her for a long time, making her high on the sensation, and when he finally did pull away, she had to hold back a complaint at the loss of contact.

“This is crazy,” he almost whispered, running his fingers through her hair. “You and me. It’s crazy.”

“I know,” she agreed, smiling as she thought about how much she’d hated Michael a few short weeks ago. “I know, it is.”

“We’re supposed to hate each other,” Michael reminded her. “We’re supposed to hate each other and . . .” He trailed off.

And I love you, her mind screamed.

“It’s crazy,” he repeated finally. He leaned forward and kissed her again, pulling her body as close to his as he could. They were so close that Maria felt as if she could feel the passion racing from his body into hers as her own passion did the same. Her body and soul were on fire as she collapsed onto the bed and as he fell on top of her.

He pulled away for a short time, leaving her with that feeling of lost contact once again, and they stared into each other’s eyes. It was dark in the room, but Maria could see so much in his eyes. She saw a side of him that she had only rarely seen. She saw a side of him that was so vulnerable and innocent, and she saw herself in his eyes, and she was sparkling, shimmering, because that was the way he saw her.

Without giving it much thought, Maria trailed one hand down Michael’s chest, reaching the bottom of his shirt. She snaked her hand up under the material and caressed the skin of his stomach, inching his shirt upwards. Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he assisted her in removing his shirt, letting it fall to the ground.

Seconds later, he was kissing her again, softer this time. The desperate want and desire had diminished slightly, and he was kissing her now as if she were delicate, fragile, easily broken, like he didn’t want to damage her. She was barely able to kiss him when she felt his fingers undoing the buttons to her shirt. He undid them painstakingly slowly, taking his time as if he were not sure whether he was allowed to do such a thing.

“This is very, very illegal,” he told her quietly as he brought her shirt down over her shoulders and arms, letting it fall to the ground on top of his own.

She smiled and leaned forward a little so that her breath tickled his lips as she spoke. “Break the law,” she encouraged him, making sure that he knew that this was what she wanted. What she needed.

He wasn’t hesitant from there. He didn’t seem to worry about damaging her. She assured him that he wouldn’t.

He gazed at her as she lay under him, completely naked and exposed to him, and he touched her so gently and so passionately all at the same time that Maria thought for a minute that she died and gone to heaven, because this had to be what it would feel like.

This was the first time that somebody was touching her when she wanted him to. It was so different from all else. It was everything to her.

He groaned as she began to remove his jeans, taking him into her hands. He closed his eyes as she handled him, and she noticed he was shaking. She loved the effect she had on him.

Maybe this was everything to him, too.

His lips mated themselves to her, to her lips and to the rest of her body. His hands traced every inch of her body over and over again until she was sure he had it memorized.

“Michael . . .”

She loved him so much. She wanted the whole world to be him, because then the whole world would care about her and protect her and maybe even love her.

“Maria . . .”

He stopped when she began to guide him to her entrance, and he locked his hand with hers, entwining their fingers. He stared into her eyes again, and he opened his mouth slightly. For a few seconds, he could only look at her. He couldn’t speak. And then he did.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Beautiful. People said she was beautiful. She never knew whether to believe them or not, but she believed Michael. He thought she was beautiful.

He kissed her gently again as he entered her slowly, and he kept kissing her as a wave ecstasy and euphoria overtook them both a short time later, and though she could not be sure, as she fell asleep that night, Maria DeLuca let herself believe that Michael Guerin was in love with her.

......................






He awoke and felt sublimely happy.

She was laying in his arms, her head and her hands resting on his chest. The sun shining in through the window caused her hair to sparkle like spun gold, and she was sleeping with a smile on her face. She looked happy, too.

He didn’t have it in him to wake her up, so he just laid with her, holding her for the longest time. He tried to memorize everything about her, every little detail, every curve and bend, every sparkle and shimmer. Maybe someday he would really write a novel, and it would be all about her. Beautiful.

She began to stir after about a half an hour later, burying her face into his chest and wrapping her legs around his. Soon, her eyes began to flutter open. “Hey,” she said sleepily, smiling.

“Hey,” he echoed, caressing her back. He couldn’t stop touching her.

She seemed content with just being in his arms. She didn’t bother to move or to speak, and he was content with that as well. He had never ever just held a girl like this after making love to her. Hell, he had never made love to anyone before this. This was all different and new for him, too. It was strange, but he was enjoying it.

“Touch me.”

He ran one hand over her stomach, tracing the scar which he had placed upon her, and up to brush across her breasts at her quiet request and then leaned in to kiss her again the way he had never kissed anyone before.

He kissed her and he held her and he touched her the rest of the morning, never once getting out of bed and parting with her.

They both knew, though, that they would have to go back eventually. Back to a harsh reality. This fantasy couldn’t last forever.

He watched her as she dressed, unable to keep his eyes off of her. She blushed self-consciously under his gaze and continued dressing, seeming more than a little reluctant to put her clothes back on.

He was drowning in her, but he wasn’t gasping for air. He was begging to stay submerged.

It took them forever to leave. Every time they were anywhere close to leaving the fantasy, they found their way back in. She would pull him away from the door and fall down on top of the bed again, begging him to kiss her. He would throw the sheets over them, hiding themselves from the rest of the world for a little while, and they would make their way over to the door later. He would gaze at her for a brief instant, fascinated, and crush his lips to hers, pushing her back against the doorframe. Several people would pass by and give them strange and disapproving looks at their open displays of affection, but Michael wouldn’t even notice.

“They’re wondering where I am,” she said in a breathy voice as he pulled her back into a secluded alley and attacked her neck with his lips when they were at the borderline. “I think,” she added quietly. “I think they are. I have to go back. I have to lie to them, ‘cause . . . me being with you . . . they’ll think that’s wrong.”

“It’s not wrong,” Michael told her. “Just crazy, remember?”

She nodded and thrust her hips up into his slightly. “Right,” she said. “Crazy.”

“You’re seventeen.”

“We’re from rival gangs.”

He smiled and pressed his lips to hers, pulling back and whispering quickly, “If this is crazy, if we’re crazy, check me into the fuckin’ asylum right away ‘cause I really don’t mind.”

Maria laughed a little. “You are by far the strangest person I have ever met.”

“So I’m strange and crazy and . . . what else am I?”

“Complicated,” she reminded him. She slid her hands up under his shirt. “And I gotta say, you’re rather fine, too.”

She was turning him on, fast. Maria aroused him like no one else did. All she had to do was look at him and he was at the edge of the universe. His heart was beating out of control and he had a hard on that was almost unbearably painful.

She reached down and began to undo his jeans as he kissed her, pressing her back hard against the wall as he thrust himself into her hand. He wanted her so badly. He felt like he couldn’t resist.

“God, I hope my mom isn’t watching me right now,” she said quietly, undoing her own jeans and sliding them down her waist to give him access. “Me gettin’ screwed in an alley . . .” She trailed off, and Michael stopped. Maria didn’t deserve to get fucked in an alley. That was something that he had done with Isabel and with many other girls. Maria deserved what they’d had the night before, the romance thing that Michael had never thought he’d be capable of.

“We shouldn’t do this right now,” Michael told her, suddenly reminded that there were actually other people out and about, too. If they peered too far down into this alley . . .

He buttoned his jeans again, and she did the same, though it was a difficult thing to do. He saw the look of disappointment on Maria’s face and in her eyes, and he was well aware of the fact that she had wanted this.

“Tonight,” he told her. “Nix was planning on having everyone head on out to Club Bang to party for awhile. I won’t go. The crib will be empty and . . .”

“And I get your point,” she cut him off. “I’ll be there.”

They parted at last, and it wasn’t easy. Michael was certain that he could have spent the rest of his days with that girl—with that woman—starting from that very second, and he wished he could have. Instead, he watched as she walked away, watched as she turned around and smiled over her shoulder with those pearly white teeth of hers that were white enough to be on a Colgate commercial, watched as her hair fell over her back like a scene from a shampoo advertisement, watched as her hips shook in the form of every guy’s fantasy. He watched, fascinated, and wondered why she would pick a guy like him.

He was well aware of the fact that he was lucky.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Liz was hurt. When Maria arrived back at the crib, Liz was laying on the couch holding her hand to her side. Maria asked her if she was okay, and she told her that she had been shot at the fight the night before. She didn’t ask where Maria had been, so Maria didn’t bother to give her an excuse.

No one else really seemed to care. Kyle was so worried about Liz that he couldn’t even think about anything else, and Alex was worried about everyone. He was running around trying to take care of Liz as best he could, but he was not a doctor, and the medical supplies they had at the crib were extremely meager.

Even Slick didn’t care. He saw her, and he gave her one of those nods that he gave people when he didn’t want to talk, and Maria was happy with that. Not talking was fine. The less talking, the better.

She went up to her bedroom and laid down, closing her eyes and thinking about Michael, thinking about everything that had happened. She tried to remember the little things, like the way his lips trembled when he kissed her, like the way his stomach muscles quivered as he moved inside of her. She had never seen him so open and so vulnerable before, and though she knew he cared about her, she had never believed that he would treat her like he had, being so careful and so gentle as not to harm her in any way.

Thinking about Michael only made the ache inside of her grow. She had wanted him back in that alley, and he had left her hanging.

That was why she would be seeing him tonight, one way or another, whether it was in Darkstreet territory or BlackCon territory or neither of the two. She would see him. He would satisfy her ache. He always would.

Slick came into her room right as she was drifting off to sleep. “I wanna talk,” he told her. “About . . . things.”

“I can explain why I didn’t fight last night,” Maria started immediately. She had this whole excuse planned out to perfection. “I just thought that I should . . .”

“No, I don’t wanna talk about that,” Slick told her. “I, uh, was really wishing that we could talk about what you saw going on between me and, uh, Liz.”

“Oh,” Maria said. She hadn’t been expecting this. Slick never talked about any of the girls he fucked. Maybe he thought that she would get hurt by it. She wouldn’t.

“I don’t really know what happened,” he began. “We’d had a little too much to drink, and she just came up to my room and we . . . I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Maria told him. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said, hiding her smile as she thought about the reality of this situation. Slick was the one who was coming clean, and she wasn’t. He knew nothing about her relationship with Michael, that crazy relationship.

Slick breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

“Have any girl you want,” Maria told him. She really could care less who Slick was screwing around with. It didn’t even matter to her at this point.

“Any girl?” Slick echoed in question. “Even you?”

She should have seen this coming. Slick hadn’t come up here to apologize for what he had been doing with Liz. He was coming up here to see if she was ready. Everything was always about this with him.

“Slick, I just don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

He looked a little disappointed, but he tried to cover it. “That’s fine,” he said. “Someday, right?”

She gave him a look that he interpreted as a ‘yes’, but she never actually promised him someday. She waited until he left the room and then fell back on her bed, completely exasperated with him. He was an okay guy sometimes, but when he started wanting her so bad like that . . .

The technicality of it all was quite funny, though. Slick was the leader, and he was asking Maria for her permission, when she should be asking him for his. She felt strong and she felt powerful and she felt so overwhelmingly happy and in love that it was suffocating her . . . in a good way.

Michael made her feel all of these things.

Michael made her feel beautiful.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Nix’s idea for a night of fun at Club Bang was a good idea. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to it. It had been awhile since the whole group had just gone out and torn it up for awhile. Even those who were injured from the fight the night before were determined to go.

Isabel was hoping that this night would patch things up between the group. It seemed like there had been this chasm set up between all of them ever since Michael started acting the way he did. They couldn’t afford that right now. They needed to stay unified if they were ever going to take down BlackCon and end the rivalry.

End the rivalry. That phrase just sounded odd. The rivalry was looking like it would never end at this point.

So everyone was preparing for a night out on the town that night. Everyone but Michael. He stayed up in his bedroom, making no effort to come down. Max and Nix didn’t make any effort to go up and ask him if he was coming or not. At this point, they probably didn’t even care.

Isabel did, though. Even though she hated to admit it, a small part of her still cared. She didn’t exactly care about Michael, but she cared about what was going on with him.

Before the gang headed out, she headed up to Michael’s room, (which she still believed should rightfully be her room) and she found him laying on his bed with his eyes closed. She thought that he was asleep for a short time and contemplated interesting and hilarious ways to wake him up, but his eyes snapped open just as she decided to go get a glass of ice cold water and throw it over him.

“What do you want, Is?” he asked her, straight to the point.

“Just wonderin’ if you was comin’ tonight,” she answered.

“Comin’ where?”

“Club Bang. Nix’s idea for a fun night out.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Probably not.”

“Why not?” she asked him. This was strange. Michael had never ever distanced himself from the gang like this before. What the hell was going on with him?

He flung his feet over the edge of the bed and stood up. “I don’t know,” he answered with a shrug. “Don’t really feel like it, I guess.”

“You don’t feel like it?” she echoed in question. Something was definitely up. There was more to this than Michael was letting on to. The one reason that Michael hardly ever missed out on going to Club Bang was because he always felt like getting a little freaky with the girls there, and the girls always felt like getting a little freaky with him.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “I just don’t feel like it.” He made his way over to his CD player, turning it on loud enough so that if Isabel had even tried to talk to him, he wouldn’t have been able to hear her.

Knowing that Michael was not going to listen to what she had to say or answer any of her unanswered questions at this point, Isabel slammed the door shut and made her way back down the hallway, back out to the gang that Michael was suddenly almost refusing to be a part of.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She came over like she said she would. They tried the talking thing for awhile, but the fact that no one else was around soon became too much, and his hands were on her, undressing her and carrying her up the stairs to his bedroom where he let his passion take him over and let himself make love to her again.

She laid beside him, her slick body pressing up against his, burying her face in his chest as he ran his fingers through her hair.

“Best sex of my life,” he told her.

His comment ignited a little laugh from her. “Really?”

“Really,” he said. He had been with lots of girls, but none of them had made him feel like Maria did. He had never loved any of them.

“The best sex of your life is with me?”

He nodded forcefully. “Damn right it is. See, girls like Isabel . . . they’ve done it so many times that they can’t think of anything new to do. But you . . .” He trailed off when he felt her grabbing onto him beneath the blankets. “Fuck,” he cursed. If it had been any other girl, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but it was Maria, so it was.

“Do you think it’s weird?” she asked him.

“What?”

“Do you think it’s weird that we hardly even know each other?”

He hadn’t thought about that. They had not known each other for a very long time, but it seemed like he had known her for all his life. It seemed like his life hadn’t started until he met her.

“We know each other,” he told her.

“I know we do,” she said. “God, I feel like I know you better than anyone else, but . . . my point is that things are crazy to begin with, and the more I think about, the crazier it all seems. Me and you. I don’t know if I’m making any sense, here, but I just kinda gotta wonder how it all worked out this way. I mean, why did you come up to my room that night, Michael? Why did you waste any time with me when Nix and Max didn’t even bother?”

He hadn’t really thought about that for awhile now. “I don’t know.”

“And why did you protect me at the bank, and why did you take the time to teach me how to drive? Well, I mean, you really didn’t teach me, but, you know what I mean. Why did you even care?”

“I don’t know, Maria,” he said. “Why did you let me protect you, and why did you let me teach you how to drive, and why did you let me care?”

“That’s not fair,” she said. “You can’t answer questions with questions, Michael. That’s not the way it works.”

He smiled and leaned in, pressing his lips to hers. She kissed him back passionately, burrowing her fingers in his unruly hair and moving so that she was laying on top of him.

“I’m serious,” she said, pulling away suddenly. “You can’t answer questions with questions, Michael. It’s in the handbook.”

“What handbook?”

“It’s my own personal, made-up handbook, alright?”

“Yeah, well I have a handbook of my own,” he told her, stroking her back, “and it says that answering questions with questions is perfectly fine.”

She sighed and shook her head. “You are impossible.” She laid her head down on his chest, and within minutes, she was asleep. Michael glanced at his watch laying on the table by the bed and saw the time. It was late. Or early. Depending on one’s point of view. Maria could stay an hour more probably, but nothing beyond that. Darkstreet would be arriving back.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Isabel tried to have fun at Club Bang with Nix and the others. She pretended to be partying for at least two and a half hours until she could pretend no longer. Whatever was up with Michael was eating away and consuming her. She had to figure out what it was, and she had to figure out now.

She told Nix she was sick and that she was heading back home to get some rest. He believed her, and he and the rest of the group continued to bump and grind as she left.

He’s probably stressed, Isabel reasoned. But what the hell does Michael have to be stressed about? Maybe it’s ‘cause he ain’t makin’ money sellin’ now. Is he even sellin’ anymore? Maybe he’s ashamed ‘cause he’s been losin’ so many fights lately. Maybe he’s worrying about losing again. Maybe he’s . . .

Isabel went through all of the possible reasons as to why Michael might be acting so strangely as she made her way back to the crib, wondering which one of them was right.

She entered silently, trying to match the silence of the house. She didn’t hear Michael’s music playing anymore. That was strange. The guy liked his music, especially when he was by himself.

Isabel crept up the stairs, cursing quietly when a board squeaked underneath her feet. She couldn’t let Michael know she was home. He was never going to willingly tell her what was going on, so she’d have to do a little secret looking in on and him and find out for herself. He couldn’t have any idea.

His room was as silent as the rest of the house. He was probably sleeping, but Isabel didn’t resist the urge to look in on him anyway. She opened the door slowly and quietly, opening it just slightly. She was prepared to find Michael in his bed, asleep.

He was in his bed, but he wasn’t asleep. And he wasn’t alone.

He was holding someone, stroking her golden blonde hair and her bare back. He was holding someone and they were both naked.

Michael Guerin had . . . he had made love to someone. And now he was holding her like she was special, important, beautiful. He never did either of those things.

Isabel looked away, shocked by this discovery. Michael was . . . well, he was in love with someone, because he was holding her, and it was clear just by the very atmosphere in the room and around the couple that he hadn’t just fucked her. He had made love to her. He had made love to her because he was in love with her.

This was . . . shocking didn’t even seem to fit the description.

Isabel took one last look, just to make sure she was seeing things right, and she realized she was. Michael and the girl . . . the girl . . . She looked sort of familiar. Not so familiar that Isabel could pick her out in a crowd of a thousand, but she did look familiar.

Isabel looked harder. It was strange, but the girl almost looked like a girl from BlackCon. She had that long, blonde hair and that pale, perfect skin and those full lips. She was beautiful.

Beautiful. There was only one girl in BlackCon who most everybody considered to be beautiful. But she was nobody . . .

But she was laying in Michael’s arms.

Maria.

Isabel closed the door in a hurry, eager to get that image out of her brain. But it followed her. Images of Maria followed her. How could Michael do such a thing? How could he betray Darkstreet like that?

Isabel hurried quietly to Jonathon’s room, which had lately become her room as well and collapsed on the bed. What was she supposed to do with this information? Was she supposed to keep it to herself or was she supposed to tell Nix?

Out of all of the things that she had suspected might be wrong with Michael, she had never expected this. She had never expected that he was in love with . . . with the enemy!

Maybe, though . . . maybe he wasn’t in love. Perhaps Michael was only using this to his advantage. Maybe Maria was his way inside of BlackCon. From the inside, he could destroy.

Isabel prayed that this was true. (She’d never prayed in her life before, but she was praying now.) She prayed that this was all some plan that Michael had come up with, some plan to emerge victorious once and for all.

An hour later, she heard Michael open the door to his room. She heard him talking to her, although she could not make out what he was saying. She heard him say her name, though. Maria. She was right.

He kissed her, and she left. Isabel watched out her window as the nobody girl snuck off to the place where she belonged. She still couldn’t believe this.

She had been thinking wishfully when she had been praying. This was not a plan at all. Michael Guerin was truly and deeply in love with this girl, with the enemy.

.......................




About an hour after Maria left Darkstreet arrived back home. Michael was downstairs watching TV when the arrived home. He asked them if they had fun, and they nodded, but they didn’t waste time talking to him.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew that he had distanced himself from the rest of the gang, but for some reason, that didn’t bother him.

Nix did sit down beside him though. “What’re you watching?” he asked.

Michael shrugged. “I dunno. Third Rock from the Sun or something.”

Nix nodded. “You shoulda come with us tonight, man,” he said. “It was awesome.”

“Yeah, I bet it was,” Michael agreed, adding on silently in his head, but I bet it wasn’t half as awesome as it was up in my bedroom.

“How’s Isabel?” Nix asked.

Isabel? “What do you mean?” he asked.

“How’s she feelin’?” Nix elaborated.

“How should I know?”

“I just thought you might’ve talked to her, asked her why she came home.”

Michael was completely confused. “What the hell are you talkin’ it about?”

“Isabel got sick. She left early and came back here.”

Michael felt a feeling of panic and alarm suddenly rise up in his chest. He bolted up off of the couch and ran upstairs to Jonathon’s bedroom, where he knew he would find Isabel.

Holy shit, this was not good.

Isabel was in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“Hey,” Michael said. “I didn’t even hear you get in.”

“Nope.”

“How you feeling?”

“Aight.”

“That’s really weird. I must’ve fallen asleep or something, ‘cause I didn’t even hear you.”

“Must have.”

“You probably came straight up to your room, then,” Michael continued. “Right?”

She turned to look at him for the first time since he had opened the door to her room. “Right,” she said.

Michael felt relief wash over him. If she had come straight up to her room, then she had probably gone straight to sleep.

He and Maria were safe and secret for another day.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll let you rest.” He closed the door and headed back down, joining Nix on the couch again.

“What was that all about?” Nix asked.

“Nothin’,” Michael lied. “Just had to piss like a bitch, that’s all.” Lame excuse. He knew it. Oh well.

Nix gave him a weird look. “Alright, whatever.” He motioned towards the TV and stood. “Tell me what happens.”

When Nix was gone, Michael let himself breathe a sigh of relief. That had been close with Isabel. He and Maria would have to be more careful in the future.

At least nobody knew anything.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria met Michael on the street corner that next night. She knew that he had something to tell her from the moment he met her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, “but, uh . . . we’re gonna have to be more careful.” He placed his hand on her shoulder and led her into a secluded alley.

“What are you talking about?” she asked him, still confused. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” he said, “but something almost happened. When we were together last night, Isabel came home.”

“What?” Maria shrieked. “I didn’t even hear her!”

“I know. I didn’t, either.”

“Does she know?” Maria felt panic rising up inside of her. If anyone knew, she and Michael wouldn’t be able to be together anymore. Something bad would happen. Something bad was bound to happen if somebody found out.

“She doesn’t know anything,” he reassured her. “She wasn’t feeling well. She went up to her room to sleep. That’s all.”

Maria breathed a sigh of relief. “Good,” she whispered quietly, “but that was too close. We can’t let anyone find out, Michael.”

“I know. Like I said, we just gotta be a little more careful.”

“We shouldn’t even look at each other in public.”

“Well then when are we supposed to look at each other?”

“When we’re not in public.”

Michael sighed, sounding disappointed. “I guess if that’s what you think is best . . .” He trailed off. “It’s just . . . I kinda . . .”

“You kinda what?”

He sighed again. “I kinda was planning on takin’ you to Motion tonight. But, public, so . . .”

Maria felt her own disappointment grow. Things would be so much simpler if this wasn’t so complicated, if this was just a normal relationship.

One thing was for sure. This would never be a normal relationship. It never had been, and it never would be.

But that was okay.

“I hate this,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to sneak around like this.”

“I know.”

“I really, really wanna go with you to Motion tonight.”

He hung his head and shrugged. “It’s alright,” he said, but something in his voice told her that it wasn’t quite alright.

“Fine, you know what? Just screw it,” Maria told him finally. “Screw Darkstreet, screw BlackCon, and screw this whole gang thing. We’re goin’ to Motion tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. We’re together now, and people who are together tend to do things together, so let’s go.”

He smiled and kissed her, taking her hand and leading her out to his car.

“Can I drive?” she asked him.

He gave her a look and shook his head, and she reluctantly climbed into the passenger’s seat.

“Why can’t I drive?” she asked him as he started down the road.

“‘Cause, honestly, Maria, you suck.”

“I only suck at driving ‘cause you suck at teaching!” she retorted. “Just take the wheel, Maria! Oh, yeah, like that’s gonna work.”

“It worked for me.”

“No, you know what? I don’t think it did. I think you did take Driver’s Ed, and you’re lying to me.”

“Have I ever lied to you before?”

She tried to think back, but she couldn’t. “Well, you know, I don’t exactly keep track, but you probably did when we hated each other.”

He started laughing when he heard her mention the word hate. “Can you believe we used to hate each other?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Can you believe that I was thinkin’ about killin’ you one time?”

“Can you believe that I wanted you to kill me?”

He gave her a look. “You did?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I just didn’t wanna live.”

“What changed?”

She smiled a little. “I started not hating you.”

They arrived at Motion a short time later. The line was even longer than it had been the last time they had been there, and Maria was not in the mood to wait in line.

“Okay, I am not waiting in that line,” she told Michael. “Think I should work my magic?”

Michael looked first at the long line, then at the guy letting people in, and then back at Maria. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe we should just wait.”

She smiled and grabbed onto his shirt, pulling him closer so that his face was mere inches from her own. “Jealous?”

“I’m not jealous,” he said, though it was obvious he was lying. “I just think that we should wait in line. It’s the polite thing to do.”

Maria shook her head. “You see, Michael, the problem with your little story here is that I know you, and I know that you never do what’s polite.” She tugged on his shirt, pulling him forward to the very front of the line.

“Hey,” she said to the guy up front, immediately recognizing him as the guy who had let them in after much deliberation during their last visit to Motion. “Do you think that you might by chance let me and my boyfriend in?” She put on her sweetest smile, but the guy was unaffected.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because,” she said, leaning in, “I’m pretty.”

“Beautiful,” Michael muttered from beside her.

“Forget it,” the guy said.

“Please, please, let us in,” Maria begged. “Please.”

“Why? So you can bang each other all night?”

Maria recognized his question from last time, but this time she had a different answer. “Maybe.”

Michael stifled his laughter. “Look, just let us in,” he said.

At last, the guy up front gave in and let them in, apparently not even caring anymore.

“Maybe, huh?” Michael asked her quietly once they were inside.

Maria hit him playfully on the shoulder. “You men are all alike, aren’t you? You can’t go one day without it.”

“That’s right. I can’t,” Michael admitted. “Can you?”

“I could if I had to.”

“But you don’t have to,” he reminded her with a mischievous grin.

She smiled in return and kissed him. “But you know,” she said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be that public. So you might just have to settle for a little dancing.” She took his hand and started pulling him to the dance floor.

“I think I already told you that I don’t dance.”

“No,” she said, “you told me you weren’t much of a dancer. That means that there’s a little bit of a dancer in you somewhere.”

“No, there’s not,” he said. “Scratch what I already said, ‘cause I am a really bad dancer.”

“You can’t be that bad.”

“Maria, I dance the way you drive.”

She gave him a look. “Alright, just for that little remark, you’re dancing for sure.”

Seconds later, he was standing in the middle of the dance floor as rap music blared from all sides of the club around him. “What the hell am I doing?” he asked himself more than Maria.

“You’re dancing,” Maria reminded him. “Come on. Start breakin’ it down.” She started to sway her hips in front of him, but he didn’t even start to move.

“Come on, Michael,” she urged. “You’re out here now. You’ve gotta dance.”

“I don’t really know how.”

“Of course you do. Just let loose a little bit.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t see that happening.”

Maria stopped dancing and thought about the situation. Getting Michael to dance was going to be impossible.

Unless she managed to persuade him.

“Michael,” she said, “how about we dance a little closer.” She took two steps towards him so that she could wrap her arms around his neck and press her body against his. “Do you see that happening?”

Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Possibly.”

She started moving, and he did, too. Slightly. “Don’t think about it so much,” she told him. “Just move with me. You know how to move with me, don’t you?”

“Damn right, I do.” He started moving more, grinding his hips into hers. She rolled her head back and suppressed a groan when she felt him pressing into her.

“See?” she said. “It isn’t that difficult.” She swayed her hips in a circular motion, moving her body painstakingly slowly over his. She felt him tighten his arms around her waist, and she knew she was having an effect on him.

He continued to move with her, making her feel like she was losing her control. Michael Guerin could send her spiraling towards ecstasy so easily that it was insane.

“You lied to me,” she choked out, finding it hard to speak.

“What? When?”

“Just now,” she told him. “You told me you were a bad dancer.”

Maria passed by Michael the next day. He was casually strolling along in BlackCon territory, most likely looking for her. He met her eyes, and she had to look away. If she looked at him for too long, she was sure that she would run up to him and throw herself in his arms, and seeing as how Slick was with her, (He had insisted on taking her out to Julio’s for breakfast), that didn’t seem like a good idea.

So she could only pass by him and hope that she would see him that night, but that didn’t happen, either. Again, Slick was taking up her time, insisting that they party at Club Funk for awhile. Maria had the feeling that he was trying to work his way up to the getting-laid status. Let him work. That wasn’t happening.

So she went an entire day without even speaking to Michael, hanging on to that brief glimpse of him she had caught when she had passed by him. She hadn’t realized until now how much she depended on him. Seeing him, talking to him, being with him had become the part of her life she lived for.

She got up early that next morning, took a shower and did her hair and put on some cute clothes that she hadn’t worn for quite some time. She told Slick that she was going shopping, or rather looking at things she could never have, and he volunteered to go with her.

“You don’t have to,” she told him. “It wouldn’t interest you. I’ll be back, okay?”

He nodded slowly, a skeptical look on his face. “Okay.”

Maria ignored the skeptical look and left the crib, making her way as quickly as she could to the borderline. She couldn’t explain it, but she had the strangest feeling that Michael would be there, waiting for her.

And he was.

“Hey,” she said, smiling.

“Hey. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I was hoping to see you here.”

She smiled again.

“So, I, uh . . . I kinda thought that I might take you somewhere,” he told her suddenly.

“Take me somewhere?” Maria echoed. “You mean, like a date?”

He shrugged. “Well, yeah, like a twisted kind of date.”

She was confused. “What are you talking about, Michael? We’re not gonna go to some rodeo or something, right?”

“We’re not going to a rodeo,” he reassured her. “Look, I think you might like it. Just come with me.” He held out his hand, and she took it, wondering what Michael was planning now.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Michael couldn’t believe that he was taking Maria where he was going to take her. This really had to be the strangest kind of date anyone had ever been on. But he knew she would like this.

“Where are we going?” she kept asking him as they drove. Her curiosity was making her especially excited.

“You’ll see,” he told her.

They kept driving farther and farther away from both BlackCon and Darkstreet territory. Maria gave him a confused look. “Where are we going?” she continued to ask.

Michael smiled to himself as he drove on.

Things started changing after that. The environment became cleaner. The streets became safer. The air became breathable again. Things became nicer.

“You’re taking me to the south side?” Maria observed in question. “Michael, no offense or anything, but I don’t think you have money to be hanging out in the south side right now.”

“We don’t need money for where we’re going.”

“Michael, I lived here. I happen to know that everything takes money.”

“You sure about that?” He took a right turn and drove a little farther, finally pulling into a parking lot next to a building. A flash of familiarity crossed Maria’s features as she recognized where they were. “Michael . . .” she whispered, trailing off.

He got out of the car, waiting for her to get out as well. When she sat frozen in place, he walked around to her side of the car and opened the door for her, taking her hand and helping her out. “Michael . . .” she whispered again.

When she saw the building looming in front of them that was plain as day a high school, not her high school, but a high school nonetheless, her eyes watered a little, and she smiled.

“I call it the Normal Day date,” Michael told her. “I told you it was kinda twisted.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not, Michael,” she said. “It’s great. It’s really great.”

He started forward toward the entrance of the school, taking her with him. “How exactly do you plan on getting in here, though?” Maria asked him.

“I checked it all out yesterday,” he explained. “The thing about these south side schools is they’re nice, but they have this lack of security thing that I’m planning on taking advantage of.”

Maria laughed. “This really is crazy, Michael,” she said. “Sneaking into a school? How many people do that?”

Michael placed his hand on the door and looked at her. “Ready?”

She nodded excitedly, and he opened the door, revealing a flood of students on the other side hurrying to their next classes.

“Just kinda lose yourself in the crowd,” he instructed, “but don’t lose yourself from me.”

She followed him down the hallway, taking in everything. “Look at this!” she commented. “Lockers and students and teachers! I haven’t been around any of this since I was fourteen!”

“Wanna know how long it’s been since I’ve been around it?”

She laughed and continued to follow him down the hallway. He knew knew exactly where he was going.

“Now I did a little research yesterday,” he said, “and this class is supposed to have a substitute today.” He opened a door to a room marked Rm: 114, and they entered inside just as the bell rang. “So this might be a good chance for us to just blend in.”

Maria looked around the classroom, noticing that there were many historical pictures on the walls, along with a sign that read HISTORY IS LIFE.

They each sat down in a desk in the back of the room beside each other, getting a few weird looks from some of the other kids. Michael looked down at what Maria was wearing and realized that she had worn a shirt that showed her stomach, and in south side schools, that was strictly prohibited.

“Are they new?” someone asked quietly.

“Look at her shirt,” another commented.

“Look at his hair!”

“I can’t believe this,” Maria told Michael quietly. She shook her head and smiled at him. “You are crazy.”

“Alright, class, my name is Mrs. Storren and I’m subbing for Mr. Collins today,” the elderly woman who was supposed to pass a decent sub began. “If you would help me out with the attendance . . . Abby Boran?”

A girl in the front seat raised her hand, and Maria and Michael sunk lower in their seats. They wouldn’t be on that list, and though the possibility of that old lady noticing this was slim, it didn’t hurt to try to make themselves invisible.

When she was done taking attendance, Mrs. Storren or whatever the hell he name was instructed that the class was to read chapters eight and nine in their textbooks. Maria glanced at Michael, and before she could say anything, Mrs. Storren was asking her where her textbook was.

“Uh, I left it in my locker,” Maria lied. “Is there an extra anywhere?”

Mrs. Storren searched the closet behind her and pulled out an extra textbook, motioning for Maria to come up to the front and get it. “Do you need one, too, young man?” she asked Michael. He nodded.

Maria was holding in her laughter when she heard Michael being called ‘young man’.

When they both had their books, they both pretended to read for a short time. A couple of people turned around and asked if they were new students, and Maria always answered the same. “Sorta.”

It didn’t take long for the substitute to lose herself in a book and forget about the class entirely. Maria scooted her desk close enough to Michael’s so that she could lean over and whisper in his ear, “Let’s wreak havoc.”

Michael gave her a confused look, and to show him what exactly it was that she meant, she leaned forward in her seat, causing her jeans to gap out in the back, revealing a large amount of skin.

“I’m not crazy,” Michael whispered back. “You are.”

Maria smiled and laughed softly. She was obviously feeling daring and rebellious. Maria didn’t feel like this too often, so he would have had to be crazy not to take advantage of it.

He scooted his desk even closer, placing his hand on her bare skin, letting it hover just above the line of her jeans. “You’re really crazy,” he said again before plunging his hand down the back of her jeans.

Maria took in a sharp intake of air when Michael’s hand slid through her panties and made contact with her ass. This caught the attention of the girl in front of her, and she spun around, taking one look at what was going on and giving Maria a disgusted look.

As Michael’s touches grew more intense, Maria’s sounds grew louder and her laughing intensified. More and more people turned around and gave them those same disgusted looks and then immediately returned to reading the assigned chapters.

When Michael started sliding his hand around to the front, though, Maria was unable to suppress a full-out groan, catching the attention of Mrs. Storren.

“What are you two doing?” she shrieked, causing Michael to immediately remove his hand. The whole class started to laugh, and Maria turned the brightest shade of red. Michael laughed right along with the rest of them.

“To the office right now!” Mrs. Storren ordered.

Maria stood up slowly, adjusting her jeans a little, and Michael followed her. They left the classroom, and Mrs. Storren led them down the hallway in the direction of the office.

But there was no way that Michael was letting this end now. He and Maria hadn’t even made it through one class period yet.

“Hey, Mrs. Storren?” he said. “There’s something I gotta tell you.” She turned around and looked him straight in the eye with an angry glare, and he had to contain his laughter. “We don’t go to this school!”

They both started laughing, and he grabbed her hand and ran with her in the opposite direction of the office, ignoring the shouting and the questions from Mrs. Storren. They ran through the gymnasium and auditorium, passing by a man who seemed like he could be the principal. Finally, they disappeared into a tiny, dark room that Michael guessed was the janitor’s closet.

“Michael, I think we’re both crazy!”

“I think you’re right!” He leaned forward and crushed his lips to hers, slipping his tongue into her mouth at once. Her hands were undoing the button on his jeans immediately, and his hands were crawling up her shirt.

“I really feel like I’m in high school,” Maria said, easing Michael’s jeans down over his hips.

Before anything more could happen, the door to the janitor’s closet swung open and the man they suspected to be the principal discovered them with a look of horror on his face. Maria immediately smoothed her shirt down, and Michael pulled his pants up.

“What are you two doing?” the principal asked them. “And who are you?”

“Um . . . we’re on a date,” Michael told him honestly.

“A twisted kind of date,” Maria added.

The principal gave them a confused look. “Why are you at my school? What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like we’re doing?” Michael retorted.

“OUT!” the principal shouted. “GET OUT OF MY SCHOOL NOW!”

“Chill,” Maria told him, slipping out of the closet. “We’ll go.”

The principal forced them out, and a crowd of students in the hallway watched in confusion. Michael’s eyes caught sight of a poster he had not previously seen. It was advertising a dance that night. When they were out of earshot of the principal, he leaned down and whispered in her ear. “You know, we might just have to come back here tonight.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

That afternoon, Michael took Maria to see a movie. It had been forever since she had gone to a movie theater and saw a movie. It felt so good to go again.

He took her out to eat, too, at a buffet. He really didn’t have the money to be doing all of these things, but he didn’t seem to care.

The whole afternoon, Maria kept asking herself the same question: Where did I go right?

Later that night, they went back to the same school where they had managed to wreak a lot of havoc. Security was just as nonexistent as ever, and they got in easily. They slipped past the entrance to the dance without paying, unnoticed thanks to Michael’s skills in this area.

It was dark in the gymnasium where the dance was being held, and Maria was thankful for that. Less chance of getting caught. Again.

A few students seemed to recognize them from their earlier display. They seemed about as disgusted as ever, but they said nothing.

A slow song kicked on not long into the dance, and Maria took Michael’s hands, leading him out to dance.

“I know you can dance,” she told him, “so you’ve gotta dance with me.”

“But Maria, slow dancing’s different than fast dancing.”

“That’s right. It’s easier.” She looped her arms around his neck, burrowing her fingers in his hair, and he held onto her waist. “All you have to do is kinda sway.”

He held her close to him, staring into her eyes. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.

But she wanted to speak. She wanted to tell him that this had been the best day of her life, that she had loved every little thing about it, that she loved him.

“You gonna take me back here when it’s time for prom?” she joked as the song came to an end.

He smiled and kissed her softly, his lips barely brushing hers.

A fast song started up, and kids started to break it down the only way they knew how. Maria watched them and shook her head. Partying at Club Funk had taught her some moves, and these kids were in a desperate need for teaching.

“Come on,” she said to Michael. “Let’s show them how to break it down.”

They made their way into the center of a circle that had formed since the song started, and Maria started moving when she felt Michael’s arms wrap around her waist. The small crowd looked on in shock at the way they were dancing, but a few of the more daring ones started getting into it after awhile.

“Hey!” somebody shouted all of a sudden. A flashlight beamed down on Michael and Maria, and Maria had to squint her eyes due to it’s shine. “I thought I told you to get outta my school!”

“Great,” Maria groaned. “The principal.”

“I can have you put in jail for this!” he shouted over the music.

“Can he really?” Maria asked Michael.

“I don’t know. But we better not stick around to find out.”

She sighed. “Fine.” She followed Michael out of the school, ignoring the idle threats from the principal as they made their way over to the car.

“I was just starting to really get into it,” she muttered, climbing in the passenger’s seat. “Stupid principal.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Isabel knew when Michael left early that morning with no explanation as to where he was going that he would not be coming back for a long time. He was with her, with Maria. Of that much, Isabel was sure. He was never with anyone else.

What surprised her the most was that no one else seemed to know about Michael’s affair. They didn’t even seem to have a clue.

“Isabel, what’s wrong?”

Isabel turned her head to see her brother striding through the cluttered kitchen area towards the refrigerator.

“Nothing,” she said, returning to look out the window the way she had been.

“Obviously something is.” Max took out a slice of cheese and ate it plain. Isabel hated cheese, and this usually would have sickened her, but she didn’t even care on this occasion.

“He’s wrong,” she said. “What he’s doin’ is wrong.”

Max sat down beside her. “I’m lost,” he said.

Isabel sighed, exasperated. “Are you blind, Max? Can’t you see what’s going on with him?”

“With who?”

“Who the hell do you think?”

Max gave it a moment of thought. “Are you talking about Michael?”

“Yes!” Isabel shouted. “Can’t you see what he’s doing, Max?”

“I . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t know what he’s doing,” Max stuttered.

“Well I do!” Isabel shouted. “I do know and . . . and that’s what’s wrong.”

“What’s he doing?”

Isabel dropped her head, avoiding her brother’s questioning gaze. These really weren’t her questions to answer, but she couldn’t keep this to herself any longer. Somebody had to know.

Michael’s betrayal had to be exposed.

“He’s got someone,” Isabel told him. “Some chick. Been doin’ her for awhile I suppose.”

“You jealous?”

“No,” Isabel lied.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, why is it so wrong that Michael’s doin’ some girl?”

“‘Cause she’s the reason why he’s been so weird lately,” Isabel explained. “Max, he ain’t just doin’ this girl. He’s in love with her.”

A shocked expression crashed onto Max’s face. “Michael? In love?”

Isabel nodded.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“I saw ‘em,” Isabel explained. “A few nights back when I came home from Club Bang. I saw ‘em up in his bedroom. He was holding her, Max. He never holds anyone. He never held me.”

Max laughed a little. “I never expected Michael to be in love.”

“Either did I.”

“Why is he keeping it a secret from us, though?” Max asked.

“Well, that’s the thing,” Isabel said. “The girl he was with was someone he probably shouldn’t have been with.”

Max looked confused. He said nothing, and Isabel went on. “He was with that Maria girl from BlackCon.”

“WHAT?” Max shrieked. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Heard him say her name and everything.”

Max looked completely thrown for a loop. “I can’t believe it. He betrayed us?”

Isabel nodded solemnly. “Yep. I’ve known for a few days now, but I didn’t know what to do about it.”

“I know what to do about it,” Max said. “We have to tell Nix and everyone else. We can’t just let this go.”








Hmmm, Isabel . . . I guess I have a tendency to either make her a completely good character or a completely bad character in my fics. I guess she's pretty bad in this one.

Thanks for the feedback again! - April

That night, Michael and Maria drove around the south side, each refusing to go home for a little while longer. They drove to the residential areas, the areas Maria missed seeing the most. Michael even offered to find her house, but Maria didn’t want that.

They parked the car by the side of the road and got out, deciding instead to walk down the deserted residential streets and catch a little fresh air while they still could.

“Look at these houses!” Maria exclaimed. “I almost forgot how big they were!”

“Wouldn’t it take you forever to clean a place like that?” Michael wondered aloud, staring at the hugest house they had encountered yet.

“Well, you just hire people to clean it for you and it’s all good,” she told him. Her eyes caught sight of something in the backyard and her mouth dropped open. “No fair!” she said. “These people have a hot tub!” She looked up at Michael. “I never had a hot tub, and I always wanted one. Too bad they’ve got this fence thing up or I’d just run right back there and get in.”

“Still feeling rebellious, huh?”

“Very.”

She glanced toward the door of the house and walked forward. “I’ve never even been in a hot tub,” she said. “It’s so unfair.” She stepped up on the porch and examined the inside of the house. “I don’t think anyone’s home,” she concluded.

“Maria, don’t you think that people this rich are gonna have an alarm system?”

“They probably do, but,”—She placed her hand on the doorknob and turned it, delighted to know that it was unlocked—“you don’t always have to break into a house to get to the backyard.”

“You are feeling rebellious,” Michael said, stepping forward. “I like it. Let’s go.” He gently pushed her into the house and followed, closing the door behind him. “Are these people serious?” he asked when he was inside. “They got all this expensive shit in here and they don’t even leave their doors locked?”

“Here’s a little thing I’ve learned: Most rich people are really stupid. Now, that’s excluding me and my mom of course.”

“Of course.” Michael wandered off down the hallway a bit, surveying an expensive grand piano.

“Michael, we’re not here to look at pianos, we’re here to get in that hot tub,” she reminded him, tugging on his arm.

“Alright, just a minute,” he said, heading towards the stairs. “Lemme just look at the rest of the house first.”

Maria sighed and grabbed his arm before he could make his way up the stairs. “Would you rather look at this house,” she asked him, “or me, in a hot tub . . . naked?”

“Oh, forget the house!” Michael was immediately on his way back down the stairs and heading out to the backyard. “Let’s go!”

While the hot tub was filling up, Maria focused her attention on Michael. “Too many clothes,” she said, slipping her hands under his shirt and bringing it up above his head, throwing it to the ground. He let her undress him, biting his bottom lip when she grabbed him through his boxers.

When he was completely unclothed, he got in the hot tub, letting the water settle around him. “Well,” he said, “there’s you,”—He motioned to Maria—“and there’s a hot tub,”—He motioned to the hot tub—“so how about the naked part?”

She smiled mischievously stepping back from the hot tub a little and lifting her shirt slowly above her head. Then she slid her jeans down her legs just as slowly, torturing Michael sweetly and keeping her eyes locked with his the entire time. She unclasped her bra and let it fall to the ground and hooked her fingers in her panties, taking them off and letting them pool around her feet. She stepped out of them and over to the hot tub and to a mesmerized Michael Guerin, climbing into the warm water beside him.

“It’s hot,” she commented on the water.

“Yeah it is,” he agreed, but he wasn’t taking about the water.

Gradually, she found her way into his arms and began to kiss him, wrapping her legs around his hips. He trailed his hand back behind her body to cup her ass.

“I know this illegal,” he said, pulling away for air, “but I really don’t give a damn.”

She smiled. “It won’t be illegal tomorrow,” she told him.

“It won’t?”

She shook her head. “Nope. My birthday.”

“Oh, so you’ll be turning eighteen. Legal.”

“Yep.”

“Well, that’s good, but, you know, there is something about you being illegal that really turns me on.”

“You know, I can’t be sure, but I think I’ll turn you on no matter what.” She found his hardened cock in the water, placing it at her entrance.

“You know, I think you’re right.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria arrived home late that night. Slick was sprawled on the couch with a beer in his hand watching TV. When she stepped through the door, he said, “That was sure a long time to shop.”

“Yeah,” Maria agreed after a minute’s hesitation. She had almost forgotten that her excuse to leave had been that she was going shopping.

“See anything you like?”

“Yeah, but it’s all too expensive,” she said.

“Did you have fun?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

He stared at her for a long time, and she wondered if he knew. Had she made some kind of mistake? Was her shirt on inside out? Was her hair really that messed up? Was it written all over her face?

“I’m gonna go to sleep,” she told him. Before he could say anything more, she headed up the stairs, eager to get out of the line of his gaze.

She encountered Liz and Alex and Kyle on the stairs. Liz was trying to walk on her injured leg and Alex and Kyle were helping her.

“Hey,” Liz greeted her. “Look! I’m getting better.”

“That’s great,” Maria said, putting on a smile.

“Have fun shopping?”

“Yeah,” Maria replied. She let her mind drift to other places, remembering the crazy sex she and Michael had experienced. “Oh, yeah,” she said with a smile.

“You look happy,” Liz commented.

“I am,” Maria said. “Really happy.”

“That’s good,” her friend said. “You deserve to be happy, Maria.”

“Thanks.” Maria made her way up the stairs still smiling. Was it that obvious that she was that happy?

This had been the greatest day of her life, and tomorrow was promising to be another great day. Another great day with Michael. Her birthday.

It was strange. She was in a gang. She had endured many things that no one should have to endure, but she was starting to believe that she was the luckiest girl on earth.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Michael left the next night, too.

“Where are you going?” Isabel asked him.

“I’m gonna go shop around for a new jacket,” he said, but she could tell he was lying.

“You don’t need a new jacket.”

“I want one,” he said.

“How long will you be?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “An hour probably. Why?”

“No reason.” Now she was the one lying. There was a reason.

She watched as he left, and then she made her way upstairs to Max and Tess’s bedroom. She found them going at it and apologized, and they immediately quit. Max and Tess were the type that valued privacy. Isabel couldn’t have cared less.

“We gotta do this now,” she told mainly Max.

“Do what?”

“What do you think?”

He nodded, getting it now. “Right. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, he just left.”

“What if he left to meet her?”

“He didn’t,” she assured him. “He said he was only gonna be gone an hour, and he’s always more than an hour when he’s with her. He wasn’t lying. I can tell when he’s lying.”

Max nodded. “Alright.”

“We gotta go now,” Isabel incited. “We can’t waste no time.”

“Okay, gather everyone up,” Max said. “We’re takin’ care of this now.”











Hmm, the plot thickens. This part was pretty short, so I might have to post another this afternoon.

Shame on me! I should have posted this part last afternoon like I said I would. Anyway, this is where things really start to get intense . . . -April






The moon was out. It was so bright. If you looked long enough at it, it would seem like the sun, only in a dark sky instead of a light one.

Maria was analyzing the moon when she heard shouting from downstairs.

“THEY’RE COMING! GET THE WEAPONS! NOW!”

Maria went out into the hallway and saw people scurrying to their rooms and to closets collecting weapons. Even Liz, with her injured leg, was running to her room as best she could.

This panic could only be the result of one thing. Darkstreet. They were here.

That meant that Michael was here.

Maria almost felt . . . excited. Everyone else was probably afraid, nervous, or apprehensive . . . something along those lines. She was looking forward to it.

She could just see it now. Michael would find his way to her room. They would close the door and lock it, and while everyone else was tearing each other’s throats out, he would be making love to her.

She checked her hair in her mirror and straightened out the covers on her bed, even though they were soon to be messed up anyway. When she was satisfied with herself and with her room, she made her way downstairs slowly, avoiding all of the violence and destruction that was taking place as Darkstreet stormed their crib.

No one fought her, but whenever she passed anyone, they gave her these looks, these hateful looks. For once, they were acknowledging that she existed, in a hateful way, of course. She let it slide and concentrated on finding Michael.

She looked for him in the kitchen and living room area where most were fighting. She thought he might be fighting with Kyle, but he wasn’t.

He wasn’t anywhere. Why wasn’t he here?

“There she is, Slick!” somebody shouted suddenly. It was the voice of somebody powerful and important, and when he spoke, everyone stopped fighting.

It was Nix.

“There,” he said, pointing to Maria, “is the girl you think is your bitch!”

“She is my bitch!” Slick shouted back.

Maria wanted to protest, but she was still trying to figure out why so much attention was being focused on her.

“If she is, then why is she out fuckin’ my right hand man?”

Maria felt her chest tighten. They knew. Somehow or another, they knew.

“What?” Slick looked to Maria for answers, but she didn’t give him any.

“Why don’t you tell them, Maria,” another voice broke in. Isabel Evans stepped through the clutter of people slowly and took her place right in front of Maria. “Why don’t you tell them that you’re in love with Michael Guerin?”

The room fell completely silent, and all eyes scanned Maria. People shook their heads in disgust. People from BlackCon.

Maria turned and ran up the stairs, tripping over a body as she did so. She didn’t look to see what it was. She just got up and kept running.

She was almost to her room when someone reached out from behind her and pushed her to the ground.

“Think I’m gonna let you get away with this?” Isabel towered above her. “That’s my man you’re playing with. My man. Always gonna be my man.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maria tried.

“Don’t give me that shit!” the other girl shouted angrily. “I saw you with him. All lovey-dovey and shit. Why . . . why did he choose you? Why did he choose a nobody?”

Maria hated that word. She hated it with every part of her being. With every sense of power she had left, she got to her feet and stared Isabel in the eye. “Fuck. You.”

Isabel threw her back into her bedroom, causing her to hit the ground hard. She got up as quickly as she could, suddenly aware of how painful it was to fight.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Isabel said, “‘cause I’m really pissed now. Really, really pissed. And when I get pissed, I tend to be a little violent.” She reached into her back pocket and took out a gun, turning it around several times in her hands. “Well, more than a little violent.”

“You don’t have to be,” Maria told her. She was feeling afraid for her life now, and all of her remaining bravado was disintegrating. “We could work this out.”

“We?” Isabel laughed a fake laugh. “Honey, this isn’t about you and me. This is about BlackCon and Darkstreet and this fuckin’ betrayal that exists between us. It makes me so angry. I just wanna . . .” She trailed off and walked forward, pointing the gun at Maria. “I just wanna cause some damage, you know? You make me so damn angry! I just wanna . . .”

Before she could say more, Maria took action. She brought her leg to Isabel’s stomach, kicking her hard and sending her flying backward. The gun fell from her hand and out into the hallway.

“I dun need a gun,” Isabel said, standing up. “Nice try, sweetie, but I got news for you.” She punched Maria’s mirror hard, shattering half of it. She picked up a shard of glass with her now bloody hand and smiled. “Glass works just as well.”

Isabel lunged at Maria and pinned her to the ground. She tore the glass through Maria’s shirt, slicing her stomach just slightly right over the place Michael had sliced it when things had been different.

“You’re just jealous!” Maria shouted. “You’re just jealous because he loves me! He loves me!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Isabel shouted. “It’s your time to die! I don’t wanna hear you talkin’!”

“He loves me!” she said again. “He loves me and I love him!”

“Shut up!”

With all of her remaining strength, Maria pushed the other girl off of her, getting to her feet and running out of the room.

“Help!” she screamed as she ran down the stairs. “Slick! Liz! Somebody! Help!”

Nobody came.

Maria tripped and fell on the second floor. She felt Isabel behind her. The girl grabbed her wrists and pulled her up so that they were face to face. “I told you, it’s your time to die!” She threw Maria backwards into somebody’s bedroom, laughing when she hit the floor with a thud.

“What is wrong with you?” Maria asked her.

“What’s wrong with me?” Isabel asked. “Honey, I’m just fine. You, however . . . you could use some help. Thinkin’ that you can get away with what you was doin’. You dreamin’.”

She hit her several times, causing her to cry. Isabel smiled and laughed in satisfaction. “I love this!” she shouted joyfully. “This is great!” With Maria virtually helpless, she took her time in turning over a bookshelf and then let it fall down on top of her. Maria screamed out in pain when the object hit her body.

“Michael deserves punishment,” Isabel said, staring down at Maria. “Your death is just that.” She smiled again, completely happy with herself, and left, closing and locking the door.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I done good work,” Isabel was saying as she made her way back down the stairs.

“Well, the fight’s tapering off, so I say we get outta here,” Max suggested.

“Not yet.” Apparently Isabel had one more trick up her sleeve. Max smiled, thinking about how manipulative and devious his sister could be. She was really showing Michael.

Isabel pulled a match out of her pocket and struck it as Max, Nix, Tess, and others watched. “His punishment,” she said as she threw the burning match into the living room starting the couch on a small fire.

Darkstreet left. Their mission was completed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Michael concealed his birthday present for Maria in his coat pocket. He’d bought her a necklace. It was a nice necklace. It said Maria on it and everything. He was sure she’d like it.

The crib was strangely silent when he got back. Everyone must be sleepin’, he thought. He stepped inside, and the eerie quiet continued. This was strange. No music or anything.

“Hello?” he called. “You guys?” He heard footsteps walking above him, and moments later, Jonathon came down the stairs with a tissue in his hand, blowing his nose.

“Where is everybody?” Michael asked him.

“They went out,” Jonathon said. “I’m not feelin’ well, so I didn’t go.”

“Oh,” Michael said. “Well, I’m just gonna . . .”

“Find a new jacket?”

“No. Look, I think I might head back out myself, then.” This was the perfect chance to see Maria again. With everybody out, they wouldn’t even know that he disappeared for a few more hours.

“Okay, see you later,” Jonathon said.

Michael turned and started for the door when Jonathon’s voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

“She’s beautiful.”

Michael turned around and looked at him, confused.

“Really beautiful,” he said.

Michael was going to just ignore the freak completely when it hit him.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Jonathon knew.

He saw the smirk pulling on the freak’s lips, and he knew something else, too.

They all knew. They weren’t just out right now. They were . . .

Michael spun around and raced away as fast as he could in the direction of the BlackCon crib.

LAST PART -






His heart raced as he ran. His lungs burned.

He saw them approaching from the direction he was heading, and he charged toward them. Toward the family who now betrayed him.

They stood tall and proud. Those who were not injured stood taller than others, but they all stood proud. Nix was leading them all, and he was flanked by Max and Isabel now. They smiled when the saw Michael, and some began to laugh.

“I’ll kill you!” Michael shouted. “I’ll kill all of you!” He ran by Nix and pushed him to the ground, knocking Isabel over with him. He kept running then, unable to waste any more time.

He was only on the borderline, and he heard sounds. Sirens.

Oh, shit . . .

When the BlackCon crib came into view, Michael saw what he had been afraid to see.

Flames. Bright orange and yellow flames, swirling around and around, taking everything they could find.

There were fireman working on it and paramedics standing nearby, taking anyone who needed help. People were standing around, watching the destruction take place, and some were crying.

Michael looked around for Maria. He couldn’t find her. Where was she?

He heard wailing, and he saw Liz Parker standing by a few others, crying her eyes out. He ran up to her, taking her by the shoulders. “Liz!” he said. She wouldn’t stop crying. He shook her hard. “Liz! Where’s Maria?”

“She’s . . . she’s inside!” she choked out. “She’s inside and they can’t get to her! She’s inside!”

Michael wasted no time. He spun around and rushed forward, pushing past fireman and whoever else got in his way, telling him that it wasn’t safe. He placed his jacket over himself as much as he could and ran through the front door, which was completely engulfed in flames. He felt the fire biting at his skin through his clothes, and it hurt like hell, but he made it inside, throwing his jacket on the floor and letting it burn. He crawled up the stairs, avoiding any sort of flame and ignoring the stinging sensation in his hands and arms and legs and everywhere else where the fire had touched him.

“Maria!” he shouted. He could hardly hear himself. The burning of the fire was so incredibly loud. “Maria!” He started to cough after inhaling a large amount of smoke.

Flames started to bite at his foot, and he realized that the fire was working its way up to the second floor now, too.

“Maria!” he shouted through coughs. “Maria!”

He started crawling through the second floor hallway, pounding on and opening doors. “Maria!”

Finally, he came to one that was locked. “Maria!”

“Michael!”

It was faint, but it was a reply. And it was Maria.

Michael stood up, coughing as the smoke invaded his lungs and pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. He stepped back at ran at it, but it still didn’t open. “FUCK!” he shouted. He stepped back and ran again, and this time the door crashed down.

Maria was inside, struggling to get out from under a heavy bookcase. “Michael!”

Michael grabbed onto the bookcase and struggled with it for several seconds before lifting it off of her and turning it over so it fell to the ground beside her. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

“I think,” she said, struggling to sit up. She tried to put pressure on her leg and grimaced. “But my leg . . . I think it’s broken.”

Michael bent down and scooped her up in his arms, cradling her against his chest. “Try not to breathe in the smoke,” he instructed. “Okay?”

She nodded and buried her face in his chest as he carried her down the hallway, coughing continuously as smoke filled his own lungs.

“We have to get out,” he said. “Maria, how can I get out?”

“Front door and back door.”

Michael looked at the gigantic wall of flames in front of him now, separating the second and third floors from the first, separating him from the front door and from the back door. “That’s all?”

She nodded and coughed a little.

“Okay, alright,” he said, trying to remain calm. He headed up to the third floor, the only floor that wasn’t burning at this time. “We’ll find another way out,” he reassured both himself and her.

She shook her head. “There is no other way out.”

“There’s windows,” he said, carrying her into her own bedroom. “We’ll be fine.” He surveyed the damage to the mirror briefly and closed the door.

He set her down by the window, holding her close to him. She clung on to him tightly, almost knocking him over, but he stayed strong for her.

“Look,” he said, “they see us up here. They’re gonna use that ladder thing and get us out.”

“I always liked those ladder things.”

Michael tried to smile, busying himself with smoothing Maria’s hair down instead of thinking about the fire down one floor.

“How did this happen?” he asked her.

“Isabel.”

“Isabel,” he echoed. A small part of him had known it. “Shit.” He glanced out the window, not happy with the progress they were making. How long did it take to raise a damn ladder?

She ran his hands over his skin, noticing for the first time that he had been burnt badly. “Your skin,” she commented. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m okay. It’s fine,” he reassured her, although it honestly hurt like hell.

She looked up into his eyes, and he saw that she was crying. He ran his fingers over her cheeks, wiping away her tears. “Don’t cry,” he said.

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared,” he said. “Just think about something else. Like our away place. That’s nice, huh?”

She nodded a little, resting her head on his shoulder.

“And the carnival,” he continued, keeping an eye on the happenings outside. “That was fun.” Still no progress.

“And yesterday, our little visit to the south side,” she added. “That was the best day of my life.”

“Mine, too.”

“But today isn’t,” she said, “and it’s my birthday.”

He ran his hands up and down her back, trying to comfort her. “Yeah, I had a present, but it was in my jacket, and my jacket’s downstairs. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” She pulled away and looked up into his eyes, trying to contain her tears but failing. “Michael, I’m still scared.”

“You don’t have to be scared,” he reassured her. “We’re gonna be fine.”

She shook her head. “Michael, there’s some stuff in this house that . . . stuff that’s really dangerous when it’s near fire.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, although he was certain it did. “Look, just don’t think about it, alright? Think about good stuff, okay? Look, they’re comin’ up for us. Just a little bit longer, okay?”

She nodded and went back to resting her head on Michael’s shoulder, not looking out the window. Michael watched as the ladder was raised up ever so slowly. Couldn’t the damn thing go any faster than that?

“I love you, Michael.”

He’d barely heard her, but he knew what she’d said.

He pulled her away from him a little so he could look into her eyes. “Why are you saying that? Why are you saying that, Maria?” he asked her.

She began to cry harder.

“Why are you saying that like you’ll never get the chance to say it again?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t.

“We have our whole lives,” he told her, finding that it was hard for him to keep his own tears in check at this moment. “We have our whole lives to tell each other that. We can say that when we’re forty. We can say that when we’re eighty. Why are you saying that now?”

All at once, there was someone outside the window. Michael opened up the window quickly, momentarily letting Maria go.

“We’ve gotta go one at a time,” the fireman said. “Safety precaution.”

“Okay, take her,” Michael said without even thinking, moving Maria over so that she was in front of the window. He wanted to get the hell out of that house, but he wanted to get her out even more so.

“No, no!” she protested. “I’m not going without you!”

“Maria, go!” Michael said. “Just go!”

She was shaking her head in protest and saying, “No, no,” over and over again, but she was allowing Michael and the fireman to help her onto the ladder.

“You’ll be safe now,” the fireman told her, but even as he spoke, Maria’s eyes were fixed on Michael. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her eyes still shimmered with tears.

He could hear the flames. He could smell the smoke. He could almost feel the urgency.

“Maria,” he said as the ladder started to lower. “I love you, too.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria kept her eyes locked with Michael’s as the ladder grew closer and closer to the ground. He was just standing there in that window. He didn’t even look like he was afraid.

A rush of images hit her hard and fast.

Michael, teaching her how to drive . . .

Michael, holding her while she cried . . .

Michael, swimming with her in their away place . . .

Michael, dancing with her . . .

Michael, kissing her . . .

Michael, touching her . . .

Michael, making love to her . . .

Before she knew it, she was on the ground, and the fireman was helping her away.

“He’s up there,” she said. “You have to---”

A large, loud explosion cut her off. She fell to the ground, and the fireman fell beside her, shielding her body with his own. She closed her eyes, but she heard chunks of debris hitting the ground.

When she stood up, she looked up at the building to the window where Michael had been standing.

He wasn’t there. And neither was the window. And neither was the building. It was all fire.

Maria looked away, somehow knowing what they hadn’t told her yet, but not wanting to believe. She fell down on her knees and wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. Her eyes were too dry.

Michael Guerin was always the hero.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They worked on her leg and gave her crutches. They said they would help her walk. She didn’t think anything could help her walk at this point.

The fire was gone now, and so was the building that had once served as the BlackCon crib. All that remained now was a pile of rubble and a search for survivors.

A search for Michael.

They looked for him for a long time. Maria didn’t watch them. She didn’t think she could take it if she saw . . .

“Sir, we found a body,” a man was saying quietly, but not quietly enough so that Maria didn’t hear him. “Several have identified it as a Michael Guerin.”

Maria closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t cry and shivered. She’d known it. A part of her had known that they would not be finding Michael in this search for survivors, but she’d been hoping they would.

She stood up, putting all of her weight on the crutches. She almost fell right back down, but she refused to. She had to be strong right now. Michael would want her to be.

Nobody came up to her and said, “I’m sorry for your loss,” or anything like that, and for that much she was grateful. She couldn’t deal with that right now. Sympathy. She had to be strong. Sympathy was not strong at all.

She found Slick, Liz, Alex, Kyle, and some others sitting behind an ambulance together. When they saw Maria they all stood up, but none of them rushed forward to give her a hug or anything.

Before Liz could give Maria her sympathies, Maria spoke.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she told them. “I just can’t. I quit.” She turned around slowly and walked off with the crutches in the opposite direction, leaving them to think about her surrender, her white flag.

She made it all the way to the borderline ignoring the throbbing sensation in her leg. She didn’t shed one tear. She had to be strong.

She found herself making her way to their street corner without giving it much thought. She looked forward and saw a man standing there with his back to her, a tall man with dark, brown, untamed hair.

“Michael,” she whispered. “Michael . . .” She threw her crutches to the ground and ran forward as fast as she could, not caring that the pain was radiating throughout her leg. Michael . . .

She grabbed onto him and turned him to face her. “Michael!” But when he turned to face her, he wasn’t Michael at all. He was someone very different.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I thought you were someone else.” She shook her head, shaking the thoughts away. “I thought you were . . .” A single tear spilled over her cheek, followed by another and another and another until they were irrepressible. She fell to her knees with her head in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. “I’m sorry,” she kept repeating over and over again. “I’m so sorry.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria DeLuca got on a bus that night. She collected money from strangers and got on a bus and rode off without even looking to see where she was going. She rode for a long time, and they finally dropped her off in some small town in Nevada. It looked nice enough.

She went inside a restaurant and applied for a job, and after explaining her situation and all that had happened in the past couple of days, the manager told her that she could have a job and a place to sleep at night for a few weeks.

She worked for a week as a waitress at a café quite similar to Julio’s, only without the violence. She never got big tips. She wasn’t as friendly as she should have been, but how was she supposed to be friendly when she was waiting tables on crutches and when the only person that mattered to her was gone?

She saw a school bus pass by one day, and a thought occurred to her. She couldn’t change what had already happened, but she could change what one day would.

This was how Maria found herself in the center of a local high school’s gymnasium on her stupid crutches with over 300 kids staring at her, wondering what this woman was going to speak about.

“This isn’t a lecture,” she started. “This is my life. It’s complicated, but it didn’t have to be. I was happy when I was young. My mom and I lived in this nice house in this nice neighborhood, and I had lots of friends, and I did good in school. I was really happy. But then my mom died. I was fourteen, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I couldn’t go live with my dad ‘cause . . . well, ‘cause he’s not really a nice guy. So I ran. I ran away from home. I ran away from my happiness, and I joined a gang. I joined a gang.

“They’re called BlackCon. They’re . . . they’re not good people. Granted, there might be a couple of them who have the chance to be somebody, but the majority of them are . . . they’re dangerous. Their lives are dangerous, and by joining them, I made my life dangerous. I lived with them for three years. For three years, I wasn’t happy. I hated my life. I hated all the fights. I hated all the drinking, all the smoking. I hated it all. But most of all I hated . . . I hated Darkstreet.

“Darkstreet, they’re this rival gang. Everyone from BlackCon hated them. I don’t know why. I don’t know how the rivalry between the two gangs even got started. But we were enemies. They were my enemies as far as I was concerned. I just hated the way they could intimidate me. They made me feel small. I didn’t like feeling that way.

“But then one day things changed. One person who was supposed to be the enemy wasn’t anymore. I hated him, too, at first, but I started to get to know him, and he . . . he’s really complicated. His name is . . . was Michael . . . and I loved him so much. He cared about me in ways that nobody has ever cared about me before. I could tell by the way he looked at me that he cared. I don’t know why, but he did. And he helped me. I went through a lot of stuff. I started thinking that I was a horrible person. He helped me through it. He always did.

She felt tears stinging her eyes as she went on. “And he protected me. Whenever I needed him, he was there, fighting for me. Literally fighting for me. He got hurt really bad a couple of times. He got beat up. He got stabbed. But he never stopped protecting me. I know it hurt. I know he was hurting, but he was always worried about me. He always asked me if I was okay. I even told him once that . . . that he was my hero. Laugh about it if you want. I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s completely true.

“Michael changed my life. He made me happy again. I woke up every day and just thought about seeing him and being with him. He was the reason why I lived.

“But Michael isn’t living anymore. He died just last week in a fire. A fire started because of the rivalry between our two gangs. I was . . . I was in the building . . . I needed someone to help me and protect me, and of course Michael came.” She started to cry. “He saved me like he always did, because he’s my hero. He saved my life but he couldn’t save his own. I’m here today and he’s not, and I don’t get that. I don’t understand it. Why didn’t he save himself? Why was I that important to him? Why did he love me?”

She wiped her eyes and tried to regain her composure. “I wish Michael and I had been a normal couple. Then he would still be here. I hate the fact that I ever got involved with BlackCon, and I hate the fact that he was a part of Darkstreet. I wish I could change things, but I can’t, so there’s really no point in wishing.

“I don’t think I’ll ever fall in love again. I mean, I’ll get married someday to some guy, some really nice, really fun guy, and I’ll have kids and be a mom, but there will never be another Michael Guerin. Ever.

“I’m not gonna ask for questions, ‘cause I think I’ve pretty much told you everything I can. But I do want you to know that I’m only eighteen. I should be in school with you guys right now, but I’m not. I never will be.

“So, that pretty much wraps it up. But remember, this isn’t a lecture. This is . . . was my life.” She tried to meet the eyes of every person in the audience.

“Please don’t make it yours.”




THE END