Most of the answers to the questions you all are looking for are in this chapter, and the following one should clear the rest up.
PART 21
Max came into the room as Phillip was pulling an orb from a hidden panel in the wall.
So much for thinking he knew everything, Max thought with dismay.
"What is that?" Max asked suspiciously.
"We need to call Michael to tell him to get over here," Phillip said.
Phillip picked up his own phone and dialed Manuel.
"Manuel, please go upstairs and check on Elizabeth. There's been an unforeseen complication, and I'll need you to look out for her," he said.
As Phillip made his call Max did as he was asked, barely seconds on the phone before hanging up.
"He's on his way. Now tell me what the hell is going on," Max said angrily.
Phillip looked down at the silver orb in his hand.
"Your mother gave me this right before she died. If you want to know the truth, then take it," Phillip said, holding it out to Max.
"What does any of this have to do with Mom?" Max asked, impatient.
Phillip didn't answer, merely holding the orb out to him.
After a momentary hesitation, Max took it, and felt his whole body stiffening in reaction.
His mind was bombarded with images and his mother's voice. He saw her sweet face, and her gentle smile, and she began to speak. The message was for his father.
"I know that you hate human beings, Phillip. That's why I couldn't ever chance revealing what really happened to me during those two days the FBI had me in their custody," she said. "You have to understand. I felt like I had no choice. I hope you can forgive me."
"Afterward, I was afraid to tell you too much, afraid to tell you the truth after I'd revealed myself to her. For while I lived in terror that she would tell someone, but she never did. I knew how you'd react if I told you what I had done, especially after healing the children in the hospital. But I hope now that you might understand," she continued wistfully.
"Help Max to understand Phillip. I need you to understand this so, so that you can make him understand. For years I felt I couldn't tell you, but now I'm dying, and it doesn't matter. None of it matters but what you two take from my words now," she said.
"Phillip, we are stuck on this planet. We're never going home. Neither will our children. Isabel has accepted it, but I worry about Max. You know how I worry," she lamented. "Show this to him when the time is right. Trust that he will do the right thing."
"I need to start from the beginning...."
Everything went dark for an instant and Diane disappeared, but then she spoke again.
"A human woman helped me Phillip. I didn't know her, and she didn't know me, but she put her life on the line," she said.
"You know this now, but in the hope that Max is holding this orb, I will explain everything," she continued.
"Two years before you were born Max, I was working as a candy striper at a hospital in Colorado. Just as it had always been, we all kept up appearances of normality."
"I became close with two sick children; too close. Both had terminal forms of cancer. I couldn't stand to see them suffering, and I healed them," she said.
"I know it was impulsive, rash even, but if you had seen these children, had seen the injustice of the things they had to go through...." she paused.
"They never complained. Not once, even when I could plainly see they were in terrible pain. My heart went out to them. I couldn't help myself. I just took their pain away."
"I didn't know that an orderly saw me do it, until I saw the story on the cover of a tabloid. The man was a drunk. He joked that he thought he'd better lay off the drink because he was starting to have hallucinations. But a day later, after hearing that the children were in remission, he told a security guard, who had called the paper with the story. Of course there were no photos, and no concrete evidence, even my handprint faded within a day. The doctors didn’t know what to make of it," she said.
"Ed was furious when he saw the article and he knew what I had done. We had to move. We couldn’t take the chance. We needed two days, and we would be gone to Texas. He had to go to make arrangements. He didn’t want to leave us alone, but he had no choice," she said shaking her head.
"Phillip, do you remember how scared you were for me? You made me stay in the house with the door locked all day while you went to work," she laughed.
"It was only two days, and we would have been safe," she mused in a small voice.
"But I got cabin fever. I only half-believed that anyone would take a story from a news rag seriously, and it was just a small trip to the store. I didn't think it would do any harm," she trailed off.
"I shouldn't have been so naïve," she said, and Max could sense the regret in her voice.
"I was captured outside the store and taken to a facility outside of Denver, though I didn't know the location at the time."
"I never wanted to you to know what I went through while I was there, Phillip. I could never bring myself to tell you, but by now you've seen some of it. For two days, horrible things were done to me while I was in that place and I'll never forget it. But I know now that Max needs to know," she said. "He needs to know everything."
Max braced himself against the images of mother's torture at the hands of a man named Pierce. Pierce, the head of the Special Unit, the group that was the reason they'd had to hide all of their lives.
Syringes, and shock treatments, skin samples, auditory tortures, he watched it all as his mother cried out for mercy. They showed her none.
He felt outrage of the like he hadn't felt since that night on the beach, the night Ed had died.
"They did horrible things to me. Things I never wanted to think about again. They decided it wasn't safe to keep me at that facility. They wanted to move me to Eagle Rock, a permanent facility in New Mexico, and was then where the story really began..."
Max prepared himself for another barrage of images.
******
He saw a young woman coming out of a door. It was late at night. He immediately recognized the younger version of the woman from the nursing home.
Nancy Parker... his mother's voice whispered.
She was a dancer at a nightclub. The hour was late and the bar was closing.
She was tired and the only thing she wanted to do was to go home to sleep. She said goodnight to Charlie, the bouncer who was stationed at the door.
She got in her car and started it with a yawn.
Moments later she was driving down the deserted highway, when she spotted a bloody young girl at the side of the road, a ghoulish apparition in her headlights.
The girl was panicked, waving frantically at her car.
Nancy didn't even think twice seeing the girl was obviously in trouble. She pulled over, quickly unlocking the door.
"Are you all right?" she asked the girl concerned.
"Please, just drive!" the girl screamed, almost frantic.
"It's ok now. Tell me what happened," Nancy said, trying to calm the girl down.
"Men...they're after me. They're going to kill me," the girl sobbed.
"Who?" Nancy asked.
"I can't to tell you! Then you'll be involved. Please, just drive!" the girl sobbed.
"Just get me to a phone."
"Ok, ok," Nancy said, putting the car in drive.
Seconds later, A loud roaring sounded from behind the car, and her car was jolted. Nancy saw headlights behind them.
"Jesus, What the hell are you into?" Nancy muttered, suddenly realizing that she probably made a mistake picking the girl up.
"I'm sorry," Diane whispered with a desolate sob.
In the next instant, Nancy screamed felt another violent jolt, which pushed her car off the road and into a drainage ditch.
Then, everything went black.
When she came to a man was holding the girl, and she was struggling, screaming in terror.
Without thought, Nancy reached into her glove compartment and grabbed her gun, the one Charlie insisted she carry, stumbling out of the car.
The man was so focused on the girl, he didn't notice her
But the girl did.
Nancy fired the gun, and the man slumped to the ground.
Nancy felt her breath leaving her body in violent pants, unable to comprehend what she'd just done. She dropped the gun from trembling hands.
"Watch out!" the girl cried, and Nancy barely had time to turn before another man was on her.
She struggled as the man got his hand around her throat, cutting off her oxygen. She struggled in a vain attempt to dislodge it, to no avail.
Her eyesight was growing dim, and she knew she would soon lose consciousness.
Through a haze, she saw the girl raise her hand, and a bright flash erupted from it.
She felt heat, smelled burning flesh, and man slumped against her.
As Nancy pushed him off of her, she already knew that he was dead.
Nancy got to her feet slowly, trying to put distance between herself and the girl.
"What are you?" she asked the girl, terrified.
"I won't hurt you. You saved my life," the girl said.
"You saved mine," Nancy whispered.
"Then I guess we're even," the girl answered shakily.
"We should call the police," Nancy said.
"They are the police," the girl said in a dull voice. "If you call them, they'll do the same to you that they did to me. It won't be jail, it will be something much, much worse."
Nancy took in the girl's appearance, her hair bloodied, her limbs scratched, bleeding and bruised, and she knew that the girl wasn't lying.
"We have to cover this up, make it look like an accident," she said suddenly.
The girl paused, and then nodded.
Almost on auto-pilot, Nancy directed the girl to help her load the bodies into the trunk of the men's car, and took the gas can out of her car.
She picked her gun up off of the ground, and got into the sedan with the girl.
She drove the car into a field near town, careful to make sure no one was around. They placed the bodies the front seat of the car.
She poured the gas over the seats, and lit the match.
She and the girl walked back to town staying far from the road, and Nancy called Charlie from a pay phone.
"Charlie," she said in a trembling voice.
The girl watched Nancy on the phone, seeing that she was still terrified.
"I've been in an accident....no, no I'm ok, but the car's in a ditch.....I walked back to town. I'm sorry, I didn't know who else to call......yeah, yeah, I'll be here....see you soon," she said.
She hung up the phone after he promised he was on the way.
"He's going to tow my car back into town. You'd better get out of here," Nancy said gruffly to the girl. "I can't explain you being here."
The girl nodded.
"Thank you," the girl said.
Nancy shrugged, studying the girl.
"You gonna keep running?" Nancy asked.
"I have to go home," the girl said quietly.
"Where's home," Nancy asked.
The girl looked stricken for a moment.
"Ok, ok. I won't ask," Nancy said.
"What you...did back there, scared me," Nancy said, eyeing the girl. "It wasn't...normal."
"No it wasn't," the girl said in a low voice. "But I never would willingly hurt anyone."
As Nancy looked into the girl's terrified face, somehow she knew she wouldn't.
"I will repay you, I promise," the girl said.
"No worries. You got enough trouble," Nancy said. "'Just keep your mouth shut and that'll be fine. I'll keep mine shut too. This never happened."
"Give me a number or an address," the girl said. "I'll contact you."
Nancy shrugged and wrote down her trailer's address.
"Take this," the girl said, pushing a metal object into her hand. Nancy looked down at the broken pendant lying in her palm. It was blue, with silver markings on it.
"What's this?" Nancy asked.
"Keep it. Hide it. I have the other half. That way you'll know it's me," the girl said.
"I'll be in touch," the girl said, backing away from her.
Nancy only half-believed her.
*****
The car fire was investigated by the police. Two victims were found in the car, one with bullet in his head.
Foul-play play was suspected, and the FBI was called in. What the police didn't know, was that the victims were members of the FBI's Special Unit.
A young dark-haired agent was called in to investigate. He had a bone to pick with the agents' killer.
It didn't take him long to find an account from an old busy-body who had trouble sleeping.
She told him that she had seen one of the young "whores" who worked down at the strip joint on the payphone across the street at about 5 am that morning.
Two nights later, he showed up at the bar during Nancy's shift.
********
Diane covered her tracks, hiding in the fields until dark, and then using her abilities to break into a dark house to use the phone.
She called Edward.
Edward hired a man to pick her up and bring her back to Colorado. From there, they moved on to Texas. Immediately, they shape-shifted their appearances.
Phillip created new identities for all of them and they established a meat packing business.
Though Phillip and Edward had prodded her to reveal what had happened to her, Diane remained vague. Her wounds bore testament to what she had endured at the hands of the FBI. But she did not reveal her connection to Nancy, ever.
But Diane couldn't forget about Nancy. It was her secret, one she is afraid to tell Ed. She couldn't tell him that revealed herself to a human, in fear that he will be furious with her, or worse, that he might eliminate Nancy in fear of her telling the wrong people.
But Diane had felt an immediate trust of the woman, and her gut had told her that she wouldn't say anything.
Diane and Phillip married five months later.
********
Diane did her own research, keeping tabs on Nancy.
Nancy made complaints against the FBI to the police; harassment, unlawful entry into her house. The FBI filed counter-reports that they were keeping tabs on her for the old murder of two of their men. One agent in particular suspected her involvement. But there was no mention in any of the reports of Diane.
Diane finally got the courage to pay a detective to go back to Colorado on surveillance. She had to know if the woman who'd saved her was all right.
What the detective came back with scared her to death. He reported that the woman had been receiving regular beatings over a period of days.
She knew then that the FBI was waiting, on the off chance that Diane might return. She was sure of it.
Shortly afterward, she discovered Phillip was attending a conference in Colorado, and Diane knew she had to go with him.
While Phillip was at the conference, she took the car and headed out to Nancy's trailer.
She was terrified, but she had to know. As an extra measure, she went to every house on the road around Nancy's trailer, offering pamphlets for an elected official of the county who was up for re-election before finally approaching Nancy's home. She couldn't take any chances.
She pulled up to the shabby trailer with a feeling of fear. Even though she looked completely different, she was still terrified of being discovered.
She knocked on the door with a shaking hand.
She saw a shadow beyond the screen door, and then Nancy appeared.
"Yeah?" she said wearily, squinting against the sun.
This wasn't the young woman who had saved her in the dead of night. She looked...hopeless, beaten.
Diane knew that Nancy couldn't possibly recognize her, as her appearance has been altered so drastically.
Diane smiled.
"I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time. I'm here from your local Congressman's office," Diane said.
Nancy nodded and let her in.
"Now, I wanted to give you some literature on Congressman Green," she continued with a smile, "and to give you an idea how he can help you the taxpayer if you vote for him."
Diane started droning off the issues she'd memorized that Green had a firm stand on, and pushed a piece of paper over to Nancy.
I am the girl from the side of the road. You picked me up. Your house may be bugged. We need to talk.
Nancy's eyes widened as she interrupted Diane.
"Why don't we take this out back?" Nancy said in a pleasant voice. "It's a shame to waste the sunshine."
Diane agreed, and followed her outside.
Nancy whipped around to face her.
"I don't know what you're trying to pull lady, but you've got the wrong woman," she hissed.
"Do I?" Diane pulled out her half of the pendant, and waved her hand in front of her face, altering just her facial features.
Nancy shook her head, tears brimming in her eyes.
"Go away. Just get out of here! If he finds you here..." she whispered frantically.
"I know what they're doing to you," Diane said.
"You don't know the half of it," Nancy said, turning her head.
"I'm sorry," Diane whispered, taking Nancy's hand.
"It's too late for sorry. I made a decision to help you and I have to live with that," Nancy said bitterly.
Diane leaned forward.
"You could call them and tell him that I'm here, yet you're still standing out here with me. Why?" she asked.
"I won't do that. I can't. Even if I wanted to, once he found you, he'd kill me. The only reason I am still here is because he thought you'd come back to kill me. The minute he has you, I'm dead," Nancy said.
"He's working toward a job in the Department of Defense, a promotion to a very powerful position. And he knows you’re out there," Nancy said, shivering.
Diane sensed the fear coming off of Nancy, and yet still, she sensed a determination, a goodness about her.
"You wouldn't tell him even if things were different, would you?" Diane asked, incredulous.
Nancy looked away from her.
"What has he done to you?" Diane whispered.
Nancy looked away in shame, and Diane knew.
She made up her mind in that moment that she was going to help this woman who had stopped to pick her up on a deserted road in the middle of the night, and in doing so, had saved her life.
"Look, maybe I can help you, " Diane said, standing. "I know people, people who can keep you safe."
Nancy shook her head frantically.
"I can't leave," she said. "He'll find me."
"Not if we plan it right. Please, I want to help you," Diane said.
"Why?" Nancy asked dully.
"Because you restored my faith in humanity. And...I am pregnant. With twins," Diane said. "I want them to know that not all people are evil, that this place can be a home for us."
"You...you're from up there, aren't you?" Nancy asked, pointing to the sky.
Diane paused and nodded.
"Are you ever going to get to go home?" she asked.
"I dream about it, but I don't think so. I think about my children a lot," Diane said. "I don't want them to live like this. I don't want them to be lonely. But we can't trust people. We can't let people in on the secret."
"You let me in," Nancy pointed out.
"I had no choice, but I don't regret it," Diane answered.
"I can't go," Nancy said, looking out over the land behind her trailer. "I'm sorry, but I can't."
Diane sighed.
"Please, at least take this," she said, handing her a card. "It has a phone number on it. Memorize it and burn the card. If you need me, if you need anything, call the number, and you will have help."
Nancy nodded half-heartedly, and Diane knew then that she would never call it.
"Take care of yourself," Nancy said, standing.
"You too," Diane said softly.
*******
Nancy never called the number. But then, Diane had known she wouldn't.
She kept the investigator on Nancy for two years, waiting for the moment when Nancy would have the courage to call the number.
By appearances, the Agent was content to merely mentally torture Nancy.
But things almost turned deadly late night two years later.
The Agent had gotten his promotion to the Department of Defense.
Furious that he was no further toward capturing Diane, he came to her trailer, drunk, with murderous intentions.
That night, he brutally raped and beat Nancy, leaving her for dead.
If the investigator had not happened by as he left, she surely would have died.
The investigator took the girl to the hospital, leaving her in the emergency room, and contacted Diane.
Diane was horrified, riddled with guilt over what had happened to her. She knew she had done as much as she could have, that Nancy had refused her help, but that did not alleviate the shame that she should have done something more.
Nancy was in the hospital for two months with the injuries she sustained. The investigator kept a watchful eye on her in the hospital, being compensated handsomely by Diane for doing so.
Posing as an orderly, he heard the conversation between one of the agents and Nancy soon after she regained consciousness.
The agent threatened her with unspeakable tortures if she breathed a word of what happened in her trailer that night.
She never did.
Diane found out when Nancy was supposed to be released from the hospital, and decided she would take things into her own hands.
She prayed that Nancy would go along with it.
Diane's pet project had become involving herself with organizations that helped battered women. Phillip and Edward thought it would be good for her to involve herself in something, and she did so with a vengeance.
She had grown close to the women she worked with, close enough that they trusted her with a little-known secret; a sect of the community called "Without A Trace." WAT was reserved for special cases, battered women married to cops, members of organized crime, or men of professions in which the system did not bear on their actions. WAT did not discriminate when it came to these women. Whether officers of the law, high profile figures, or criminals, the only criteria for entry into the program was a clear and present danger to the women's lives.
WAT was funded and supervised by women in positions of power, women who had seen the effects of domestic violence on these women. Once a woman entered into the program, she virtually vanished, moving into a new life and a new identity provided by the money donated by other women who were sympathetic to the cause, for a variety of personal reasons.
Diane decided to approach WAT about Nancy. She withheld details of her involvement, instead choosing to tell them that she'd heard of Nancy through a friend. She explained Nancy's situation and the dire need for her protection.
Nancy's case was voted on, and it was agreed she could be inducted into the program.
Diane could only hope that Nancy would agree to join the program.
Two days before she was to leave the hospital, Nancy found out she was pregnant, and two of the Agent's coworkers paid her a visit, warning her to get an abortion, or things would get ugly.
Nancy was at her wit's end. She had nowhere to go, and was beside herself that she was carrying the Agent's child.
As she was about to be released, an anonymous note found it's way to her.
In it was money all in unmarked bills, and an address, with a symbol at the bottom of the page.
She would have recognized the symbol anywhere. It was the whole of the symbol on her half of the pendant.
The investigator approached her, showing her another letter with a symbol on it, and told her that he would get her to the address safely, without being followed.
Terrified, she agreed.
She was dropped off at the address, and then another woman met her and drove her to Chicago, giving her new identification and instructions on how to alter her appearance. She was introduced to Amy Deluca, another abused woman who had entered the program. Her husband had been a Sergeant with the Miami police department. Four months prior, he had beaten her until her face was unrecognizable. Amy was terrified for her baby, and when a friend, a wife of the Police Commissioner approached her about making a break, she took it gratefully.
Amy and Nancy became close. But Nancy never revealed Diane, or her ties to her.
As far as Amy knew, Nancy had been unwillingly tormented by the Agent and the FBI because she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had picked up a girl on the road, and when the FBI came after them, Nancy shot one of them in self-defense, and the girl had killed the other.
She had vowed that she would never tell Diane's secret, and she kept that promise.
Nancy had mixed feelings about the child growing within her, for though she knew the child was a product of the Agent's cruel tortures inflicted on her, it was still an innocent life.
She could not bring herself to even think of aborting it.
Nancy and Amy's daughters were born within six months of each other, Maria first, and then Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was a great joy to Nancy, a sweet child who didn't fuss, quiet and extremely aware of her surroundings.
For years, they moved together from place to place, whenever given notice from WAT. When the notes came, they knew they had to move on. Another residence was always provided in another city. In that time, Nancy never saw the Agent, but she lived in fear that he would find them.
Liz and Maria were close, as close as sisters. Liz never knew the truth, for her mother had told her the same story as she had Amy.
All she had ever known was running, picking up and moving on at a moment's notice, and it had become a way of life for all of them. The one constant in her life was her mother, who she loved dearly, and Amy and Maria, who were the only people she allowed herself to get close to.
Always, she was aware of her surroundings. From a young age, she knew the face of the Agent. Nancy had taught her from the beginning, that if she ever saw him, she was to run and never look back.
******
"Nancy and I never dared to meet again, but we kept in contact through letters," Diane said. "She is a beautiful soul. I want the both of you to know that, and my hope is that you see just what she gave up for me, and in turn for all of us."
"Her letters didn't come often, but I looked forward to them. We talked of our children, because we both adored them. Remember the quilts that used to cover Max and Isabel at night? Nancy sent them. She made them herself. You all have no idea what she gave up for us. I hope you can understand the magnitude of the sacrifice she made in stopping on the road that night," Diane said.
Then, suddenly, the letters stopped. I received a frantic message from Maria and Amy. Liz and Nancy had disappeared," Diane said, her voice trembling.
"I desperately tried to find Nancy, but they were gone, without a trace. I didn't dare ask you to help Phillip, after what had happened with Portia. After that, you merely used humans, were cordial to them, but I knew you would never help me with this," she said.
"I want a promise from you Phillip. If you love me at all, you'll find them. They need protection. I owe Nancy that. I owe her my life, and the lives of my children," she continued.
"Please, Phillip. Help them," she pleaded quietly, and the orb went dark.
********
Max stared at his father in astonishment, his eyes glistening with tears.
"All these years, Mom kept that secret," he whispered.
Phillip nodded.
"So you promised her, and you found them," Max said, running his hand through his hair.
"Your mother was my life, Max. You all were. Everything I did was to protect all of you," Phillip said.
"I know," Max said quietly. "You taught me well."
"Nancy and Liz need our help. If David Pierce finds them-" Phillip said.
"Pierce?" Max gasped. "Pierce is Liz's father?"
Max was floored. Pierce was the man who ordered the attack on them at the beach. He was the reason Edward was dead.
And apparently, now he wanted Liz dead too.
His heart clenched with fear. Their enemy was hers all along, and he had thought she was working with him. He'd been so wrong...about everything.
"There's more, Max," Phillip said. "You need to understand everything."
Max sank down into a chair, wondering how much worse this story could get.
TBC.....
The Kindness of Strangers (AU, ML / Mature) (Complete)
Moderators: Itzstacie, Forum Moderators
22
Sorry guys, I have to post and run. Happy Easter!
From Part 21
"There's more, Max," Phillip said. "You need to understand everything."
Max sank down into a chair, wondering how much worse this story could get.
Part 22
"What do you mean more?" Max asked, looking up at his father.
"This involves more than just Pierce," Phillip said. "It goes much deeper than that."
"Liz never knew the whole truth, never knew about your mother. She doesn't know, even now," Phillip said.
"You never told her?" Max asked, in disbelief.
"No," Phillip said quietly.
"Why not?" Max asked.
"Because it wasn't only my story to tell," Phillip said.
Max couldn't help but feel ashamed at the way he'd been thinking regarding his father. He had thought the worse, when in reality, Phillip had only been trying to keep his promises to the people he loved. Still, he was a little angry that his father had kept the truth from him.
"Why didn’t you tell me? About Liz?" Max asked.
Phillip snorted.
"Exactly how would that have gone over? Should I have just come out and said 'Hey Max, I'm going to marry Liz to keep her under my protection, because I promised your mother. And by the way, her father is David Pierce.' You would have lost your mind Max. Don't even try to deny it," Phillip said.
And Max didn't, because deep down, he knew it was true. He would have condemned Liz without giving her a chance.
"Liz told me that when she tried to ask her mother, Nancy would get too upset. She never even knew that Pierce was her father until she was eighteen. Nancy never wanted her to know, because in spite of everything, she loved Liz, so much," Phillip said.
Max frowned.
"Her mother said something, at the home, that the men were coming to get her, because she knew about the aliens," Max said. "Liz said she didn't know what she was talking about. I guess she was telling the truth."
Phillip sighed.
"Nancy didn't tell her much. Somehow I think that Nancy would have kept even the truth about Pierce from her forever if they hadn't been captured," Phillip said.
"Pierce was in a powerful position in the Department of Defense. There were...people that didn't like the way that he did things, and certain politicians had hired men looking for Nancy to question her," Phillip said.
"Around that time, an organized crime family was tipped about Nancy and Liz through Dominic Stanton, Pierce's old partner while he was in the FBI," Phillip continued.
"Dominic Stanton had a bone to pick with Pierce. He also knew about Pierce's encounters with Nancy in Colorado. Pierce had promised him he would take him with him to the DoD, but had left him in the breeze. Stanton had a penchant for gambling and got himself in over his head. The Zambini Family threatened to kill him, and he gave up the info about Nancy, to save his own neck," Phillip said softly.
"He gave a photo of Nancy to Carlo and the information of Pierce’s illegitimate child. The Zambini family had ties in most major cities, and they used them to find Liz and Nancy," Phillip said.
"By then, Nancy was starting to develop dementia. I'm guessing you saw that," Phillip noted.
Max nodded.
"By pure luck one of Carlo's men saw her wandering around Miami, and their bonus was finding Liz as well. They were immediately captured. Pierce was made aware that they had Nancy and her daughter," Phillip said in a pained voice. "Pierce was allowed to see Liz.
"He's a monster, Max. They left him in the room with Liz, and he would have killed her right there if he had the chance. He didn't see a daughter. He saw a liability. If anyone ever found how she was conceived, his job would be on the line. He wanted her dead, and he told her so," Phillip said. "Imagine that Max. Imagine finding out your fathers' identity, only to see that he hates you and wants you dead. That's what he told her, that someday, somewhere he would have his chance. He told her that Nancy was a whore; that she had asked for it. He called her a bastard child, one that he never wanted."
All new hatred for the man called Pierce flooded Max's heart, fueled purely by the cruel way that he had so callously and cruelly treated Liz. What kind of a monster could treat his own child like that?
"God, Liz..." Max said in a ragged voice, rising from the chair and turning from his father, trying to control his emotions.
"Carlo struck a deal with him. Pierce wanted Nancy dead, but Carlo knew too well that she was insurance, and refused, assuring him that she would be kept holed up, as long as Pierce cooperated with their...demands," Phillip said in disgust. "They would not release Nancy to the police in return for favors he could give them with his position in the DoD. In turn, they would make sure that Liz was out of the country, under their "care". Pierce had no choice but to agree."
"Carlo kept Liz in line by threatening her with her mother's death if she told anyone anything," Phillip continued.
"Technically Liz didn't exist, no social security number, no school records, nothing. Whatever Liz learned, she had learned on her own, at home," Phillip said.
"Hence her interest in history," Max said, shaking his head, guilt filling his heart at all the barbs he had thrown at her. He couldn't have known how they stung, but now....
"A fake identity was created for her and her mother, and they were shipped off to Mexico," Phillip said.
"Carlo knew how attached to her mother Liz was, and knew she would do anything to keep her alive and unharmed. And that served his purpose. He decided that using her for a little side action wouldn't hurt anyone. She started small, as a courier, running drugs for him in Mexico. If she were caught, it would be no great loss to him. He still had Nancy, and Liz had nothing tying her to him. For awhile, he kept them together. But, as you know, Liz is spirited. His brother Frank enjoyed taking his frustration out on her with his fist, among other things," Phillip said.
Max was horrified. The flash, that night in Mesilla. He'd seen Frank. He'd known she'd killed him, but now the puzzle fit. He'd seen Carlo beat her until she lost consciousness. God, he'd been so wrong about everything. Knowing the horrors she'd been through, witnessing them as if they were his own memories, his heart broke for her. How could he have been so wrong about everything? His father only confirmed what he'd just pieced together.
"Liz killed Frank when he turned on her mother," Phillip said. "She knew Carlo would come for her, and he did. She almost died that night."
"I saw it, from Liz," Max choked out.
His father looked at him speculatively, but didn't comment further.
"After that, they separated Liz from her mother. Carlo didn't care whether she lived or died. He enjoyed sending her into dangerous situations. He forced her to assist his men in all kinds of dangerous things, like running drugs, money laundering...Nancy was sent back here to the States. Carlo made sure that she would never find her mother," Phillip said.
"Did she tell you all of this?" Max asked, dully, wishing that he hadn't been such a bastard, wishing that he'd tried harder to gain her trust.
"I already knew most of it before I ever found Liz," Phillip said. "We only talked about it once, and she didn't really talk about it at all. She just...confirmed what I already knew."
"During those last days, your mother told me about Nancy, and Liz. At first, I was angry, but then...your mother was so important to me Max. I owed it to her to find them, to find out what happened to them. I couldn't have imagined the reality of it," Phillip said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Somehow Pierce found out that Liz was in Mexico. He sent men in to attempt to kill Liz. Carlo's men got her away, but it made Carlo realize that he had to get her out of Mexico. He threatened Pierce, telling him that if he tried anything like that again, he would expose him, and then secreted Liz to South America," Phillip said.
"He made Liz into a smuggler. She ran cocaine for them. She...was good at it. Carlo knew that her mother meant everything to her, and it was only for that reason that he trusted her to head his operations. She was in charge of the other locals who ran for him. She became friendly with one of them; a young boy named Felipe. The boy’s sister Lucinda had tried to help her escape Carlo once. Carlo had her killed for it, along with her child," Phillip said quietly.
One more piece of the puzzle was confirmed for Max. He had seen that woman, that nightmare, in Liz's memories.
"After that, she took Felipe under her wing. The two of them worked together as a team. When I had started to search for Liz and Nancy, I learned of the Zambini's ties to Pierce. Bit and pieces I picked up led me to rumors, a legend in South America, a girl that was exceptionally good at smuggling anything illegal. It didn't take me long to figure it out," Phillip said.
"The Federales didn't like Carlo horning in on their business down there. Everything is corrupt. They knew of Carlo's prized smuggler, and they knew that she could be used for leverage. When they caught them, they killed Felipe. I was too late to save the boy," Phillip said, distraught. " I had to call in quite a few favors to get Liz released to me."
"She had already been injured in the capture, and the Federales had badly beaten her. I told her that I knew everything, but even after that, she didn't want to take my help. But if she didn't, she knew her mother would die a prisoner. Believe me Max, I think if she felt she had any other choice, she would have taken that first," Phillip said. "I didn't really give her a choice."
"I wish that you would have told me," Max said quietly.
"Max-" Phillip started.
"I know, hindsight's a bitch," Max muttered. "If I hadn't been such an ass..."
"Max, you were doing what you thought you needed to," Phillip said.
Max shook his head.
"You and Isabel have been telling me forever that I need to lighten up on humans," Max said. "I didn't listen, and...."
"You have a chance to help her now Max," Phillip said.
"Carlo is dead," Max said, not feeling one bit sorry for it.
"Then it will only be a matter of time before Pierce finds out what happened. She's in danger," Phillip warned.
Max thought of all the times that she'd begged him to trust her. She was trying to protect her mother, the only person aside from Maria who had ever cared for her. And she was trying to protect him and his family.
"What do we have to do?" Max said. "I want to help."
"I was counting on you saying that," Phillip said. "I prayed that you were ready to hear the truth."
Max was already on his way out the door when Phillip grabbed his arm. Max turned back toward his father.
"You didn't answer my question before. Do you think you could love her?" Phillip asked.
"Dad, don't push me on this. Right now we just have to get her out of here to someplace safe," Max said, impatient to be moving.
He hadn't gotten to the door before Manuel appeared in the doorway.
"Sir, I think Ms. Elizabeth is gone," he said breathlessly.
"What?" Max cried, his heart overcome with dread.
"When I went up to check on her, she'd locked the door. She told me she didn't want to see anyone. I heard her moving around in the room, so I let her have a moment. But I knocked on the door, and no one is answering."
"Check the grounds," Phillip said, and Manuel nodded, disappearing toward the front door.
Max took the stairs two at a time as Michael came in the front door.
He ran down the hall to Liz's room.
"Liz!" he called, pounding on the door. "Liz, open up, it's me Max."
Silence was his only answer.
He didn't wait any longer, kicking the door in.
"Liz?" he called, frantic.
A sinking feeling tightened his chest as he flung the door open to the adjoining room, Phillip's.
He scanned the room. Through the open window the wind blew raindrops onto the floor.
She wouldn't have. Not like this. He smothered the panic that quickened his pulse.
Maria. She had to be with Maria.
He ran out of the room and down the hall to the guestroom Maria was staying in and pounded on the door.
"Maria, open up!" he said.
There was no response.
"Maria!" he said again in a loud voice.
He heard the click of the door as it unlocked and Maria whipped the door open.
"What?" she said, rubbing her eyes, in a clearly irritated voice.
"Is Liz with you?" he asked, trying peer into the room.
"No, I haven't seen since dinner," she said, confused.
Max cursed under his breath.
She looked at him, her eyes widening in fear.
"What happened?" She asked.
"Look Maria, I know about everything, ok? I think Liz may have taken off," Max said, running a hand through his hair, completely at a loss as to what to do.
"What do you mean you know everything?" she asked suspiciously, her eyes narrowing.
"Maria, I don't have time for this," he snapped, his eyes flashing.
"Carlo knows where Liz's mother is. He tried to run her off the road, and now he's dead, and I think Liz is afraid that Pierce is going to come after her. I need to know where she is," he said, his eyes pleading with her.
"I don't know," she whispered, fear creeping into her eyes.
"Maria..." Max growled.
"I don't know! I swear! Do you think I would let her leave alone?" she asked in a loud voice.
"Maxwell, what's going on?" Michael asked from behind him.
"Just...look through the house. Make sure Liz isn't here. I'm going out to look for her," Max said, pulling his keys out of his pocket.
"Max-" Michael said.
"Just do it Michael!" Max shouted, and ran down the stairs. "I've got my cell on me if you find her. But somehow he knew they wouldn't.
He knew just by looking at Manuel's face as he entered the foyer, that he'd not found her.
He rushed past him to the Mercedes, never feeling the rain soaking his clothes. Gunning the engine, he tore down the driveway, spraying gravel behind him.
A growing sense of panic was causing his hear to pound fiercely in his chest.
He knew she had made it off the grounds, and if she had, there was little chance he would find her.
He stopped at the end of the drive, not knowing which direction to turn.
He had no idea where she would go.
Turning right, he flew out on to the highway, scouring the side of the road for any sign of her.
The rain was hitting the road in sheets, and it made seeing the shoulder of the road difficult, even with his wipers turned to their highest setting.
He realized he had no clue where to begin to look.
******
Two hours later, he pulled into the driveway, frustrated and more frightened with each passing minute.
He had heard from Michael three times. They'd used every resource the firm had, and had turned up nothing.
He suspected she had hitched a ride. It was the only answer, or he would have seen her. He'd scoured every road in Las Cruces, but it had been an exercise in futility. Deep down, he knew that she was already gone. She was resourceful, and her time with Phillip had surely not dulled her instincts, especially with the distrust Max had displayed. He knew that he had pushed her for the truth, to the point where she had probably been prepared to leave on a moment's notice.
Discouraged, Max walked into the house, to find a very worried Maria pacing the foyer.
He looked at her questioningly, and she shook her head. He heard voices in the library, and headed toward them.
He wasn't surprised to find Isabel and Alex sitting in the room with Michael and Phillip.
Isabel looked up at him fearfully.
"Did you find her?" she asked, and Max shook his head.
"She could be anywhere by now," he said in a strained voice.
Phillip stood from behind his desk, and Max immediately knew something was wrong.
"You should see this," Phillip said, holding out a piece of paper.
Max took the paper with a sense of foreboding.
He sighed shakily, taking in the neat scrawl; already knowing it was from Liz before he even began to read it.
"Where did you find this?" he asked, looking up from the paper at Phillip.
"On the floor in my room. The wind must have blown it off the desk," Phillip said.
He lowered his eyes to the paper, the ink slightly blurred from the rain that had been coming in the open window.
Phillip,
I'm sure by now that Max has told you what happened tonight. I have to find my mother. I know that they have her now, Carlo's people, and it will only be a matter of time before they find out he's dead.
I know you want to help, but I can't drag you into this any further than you've already gotten yourself in. I know you have some tie to David though you wouldn't tell me what it was, but you know that he's dangerous. Still, you have no idea what he'll do to you if he finds out you were harboring me. I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to any of you because of your involvement with me.
You know what I have to do. It was something that was going to happen sooner or later.
Please, tell Max the truth someday. I know that now would be the worst time to tell him, but maybe some day in the future, you might tell him that I never meant any of you any harm. I know he thinks the worst of me now, and it's probably for the best. I don't want anyone coming after me. Remember your promise, that if I had to leave, you wouldn't stop me. You know I have good reason. I have to find my mother. I owe it to her.
Thank you for everything. Most of all, thank you for letting me be a part of your family for awhile. I'll never forget it.
Always,
Liz
"Dammit!" Max swore, turning to Phillip. "She's going to give herself to them, isn't she?"
Phillip looked away.
"I did this," Max muttered. "I pushed her into a corner until she had no other choice."
"No Max," Phillip said, shaking his head. "If you hadn't gone after her tonight, they would have caught her anyway. I called the home. Nancy is gone."
Max nodded, his suspicions confirmed.
"So what do we do now?" he asked.
"You've got to find her," Maria said, and Max looked up at her. She stood in the doorway of the library, tears in her eyes.
"She doesn't care about herself. All she ever cared about was that we were safe, that her mom was safe. I'm afraid of what she'll do," she trailed off, covering her eyes with her hand.
Michael walked over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Look, we'll find her," he said grimly. "We've been through worse than this. It's going to be all right."
Maria's face crumpled, and she buried her head in his chest. Michael looked discomfited for an instant, and then put an arm around her, looking at Max, waiting for direction.
Alex spoke quietly.
"I have some contacts, through the D.A. I could call, see what I can find out," he said.
"Thank you," Max said, now more than ever grateful that Isabel had found someone like her husband.
"We...have other methods at our disposal," Isabel said, looking at Max, before glancing at Maria, not wanting to reveal anything in front of her.
"Just give me the word Max, and I'll use them," she said.
He'd been so wrong, about so many things, most of all Liz. He just hoped there was enough time to make it right.
"Do it," Max said. "Whatever it takes, just do it."
From Part 21
"There's more, Max," Phillip said. "You need to understand everything."
Max sank down into a chair, wondering how much worse this story could get.
Part 22
"What do you mean more?" Max asked, looking up at his father.
"This involves more than just Pierce," Phillip said. "It goes much deeper than that."
"Liz never knew the whole truth, never knew about your mother. She doesn't know, even now," Phillip said.
"You never told her?" Max asked, in disbelief.
"No," Phillip said quietly.
"Why not?" Max asked.
"Because it wasn't only my story to tell," Phillip said.
Max couldn't help but feel ashamed at the way he'd been thinking regarding his father. He had thought the worse, when in reality, Phillip had only been trying to keep his promises to the people he loved. Still, he was a little angry that his father had kept the truth from him.
"Why didn’t you tell me? About Liz?" Max asked.
Phillip snorted.
"Exactly how would that have gone over? Should I have just come out and said 'Hey Max, I'm going to marry Liz to keep her under my protection, because I promised your mother. And by the way, her father is David Pierce.' You would have lost your mind Max. Don't even try to deny it," Phillip said.
And Max didn't, because deep down, he knew it was true. He would have condemned Liz without giving her a chance.
"Liz told me that when she tried to ask her mother, Nancy would get too upset. She never even knew that Pierce was her father until she was eighteen. Nancy never wanted her to know, because in spite of everything, she loved Liz, so much," Phillip said.
Max frowned.
"Her mother said something, at the home, that the men were coming to get her, because she knew about the aliens," Max said. "Liz said she didn't know what she was talking about. I guess she was telling the truth."
Phillip sighed.
"Nancy didn't tell her much. Somehow I think that Nancy would have kept even the truth about Pierce from her forever if they hadn't been captured," Phillip said.
"Pierce was in a powerful position in the Department of Defense. There were...people that didn't like the way that he did things, and certain politicians had hired men looking for Nancy to question her," Phillip said.
"Around that time, an organized crime family was tipped about Nancy and Liz through Dominic Stanton, Pierce's old partner while he was in the FBI," Phillip continued.
"Dominic Stanton had a bone to pick with Pierce. He also knew about Pierce's encounters with Nancy in Colorado. Pierce had promised him he would take him with him to the DoD, but had left him in the breeze. Stanton had a penchant for gambling and got himself in over his head. The Zambini Family threatened to kill him, and he gave up the info about Nancy, to save his own neck," Phillip said softly.
"He gave a photo of Nancy to Carlo and the information of Pierce’s illegitimate child. The Zambini family had ties in most major cities, and they used them to find Liz and Nancy," Phillip said.
"By then, Nancy was starting to develop dementia. I'm guessing you saw that," Phillip noted.
Max nodded.
"By pure luck one of Carlo's men saw her wandering around Miami, and their bonus was finding Liz as well. They were immediately captured. Pierce was made aware that they had Nancy and her daughter," Phillip said in a pained voice. "Pierce was allowed to see Liz.
"He's a monster, Max. They left him in the room with Liz, and he would have killed her right there if he had the chance. He didn't see a daughter. He saw a liability. If anyone ever found how she was conceived, his job would be on the line. He wanted her dead, and he told her so," Phillip said. "Imagine that Max. Imagine finding out your fathers' identity, only to see that he hates you and wants you dead. That's what he told her, that someday, somewhere he would have his chance. He told her that Nancy was a whore; that she had asked for it. He called her a bastard child, one that he never wanted."
All new hatred for the man called Pierce flooded Max's heart, fueled purely by the cruel way that he had so callously and cruelly treated Liz. What kind of a monster could treat his own child like that?
"God, Liz..." Max said in a ragged voice, rising from the chair and turning from his father, trying to control his emotions.
"Carlo struck a deal with him. Pierce wanted Nancy dead, but Carlo knew too well that she was insurance, and refused, assuring him that she would be kept holed up, as long as Pierce cooperated with their...demands," Phillip said in disgust. "They would not release Nancy to the police in return for favors he could give them with his position in the DoD. In turn, they would make sure that Liz was out of the country, under their "care". Pierce had no choice but to agree."
"Carlo kept Liz in line by threatening her with her mother's death if she told anyone anything," Phillip continued.
"Technically Liz didn't exist, no social security number, no school records, nothing. Whatever Liz learned, she had learned on her own, at home," Phillip said.
"Hence her interest in history," Max said, shaking his head, guilt filling his heart at all the barbs he had thrown at her. He couldn't have known how they stung, but now....
"A fake identity was created for her and her mother, and they were shipped off to Mexico," Phillip said.
"Carlo knew how attached to her mother Liz was, and knew she would do anything to keep her alive and unharmed. And that served his purpose. He decided that using her for a little side action wouldn't hurt anyone. She started small, as a courier, running drugs for him in Mexico. If she were caught, it would be no great loss to him. He still had Nancy, and Liz had nothing tying her to him. For awhile, he kept them together. But, as you know, Liz is spirited. His brother Frank enjoyed taking his frustration out on her with his fist, among other things," Phillip said.
Max was horrified. The flash, that night in Mesilla. He'd seen Frank. He'd known she'd killed him, but now the puzzle fit. He'd seen Carlo beat her until she lost consciousness. God, he'd been so wrong about everything. Knowing the horrors she'd been through, witnessing them as if they were his own memories, his heart broke for her. How could he have been so wrong about everything? His father only confirmed what he'd just pieced together.
"Liz killed Frank when he turned on her mother," Phillip said. "She knew Carlo would come for her, and he did. She almost died that night."
"I saw it, from Liz," Max choked out.
His father looked at him speculatively, but didn't comment further.
"After that, they separated Liz from her mother. Carlo didn't care whether she lived or died. He enjoyed sending her into dangerous situations. He forced her to assist his men in all kinds of dangerous things, like running drugs, money laundering...Nancy was sent back here to the States. Carlo made sure that she would never find her mother," Phillip said.
"Did she tell you all of this?" Max asked, dully, wishing that he hadn't been such a bastard, wishing that he'd tried harder to gain her trust.
"I already knew most of it before I ever found Liz," Phillip said. "We only talked about it once, and she didn't really talk about it at all. She just...confirmed what I already knew."
"During those last days, your mother told me about Nancy, and Liz. At first, I was angry, but then...your mother was so important to me Max. I owed it to her to find them, to find out what happened to them. I couldn't have imagined the reality of it," Phillip said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Somehow Pierce found out that Liz was in Mexico. He sent men in to attempt to kill Liz. Carlo's men got her away, but it made Carlo realize that he had to get her out of Mexico. He threatened Pierce, telling him that if he tried anything like that again, he would expose him, and then secreted Liz to South America," Phillip said.
"He made Liz into a smuggler. She ran cocaine for them. She...was good at it. Carlo knew that her mother meant everything to her, and it was only for that reason that he trusted her to head his operations. She was in charge of the other locals who ran for him. She became friendly with one of them; a young boy named Felipe. The boy’s sister Lucinda had tried to help her escape Carlo once. Carlo had her killed for it, along with her child," Phillip said quietly.
One more piece of the puzzle was confirmed for Max. He had seen that woman, that nightmare, in Liz's memories.
"After that, she took Felipe under her wing. The two of them worked together as a team. When I had started to search for Liz and Nancy, I learned of the Zambini's ties to Pierce. Bit and pieces I picked up led me to rumors, a legend in South America, a girl that was exceptionally good at smuggling anything illegal. It didn't take me long to figure it out," Phillip said.
"The Federales didn't like Carlo horning in on their business down there. Everything is corrupt. They knew of Carlo's prized smuggler, and they knew that she could be used for leverage. When they caught them, they killed Felipe. I was too late to save the boy," Phillip said, distraught. " I had to call in quite a few favors to get Liz released to me."
"She had already been injured in the capture, and the Federales had badly beaten her. I told her that I knew everything, but even after that, she didn't want to take my help. But if she didn't, she knew her mother would die a prisoner. Believe me Max, I think if she felt she had any other choice, she would have taken that first," Phillip said. "I didn't really give her a choice."
"I wish that you would have told me," Max said quietly.
"Max-" Phillip started.
"I know, hindsight's a bitch," Max muttered. "If I hadn't been such an ass..."
"Max, you were doing what you thought you needed to," Phillip said.
Max shook his head.
"You and Isabel have been telling me forever that I need to lighten up on humans," Max said. "I didn't listen, and...."
"You have a chance to help her now Max," Phillip said.
"Carlo is dead," Max said, not feeling one bit sorry for it.
"Then it will only be a matter of time before Pierce finds out what happened. She's in danger," Phillip warned.
Max thought of all the times that she'd begged him to trust her. She was trying to protect her mother, the only person aside from Maria who had ever cared for her. And she was trying to protect him and his family.
"What do we have to do?" Max said. "I want to help."
"I was counting on you saying that," Phillip said. "I prayed that you were ready to hear the truth."
Max was already on his way out the door when Phillip grabbed his arm. Max turned back toward his father.
"You didn't answer my question before. Do you think you could love her?" Phillip asked.
"Dad, don't push me on this. Right now we just have to get her out of here to someplace safe," Max said, impatient to be moving.
He hadn't gotten to the door before Manuel appeared in the doorway.
"Sir, I think Ms. Elizabeth is gone," he said breathlessly.
"What?" Max cried, his heart overcome with dread.
"When I went up to check on her, she'd locked the door. She told me she didn't want to see anyone. I heard her moving around in the room, so I let her have a moment. But I knocked on the door, and no one is answering."
"Check the grounds," Phillip said, and Manuel nodded, disappearing toward the front door.
Max took the stairs two at a time as Michael came in the front door.
He ran down the hall to Liz's room.
"Liz!" he called, pounding on the door. "Liz, open up, it's me Max."
Silence was his only answer.
He didn't wait any longer, kicking the door in.
"Liz?" he called, frantic.
A sinking feeling tightened his chest as he flung the door open to the adjoining room, Phillip's.
He scanned the room. Through the open window the wind blew raindrops onto the floor.
She wouldn't have. Not like this. He smothered the panic that quickened his pulse.
Maria. She had to be with Maria.
He ran out of the room and down the hall to the guestroom Maria was staying in and pounded on the door.
"Maria, open up!" he said.
There was no response.
"Maria!" he said again in a loud voice.
He heard the click of the door as it unlocked and Maria whipped the door open.
"What?" she said, rubbing her eyes, in a clearly irritated voice.
"Is Liz with you?" he asked, trying peer into the room.
"No, I haven't seen since dinner," she said, confused.
Max cursed under his breath.
She looked at him, her eyes widening in fear.
"What happened?" She asked.
"Look Maria, I know about everything, ok? I think Liz may have taken off," Max said, running a hand through his hair, completely at a loss as to what to do.
"What do you mean you know everything?" she asked suspiciously, her eyes narrowing.
"Maria, I don't have time for this," he snapped, his eyes flashing.
"Carlo knows where Liz's mother is. He tried to run her off the road, and now he's dead, and I think Liz is afraid that Pierce is going to come after her. I need to know where she is," he said, his eyes pleading with her.
"I don't know," she whispered, fear creeping into her eyes.
"Maria..." Max growled.
"I don't know! I swear! Do you think I would let her leave alone?" she asked in a loud voice.
"Maxwell, what's going on?" Michael asked from behind him.
"Just...look through the house. Make sure Liz isn't here. I'm going out to look for her," Max said, pulling his keys out of his pocket.
"Max-" Michael said.
"Just do it Michael!" Max shouted, and ran down the stairs. "I've got my cell on me if you find her. But somehow he knew they wouldn't.
He knew just by looking at Manuel's face as he entered the foyer, that he'd not found her.
He rushed past him to the Mercedes, never feeling the rain soaking his clothes. Gunning the engine, he tore down the driveway, spraying gravel behind him.
A growing sense of panic was causing his hear to pound fiercely in his chest.
He knew she had made it off the grounds, and if she had, there was little chance he would find her.
He stopped at the end of the drive, not knowing which direction to turn.
He had no idea where she would go.
Turning right, he flew out on to the highway, scouring the side of the road for any sign of her.
The rain was hitting the road in sheets, and it made seeing the shoulder of the road difficult, even with his wipers turned to their highest setting.
He realized he had no clue where to begin to look.
******
Two hours later, he pulled into the driveway, frustrated and more frightened with each passing minute.
He had heard from Michael three times. They'd used every resource the firm had, and had turned up nothing.
He suspected she had hitched a ride. It was the only answer, or he would have seen her. He'd scoured every road in Las Cruces, but it had been an exercise in futility. Deep down, he knew that she was already gone. She was resourceful, and her time with Phillip had surely not dulled her instincts, especially with the distrust Max had displayed. He knew that he had pushed her for the truth, to the point where she had probably been prepared to leave on a moment's notice.
Discouraged, Max walked into the house, to find a very worried Maria pacing the foyer.
He looked at her questioningly, and she shook her head. He heard voices in the library, and headed toward them.
He wasn't surprised to find Isabel and Alex sitting in the room with Michael and Phillip.
Isabel looked up at him fearfully.
"Did you find her?" she asked, and Max shook his head.
"She could be anywhere by now," he said in a strained voice.
Phillip stood from behind his desk, and Max immediately knew something was wrong.
"You should see this," Phillip said, holding out a piece of paper.
Max took the paper with a sense of foreboding.
He sighed shakily, taking in the neat scrawl; already knowing it was from Liz before he even began to read it.
"Where did you find this?" he asked, looking up from the paper at Phillip.
"On the floor in my room. The wind must have blown it off the desk," Phillip said.
He lowered his eyes to the paper, the ink slightly blurred from the rain that had been coming in the open window.
Phillip,
I'm sure by now that Max has told you what happened tonight. I have to find my mother. I know that they have her now, Carlo's people, and it will only be a matter of time before they find out he's dead.
I know you want to help, but I can't drag you into this any further than you've already gotten yourself in. I know you have some tie to David though you wouldn't tell me what it was, but you know that he's dangerous. Still, you have no idea what he'll do to you if he finds out you were harboring me. I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to any of you because of your involvement with me.
You know what I have to do. It was something that was going to happen sooner or later.
Please, tell Max the truth someday. I know that now would be the worst time to tell him, but maybe some day in the future, you might tell him that I never meant any of you any harm. I know he thinks the worst of me now, and it's probably for the best. I don't want anyone coming after me. Remember your promise, that if I had to leave, you wouldn't stop me. You know I have good reason. I have to find my mother. I owe it to her.
Thank you for everything. Most of all, thank you for letting me be a part of your family for awhile. I'll never forget it.
Always,
Liz
"Dammit!" Max swore, turning to Phillip. "She's going to give herself to them, isn't she?"
Phillip looked away.
"I did this," Max muttered. "I pushed her into a corner until she had no other choice."
"No Max," Phillip said, shaking his head. "If you hadn't gone after her tonight, they would have caught her anyway. I called the home. Nancy is gone."
Max nodded, his suspicions confirmed.
"So what do we do now?" he asked.
"You've got to find her," Maria said, and Max looked up at her. She stood in the doorway of the library, tears in her eyes.
"She doesn't care about herself. All she ever cared about was that we were safe, that her mom was safe. I'm afraid of what she'll do," she trailed off, covering her eyes with her hand.
Michael walked over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Look, we'll find her," he said grimly. "We've been through worse than this. It's going to be all right."
Maria's face crumpled, and she buried her head in his chest. Michael looked discomfited for an instant, and then put an arm around her, looking at Max, waiting for direction.
Alex spoke quietly.
"I have some contacts, through the D.A. I could call, see what I can find out," he said.
"Thank you," Max said, now more than ever grateful that Isabel had found someone like her husband.
"We...have other methods at our disposal," Isabel said, looking at Max, before glancing at Maria, not wanting to reveal anything in front of her.
"Just give me the word Max, and I'll use them," she said.
He'd been so wrong, about so many things, most of all Liz. He just hoped there was enough time to make it right.
"Do it," Max said. "Whatever it takes, just do it."
23
Once again, thank you all for the feedback. 
Part 23
Phillip watched Max as he scoured the computer screen in the study, concerned.
Max hadn't had more than a few hours of rest in the past week. He had become obsessed with finding Liz. He barely ate, and spent almost every waking moment in the study. If he wasn't on the phone with Michael, he was using every resource they had available to track Pierce's whereabouts, for he knew that if he found Pierce, then he would find Liz.
Isabel's dreamwalk hadn't been a success. The first few times she tried, she hadn't been able to reach Liz at all. They had surmised that Liz wasn't getting much sleep either.
Finally, two days later, after trying again at random times, Isabel was able to break through. Unfortunately, the dream had revealed nothing of significance. Isabel tried to speak to Liz in her dream, tried to convince her that they could help her if she would only tell them where she was, but as in her waking moments, Liz didn't believe that anyone could help her, and revealed nothing. The dream ended with Pierce grabbing Liz and dragging her away from Isabel.
She'd tried a few more times, to no avail. Liz would reveal nothing.
Phillip knew that Max felt responsible in some way for what happened, for if he hadn't treated Liz so badly, if he hadn't pushed her too much, then she might have turned to them instead of running away.
To make things worse, they had a pretty good idea that Carlo's men knew he was dead. They'd sent Michael back to the site where they'd gone off the road, but the bodies were gone. That could only mean one thing, in Max's eyes. Liz was in definite danger.
Phillip knew that despite Max's refusal to talk about it, that he had feelings for Liz. The fear written on his haggard features screamed what he would not voice. Phillip didn't push it with him, instead trying to help in whatever way he could.
******
In the days following Liz's disappearance, Max and Phillip had pieced all of the events that led to Liz running away, and were able to form a picture.
Phillip had made an offer to Sharon Cruz, the woman in the prison, to divert Max from the truth, namely that Nancy Parker was safely living in the nursing home nearby. He had known that if Max did an investigation on the last name Parker, he would have found out about Pierce, and Phillip couldn't take the chance that Max would expose her.
The girl that Max had seen in the prison, who'd visited Sharon was not Liz at all, but Sharon Cruz's daughter.
The girl's name was Liz Cruz.
Phillip offered the girl was offered a significant amount of money to play the part of the girl in the photo she was shown, for as long as they needed her to.
Months ago, Phillip had called in a favor to the California Governor to have Sharon Cruz transferred to the New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility, and Liz Cruz moved out to Las Cruces, on call during the prison's visiting hours. When she got the call, she was to report to the prison, donning the dark wig, and the clothes specified by the caller. She was to keep her back turned from the security camera at all times.
Phillip had seen her photo with the wig before they returned from Brazil, and though she was a blond, with the wig on she looked eerily like Liz.
After she received the call, the girl was to be inside the facility at the specified time. Liz would come in and the girl would sign in as a visitor to her mother. From there, a security guard would meet Liz. The guard was paid handsomely to drive a specific sedan to work. She was given an employee clearance badge, and he would escort Liz out to the employee parking lot, to the sedan. From there, she would exit the facility from the rear, and proceed for an hour to the nursing home to visit her mother. She was to be back at the prison before the end of two hours, and the guard would meet her and escort her back through the building to the front. Meanwhile, Liz Cruz was “caught” on tape visiting her mother.
Phillip realized that the girl must have sensed that she could get more for what she was doing. Somebody was hiding something. She contacted an old friend of hers, who worked for the Zambini Family.
A cruel coincidence, one that had set everything in motion.
Carlo must have come to check out the situation in hopes of sniffing out Liz. Phillip knew he had to have been angry that his men had been bought out, and that Nancy had been released. His men, the two assigned to watch over Nancy, had disappeared. Phillip made sure they had enough money to go underground.
Apparently, Carlo staked out the prison with his men, and when they spotted Liz, they followed her to the nursing home.
Everything made sense now, albeit too late. When Liz had showed up at the nursing home, Nancy was saying things, things about Carlo and Pierce and aliens.
Carlo’s man must have been trying to take Nancy. She must have recognized that the man was a danger to her. She became unruly, and they called Liz.
They both knew why Liz left. She was going after her mother.
Phillip knew that time was running out, and by his haunted gaze, he knew Max knew it too.
*********
Max rubbed his eyes wearily, and looked up to find his father studying him.
"Why don't you go to bed, Dad," he said. "It's late."
"I could say the same to you," Phillip pointed out.
Max shook his head.
"I still have a few leads to check out," he said quietly.
"Max," Phillip started.
"Don't, Dad," Max interrupted in a weary voice. "I'll be done in a little while. Go on up."
Phillip stared at him for a long moment before sighing in defeat.
"Get some sleep tonight Max, will you?" he asked.
Max nodded, appeasing him while knowing in his heart that he wouldn't truly be able to rest until he found Liz.
Max paused to watch his father leave the room and then leaned back in his chair with a weary sigh, rubbing his eyes.
He felt a great deal of responsibility for her disappearance and the thought that he might have driven her into danger was devastating.
How could he have been so wrong about everything? Granted, both Phillip and Liz had done everything in their power to make sure that his suspicions went down the right track, but that didn't appease his heart which had suspected for a long time that Liz was not the person the evidence painted her to be. Somewhere in his heart he had always known that she was a person of integrity. He just didn't listen to it until it was too late.
Now she was gone, and the blame for it rested heavily on his shoulders and his heart. It wasn't as if anyone was accusing him. Even Maria didn't blame him, and she had every right to.
His own fear of his burgeoning feelings for Liz, a human girl, had now had dire consequences.
If only he had taken her at her word. If only he'd told her how he really felt. If only he'd given her reason to trust him.
Of course Carlo still would have come, but if he had made her feel that she could put her trust in him, then maybe she would be there in the Evans house, safe, instead of out there somewhere surely in danger.
His father thought that he was obsessed with finding her, to the point where he would not rest and it was true to an extent, but that wasn't the only reason.
Her eyes, her infrequent but beautiful smile haunted his dreams when he slept, and so he had done so as little as possible over the since she'd disappeared.
And now, as he sat there in the middle of the night without even so much as a lead as to her whereabouts, he admitted to himself what he could not have done previously.
He was in love with Liz Parker, so much so that it was a physical ache and he was terrified of it. As much as he had denied it, he knew now that he had just been lying to himself. There was no way that he could have stood by and watched her marry his father.
He didn't have a clue how he had fallen so fast in such a short period of time, but in the end, it didn't really matter. It had happened.
For those few moments she had been in his arms that night on the terrace, she'd made him forget everything; what he was, the danger that always loomed over his family. It had all been pushed aside and replaced with yearning, desire, heat.
And maybe he could have written it off as just attraction, but then he began to care what her secrets were, why she was hiding them from him, what kind of danger she was really in.
It began to bother him that she was lying to him, but not merely because of the family, but because she was lying to him.
An instinctive need to protect her developed within his heart and somewhere along the way, that need began to encompass not only his family, but her too. He wanted to keep her safe. He wanted her to live a day without fear. He wanted her to have happiness, security and contentment. And in his drive to find the truth, he had backed her into a corner until the only answer for her was to run.
His heart twisted painfully at the thought that she was out there all alone and probably terrified.
His cell phone rang on the desk and he started, looking at the screen. He picked it up quickly.
"Michael," he said, catching the hint of desperation in his own voice. "Have you found something?"
"Maybe," Michael said, and Max heard his fingers hitting the keyboard in quick succession.
"I got a lock on that guy Dominic Stanton. He's hidden himself pretty well," Michael muttered. "I guess he's still not making nice with the Zambinis."
"Where?" Max asked.
"He's holing up in Florida," Michael said. "Palm Beach."
Michael gave him an address and Max wrote it down.
"I'm on it," Max said, his mind already racing with what he had to do. "I've got to call for a Lear. I'll get back to you."
"I'm going with you," Michael said.
"No, you're staying here," Max said firmly.
"No way, Maxwell," Michael interjected.
"Michael, I'm not arguing with you over this. I need you to watch over Isabel, Alex, Dad and Maria," Max said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"I don't think you should go by yourself," Michael argued.
"I can handle it. I won't be able to do what I need to unless I know everyone here is safe," Max said quietly.
He heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the line.
"You know where I am if you need me," he said. "And Max...I hope you find her."
Though they'd not discussed it, Michael knew the truth now, as did Isabel, and Michael knew that Max blamed himself.
"Yeah," Max answered in a gravelly voice. "Me too."
Max hung up the phone, and then dialed the private airline service they used when they needed to travel. Within fifteen minutes, they had gotten special clearance to fly. The plane would leave in an hour.
Max didn't bother to wake anyone, knowing that it would only serve to worry them further. He left a note in the study and climbed into the car, driving well over the speed limit to arrive at the airport on time. The clearance had been a special favor and it wouldn't do to draw attention to it by being late.
Two and a half hours later, Max arrived in Palm Beach. The pilot was instructed to remain on call, and a car awaited Max, keys in the ignition.
Max's emotions fluctuated between wild hope and burning fury, the latter growing tenfold as he drew closer to his destination.
It was this fury that would give him the courage to act as he needed to, for he had always been one to remain in the shadows, inconspicuous, not drawing any significant attention to himself.
That would all have to end today if he was to have any hope of finding Liz.
Stanton would give him the information he needed and Max didn't care what he had to do to get it.
The house was nondescript, a copy of the others around it in the planned suburban community. Though it was only 7 a.m., Max hit the doorbell repeatedly without compunction.
He heard a muttered expletive behind the heavy wood door before it opened.
He was more than prepared.
"Who the fuck you do think you are waking me up at-" Stanton's angry diatribe was cut off by a strong hand at his throat, pushing him back through the door and against the wall in the foyer.
At first he struggled and then he stilled, noting Max's murderous expression.
"What do you want?" he choked out.
"Information," Max said in a deceptively calm voice. "You have it and you're going to give it to me. Where are the Zambinis hiding out these days?"
"I don't know shit about anything man," Stanton said, shaking his head in disgust.
Max's fingers tightened around his windpipe and he choked.
Stanton's eyes widened fearfully.
"I have no problem with killing you right here and now. So I suggest you start talking," Max seethed, tightening his fingers further.
"W...what do you want with them? Carlo's dead. There isn't anyone left worth going after," Stanton stammered.
"That's my business!" Max said, his rage a living and breathing thing, knowing that each second he wasted here was a second in which Liz's life could be in danger.
"Where!" Max shouted.
"N...Newark. They're right outside of Newark. There's an auto wrecker joint right off the Turnpike. It's...it's called Fiore's. They're based in the warehouse behind," Stanton gasped.
Max stared at him a long moment, his fingers tightening slightly. He should kill this man, for it was he that had ruined Liz's life, had indentured her to that monster Carlo. And he did it to settle a gambling debt.
He could kill him now and dispose of the evidence and no one would ever know, and he was of half the mind to do it. But then he remembered the fear in Liz's eyes, and the look in his own mother's that night on the beach, and he knew that he couldn't. He was not himself in imminent danger, and if he murdered this man to satisfy his own anger then he was no better than Pierce or Carlo.
He loosened his grip and Stanton slid down against the wall to the floor, cowering.
"You're a piece of shit, you know that?" Max said in disgust.
And with that, he turned and walked out the door, leaving the man curled on the floor trying to catch his breath. He didn't see Stanton start to weep.
********
Max arrived in Newark at 11:00 a.m. Having procured another car, he was soon on his way. He found the auto wrecker twenty minutes outside the airport.
He parked the car outside the enclosure in a parking lot across the street and watched.
An hour later he was fairly sure of what he was dealing with. There were four men inside, possibly armed. He was going to have to devise a diversion.
It didn't take him long to come up with one. He got out of the car, pushing his 9mm equipped with a silencer into the waist of his pants and climbed the fence, jogging over to a crane near the perimeter. Glancing up squinting against the mid-day sun, he watched the wrecked Chevy Impala swing slightly in the air as the wind pushed the cable. Putting his hand on the metal of the crane, he concentrated.
The car began to swing slowly, back and forth, its pendulous movement growing as the seconds passed. Max visualized the metal of the cable holding car becoming white-hot, melting. At the same time he threw his shield up, lighting a spark in the crane's diesel engine.
The crane's gas tank exploded in a thunderous fireball, the cable holding the car snapped, the Impala crashing to the ground in a cacophony of glass and twisted metal.
His shield protected him from the blast but he did not linger, retracting his shield and circling around the blast, watching the warehouse warily as he went.
As he had half-hoped, the door opened and the four men came out running toward the crane.
He shook his head in disgust, wondering who had trained these men. One of the first things Ed had taught him was never to run headlong into a situation until you were sure of the variables. These men were obviously not the sharpest tacks in the shed, most likely Carlo's low men.
He caught one of the men as he charged around a stack of crushed metal, grabbing him around the neck and pushing a gun to his throat. The man struggled and Max shoved the barrel of the gun further against his throat.
"Make a noise, and you're dead," Max threatened. The man fell still.
"Where's the girl?" Max asked. "Liz Parker, where is she?"
"I dunno what you're talkin' about," the man said.
Max listened for an instant to the roar of the flames, keeping his eyes on the area surrounding them and his hand pulled the gun out.
In an instant, the safety was off and he'd shot a round into the man's foot, needing to make his point, knowing he didn't have much time. He covered the man's mouth to stifle the expected scream.
"Shut up!" Max hissed. "I'm going to ask again. Where's the girl? I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth and you're going to answer me, or I swear to God, I'll kill you with my bare hands."
Max slowly removed his hand amid the man's whimper.
"Where is she?" he asked again.
"We sold 'er to that guy Pierce," the man said. "Carlo's dead. We ain't got no use for 'er, an ain't nobody gonna be takin over for Carlo, so we dumped 'er."
Max's heart froze in fear.
"When?" he barked, scanning the area for the other men.
"Last night," the man said in a pained voice.
"What about her mother?" Max asked grimly.
"I dunno man," the man groaned and Max covered his mouth stepping in his injured foot. The man's scream was again muffled against his hand.
"What? I didn't hear you," Max growled, in a threatening tone.
"She got away, man," the guy whined. "The girl...she...she...was trying to break her outta here, an' we caught the girl, but the woman got away. The woman hadna been here but like, two days. Wit' Carlo dead an' all, we didn't know what to do wit' her. We kept her here in the warehouse. But when we got the girl, we called that guy Pierce right after. He came an' picked her up, 'n gave us the money for 'er. We can't handle that kinda shit, man. That was Carlo and Frankie's deal."
Max was dismayed to realize that now he was not going to be searching for one person but two, and he had no idea where to even begin to look for Nancy.
"Where did Pierce take her?" Max hissed.
The man groaned.
"Where!" he repeated in a malevolent whisper, shaking him roughly. He knew he had only seconds before one of the men came looking for the man.
" I don't know, I swear!" the man half-sobbed.
Max had no more time to waste. He hit the man roughly with the butt of his gun at the base of the man's neck and the man slumped to the ground.
He took off at a run, scaling the fence just as the men spotted him. As he slid around his car, he heard gunfire, and the hiss of a bullet flying by him, coming within inches of his head.
He took a few shots at the cars sitting in front of the warehouse, taking out a tire on each.
He then jumped into the car, gunning the engine, tires smoking as he pulled out of the parking lot.
He drove at breakneck speed toward the turnpike, knowing it would be easy to lose the men once he reached it.
He reached the turnpike entrance without seeing a car coming out of the lot, but he didn't lessen his speed, not wanting to take a chance.
Fifteen minutes later he reached the airport alone.
As he was parking the car, his phone rang.
"Max," Michael said, as he picked up the phone.
"What's going on, Michael?" Max said, walking at a quick pace toward the plane.
"You tell me," Michael said. "I just got a call from a woman in Newark, saying Nancy Parker is in her store. She said that she's real disoriented, but she had our address and phone number in her pocker."
"What?" Max said, coming to stop. "Are you sure?"
Liz. She'd done this. He knew it. She knew that Phillip would take care of her mother.
"No, but I'm gonna check it out. I'm on my way to the airport. I have a ticket already," Michael said.
Max cursed under his breath.
"I'm in Newark," Max said, rubbing his eyes.
"You're...?" Michael trailed off.
"Long story," he muttered. "Pierce has Liz, but her mother escaped."
"Want the address?" Michael asked.
Max wrote it down and told him he'd get back to him when he could confirm that it was Nancy.
He told the pilot to be ready to leave in an hour and ran back to the car.
He deftly maneuvered the city streets until he found the convenience store Michael spoke of.
Walking in amidst the tinkle of a bell above the door, he spotted an older woman behind the counter.
"Hello, I'm Max Evans," he said. "I was told that there was a woman here who has my family's name and phone number with her?"
"Oh, I spoke to someone named Michael," the woman said with a kind smile. "I wasn't expecting anyone for a few hours yet."
"I was fairly close by," Max said. "Is she all right?"
The woman nodded, motioning for him to follow her toward the back.
"She's a little disoriented," she said. "I sat her down with some tea and she seemed to calm down a bit. Is she a relative of yours?"
Max nodded.
"She's my Aunt. She has-"
"Alzheimers," the woman interjected with a sympathetic nod. "I know the signs. My sister has it."
She pushed through the curtain and stood aside to let Max through.
He walked through and faltered for a moment.
Slowly he approached the woman, who was sitting in a chair, rocking herself in a constant motion.
He knelt in front of her and took her hand.
"Nancy," he said softly. "Nancy, I've come to take you home."
She looked up at him with muddled eyes.
"I don't have a home," she said, in a trembling voice. "I've lost my home, my daughter, I've lost everything."
Max shook his head, his eyes filling with uncharacteristic tears, realizing the hell this woman must have lived.
"Nancy, I'm Diane's son," he whispered.
"Diane?" she gasped, her eyes momentarily becoming clear. "You are Diane's child?"
"I'm one of the children you saved. If you hadn't helped my mother, I wouldn't..." he trailed off, lowering his head.
He felt the cool smoothness of her fingers on his cheek.
"Sweet boy," she said, with a shaky smile.
He looked into her eyes and saw not anger or hatred, but acceptance.
"Nancy, I know that Liz...that she helped you get out this morning," he began.
"My Elizabeth," she said, her face crumpling.
"I'm going to find her," Max said. "I promise you. But I need you to come home with me. She wants you to be safe. That's all she ever wanted for you."
"Safe," she muttered with a humorless laugh. "There is never any safe for us, not with David."
"Nancy, I promise you, I will bring her home. You have to trust me," he said.
She studied his eyes for a long moment, and then nodded.
"But I have to be at work at eight o-clock," she said absently.
"We'll talk to your boss," Max said. "He'll understand."
Nancy sighed.
"Ok then," she said, looking around her.
Max held out his hand, and she took it, rising from the chair.
"Home it is then," she said cheerfully.
TBC.....
Part 23
Phillip watched Max as he scoured the computer screen in the study, concerned.
Max hadn't had more than a few hours of rest in the past week. He had become obsessed with finding Liz. He barely ate, and spent almost every waking moment in the study. If he wasn't on the phone with Michael, he was using every resource they had available to track Pierce's whereabouts, for he knew that if he found Pierce, then he would find Liz.
Isabel's dreamwalk hadn't been a success. The first few times she tried, she hadn't been able to reach Liz at all. They had surmised that Liz wasn't getting much sleep either.
Finally, two days later, after trying again at random times, Isabel was able to break through. Unfortunately, the dream had revealed nothing of significance. Isabel tried to speak to Liz in her dream, tried to convince her that they could help her if she would only tell them where she was, but as in her waking moments, Liz didn't believe that anyone could help her, and revealed nothing. The dream ended with Pierce grabbing Liz and dragging her away from Isabel.
She'd tried a few more times, to no avail. Liz would reveal nothing.
Phillip knew that Max felt responsible in some way for what happened, for if he hadn't treated Liz so badly, if he hadn't pushed her too much, then she might have turned to them instead of running away.
To make things worse, they had a pretty good idea that Carlo's men knew he was dead. They'd sent Michael back to the site where they'd gone off the road, but the bodies were gone. That could only mean one thing, in Max's eyes. Liz was in definite danger.
Phillip knew that despite Max's refusal to talk about it, that he had feelings for Liz. The fear written on his haggard features screamed what he would not voice. Phillip didn't push it with him, instead trying to help in whatever way he could.
******
In the days following Liz's disappearance, Max and Phillip had pieced all of the events that led to Liz running away, and were able to form a picture.
Phillip had made an offer to Sharon Cruz, the woman in the prison, to divert Max from the truth, namely that Nancy Parker was safely living in the nursing home nearby. He had known that if Max did an investigation on the last name Parker, he would have found out about Pierce, and Phillip couldn't take the chance that Max would expose her.
The girl that Max had seen in the prison, who'd visited Sharon was not Liz at all, but Sharon Cruz's daughter.
The girl's name was Liz Cruz.
Phillip offered the girl was offered a significant amount of money to play the part of the girl in the photo she was shown, for as long as they needed her to.
Months ago, Phillip had called in a favor to the California Governor to have Sharon Cruz transferred to the New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility, and Liz Cruz moved out to Las Cruces, on call during the prison's visiting hours. When she got the call, she was to report to the prison, donning the dark wig, and the clothes specified by the caller. She was to keep her back turned from the security camera at all times.
Phillip had seen her photo with the wig before they returned from Brazil, and though she was a blond, with the wig on she looked eerily like Liz.
After she received the call, the girl was to be inside the facility at the specified time. Liz would come in and the girl would sign in as a visitor to her mother. From there, a security guard would meet Liz. The guard was paid handsomely to drive a specific sedan to work. She was given an employee clearance badge, and he would escort Liz out to the employee parking lot, to the sedan. From there, she would exit the facility from the rear, and proceed for an hour to the nursing home to visit her mother. She was to be back at the prison before the end of two hours, and the guard would meet her and escort her back through the building to the front. Meanwhile, Liz Cruz was “caught” on tape visiting her mother.
Phillip realized that the girl must have sensed that she could get more for what she was doing. Somebody was hiding something. She contacted an old friend of hers, who worked for the Zambini Family.
A cruel coincidence, one that had set everything in motion.
Carlo must have come to check out the situation in hopes of sniffing out Liz. Phillip knew he had to have been angry that his men had been bought out, and that Nancy had been released. His men, the two assigned to watch over Nancy, had disappeared. Phillip made sure they had enough money to go underground.
Apparently, Carlo staked out the prison with his men, and when they spotted Liz, they followed her to the nursing home.
Everything made sense now, albeit too late. When Liz had showed up at the nursing home, Nancy was saying things, things about Carlo and Pierce and aliens.
Carlo’s man must have been trying to take Nancy. She must have recognized that the man was a danger to her. She became unruly, and they called Liz.
They both knew why Liz left. She was going after her mother.
Phillip knew that time was running out, and by his haunted gaze, he knew Max knew it too.
*********
Max rubbed his eyes wearily, and looked up to find his father studying him.
"Why don't you go to bed, Dad," he said. "It's late."
"I could say the same to you," Phillip pointed out.
Max shook his head.
"I still have a few leads to check out," he said quietly.
"Max," Phillip started.
"Don't, Dad," Max interrupted in a weary voice. "I'll be done in a little while. Go on up."
Phillip stared at him for a long moment before sighing in defeat.
"Get some sleep tonight Max, will you?" he asked.
Max nodded, appeasing him while knowing in his heart that he wouldn't truly be able to rest until he found Liz.
Max paused to watch his father leave the room and then leaned back in his chair with a weary sigh, rubbing his eyes.
He felt a great deal of responsibility for her disappearance and the thought that he might have driven her into danger was devastating.
How could he have been so wrong about everything? Granted, both Phillip and Liz had done everything in their power to make sure that his suspicions went down the right track, but that didn't appease his heart which had suspected for a long time that Liz was not the person the evidence painted her to be. Somewhere in his heart he had always known that she was a person of integrity. He just didn't listen to it until it was too late.
Now she was gone, and the blame for it rested heavily on his shoulders and his heart. It wasn't as if anyone was accusing him. Even Maria didn't blame him, and she had every right to.
His own fear of his burgeoning feelings for Liz, a human girl, had now had dire consequences.
If only he had taken her at her word. If only he'd told her how he really felt. If only he'd given her reason to trust him.
Of course Carlo still would have come, but if he had made her feel that she could put her trust in him, then maybe she would be there in the Evans house, safe, instead of out there somewhere surely in danger.
His father thought that he was obsessed with finding her, to the point where he would not rest and it was true to an extent, but that wasn't the only reason.
Her eyes, her infrequent but beautiful smile haunted his dreams when he slept, and so he had done so as little as possible over the since she'd disappeared.
And now, as he sat there in the middle of the night without even so much as a lead as to her whereabouts, he admitted to himself what he could not have done previously.
He was in love with Liz Parker, so much so that it was a physical ache and he was terrified of it. As much as he had denied it, he knew now that he had just been lying to himself. There was no way that he could have stood by and watched her marry his father.
He didn't have a clue how he had fallen so fast in such a short period of time, but in the end, it didn't really matter. It had happened.
For those few moments she had been in his arms that night on the terrace, she'd made him forget everything; what he was, the danger that always loomed over his family. It had all been pushed aside and replaced with yearning, desire, heat.
And maybe he could have written it off as just attraction, but then he began to care what her secrets were, why she was hiding them from him, what kind of danger she was really in.
It began to bother him that she was lying to him, but not merely because of the family, but because she was lying to him.
An instinctive need to protect her developed within his heart and somewhere along the way, that need began to encompass not only his family, but her too. He wanted to keep her safe. He wanted her to live a day without fear. He wanted her to have happiness, security and contentment. And in his drive to find the truth, he had backed her into a corner until the only answer for her was to run.
His heart twisted painfully at the thought that she was out there all alone and probably terrified.
His cell phone rang on the desk and he started, looking at the screen. He picked it up quickly.
"Michael," he said, catching the hint of desperation in his own voice. "Have you found something?"
"Maybe," Michael said, and Max heard his fingers hitting the keyboard in quick succession.
"I got a lock on that guy Dominic Stanton. He's hidden himself pretty well," Michael muttered. "I guess he's still not making nice with the Zambinis."
"Where?" Max asked.
"He's holing up in Florida," Michael said. "Palm Beach."
Michael gave him an address and Max wrote it down.
"I'm on it," Max said, his mind already racing with what he had to do. "I've got to call for a Lear. I'll get back to you."
"I'm going with you," Michael said.
"No, you're staying here," Max said firmly.
"No way, Maxwell," Michael interjected.
"Michael, I'm not arguing with you over this. I need you to watch over Isabel, Alex, Dad and Maria," Max said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"I don't think you should go by yourself," Michael argued.
"I can handle it. I won't be able to do what I need to unless I know everyone here is safe," Max said quietly.
He heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the line.
"You know where I am if you need me," he said. "And Max...I hope you find her."
Though they'd not discussed it, Michael knew the truth now, as did Isabel, and Michael knew that Max blamed himself.
"Yeah," Max answered in a gravelly voice. "Me too."
Max hung up the phone, and then dialed the private airline service they used when they needed to travel. Within fifteen minutes, they had gotten special clearance to fly. The plane would leave in an hour.
Max didn't bother to wake anyone, knowing that it would only serve to worry them further. He left a note in the study and climbed into the car, driving well over the speed limit to arrive at the airport on time. The clearance had been a special favor and it wouldn't do to draw attention to it by being late.
Two and a half hours later, Max arrived in Palm Beach. The pilot was instructed to remain on call, and a car awaited Max, keys in the ignition.
Max's emotions fluctuated between wild hope and burning fury, the latter growing tenfold as he drew closer to his destination.
It was this fury that would give him the courage to act as he needed to, for he had always been one to remain in the shadows, inconspicuous, not drawing any significant attention to himself.
That would all have to end today if he was to have any hope of finding Liz.
Stanton would give him the information he needed and Max didn't care what he had to do to get it.
The house was nondescript, a copy of the others around it in the planned suburban community. Though it was only 7 a.m., Max hit the doorbell repeatedly without compunction.
He heard a muttered expletive behind the heavy wood door before it opened.
He was more than prepared.
"Who the fuck you do think you are waking me up at-" Stanton's angry diatribe was cut off by a strong hand at his throat, pushing him back through the door and against the wall in the foyer.
At first he struggled and then he stilled, noting Max's murderous expression.
"What do you want?" he choked out.
"Information," Max said in a deceptively calm voice. "You have it and you're going to give it to me. Where are the Zambinis hiding out these days?"
"I don't know shit about anything man," Stanton said, shaking his head in disgust.
Max's fingers tightened around his windpipe and he choked.
Stanton's eyes widened fearfully.
"I have no problem with killing you right here and now. So I suggest you start talking," Max seethed, tightening his fingers further.
"W...what do you want with them? Carlo's dead. There isn't anyone left worth going after," Stanton stammered.
"That's my business!" Max said, his rage a living and breathing thing, knowing that each second he wasted here was a second in which Liz's life could be in danger.
"Where!" Max shouted.
"N...Newark. They're right outside of Newark. There's an auto wrecker joint right off the Turnpike. It's...it's called Fiore's. They're based in the warehouse behind," Stanton gasped.
Max stared at him a long moment, his fingers tightening slightly. He should kill this man, for it was he that had ruined Liz's life, had indentured her to that monster Carlo. And he did it to settle a gambling debt.
He could kill him now and dispose of the evidence and no one would ever know, and he was of half the mind to do it. But then he remembered the fear in Liz's eyes, and the look in his own mother's that night on the beach, and he knew that he couldn't. He was not himself in imminent danger, and if he murdered this man to satisfy his own anger then he was no better than Pierce or Carlo.
He loosened his grip and Stanton slid down against the wall to the floor, cowering.
"You're a piece of shit, you know that?" Max said in disgust.
And with that, he turned and walked out the door, leaving the man curled on the floor trying to catch his breath. He didn't see Stanton start to weep.
********
Max arrived in Newark at 11:00 a.m. Having procured another car, he was soon on his way. He found the auto wrecker twenty minutes outside the airport.
He parked the car outside the enclosure in a parking lot across the street and watched.
An hour later he was fairly sure of what he was dealing with. There were four men inside, possibly armed. He was going to have to devise a diversion.
It didn't take him long to come up with one. He got out of the car, pushing his 9mm equipped with a silencer into the waist of his pants and climbed the fence, jogging over to a crane near the perimeter. Glancing up squinting against the mid-day sun, he watched the wrecked Chevy Impala swing slightly in the air as the wind pushed the cable. Putting his hand on the metal of the crane, he concentrated.
The car began to swing slowly, back and forth, its pendulous movement growing as the seconds passed. Max visualized the metal of the cable holding car becoming white-hot, melting. At the same time he threw his shield up, lighting a spark in the crane's diesel engine.
The crane's gas tank exploded in a thunderous fireball, the cable holding the car snapped, the Impala crashing to the ground in a cacophony of glass and twisted metal.
His shield protected him from the blast but he did not linger, retracting his shield and circling around the blast, watching the warehouse warily as he went.
As he had half-hoped, the door opened and the four men came out running toward the crane.
He shook his head in disgust, wondering who had trained these men. One of the first things Ed had taught him was never to run headlong into a situation until you were sure of the variables. These men were obviously not the sharpest tacks in the shed, most likely Carlo's low men.
He caught one of the men as he charged around a stack of crushed metal, grabbing him around the neck and pushing a gun to his throat. The man struggled and Max shoved the barrel of the gun further against his throat.
"Make a noise, and you're dead," Max threatened. The man fell still.
"Where's the girl?" Max asked. "Liz Parker, where is she?"
"I dunno what you're talkin' about," the man said.
Max listened for an instant to the roar of the flames, keeping his eyes on the area surrounding them and his hand pulled the gun out.
In an instant, the safety was off and he'd shot a round into the man's foot, needing to make his point, knowing he didn't have much time. He covered the man's mouth to stifle the expected scream.
"Shut up!" Max hissed. "I'm going to ask again. Where's the girl? I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth and you're going to answer me, or I swear to God, I'll kill you with my bare hands."
Max slowly removed his hand amid the man's whimper.
"Where is she?" he asked again.
"We sold 'er to that guy Pierce," the man said. "Carlo's dead. We ain't got no use for 'er, an ain't nobody gonna be takin over for Carlo, so we dumped 'er."
Max's heart froze in fear.
"When?" he barked, scanning the area for the other men.
"Last night," the man said in a pained voice.
"What about her mother?" Max asked grimly.
"I dunno man," the man groaned and Max covered his mouth stepping in his injured foot. The man's scream was again muffled against his hand.
"What? I didn't hear you," Max growled, in a threatening tone.
"She got away, man," the guy whined. "The girl...she...she...was trying to break her outta here, an' we caught the girl, but the woman got away. The woman hadna been here but like, two days. Wit' Carlo dead an' all, we didn't know what to do wit' her. We kept her here in the warehouse. But when we got the girl, we called that guy Pierce right after. He came an' picked her up, 'n gave us the money for 'er. We can't handle that kinda shit, man. That was Carlo and Frankie's deal."
Max was dismayed to realize that now he was not going to be searching for one person but two, and he had no idea where to even begin to look for Nancy.
"Where did Pierce take her?" Max hissed.
The man groaned.
"Where!" he repeated in a malevolent whisper, shaking him roughly. He knew he had only seconds before one of the men came looking for the man.
" I don't know, I swear!" the man half-sobbed.
Max had no more time to waste. He hit the man roughly with the butt of his gun at the base of the man's neck and the man slumped to the ground.
He took off at a run, scaling the fence just as the men spotted him. As he slid around his car, he heard gunfire, and the hiss of a bullet flying by him, coming within inches of his head.
He took a few shots at the cars sitting in front of the warehouse, taking out a tire on each.
He then jumped into the car, gunning the engine, tires smoking as he pulled out of the parking lot.
He drove at breakneck speed toward the turnpike, knowing it would be easy to lose the men once he reached it.
He reached the turnpike entrance without seeing a car coming out of the lot, but he didn't lessen his speed, not wanting to take a chance.
Fifteen minutes later he reached the airport alone.
As he was parking the car, his phone rang.
"Max," Michael said, as he picked up the phone.
"What's going on, Michael?" Max said, walking at a quick pace toward the plane.
"You tell me," Michael said. "I just got a call from a woman in Newark, saying Nancy Parker is in her store. She said that she's real disoriented, but she had our address and phone number in her pocker."
"What?" Max said, coming to stop. "Are you sure?"
Liz. She'd done this. He knew it. She knew that Phillip would take care of her mother.
"No, but I'm gonna check it out. I'm on my way to the airport. I have a ticket already," Michael said.
Max cursed under his breath.
"I'm in Newark," Max said, rubbing his eyes.
"You're...?" Michael trailed off.
"Long story," he muttered. "Pierce has Liz, but her mother escaped."
"Want the address?" Michael asked.
Max wrote it down and told him he'd get back to him when he could confirm that it was Nancy.
He told the pilot to be ready to leave in an hour and ran back to the car.
He deftly maneuvered the city streets until he found the convenience store Michael spoke of.
Walking in amidst the tinkle of a bell above the door, he spotted an older woman behind the counter.
"Hello, I'm Max Evans," he said. "I was told that there was a woman here who has my family's name and phone number with her?"
"Oh, I spoke to someone named Michael," the woman said with a kind smile. "I wasn't expecting anyone for a few hours yet."
"I was fairly close by," Max said. "Is she all right?"
The woman nodded, motioning for him to follow her toward the back.
"She's a little disoriented," she said. "I sat her down with some tea and she seemed to calm down a bit. Is she a relative of yours?"
Max nodded.
"She's my Aunt. She has-"
"Alzheimers," the woman interjected with a sympathetic nod. "I know the signs. My sister has it."
She pushed through the curtain and stood aside to let Max through.
He walked through and faltered for a moment.
Slowly he approached the woman, who was sitting in a chair, rocking herself in a constant motion.
He knelt in front of her and took her hand.
"Nancy," he said softly. "Nancy, I've come to take you home."
She looked up at him with muddled eyes.
"I don't have a home," she said, in a trembling voice. "I've lost my home, my daughter, I've lost everything."
Max shook his head, his eyes filling with uncharacteristic tears, realizing the hell this woman must have lived.
"Nancy, I'm Diane's son," he whispered.
"Diane?" she gasped, her eyes momentarily becoming clear. "You are Diane's child?"
"I'm one of the children you saved. If you hadn't helped my mother, I wouldn't..." he trailed off, lowering his head.
He felt the cool smoothness of her fingers on his cheek.
"Sweet boy," she said, with a shaky smile.
He looked into her eyes and saw not anger or hatred, but acceptance.
"Nancy, I know that Liz...that she helped you get out this morning," he began.
"My Elizabeth," she said, her face crumpling.
"I'm going to find her," Max said. "I promise you. But I need you to come home with me. She wants you to be safe. That's all she ever wanted for you."
"Safe," she muttered with a humorless laugh. "There is never any safe for us, not with David."
"Nancy, I promise you, I will bring her home. You have to trust me," he said.
She studied his eyes for a long moment, and then nodded.
"But I have to be at work at eight o-clock," she said absently.
"We'll talk to your boss," Max said. "He'll understand."
Nancy sighed.
"Ok then," she said, looking around her.
Max held out his hand, and she took it, rising from the chair.
"Home it is then," she said cheerfully.
TBC.....
24
Carol,
I'm blushing profusely here. Thank you.
I'm glad you like the story.
I have good news. I wrapped up the 40th and last part of this story tonight. I'm sort of sad it's done. I no longer have my "shits and giggles" story, the one that I worked on when nothing else was working for me.
Oh well, I still have three other stories to finish. Best get my butt in gear.
So here goes.....
Part 24
Michael received the call from Max just as Maria walked into the study.
"You got her?" Michael asked, his eyes closing with relief.
"Does he have Liz?" Maria asked frantically, rushing to stand beside Michael.
Michael shook his head at Maria, covering the mouthpiece.
"Give me a minute, and I'll tell you everything," he said in a low voice, before uncovering it again.
"Yeah, we'll make sure everything is ready. I'll call Isabel now," he said. "Right. See you soon."
He hung up the phone, and turned to Maria.
"He's got Nancy," Michael said quietly. "He's bringing her back here."
"Oh thank God!" Maria sighed. "What about Liz?"
Michael looked away, before turning back to meet her eyes with a sympathetic expression.
Maria took a step back.
"He has her, doesn't he?" Maria asked, fear darkening her eyes. "Pierce has her."
"Maria, we'll get her back. If anyone can, it will be Max," Michael said in a calming voice.
Her face crumpled in mixture of distress and fear, tears springing to her eyes.
"You don't know what he's like," she said, shaking her head. "He's a monster."
"Maria, I know more about Pierce than you think," Michael said, stepping closer to her.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Michael stilled, trying to decide how much to tell her, for he'd never told anyone.
"Let's just say that Liz isn't the only one who has ties to Pierce," he said evasively.
"Well if you know half of what I do, then you know he's going to kill her," Maria said, her eyes shining with tears. "He's been waiting for this for years. Max doesn't have much time left."
Michael knew she was right, but she didn't know the resources they had on their side. Isabel was ready to try another dreamwalk, and Michael hoped that this time she would come back with something, because he had a sinking feeling that she wouldn't have another opportunity.
Michael knew the kind of fear Maria was experiencing. They had a lot more in common than she realized.
His hand reached out tentatively to her shoulder, and pulled her against him, her body shaking as she lost her tenuous battle to keep her tears at bay.
He wrapped his arms around her, his lips pressed against her hair.
"I promise Maria, if we can make this right, we will. Not just for you, but for Max. He needs her, only I don't think he realizes how much yet," Michael said.
Michael had suspected for some time that Max had fallen for Liz, but when he revealed the flashes he had gotten from her, Michael was sure of it. Ed had told him long ago, before he died, of the connections formed between their kind and their chosen mate.
Michael hadn't dared to tell Max, knowing that in his state of mind, the knowledge would only serve to possibly send him over the edge, with his distrust of humans.
Michael had hated humans himself for a long time. But when Isabel married Alex, he had silently decided that he had to let it go. It was ruling his life. As in anything, there were both good and bad. The bad ones had killed Ed. But there were good people too. Alex had only reinforced that, the loyalty he demonstrated to the family never wavering once. In marrying Isabel, he had had to make a decision, for he would forever be a part of their secret, and possibly the danger that always seemed just of the horizon. But Alex had accepted the possible consequences and had chosen Isabel.
When Michael had seen that, he realized that he couldn't hold on to the hatred he'd had for human beings any longer, for it was ruling his life.
Still, he had looked up to Max in so many ways, and Max was dead set on keeping the family safe, and Michael had no argument with that. He wanted that just as much as Max did. And so he worked with Max to ensure everyone's safety.
He'd had to admit, Liz's story had sounded suspicious to him, and he felt there was good reason to check it out, but he hadn't been so vehemently opposed to Phillip finding companionship as Max had been. He would never have said that to Max.
Max's reaction to Liz after seeing her was, explosive to say the least, and Michael immediately knew that something else was going on there.
He had never seen Max have a reaction like that to anyone.
The clincher was when Max told him of the flashes. He knew that sooner or later Max would figure it out on his own.
He hadn't told Max, but he'd kissed Maria that night when he'd taken her home. It had been something completely uncharacteristic of him, but he couldn't bring himself to regret it.
Now that she was here, Michael had had to come to terms with his own attraction to Maria, and now he was at peace with it. Maria knew nothing of his alien status, and yet she had lived a similar life with Liz, always looking over their shoulders, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It seemed that some humans were not so different from his family after all.
But apparently, it had taken Liz running away to wake Max up.
"I think she needs him too," Maria said. "That's why she ran, I know it. She's afraid that Max will get hurt because of the feelings she has."
Michael sighed.
"Yeah well, I think there's a lot the two of them still don't know about each other. I know for damned sure that there's a lot Liz doesn't know about Max. I know why he didn't tell her, and I understand it, but I can't help thinking that if he had, maybe things would have been different," Michael said.
"What things, Michael? What doesn't Liz know about Max?" she asked, pulling away with a frown.
Michael met her eyes for a long moment. He couldn't tell her, not yet.
"Let's just say that we all have things to hide," Michael said quietly.
******
Nancy had almost immediately dozed off after take-off, and when they landed in Las Cruces, she was still fast asleep.
Max's mind was racing, knowing that Pierce wouldn't have kept Liz anywhere near Newark. Wherever she was, he knew Pierce was too smart to make it easy to find her.
He knew they were fast running out of time, and he prayed that their abilities would for once be an advantage, and not a liability; that Isabel could get through to Liz this time.
Liz had given up everything for this woman who slept beside him, because she had loved her so much.
It was time that she stopped paying, and he would do everything in his power to ensure that this ended, for good.
The plane taxied to a stop, and Max gently shook Nancy.
"Nancy," he said quietly. "It's time to go."
She awakened slowly, appearing momentarily befuddled.
"Diane's boy," she said, her brow furrowing.
"Nancy, I need you to come with me, so that I can make sure you're safe before I leave to find Liz," he said gently.
"He'll kill her, you know. If David has her, he'll kill her," Nancy said. "Because of the aliens."
"I know," Max said, nodding. "I know everything Nancy, but Liz doesn't."
"Never told her," Nancy mumbled.
"Take my hand. I promise, I'll take you to a safe place. I'll bring Liz back, I swear it," he said, holding his hand out to her.
She looked up at him.
"Brave boy. You're just like your mother," she said.
Max felt his throat tighten, never expecting those words from her.
"I'm no braver than your daughter," he said, meeting her eyes.
She smiled, tears filling her eyes. She took his hand, and together, they left the plane.
******
Max pulled into the driveway, glancing over to find Nancy staring absently out of the passenger side window.
He had begun to notice a pattern in Nancy of lucidity alternating with befuddlement.
One moment she appeared aware, and the next she was unsure of where she was.
Right now it appeared the latter had taken hold of her.
She gave him no resistance when he came around the car and opened the door, once again offering her his hand. She took it absently, rising from the seat, glancing around her in confusion as he led her to the door.
Just as he reached it, the door was flung open and Maria rushed out, wrapping her arms around Nancy.
"Thank God you're all right Nancy," she breathed.
"Mari, what are you doing outside the house?" Nancy asked with a look of consternation.
Maria's lips trembled as she answered.
"It's a special day," she said with an overly bright smile. "It's ok. I knew you were coming, Nancy."
"Is your mother all right with that?" Nancy asked, worried.
"She's fine with it," Maria whispered, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. "Come on, let's go inside."
Max followed Maria as she led Nancy inside.
Maria led her to the library, where Isabel, Phillip and Michael were waiting.
Maria set about making Nancy comfortable, while Max looked anxiously at Isabel.
She stood and followed him into the hall.
"Have you tried it?" he asked in a low voice.
Isabel nodded slowly, and what he saw in her expression told him that it wasn't good news.
His shoulders slumped in defeat.
"I couldn't get through to her Max," she said.
He rubbed his eyes, his mind already seeking other alternatives.
"I've got to get into the office," he said, starting to turn away.
"Max," she said, catching his arm. He turned toward her.
"I think there might be another way," she said, her eyes begging him to hear her out.
"How?" he asked, stepping closer.
"I've...been practicing trying to walk people while they're awake. Under normal circumstances I can do it, when people are calm, when their environments are familiar," she said quickly.
"Are you crazy?" Max hissed. "Isabel, what the hell are you thinking?"
"They can't see me Max," she said indignantly. "They don't even know I'm there."
"But it's not a dream. How can you do that?" he asked, shaking his head.
"I don't know. I just sort of...tried and it happened. It's like I'm there with them, and I can see what's happening, but I'm not really there," she said. "I can't talk to them, and they can't hear me, but I can see what's going on around them."
"That sounds more like projecting," he said.
"Maybe it is. Look, it doesn't matter. The point is, I can do it, at least sometimes," she said.
"But you can't with Liz," Max said, looking away.
"I haven't been able to yet, not while she's awake," Isabel said miserably.
"Can we have this conversation later, Isabel? I'm wasting time when I could be trying to find out where she is," Max said, almost impatient.
"No!" Isabel answered a little too vehemently.
"I think there might be another way Max. But you're going to have to have a little faith," she said.
"What are you talking about Isabel?" Max exclaimed, losing the last of his patience.
"If we're all there, I might be able to do it," Isabel said. "You, me, Dad, Nancy, Maria...."
"Are you insane?" Max asked, shaking his head. "No. No way!"
"Max, this might be our only chance! We don't have to explain all of it now. We just have to ask Maria to trust us. For all Maria knows, I'm psychic. She's seen all sorts of strange things, and if it comes down to it, we can tell her. Michael thinks she'd be ok with it," Isabel said.
"Isabel, I've spent my whole life-" Max began.
"Protecting what we are. I know that Max! Believe me I know," she muttered. "And you and Dad did a great job of it."
"But ask yourself this, Max. Will you be able to live with yourself if you refuse to do this? Can you live with Liz dying because of your own fear?" she asked.
Max bit down the defensive retort that was ready to fall from his lips. He had become a broken record, hadn't he? For all the ways he had tried to protect his family, to protect himself, he couldn't stop from falling in love with a human girl. And he already knew the answer to Isabel's question. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if they didn't try.
"Ok," he said suddenly, and Isabel's jaw dropped, as she stood looking at him in amazement.
"What?" he snapped.
"I didn't think you'd actually say yes. I'd hoped, but...." she said.
"We're wasting time. We need to do this now," Max said.
******
Forty minutes later, they sat in a semi-circle, their hands joined, eyes closed.
Phillip had taken Nancy's hand, and Nancy had taken Maria's. Max held Maria's other hand, and on his other side, Isabel's.
It hadn't taken much explaining for Maria to agree. Isabel told her she had an ability, and that she thought she could connect with Liz, if they all tried with her.
At the moment, the explanation was enough for Maria, but Max knew that Michael would probably have some explaining to do.
Isabel thought that if people Liz was familiar and comfortable with were to join in the connection, she might reach for it, instead of pushing it away.
Max's eyes were closed, waiting for Isabel to pull them with her.
It happened in an instant. One moment everything was completely dark, and the next, they were in a murky, damp room, dark brick walls lit only by a single bare bulb protruding out of the ceiling.
He did not sense the others, and he couldn't see them, but he knew they too were there somewhere.
Liz sat in the center of the room on a wooden chair, her hands tied behind her. Her ankles were lashed together and held fast to the chair with nylon roping.
The side of her face was blooded and cut, her eye swollen shut. Blood trickled down her chin where her lip had been split.
Max felt himself almost thrown out of the connection, his panic at her vulnerability so great.
She was thinking of them, of all of them.
Momentarily, he forgot the situation he was in. He wanted to reach out to her, to cut her bindings and take her into his arms. He reached out to touch her, but his fingers were insubstantial, mere mist.
He forced himself to calm down, looking around the area for any clue that would give him an idea as to her whereabouts.
He looked at the walls, noting the etching on it.
Boral
A pounding on wooden stairs snapped his gaze to the right corner of the room.
As his face came into view, Max looked upon his foe for the first time since the beach, when he was a boy.
This was the man who had killed Edward. This was the man that had been hunting them for years. This man was Liz's father.
In the man's eyes, Max saw no compassion, no sense of humanity at all. Instead, his eyes glittered with black hate as he gazed upon his daughter.
"Did you think that you could escape me forever?" he asked, pacing back and forth in front of her.
"You and your whore mother could have cost me my promotion, do you know that? You've caused my family more trouble than you're worth," he said in a deceptively calm voice.
"She wouldn't have said anything," Liz answered in a shaky voice. "She was afraid of you, terrified."
Pierce shook his head.
"Do you think this is just about you and your mother?" he scoffed, shaking his head.
"I'm not a mind-reader," Liz retorted, returning his glare.
Pierce's mouth tightened in anger and backhanded her, his ring leaving a cut in her other cheek.
"Don't get smart with me. I want to know what your mother told you about the girl!" he seethed.
"And I told you, I don't have a clue what you're talking about!" Liz said wearily, lowering her head. " I don't know anything about any girl."
"You're lying," Pierce muttered, beginning his manic pacing once again.
"What do I have to lie about? What could I possibly gain by lying to you?" Liz asked in a low voice. "The only thing my mother ever told me was that you forced yourself on her, and that we were a threat to your position in the government."
"And you were stupid enough to believe that?" Pierce leered. "You think that a low-life bar dancer could threaten me?"
"I believed what my mother told me. You're married aren't you?" Liz asked, her unmarred eye flashing with disdain.
"I have a half-sister, don't I?" she asked.
"Don't even mention her! She doesn't exist to you," Pierce growled.
He stooped down to stare into her face.
"Yes, I wanted to get rid of you for those reasons, but I wanted the girl!" Pierce seethed.
"What girl!" Liz asked, shaking her head.
"That...thing who killed my brother down in the middle of the night on a deserted road in Colorado," Pierce hissed.
"My mother never mentioned anything like that," Liz said.
"And she never mentioned what it was," Pierce retorted in disbelief.
"I'm not going to repeat myself again," Liz grated.
Max saw what was coming before Liz did.
Pierce's face twisted into a mask of fury, and his foot shot out, hitting Liz square in the ribs, catapulting the chair onto its back.
Max heard Liz's cry and heard a muffled crack.
Pierce leaned over her, breathing heavily.
"I'm going to give you a little time to think about what you're hiding. When I come back, you are either going to tell me, or I'll kill you with my bare hands," he said in a threatening growl.
His foot drew back, and he kicked her side in a vicious jab.
"I'll be back in twenty-four hours, and I will find your mother," he warned.
"You'll never find her," Liz muttered.
Just as quickly as he had been brought in, Max was once again in the library. All of them were.
"You have to help her!" Maria said, turning to Max. "You have to find her! You saw what he was doing to her! He's going to kill her!"
Maria's shoulders began to shake, and she covered her face with her hands. Michael walked over to her from where he had been standing near the bookshelves, and put his hand on her shoulder.
Nancy sat rocking, staring into space.
"Run Lizzie. Run...." she repeated over and over.
Max turned his head to find Isabel looking at him with tears in her eyes.
"How are we going to find her?" she asked.
"We don't even know where he has her," Phillip said, rising from his chair in frustration. "Jesus, Diane had no idea that it was his brother."
Maria looked up at him.
"Your wife...was the girl in Colorado?" she asked, incredulous.
"I have some things I need to explain to you," Michael said quietly, and Maria turned her head to look up at him.
"I don't care about any of it. Just find her!" Maria cried.
"I think I have something to work with," Max said, rising from the chair. "I have some research to do."
To Be Continued
I'm blushing profusely here. Thank you.
I'm glad you like the story. I have good news. I wrapped up the 40th and last part of this story tonight. I'm sort of sad it's done. I no longer have my "shits and giggles" story, the one that I worked on when nothing else was working for me.
Oh well, I still have three other stories to finish. Best get my butt in gear.
So here goes.....
Part 24
Michael received the call from Max just as Maria walked into the study.
"You got her?" Michael asked, his eyes closing with relief.
"Does he have Liz?" Maria asked frantically, rushing to stand beside Michael.
Michael shook his head at Maria, covering the mouthpiece.
"Give me a minute, and I'll tell you everything," he said in a low voice, before uncovering it again.
"Yeah, we'll make sure everything is ready. I'll call Isabel now," he said. "Right. See you soon."
He hung up the phone, and turned to Maria.
"He's got Nancy," Michael said quietly. "He's bringing her back here."
"Oh thank God!" Maria sighed. "What about Liz?"
Michael looked away, before turning back to meet her eyes with a sympathetic expression.
Maria took a step back.
"He has her, doesn't he?" Maria asked, fear darkening her eyes. "Pierce has her."
"Maria, we'll get her back. If anyone can, it will be Max," Michael said in a calming voice.
Her face crumpled in mixture of distress and fear, tears springing to her eyes.
"You don't know what he's like," she said, shaking her head. "He's a monster."
"Maria, I know more about Pierce than you think," Michael said, stepping closer to her.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Michael stilled, trying to decide how much to tell her, for he'd never told anyone.
"Let's just say that Liz isn't the only one who has ties to Pierce," he said evasively.
"Well if you know half of what I do, then you know he's going to kill her," Maria said, her eyes shining with tears. "He's been waiting for this for years. Max doesn't have much time left."
Michael knew she was right, but she didn't know the resources they had on their side. Isabel was ready to try another dreamwalk, and Michael hoped that this time she would come back with something, because he had a sinking feeling that she wouldn't have another opportunity.
Michael knew the kind of fear Maria was experiencing. They had a lot more in common than she realized.
His hand reached out tentatively to her shoulder, and pulled her against him, her body shaking as she lost her tenuous battle to keep her tears at bay.
He wrapped his arms around her, his lips pressed against her hair.
"I promise Maria, if we can make this right, we will. Not just for you, but for Max. He needs her, only I don't think he realizes how much yet," Michael said.
Michael had suspected for some time that Max had fallen for Liz, but when he revealed the flashes he had gotten from her, Michael was sure of it. Ed had told him long ago, before he died, of the connections formed between their kind and their chosen mate.
Michael hadn't dared to tell Max, knowing that in his state of mind, the knowledge would only serve to possibly send him over the edge, with his distrust of humans.
Michael had hated humans himself for a long time. But when Isabel married Alex, he had silently decided that he had to let it go. It was ruling his life. As in anything, there were both good and bad. The bad ones had killed Ed. But there were good people too. Alex had only reinforced that, the loyalty he demonstrated to the family never wavering once. In marrying Isabel, he had had to make a decision, for he would forever be a part of their secret, and possibly the danger that always seemed just of the horizon. But Alex had accepted the possible consequences and had chosen Isabel.
When Michael had seen that, he realized that he couldn't hold on to the hatred he'd had for human beings any longer, for it was ruling his life.
Still, he had looked up to Max in so many ways, and Max was dead set on keeping the family safe, and Michael had no argument with that. He wanted that just as much as Max did. And so he worked with Max to ensure everyone's safety.
He'd had to admit, Liz's story had sounded suspicious to him, and he felt there was good reason to check it out, but he hadn't been so vehemently opposed to Phillip finding companionship as Max had been. He would never have said that to Max.
Max's reaction to Liz after seeing her was, explosive to say the least, and Michael immediately knew that something else was going on there.
He had never seen Max have a reaction like that to anyone.
The clincher was when Max told him of the flashes. He knew that sooner or later Max would figure it out on his own.
He hadn't told Max, but he'd kissed Maria that night when he'd taken her home. It had been something completely uncharacteristic of him, but he couldn't bring himself to regret it.
Now that she was here, Michael had had to come to terms with his own attraction to Maria, and now he was at peace with it. Maria knew nothing of his alien status, and yet she had lived a similar life with Liz, always looking over their shoulders, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It seemed that some humans were not so different from his family after all.
But apparently, it had taken Liz running away to wake Max up.
"I think she needs him too," Maria said. "That's why she ran, I know it. She's afraid that Max will get hurt because of the feelings she has."
Michael sighed.
"Yeah well, I think there's a lot the two of them still don't know about each other. I know for damned sure that there's a lot Liz doesn't know about Max. I know why he didn't tell her, and I understand it, but I can't help thinking that if he had, maybe things would have been different," Michael said.
"What things, Michael? What doesn't Liz know about Max?" she asked, pulling away with a frown.
Michael met her eyes for a long moment. He couldn't tell her, not yet.
"Let's just say that we all have things to hide," Michael said quietly.
******
Nancy had almost immediately dozed off after take-off, and when they landed in Las Cruces, she was still fast asleep.
Max's mind was racing, knowing that Pierce wouldn't have kept Liz anywhere near Newark. Wherever she was, he knew Pierce was too smart to make it easy to find her.
He knew they were fast running out of time, and he prayed that their abilities would for once be an advantage, and not a liability; that Isabel could get through to Liz this time.
Liz had given up everything for this woman who slept beside him, because she had loved her so much.
It was time that she stopped paying, and he would do everything in his power to ensure that this ended, for good.
The plane taxied to a stop, and Max gently shook Nancy.
"Nancy," he said quietly. "It's time to go."
She awakened slowly, appearing momentarily befuddled.
"Diane's boy," she said, her brow furrowing.
"Nancy, I need you to come with me, so that I can make sure you're safe before I leave to find Liz," he said gently.
"He'll kill her, you know. If David has her, he'll kill her," Nancy said. "Because of the aliens."
"I know," Max said, nodding. "I know everything Nancy, but Liz doesn't."
"Never told her," Nancy mumbled.
"Take my hand. I promise, I'll take you to a safe place. I'll bring Liz back, I swear it," he said, holding his hand out to her.
She looked up at him.
"Brave boy. You're just like your mother," she said.
Max felt his throat tighten, never expecting those words from her.
"I'm no braver than your daughter," he said, meeting her eyes.
She smiled, tears filling her eyes. She took his hand, and together, they left the plane.
******
Max pulled into the driveway, glancing over to find Nancy staring absently out of the passenger side window.
He had begun to notice a pattern in Nancy of lucidity alternating with befuddlement.
One moment she appeared aware, and the next she was unsure of where she was.
Right now it appeared the latter had taken hold of her.
She gave him no resistance when he came around the car and opened the door, once again offering her his hand. She took it absently, rising from the seat, glancing around her in confusion as he led her to the door.
Just as he reached it, the door was flung open and Maria rushed out, wrapping her arms around Nancy.
"Thank God you're all right Nancy," she breathed.
"Mari, what are you doing outside the house?" Nancy asked with a look of consternation.
Maria's lips trembled as she answered.
"It's a special day," she said with an overly bright smile. "It's ok. I knew you were coming, Nancy."
"Is your mother all right with that?" Nancy asked, worried.
"She's fine with it," Maria whispered, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. "Come on, let's go inside."
Max followed Maria as she led Nancy inside.
Maria led her to the library, where Isabel, Phillip and Michael were waiting.
Maria set about making Nancy comfortable, while Max looked anxiously at Isabel.
She stood and followed him into the hall.
"Have you tried it?" he asked in a low voice.
Isabel nodded slowly, and what he saw in her expression told him that it wasn't good news.
His shoulders slumped in defeat.
"I couldn't get through to her Max," she said.
He rubbed his eyes, his mind already seeking other alternatives.
"I've got to get into the office," he said, starting to turn away.
"Max," she said, catching his arm. He turned toward her.
"I think there might be another way," she said, her eyes begging him to hear her out.
"How?" he asked, stepping closer.
"I've...been practicing trying to walk people while they're awake. Under normal circumstances I can do it, when people are calm, when their environments are familiar," she said quickly.
"Are you crazy?" Max hissed. "Isabel, what the hell are you thinking?"
"They can't see me Max," she said indignantly. "They don't even know I'm there."
"But it's not a dream. How can you do that?" he asked, shaking his head.
"I don't know. I just sort of...tried and it happened. It's like I'm there with them, and I can see what's happening, but I'm not really there," she said. "I can't talk to them, and they can't hear me, but I can see what's going on around them."
"That sounds more like projecting," he said.
"Maybe it is. Look, it doesn't matter. The point is, I can do it, at least sometimes," she said.
"But you can't with Liz," Max said, looking away.
"I haven't been able to yet, not while she's awake," Isabel said miserably.
"Can we have this conversation later, Isabel? I'm wasting time when I could be trying to find out where she is," Max said, almost impatient.
"No!" Isabel answered a little too vehemently.
"I think there might be another way Max. But you're going to have to have a little faith," she said.
"What are you talking about Isabel?" Max exclaimed, losing the last of his patience.
"If we're all there, I might be able to do it," Isabel said. "You, me, Dad, Nancy, Maria...."
"Are you insane?" Max asked, shaking his head. "No. No way!"
"Max, this might be our only chance! We don't have to explain all of it now. We just have to ask Maria to trust us. For all Maria knows, I'm psychic. She's seen all sorts of strange things, and if it comes down to it, we can tell her. Michael thinks she'd be ok with it," Isabel said.
"Isabel, I've spent my whole life-" Max began.
"Protecting what we are. I know that Max! Believe me I know," she muttered. "And you and Dad did a great job of it."
"But ask yourself this, Max. Will you be able to live with yourself if you refuse to do this? Can you live with Liz dying because of your own fear?" she asked.
Max bit down the defensive retort that was ready to fall from his lips. He had become a broken record, hadn't he? For all the ways he had tried to protect his family, to protect himself, he couldn't stop from falling in love with a human girl. And he already knew the answer to Isabel's question. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if they didn't try.
"Ok," he said suddenly, and Isabel's jaw dropped, as she stood looking at him in amazement.
"What?" he snapped.
"I didn't think you'd actually say yes. I'd hoped, but...." she said.
"We're wasting time. We need to do this now," Max said.
******
Forty minutes later, they sat in a semi-circle, their hands joined, eyes closed.
Phillip had taken Nancy's hand, and Nancy had taken Maria's. Max held Maria's other hand, and on his other side, Isabel's.
It hadn't taken much explaining for Maria to agree. Isabel told her she had an ability, and that she thought she could connect with Liz, if they all tried with her.
At the moment, the explanation was enough for Maria, but Max knew that Michael would probably have some explaining to do.
Isabel thought that if people Liz was familiar and comfortable with were to join in the connection, she might reach for it, instead of pushing it away.
Max's eyes were closed, waiting for Isabel to pull them with her.
It happened in an instant. One moment everything was completely dark, and the next, they were in a murky, damp room, dark brick walls lit only by a single bare bulb protruding out of the ceiling.
He did not sense the others, and he couldn't see them, but he knew they too were there somewhere.
Liz sat in the center of the room on a wooden chair, her hands tied behind her. Her ankles were lashed together and held fast to the chair with nylon roping.
The side of her face was blooded and cut, her eye swollen shut. Blood trickled down her chin where her lip had been split.
Max felt himself almost thrown out of the connection, his panic at her vulnerability so great.
She was thinking of them, of all of them.
Momentarily, he forgot the situation he was in. He wanted to reach out to her, to cut her bindings and take her into his arms. He reached out to touch her, but his fingers were insubstantial, mere mist.
He forced himself to calm down, looking around the area for any clue that would give him an idea as to her whereabouts.
He looked at the walls, noting the etching on it.
Boral
A pounding on wooden stairs snapped his gaze to the right corner of the room.
As his face came into view, Max looked upon his foe for the first time since the beach, when he was a boy.
This was the man who had killed Edward. This was the man that had been hunting them for years. This man was Liz's father.
In the man's eyes, Max saw no compassion, no sense of humanity at all. Instead, his eyes glittered with black hate as he gazed upon his daughter.
"Did you think that you could escape me forever?" he asked, pacing back and forth in front of her.
"You and your whore mother could have cost me my promotion, do you know that? You've caused my family more trouble than you're worth," he said in a deceptively calm voice.
"She wouldn't have said anything," Liz answered in a shaky voice. "She was afraid of you, terrified."
Pierce shook his head.
"Do you think this is just about you and your mother?" he scoffed, shaking his head.
"I'm not a mind-reader," Liz retorted, returning his glare.
Pierce's mouth tightened in anger and backhanded her, his ring leaving a cut in her other cheek.
"Don't get smart with me. I want to know what your mother told you about the girl!" he seethed.
"And I told you, I don't have a clue what you're talking about!" Liz said wearily, lowering her head. " I don't know anything about any girl."
"You're lying," Pierce muttered, beginning his manic pacing once again.
"What do I have to lie about? What could I possibly gain by lying to you?" Liz asked in a low voice. "The only thing my mother ever told me was that you forced yourself on her, and that we were a threat to your position in the government."
"And you were stupid enough to believe that?" Pierce leered. "You think that a low-life bar dancer could threaten me?"
"I believed what my mother told me. You're married aren't you?" Liz asked, her unmarred eye flashing with disdain.
"I have a half-sister, don't I?" she asked.
"Don't even mention her! She doesn't exist to you," Pierce growled.
He stooped down to stare into her face.
"Yes, I wanted to get rid of you for those reasons, but I wanted the girl!" Pierce seethed.
"What girl!" Liz asked, shaking her head.
"That...thing who killed my brother down in the middle of the night on a deserted road in Colorado," Pierce hissed.
"My mother never mentioned anything like that," Liz said.
"And she never mentioned what it was," Pierce retorted in disbelief.
"I'm not going to repeat myself again," Liz grated.
Max saw what was coming before Liz did.
Pierce's face twisted into a mask of fury, and his foot shot out, hitting Liz square in the ribs, catapulting the chair onto its back.
Max heard Liz's cry and heard a muffled crack.
Pierce leaned over her, breathing heavily.
"I'm going to give you a little time to think about what you're hiding. When I come back, you are either going to tell me, or I'll kill you with my bare hands," he said in a threatening growl.
His foot drew back, and he kicked her side in a vicious jab.
"I'll be back in twenty-four hours, and I will find your mother," he warned.
"You'll never find her," Liz muttered.
Just as quickly as he had been brought in, Max was once again in the library. All of them were.
"You have to help her!" Maria said, turning to Max. "You have to find her! You saw what he was doing to her! He's going to kill her!"
Maria's shoulders began to shake, and she covered her face with her hands. Michael walked over to her from where he had been standing near the bookshelves, and put his hand on her shoulder.
Nancy sat rocking, staring into space.
"Run Lizzie. Run...." she repeated over and over.
Max turned his head to find Isabel looking at him with tears in her eyes.
"How are we going to find her?" she asked.
"We don't even know where he has her," Phillip said, rising from his chair in frustration. "Jesus, Diane had no idea that it was his brother."
Maria looked up at him.
"Your wife...was the girl in Colorado?" she asked, incredulous.
"I have some things I need to explain to you," Michael said quietly, and Maria turned her head to look up at him.
"I don't care about any of it. Just find her!" Maria cried.
"I think I have something to work with," Max said, rising from the chair. "I have some research to do."
To Be Continued
25/26
Thank you Reven. Glad you're enjoying the story.
I don't know, maybe I should set up a poll or something to see which story people want finished first? I am not going to have much free time in the coming weeks, so I'll be lucky if I can work steadily on one.
I'm posting two parts because they're short.
Part 25
Max knew he was working against the clock. Immediately, he began his search for the name Boral in relation to brick manufacturers. It didn't take him long to find the company, based in Rocky Ridge, Maryland.
He called the company, but turned up nothing on Pierce. He hadn't really expected to. It was highly unlikely that Pierce himself had bought the brick. More than likely, the brick was bought under a contractor's business name. He couldn't even assume that Pierce own the building he was keeping Liz captive in.
By the time he finished making that call, he knew that he would be hard pressed to get anyone in Washington on the phone to try to find out Pierce's whereabouts.
There was one person he knew he could count on, and old associate of his fathers, but the man was unavailable. Max asked his wife to have him call as soon as he was able, that it didn't matter what time it was, as it was a matter of urgency.
While he waited for the call, he did some research on Pierce. He hadn't really paid attention to his personal information before, but now, knowing his tie to Liz, and that his mother had inadvertently murdered his brother, he felt compelled to find out more.
Perusing through the firm's database, he soon came up with a bare bones outline.
Two months after Diane escaped the FBI and his brother James died on that deserted road in Colorado; David Pierce married one Stephanie Treiger, a promising young doctor in Washington D.C.
Max alternated between indignation and disgust that this man could carry on a façade of normalcy, marrying this woman whilst he brutalized Nancy. It made him sick.
He couldn't imagine how Liz must have felt about all of this. To know that she had a father out there, and knowing that he hated her so much, he wanted her dead.... It was horrific.
Max berated himself thinking about the things he'd said to her. Everything she had said to him made sense now. It was as if she was trying to tell him the whole time, and he'd never even seen it.
"One thing people like me learn never to take for granted, are the people in our lives that we love, because they can be taken from you in a heartbeat."
"Oh really, which loved one have you lost. Another rich husband perhaps?"
"Look, I know you don't like me, Max. I know that you are going to do everything in your power to discredit me in your father's eyes. I've known too many men like you, and it's not going to work."
"And who would those men be, exactly?"
"People from a past I'd rather leave untouched."
**
"I haven't had it very easy..."
"I don't want anything..."
**
"I used to sit in my mom's car when I wanted to be alone, to straighten things out in my head."
"Where is your mother? Does she know you're back in the States?"
"We don't talk much anymore."
"Argument?"
"No, there are just, uh, things...that have kept us apart."
"Like?"
"I don't really want to talk about it."
**
"Are you romanticizing Billy the Kid? From the little I know of you Ms. Delatorre, I wouldn't have guessed it of you. It's well known that he was a cold-blooded murderer."
"Sometimes things aren't always as they appear to be."
"Come on, he killed...what, twenty one men? You can't possibly excuse that."
"I prefer to believe he was a victim of circumstance. He was a product of the times, unwanted, caught between political wars, and divided factions. I think he did what he did to survive. His friends were killed in cold blood, and he was a wanted man. What other choice did he have? He had to live on the fringe."
**
"I've been away from my mother a long time."
"Things happened...things that kept us apart, and now...it's not the same. It will never be the same."
"I love my mother very much, and if I could go back and change anything that happened, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I can't, so the only thing I can do is move on, and try to get through each day as best as I can. We all have regrets, and believe me, I have my share."
**
"I know it has something to do with your father, and I know you don't trust me, but Max, I would never hurt anyone in your family. You have to believe me."
**
"I don't have much of anything, Max. I don't have a mother that can love me, not like I love her. I know she did once, but now, I don't have anyone I could consider family..."
"I've seen a lot of horrible things, and as sad as this sounds, this place and your father bring me peace. Your father makes me feel safe, and I haven't felt safe in a long time."
**
“Your father has become everything to me. He took me in, and he didn’t care what I was, or where I’d been. He loves me for who I am.”
“But he doesn’t know you,” He'd said angrily. “No one knows who you really are.”
“He knows enough to know that he can accept me the way I am. He can accept a past I don’t want to relive, and never pushes for more than I’m ready to give."
**
Of course, he hadn't known what he knew now, but it didn't make him feel any better knowing that he had been so harsh with her.
She hadn't loved his father, not in the way she claimed. Deep down, he'd known that for awhile.
She had been ready to enter into a loveless marriage in exchange for safety. She'd been trapped in circumstances beyond her own control for most of her life, and had truly been even marginally safe until she'd come here.
He wasn't going to rest until he brought her home. Even if she wanted nothing to do with him, he owed her that. He owed himself that much.
Around midnight he received the call from John Miller, a retired member of the CIA. Though his father had never gotten too friendly with humans, John was one that he had a lot of contact with. Phillip would give him advanced warning of any security threats he'd come across in his dealings with European clientele, and John made sure that Phillip had advanced warning of any possible breaches at client's events. Their relationship worked well.
"John, thank you for returning my call," he began when he heard the voice on the other end.
"Well hey, Max! I haven't heard from your father in ages. How's he doing?" John asked, jovially.
"He's doing well, thanks. John, we need your help with something," Max said, cutting through the niceties.
"Ok," John said slowly.
"It's really important, or we wouldn't ask," Max said.
"What do you need?" John asked.
"David Pierce. I need to know where he is," Max said, mentally crossing his fingers that John would agree to help.
"What's going on Max?" John asked, his voice taking on a serious tone. "You don't want to cause trouble with David Pierce. He can make your life a living hell if he feels like it."
"I know that John. But this is important. He's.... involved with a dear family friend, and I'm worried about her," Max said, not wanting to reveal too much.
Max heard John's heavy sigh over the phone.
"This family friend Max," he asked quietly. "Are you sure you want to put yourself on the line with this one? If she's involved with him as you say, she won't be the first, and she won't be the last. I'm telling you, if he finds out that you're checking into his affairs, things could get messy."
"I'm absolutely sure John. I'm ready to accept any repercussions that come up. This is really important to me. She is really important to me," Max said meaningfully, looking out the window at the rain that had once again begun to fall.
"Right. I understand," John said. "So tell me what you know now, and what you need from me."
"I need to know where he is. I have an idea that he might be in Maryland, but I don't have an inkling as to his exact location. And I don't have much time, John," Max said, hearing the hint of desperation in his own voice.
There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds, and then John spoke.
"Let me make a few calls, see what I can come up with. I'll give you a call back in a half hour," John said.
"I really appreciate this," Max said gratefully.
"You got it, Kid," John said, and the line went dead.
*****
As promised, the phone rang a half-hour later.
Max was staring out at the sheeting rain, his sense of helplessness almost palpable.
The shrill ring of the phone startled him, and he picked it up quickly.
"John," he said without preamble.
"I have some information for you," John said, "though I don't know how much help it's going to be to you."
"Anything you can tell me is a help," Max said quickly.
"Pierce owns a property near Fort Deterick. That's the only Maryland connection I could come up with. He was renting it out for about a year, but it's vacant right now," John said.
Max was already punching the name into his mapping program. Fort Deterick wasn't too far from Rocky Ridge, which was where the brick manufacturer was located.
"He's also taken a short personal leave," John said. "Three days."
This didn't surprise Max at all. Three days was more than enough time to finish his business with Liz.
This whole scenario was a long shot, but it was the only thing he had to go on. He prayed that the information John gave him was correct, because he knew there would be no second chances.
"Thanks, John. I really appreciate this. We owe you one," Max said.
"Don't worry about it," John said. "Max be careful, whatever it is you plan to do."
"Goes without saying," Max muttered, knowing that John did not issue cautions lightly.
He hung up the phone, and glanced at the heavy rain with trepidation.
The plane was already on call.
He told his father and Isabel he was leaving. Michael and Maria were nowhere to be found, and Max assumed that he was giving her an explanation as to the events that transpired earlier. He could only hope that Michael was right, that she would be ok with it all.
"Max, maybe I should go with you," Phillip said.
Max shook his head.
"No," he said. "If something happens, I don't want him to be able trace anything back here. Dad, you know I have defensive training. I'll be all right, as long as I only have myself to worry about. Anyone else would be a hindrance."
Phillip nodded, though he didn't like it.
"One way or another, I'll be back tomorrow," Max promised.
"Be careful Max," Isabel said, embracing him.
"I will," he promised.
He left the house, running for the car.
Everything had gotten so far out of his control in the past week. His whole life was turned upside down, but the only thing that was clear in his mind was Liz.
Starting the engine, water dripping in his eyes, he blinked furiously.
He put the car into drive, trying not to let his fear overtake him. He was afraid of a million different things, that the information was wrong, that he was going to be too late, that Liz would be dead already, that Pierce was going to get away with his plan.
Battling the waterlogged roads, he arrived at the airport later than he expected. He ran across the tarmac to the plane, his feet slapping against the pavement, the water soaking his pants.
The pilot waited at the entrance to the hatch.
Max ran up the stairs into the plane.
"Mr. Evans, I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this...I tried to get you on your cell, but you were out of service range," the pilot began apologetically.
"What is it?" Max asked, out of breath, already suspecting the answer.
"We had special clearance, but now air traffic control has cancelled all flights out of the airport until further notice. Inclement weather," the pilot said.
Max's shoulders slumped, dismayed.
"If you wanted to go back home, I could call you when we're cleared again," the pilot said.
"No," Max interjected. "I'll wait on the plane. I want to be able to take off as soon as we're cleared."
***
Three and a half hours later, they were finally cleared for takeoff, and Max was ready to jump out of his skin.
The pilot had kept assuring him that they would be cleared any moment. He'd been just about ready to drive to another airport when they were cleared.
An internal clock was ticking in his head, counting the minutes passing until Pierce returned to deal with Liz.
The flight to Baltimore was three hours, but for Max, it was an eternity of waiting and worrying.
He had called Isabel, asking her to try to connect to Liz again, but she hadn't been able to repeat what she'd done earlier.
Either Liz was unconscious, or something else had happened.
He was waiting at the door when the plane taxied to a stop, pushing the hatch open before the pilot had a chance to unbuckle himself from his seat.
He wasted no time going to the rental car counter. He had not been able to arrange for a car in Baltimore, and would have to get one himself.
As he walked into the airport, his steps faltered in dismay.
The ticket counter lay before him, but it might as well have been a million miles away with the line of people waiting to get and turn in their cars.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath. "I'm coming, Liz. I promise, I'm coming for you. Just hold on."
I don't know, maybe I should set up a poll or something to see which story people want finished first? I am not going to have much free time in the coming weeks, so I'll be lucky if I can work steadily on one.
I'm posting two parts because they're short.
Part 25
Max knew he was working against the clock. Immediately, he began his search for the name Boral in relation to brick manufacturers. It didn't take him long to find the company, based in Rocky Ridge, Maryland.
He called the company, but turned up nothing on Pierce. He hadn't really expected to. It was highly unlikely that Pierce himself had bought the brick. More than likely, the brick was bought under a contractor's business name. He couldn't even assume that Pierce own the building he was keeping Liz captive in.
By the time he finished making that call, he knew that he would be hard pressed to get anyone in Washington on the phone to try to find out Pierce's whereabouts.
There was one person he knew he could count on, and old associate of his fathers, but the man was unavailable. Max asked his wife to have him call as soon as he was able, that it didn't matter what time it was, as it was a matter of urgency.
While he waited for the call, he did some research on Pierce. He hadn't really paid attention to his personal information before, but now, knowing his tie to Liz, and that his mother had inadvertently murdered his brother, he felt compelled to find out more.
Perusing through the firm's database, he soon came up with a bare bones outline.
Two months after Diane escaped the FBI and his brother James died on that deserted road in Colorado; David Pierce married one Stephanie Treiger, a promising young doctor in Washington D.C.
Max alternated between indignation and disgust that this man could carry on a façade of normalcy, marrying this woman whilst he brutalized Nancy. It made him sick.
He couldn't imagine how Liz must have felt about all of this. To know that she had a father out there, and knowing that he hated her so much, he wanted her dead.... It was horrific.
Max berated himself thinking about the things he'd said to her. Everything she had said to him made sense now. It was as if she was trying to tell him the whole time, and he'd never even seen it.
"One thing people like me learn never to take for granted, are the people in our lives that we love, because they can be taken from you in a heartbeat."
"Oh really, which loved one have you lost. Another rich husband perhaps?"
"Look, I know you don't like me, Max. I know that you are going to do everything in your power to discredit me in your father's eyes. I've known too many men like you, and it's not going to work."
"And who would those men be, exactly?"
"People from a past I'd rather leave untouched."
**
"I haven't had it very easy..."
"I don't want anything..."
**
"I used to sit in my mom's car when I wanted to be alone, to straighten things out in my head."
"Where is your mother? Does she know you're back in the States?"
"We don't talk much anymore."
"Argument?"
"No, there are just, uh, things...that have kept us apart."
"Like?"
"I don't really want to talk about it."
**
"Are you romanticizing Billy the Kid? From the little I know of you Ms. Delatorre, I wouldn't have guessed it of you. It's well known that he was a cold-blooded murderer."
"Sometimes things aren't always as they appear to be."
"Come on, he killed...what, twenty one men? You can't possibly excuse that."
"I prefer to believe he was a victim of circumstance. He was a product of the times, unwanted, caught between political wars, and divided factions. I think he did what he did to survive. His friends were killed in cold blood, and he was a wanted man. What other choice did he have? He had to live on the fringe."
**
"I've been away from my mother a long time."
"Things happened...things that kept us apart, and now...it's not the same. It will never be the same."
"I love my mother very much, and if I could go back and change anything that happened, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I can't, so the only thing I can do is move on, and try to get through each day as best as I can. We all have regrets, and believe me, I have my share."
**
"I know it has something to do with your father, and I know you don't trust me, but Max, I would never hurt anyone in your family. You have to believe me."
**
"I don't have much of anything, Max. I don't have a mother that can love me, not like I love her. I know she did once, but now, I don't have anyone I could consider family..."
"I've seen a lot of horrible things, and as sad as this sounds, this place and your father bring me peace. Your father makes me feel safe, and I haven't felt safe in a long time."
**
“Your father has become everything to me. He took me in, and he didn’t care what I was, or where I’d been. He loves me for who I am.”
“But he doesn’t know you,” He'd said angrily. “No one knows who you really are.”
“He knows enough to know that he can accept me the way I am. He can accept a past I don’t want to relive, and never pushes for more than I’m ready to give."
**
Of course, he hadn't known what he knew now, but it didn't make him feel any better knowing that he had been so harsh with her.
She hadn't loved his father, not in the way she claimed. Deep down, he'd known that for awhile.
She had been ready to enter into a loveless marriage in exchange for safety. She'd been trapped in circumstances beyond her own control for most of her life, and had truly been even marginally safe until she'd come here.
He wasn't going to rest until he brought her home. Even if she wanted nothing to do with him, he owed her that. He owed himself that much.
Around midnight he received the call from John Miller, a retired member of the CIA. Though his father had never gotten too friendly with humans, John was one that he had a lot of contact with. Phillip would give him advanced warning of any security threats he'd come across in his dealings with European clientele, and John made sure that Phillip had advanced warning of any possible breaches at client's events. Their relationship worked well.
"John, thank you for returning my call," he began when he heard the voice on the other end.
"Well hey, Max! I haven't heard from your father in ages. How's he doing?" John asked, jovially.
"He's doing well, thanks. John, we need your help with something," Max said, cutting through the niceties.
"Ok," John said slowly.
"It's really important, or we wouldn't ask," Max said.
"What do you need?" John asked.
"David Pierce. I need to know where he is," Max said, mentally crossing his fingers that John would agree to help.
"What's going on Max?" John asked, his voice taking on a serious tone. "You don't want to cause trouble with David Pierce. He can make your life a living hell if he feels like it."
"I know that John. But this is important. He's.... involved with a dear family friend, and I'm worried about her," Max said, not wanting to reveal too much.
Max heard John's heavy sigh over the phone.
"This family friend Max," he asked quietly. "Are you sure you want to put yourself on the line with this one? If she's involved with him as you say, she won't be the first, and she won't be the last. I'm telling you, if he finds out that you're checking into his affairs, things could get messy."
"I'm absolutely sure John. I'm ready to accept any repercussions that come up. This is really important to me. She is really important to me," Max said meaningfully, looking out the window at the rain that had once again begun to fall.
"Right. I understand," John said. "So tell me what you know now, and what you need from me."
"I need to know where he is. I have an idea that he might be in Maryland, but I don't have an inkling as to his exact location. And I don't have much time, John," Max said, hearing the hint of desperation in his own voice.
There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds, and then John spoke.
"Let me make a few calls, see what I can come up with. I'll give you a call back in a half hour," John said.
"I really appreciate this," Max said gratefully.
"You got it, Kid," John said, and the line went dead.
*****
As promised, the phone rang a half-hour later.
Max was staring out at the sheeting rain, his sense of helplessness almost palpable.
The shrill ring of the phone startled him, and he picked it up quickly.
"John," he said without preamble.
"I have some information for you," John said, "though I don't know how much help it's going to be to you."
"Anything you can tell me is a help," Max said quickly.
"Pierce owns a property near Fort Deterick. That's the only Maryland connection I could come up with. He was renting it out for about a year, but it's vacant right now," John said.
Max was already punching the name into his mapping program. Fort Deterick wasn't too far from Rocky Ridge, which was where the brick manufacturer was located.
"He's also taken a short personal leave," John said. "Three days."
This didn't surprise Max at all. Three days was more than enough time to finish his business with Liz.
This whole scenario was a long shot, but it was the only thing he had to go on. He prayed that the information John gave him was correct, because he knew there would be no second chances.
"Thanks, John. I really appreciate this. We owe you one," Max said.
"Don't worry about it," John said. "Max be careful, whatever it is you plan to do."
"Goes without saying," Max muttered, knowing that John did not issue cautions lightly.
He hung up the phone, and glanced at the heavy rain with trepidation.
The plane was already on call.
He told his father and Isabel he was leaving. Michael and Maria were nowhere to be found, and Max assumed that he was giving her an explanation as to the events that transpired earlier. He could only hope that Michael was right, that she would be ok with it all.
"Max, maybe I should go with you," Phillip said.
Max shook his head.
"No," he said. "If something happens, I don't want him to be able trace anything back here. Dad, you know I have defensive training. I'll be all right, as long as I only have myself to worry about. Anyone else would be a hindrance."
Phillip nodded, though he didn't like it.
"One way or another, I'll be back tomorrow," Max promised.
"Be careful Max," Isabel said, embracing him.
"I will," he promised.
He left the house, running for the car.
Everything had gotten so far out of his control in the past week. His whole life was turned upside down, but the only thing that was clear in his mind was Liz.
Starting the engine, water dripping in his eyes, he blinked furiously.
He put the car into drive, trying not to let his fear overtake him. He was afraid of a million different things, that the information was wrong, that he was going to be too late, that Liz would be dead already, that Pierce was going to get away with his plan.
Battling the waterlogged roads, he arrived at the airport later than he expected. He ran across the tarmac to the plane, his feet slapping against the pavement, the water soaking his pants.
The pilot waited at the entrance to the hatch.
Max ran up the stairs into the plane.
"Mr. Evans, I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this...I tried to get you on your cell, but you were out of service range," the pilot began apologetically.
"What is it?" Max asked, out of breath, already suspecting the answer.
"We had special clearance, but now air traffic control has cancelled all flights out of the airport until further notice. Inclement weather," the pilot said.
Max's shoulders slumped, dismayed.
"If you wanted to go back home, I could call you when we're cleared again," the pilot said.
"No," Max interjected. "I'll wait on the plane. I want to be able to take off as soon as we're cleared."
***
Three and a half hours later, they were finally cleared for takeoff, and Max was ready to jump out of his skin.
The pilot had kept assuring him that they would be cleared any moment. He'd been just about ready to drive to another airport when they were cleared.
An internal clock was ticking in his head, counting the minutes passing until Pierce returned to deal with Liz.
The flight to Baltimore was three hours, but for Max, it was an eternity of waiting and worrying.
He had called Isabel, asking her to try to connect to Liz again, but she hadn't been able to repeat what she'd done earlier.
Either Liz was unconscious, or something else had happened.
He was waiting at the door when the plane taxied to a stop, pushing the hatch open before the pilot had a chance to unbuckle himself from his seat.
He wasted no time going to the rental car counter. He had not been able to arrange for a car in Baltimore, and would have to get one himself.
As he walked into the airport, his steps faltered in dismay.
The ticket counter lay before him, but it might as well have been a million miles away with the line of people waiting to get and turn in their cars.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath. "I'm coming, Liz. I promise, I'm coming for you. Just hold on."
Part 26
Liz lay in a state of semi-consciousness.
She wished that she could go to sleep to never wake, for she knew what awaited her in the hours to come.
She could feel that she had broken a few ribs and this made breathing excruciating. Judging by her lightheadedness and the wet sound that fell from her lips, she knew she was bleeding internally. Her eye throbbed painfully and her face was a stiffened mask of dried blood. Her lips were parched and cracked, only exacerbating the tear in her lower lip.
She'd lost feeling in her arms and legs and she wasn't sure whether that was a blessing or not.
It didn't really matter. David would be back soon and she was quite sure that she wouldn't be leaving her alive.
She could only hope that the address she'd shoved into her mother's palm would make it into the right hands. Her only hope was that Phillip would keep her mother safe.
She'd long known where Carlo's operations were based. If Carlo had been alive, she knew there was no way her mother would wind up there, but now that he was dead she counted on his men going where they felt safe.
And she'd been right.
Fearing using normal transportation, she'd hitched her way to New Jersey, and she'd been lucky enough to be picked up by an older couple enroute from California to New York. They'd dropped her off on the turnpike.
There was only one man on watch.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as she planned and though she was able to break into the room where they were keeping her mother from the outside, it had been bad timing.
Liz had managed to cajole her mother out of the window just as one of the men, came through the door.
He grabbed her as she was halfway through and her mother screamed from the outside. Knowing that she was caught, she reached frantically into her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper handing it her mother, telling her to run. To run until she couldn't run anymore.
Nancy paused for a moment, and Liz screamed at her again to run, that the man who lived at that address would help.
She knew in her heart that it would be too late for her, but at least her mother would be safe.
Her mother turned and ran as Liz struggled with the man as he pulled her back into the room, where he brought the muzzle of his gun down on her head and everything went black.
Hazily as she thought about it, she knew they'd drugged her, for she remembered almost nothing until she'd awakened here. David had let her sit here for hours before he finally made an appearance.
At first, he'd merely threatened her, ranting about vengeance and justice and a girl in Colorado.
Liz knew nothing of this girl. Her mother had never spoken of her, and she told him so.
David didn't believe her and when his thinning patience snapped, she hadn't been prepared for the violence of his backhand, hitting her in the eye.
Old habits died hard. When Carlo used to beat her, she refused to let him see her cry. She focused on keeping her eyes trained on his, indifferent.
This only incited him more, and when he left a few moments later, she had added a split lip and a bruised cheek to her injuries.
He'd come back again later, hitting her and knocking her to the floor, asking her the same questions, questions she didn't have answers to.
She knew that when he returned, it would be for the last time.
For a time she'd tried to loosen the nylon around her wrists, which only served to abrade her skin, slicing into the sensitive flash at her wrists. She had felt the blood start to run, but she hadn't given up until she completely lost feeling in her arms. Now, trying to escape was impossible.
She let her mind drift, weaving in and out of consciousness, thinking of Max and the last time she'd seen him.
He'd been so angry with her.
She supposed she couldn't really blame him. She had been lying all along. Even in the end, she'd lied.
She'd been so afraid for her mother, so afraid that they'd killed her. Everything, this small haven of safety she'd had, was coming down around her, and sooner than later, Carlo's men would trace her back to Phillip. And if they traced her, then David wouldn't be far behind, especially when he found out Carlo was dead.
She'd been so careless. When she'd heard that there was a problem with her mother, she hadn't even given a thought that Max would follow her.
But he had. And he'd seen. And the whole plan blew up in her face.
Carlo had only been the catalyst, and Max had killed them. If they found out....
She couldn't let that happen. She had to find her mother. She had to leave.
She'd heard Manuel knocking on the door but she never faltered, throwing her essentials into a bag and wisely leaving the cell phone on the bed so she couldn't be traced. She'd climbed out the window and shimmied down the leaders, dropping to the ground with a soft thud before heading toward the front of the house.
She paused, seeing Max standing with Phillip in the library.
Her eyes filled with tears as she watched him pace angrily, like a caged cat, his face hard and angry.
He hated her now, she was sure. And she didn't blame him.
Backing away from the window, she sprinted toward the front of the house, away from the house she had started to think of as a home, away from the men she had grown to love in two very different ways.
How she wished things had been different. How she wished that she could have acted upon her feelings for him.
But wishes were heartaches for Liz, and they always had been. She'd never had a hope of any of them coming true. She'd grown up quickly, locking those wishes away in favor of survival, for both her mother and herself. She'd given up on dreams and wishes until she'd spent time with Max.
He'd awakened those yearnings, those girlhood dreams of happy families, and handsome, passionate lovers.
He'd made her feel ashamed for lying; he'd made her want to tell the truth.
He'd made her body sing and had captured her heart with barely a kiss.
She sighed deeply, a little too deeply, her exhaling breath ending in a fit of coughing, which caused her to cry out in pain.
She hated that she'd sent her mother to the Evans, but she had no other option left. If all went well, Maria would take her home to Amy and that would be the end of it, the end of their involvement.
Phillip had never told him exactly what it was that her mother had done for Diane Evans that had caused her to tell Phillip to find Nancy on her deathbed. But he had known her entire story, her entire life up until that point in South America. He had protected her mother, and offered her his hand in marriage and with it a promise of protection, and for that she would be eternally grateful.
And still, she didn't know the Evans' ties to David. How were they connected?
She had a fleeting suspicion, a question that floated through her mind, and then it was gone in her dazed state.
It didn't matter, did it? This was the end of the line for her. She had been running all of her life until this moment, these last few hours she still had.
Her eyes fell closed as blackness started to overtake her once again.
For a moment, she swore she heard a familiar voice, soft and pleading.
"I'm coming, Liz. I promise, I'm coming for you. Just hold on."
tbc
Liz lay in a state of semi-consciousness.
She wished that she could go to sleep to never wake, for she knew what awaited her in the hours to come.
She could feel that she had broken a few ribs and this made breathing excruciating. Judging by her lightheadedness and the wet sound that fell from her lips, she knew she was bleeding internally. Her eye throbbed painfully and her face was a stiffened mask of dried blood. Her lips were parched and cracked, only exacerbating the tear in her lower lip.
She'd lost feeling in her arms and legs and she wasn't sure whether that was a blessing or not.
It didn't really matter. David would be back soon and she was quite sure that she wouldn't be leaving her alive.
She could only hope that the address she'd shoved into her mother's palm would make it into the right hands. Her only hope was that Phillip would keep her mother safe.
She'd long known where Carlo's operations were based. If Carlo had been alive, she knew there was no way her mother would wind up there, but now that he was dead she counted on his men going where they felt safe.
And she'd been right.
Fearing using normal transportation, she'd hitched her way to New Jersey, and she'd been lucky enough to be picked up by an older couple enroute from California to New York. They'd dropped her off on the turnpike.
There was only one man on watch.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as she planned and though she was able to break into the room where they were keeping her mother from the outside, it had been bad timing.
Liz had managed to cajole her mother out of the window just as one of the men, came through the door.
He grabbed her as she was halfway through and her mother screamed from the outside. Knowing that she was caught, she reached frantically into her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper handing it her mother, telling her to run. To run until she couldn't run anymore.
Nancy paused for a moment, and Liz screamed at her again to run, that the man who lived at that address would help.
She knew in her heart that it would be too late for her, but at least her mother would be safe.
Her mother turned and ran as Liz struggled with the man as he pulled her back into the room, where he brought the muzzle of his gun down on her head and everything went black.
Hazily as she thought about it, she knew they'd drugged her, for she remembered almost nothing until she'd awakened here. David had let her sit here for hours before he finally made an appearance.
At first, he'd merely threatened her, ranting about vengeance and justice and a girl in Colorado.
Liz knew nothing of this girl. Her mother had never spoken of her, and she told him so.
David didn't believe her and when his thinning patience snapped, she hadn't been prepared for the violence of his backhand, hitting her in the eye.
Old habits died hard. When Carlo used to beat her, she refused to let him see her cry. She focused on keeping her eyes trained on his, indifferent.
This only incited him more, and when he left a few moments later, she had added a split lip and a bruised cheek to her injuries.
He'd come back again later, hitting her and knocking her to the floor, asking her the same questions, questions she didn't have answers to.
She knew that when he returned, it would be for the last time.
For a time she'd tried to loosen the nylon around her wrists, which only served to abrade her skin, slicing into the sensitive flash at her wrists. She had felt the blood start to run, but she hadn't given up until she completely lost feeling in her arms. Now, trying to escape was impossible.
She let her mind drift, weaving in and out of consciousness, thinking of Max and the last time she'd seen him.
He'd been so angry with her.
She supposed she couldn't really blame him. She had been lying all along. Even in the end, she'd lied.
She'd been so afraid for her mother, so afraid that they'd killed her. Everything, this small haven of safety she'd had, was coming down around her, and sooner than later, Carlo's men would trace her back to Phillip. And if they traced her, then David wouldn't be far behind, especially when he found out Carlo was dead.
She'd been so careless. When she'd heard that there was a problem with her mother, she hadn't even given a thought that Max would follow her.
But he had. And he'd seen. And the whole plan blew up in her face.
Carlo had only been the catalyst, and Max had killed them. If they found out....
She couldn't let that happen. She had to find her mother. She had to leave.
She'd heard Manuel knocking on the door but she never faltered, throwing her essentials into a bag and wisely leaving the cell phone on the bed so she couldn't be traced. She'd climbed out the window and shimmied down the leaders, dropping to the ground with a soft thud before heading toward the front of the house.
She paused, seeing Max standing with Phillip in the library.
Her eyes filled with tears as she watched him pace angrily, like a caged cat, his face hard and angry.
He hated her now, she was sure. And she didn't blame him.
Backing away from the window, she sprinted toward the front of the house, away from the house she had started to think of as a home, away from the men she had grown to love in two very different ways.
How she wished things had been different. How she wished that she could have acted upon her feelings for him.
But wishes were heartaches for Liz, and they always had been. She'd never had a hope of any of them coming true. She'd grown up quickly, locking those wishes away in favor of survival, for both her mother and herself. She'd given up on dreams and wishes until she'd spent time with Max.
He'd awakened those yearnings, those girlhood dreams of happy families, and handsome, passionate lovers.
He'd made her feel ashamed for lying; he'd made her want to tell the truth.
He'd made her body sing and had captured her heart with barely a kiss.
She sighed deeply, a little too deeply, her exhaling breath ending in a fit of coughing, which caused her to cry out in pain.
She hated that she'd sent her mother to the Evans, but she had no other option left. If all went well, Maria would take her home to Amy and that would be the end of it, the end of their involvement.
Phillip had never told him exactly what it was that her mother had done for Diane Evans that had caused her to tell Phillip to find Nancy on her deathbed. But he had known her entire story, her entire life up until that point in South America. He had protected her mother, and offered her his hand in marriage and with it a promise of protection, and for that she would be eternally grateful.
And still, she didn't know the Evans' ties to David. How were they connected?
She had a fleeting suspicion, a question that floated through her mind, and then it was gone in her dazed state.
It didn't matter, did it? This was the end of the line for her. She had been running all of her life until this moment, these last few hours she still had.
Her eyes fell closed as blackness started to overtake her once again.
For a moment, she swore she heard a familiar voice, soft and pleading.
"I'm coming, Liz. I promise, I'm coming for you. Just hold on."
tbc
27
Part 27
Max drove the 50 odd miles to the rural community outside Fort Deterick disregarding all of the state's speed limits.
Luck was with him, as he didn't run into any troopers along the way.
He found the road with little difficulty, reading the addresses without slowing down.
His breath caught in his throat as he spotted the white farmhouse with the address that he'd committed to memory. It was well maintained, and surrounded by pine trees, which partially blocked his view of the house at the end of a long driveway.
She was in there. He knew it.
He had to will himself to maintain his speed until he was well past the house.
Parking the car a good quarter mile down the road, Max carefully crossed the yard in front of him and moved through the trees behind the house, back toward the farmhouse.
As much as he hated wasting precious time, he couldn't take the chance that Pierce was there and might see him approach from the front.
Fifteen minutes later, he reached the perimeter of the property. He hadn't seen a car in the driveway, but that didn't mean Pierce wasn't there.
His heart pounded furiously, knowing that he was so close and yet might as well have been a million miles away.
He had to be patient, even though his every instinct pushed him to rush the house, consequences be damned.
He watched the windows for any sign of movement for long moments, completely still.
Everything was quiet, too quiet.
He spotted a narrow window near the ground at the foundation of the house and his pulse sped up exponentially.
He could hear the sound of his own breathing, harsh and quick.
Finally, he felt reasonably sure that there was no one upstairs in the house, and he moved stealthily toward the window.
Dropping to the groundhe peered through it and his heart plummeted.
Through the grime that crusted the window he could the overturned chair, and a flash of pale skin and dark shiny hair.
"Liz," he whispered, unable to stop himself.
She wasn’t moving.
He prayed he wasn't too late.
He stood and crept to the back porch.
Climbing the stairs quickly and silently, he pulled his gun from its holster, and pressed his palm against the knob of the door.
He closed his eyes in concentration, and a moment later the door lock clicked.
He pushed the door inward, cringing as it creaked slightly.
Stepping in, he glanced around quickly making sure that there was no one in the kitchen before closing it behind him. He stilled, listening for any telltale noise that would alert him that someone was elsewhere in the house.
Everything was silent.
Moving forward, his gun poised.
He passed through the kitchen and into the hallway, first moving from room to room to make sure that they were vacant before doubling back to the cellar door adjacent to the kitchen.
Taking a deep breath and terrified of what he would find when he got downstairs, he opened the door and started down the steps.
He caught sight of her before he reached the bottom and his steps faltered as black rage filled his heart, his eyes taking in the horror before him.
What he had seen through the filthy window didn't prepare him for the sight of her.
The right side of her face was blackened and swollen, bruised beyond recognition. Blood caked her features and her hair and he could see the beginnings of finger-shaped welts at her throat, even from the stairs.
It was the sight of this that spurred him forward.
He crossed the dirt floor to the middle of the room and fell to his knees, dropping the gun beside him.
He couldn't tell if she was breathing from the stairs, but now that he was beside her, he could hear shallow, wheezing pants.
She was alive.
He closed his eyes for a long moment, relief flooding his heart that he wasn't too late after all.
His fingers reached out to tenderly touch her cheek.
"Liz," he whispered, his voice trembling.
At first, she didn’t respond.
"Liz, please," he said. "You have to wake up."
A tiny groan fell from her lips, and her head wove from side to side.
"Liz," he said again, his eyes blurring with tears.
Her unmarred eye cracked open and he watched her try to focus on his face.
"Max?" she croaked.
"Yeah," he said, his fingers stroking her collarbone. "I came to get you out of here."
"Is this a dream?" she said groggily.
Max shook his head.
"No, it's no dream," he said softly. "If it were, you wouldn't be in this condition."
She winced, as if his words reminded her of her injuries.
"Hurts," she said.
"I know," he answered, trying to paste a reassuring smile on his face. "I know."
How he wanted to heal her right then and there. But he couldn't take the chance. If she freaked out, he needed it to be somewhere safe. The healing would have to wait.
"We have to get out of here," he said.
"He's going to come back," she mumbled, coughing. Max cringed at the gurgling sound that seemed to come from her chest.
"I know," he said. "I can get your feet free, but I'm going to have to right the chair to get to your hands. Do you think you can handle it?"
"I've handled much worse," she said, in a dry attempt at humor.
Her face suddenly, stiffened.
"My mother?" she asked.
"She's safe. I brought her home. She's at the house with my father and Maria," Max said.
"You...?" she trailed off.
"I'll explain everything later, but right now I have to get you out of here, ok?" he asked gently.
She closed her eyes and nodded, swallowing hard.
He shuffled himself down to her feet, pulling the nylon bindings that were slashed tightly across her ankles.
"This is going to hurt in a minute," he said regretfully.
"I can't feel anything," Liz said in a gravelly voice.
"You will," Max muttered.
He pulled the nylon free, seeing blood well in the ruts it had dug into her skin.
He crawled back toward her head.
"I'm going to right the chair now, ok?" he asked.
She stilled and turned her head.
"How did you get here?" she asked. "Why are you here, Max?"
"I decided that the ogre thing wasn't doing anything for my rep," he said dryly.
She chuckled, a small laugh that quickly turned into a moan.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
She nodded, closing her eyes.
Bracing himself behind the chair, he tried to right it as gently as possible.
But it wasn't gently enough and he heard her small whimper of pain as the front legs thumped against the earthen floor.
"I'm sorry," he said, "there wasn't any other way."
She shook her head.
"Don't," she said in a low voice.
He moved around to the back of the chair, once again loosening her bindings and seeing that her wrists were in just as bad shape as her ankles, but bled more profusely.
She slumped back against the chair.
He tore the sleeve of her shirt, quickly binding her wrists.
"I can't go anywhere Max," she said in a low voice. "I can't feel my legs."
She sighed again, coughing.
"You shouldn't be here. If he finds you..." she said, her voice cut off as she once again broke into a fit of coughing.
He knew the pain she was in. He could see her bravely fighting the tears in her eyes.
She was bruised and beaten, but in that moment, he realized with perfect clarity that he loved her, for her bravery, for her will, for being who she was after everything she'd been through.
He reached out to touch her cheek tenderly.
"I'm not going anywhere without you, Liz Delatorre...Cruz, or Parker, or whatever you're calling yourself these days," he said. "You've...gotten under my skin."
"What are you saying, Max?" she asked warily.
"I'm saying that I love you," he whispered. "It's crazy, because I barely even know you. But I do...I love you, and I'm sorry I didn't trust you. I'm sorry I drove you away, and I'm sorry that you've had to live like this."
She stared at him with her uninjured eye, her breath coming in short pants.
She shook her head slowly.
"Max, being with me..." she began in a miserable voice.
"Don't," he said, silencing her with a gentle finger to her upper lip.
"Liz, I know what you're going to say, so don't. You think you're the only one with secrets, but you're not. There are things that I need to tell you about me, and after I do, you may not want to be with me," he said quietly. "But we can't do this right now. We have to get out of here."
She nodded and then suddenly leaned forward, a harsh cry of pain bursting from her lips as she pulled her wrists to her chest.
He knew she was getting the sensation back in her hands and he imagined every nerve was probably screaming in agony.
"I know it hurts," he said stroking her hair from her face.
"I promise you, we'll fix all of it, but I need to get you out of here," he said. "Are you getting feeling back in your feet?"
She shook her head, eyes squeezed shut, tears streaking through the blood crusted on her face.
"Ok," he said. "I'm going to try to get some circulation back into your legs. Look at me, all right? It's going to be ok."
She nodded, her eyes meeting his.
Max rested his hands on her shins above the wounds and took a deep breath. He was going to have to chance using his powers if they were going to get out any time soon.
"This might hurt a little bit, just for a minute," he said softly.
He concentrated on feeling the blood flowing through her veins, feeling its sluggish thrum to her extremities.
He started to rub her legs, adding little bursts of healing energy, seeking out the major damage.
Immediately he was barraged with images of what Pierce had done to her in this room, her fear, her utter sense of hopelessness, her regret in the moments when she was alone that she would never see Max again. He experienced it through her eyes, with her heart, and it shredded his.
He vowed that she would never feel this way ever again, not as long as he had a breath in his body.
Knowing that time was short, he set those thoughts aside, his mind perusing her cells for injuries.
Right away he sensed a tear in her lung. and he concentrated on knitting it together, reforming it into undamaged tissue.
"Your hands are warm," she said, groggily.
"It's just the circulation coming back," Max said, feeling the awakening of the nerves in her legs. He passed his hand over the lacerations on her ankles, coagulating the blood to stem the bleeding.
Her brow furrowed and she whimpered, as her nerves came to life.
Max took his hands away.
"Just give it a few seconds. It'll go away," he said.
She nodded.
He reached out to stroke her cheek, pushing her hair out of her face.
"Do you think you can stand now?" he asked, his hand on her shoulder.
She nodded again.
"I'll help you, I promise," he said. "This will all be over soon."
Her face twisted in a grimace of pain.
He put his hand gently under her elbow to support her while she rose from the chair.
She stood shakily almost stumbling, and he caught her elbow, steadying her.
"Are you ok?" he asked.
"I'll live," she gasped.
Still bearing the weight of her elbow, he stooped to pick his gun up off the floor, and shoved it in his waistband.
He helped her to the stairs as she limped beside him.
Slowly and carefully, he guided her up the stairs to the first floor.
He knew that Liz would never make it back through the woods, despite the healing he'd done. She was dehydrated and exhausted. They would have to chance using the road.
Their only option was the front door.
He was distracted with Liz's sudden pallor as she slumped against the wall in the living room, leaning heavily against it.
"Max, this isn't going to work," she said wearily.
"It's going to be fine," he answered. "We're almost there."
He was thinking that the best thing to do would be to hide her somewhere close until he came back with the car.
But that thought was cut off, for when he opened the door, he came face to face with Pierce.
To Be Continued
As always, thanks everyone for the feedback. Sorry for the suspense/tension. You will all probably want to kill me for jacking it up another notch.
See you Wednesday.
*maj quietly slips off thread before people start yelling at her, hehe.*
Max drove the 50 odd miles to the rural community outside Fort Deterick disregarding all of the state's speed limits.
Luck was with him, as he didn't run into any troopers along the way.
He found the road with little difficulty, reading the addresses without slowing down.
His breath caught in his throat as he spotted the white farmhouse with the address that he'd committed to memory. It was well maintained, and surrounded by pine trees, which partially blocked his view of the house at the end of a long driveway.
She was in there. He knew it.
He had to will himself to maintain his speed until he was well past the house.
Parking the car a good quarter mile down the road, Max carefully crossed the yard in front of him and moved through the trees behind the house, back toward the farmhouse.
As much as he hated wasting precious time, he couldn't take the chance that Pierce was there and might see him approach from the front.
Fifteen minutes later, he reached the perimeter of the property. He hadn't seen a car in the driveway, but that didn't mean Pierce wasn't there.
His heart pounded furiously, knowing that he was so close and yet might as well have been a million miles away.
He had to be patient, even though his every instinct pushed him to rush the house, consequences be damned.
He watched the windows for any sign of movement for long moments, completely still.
Everything was quiet, too quiet.
He spotted a narrow window near the ground at the foundation of the house and his pulse sped up exponentially.
He could hear the sound of his own breathing, harsh and quick.
Finally, he felt reasonably sure that there was no one upstairs in the house, and he moved stealthily toward the window.
Dropping to the groundhe peered through it and his heart plummeted.
Through the grime that crusted the window he could the overturned chair, and a flash of pale skin and dark shiny hair.
"Liz," he whispered, unable to stop himself.
She wasn’t moving.
He prayed he wasn't too late.
He stood and crept to the back porch.
Climbing the stairs quickly and silently, he pulled his gun from its holster, and pressed his palm against the knob of the door.
He closed his eyes in concentration, and a moment later the door lock clicked.
He pushed the door inward, cringing as it creaked slightly.
Stepping in, he glanced around quickly making sure that there was no one in the kitchen before closing it behind him. He stilled, listening for any telltale noise that would alert him that someone was elsewhere in the house.
Everything was silent.
Moving forward, his gun poised.
He passed through the kitchen and into the hallway, first moving from room to room to make sure that they were vacant before doubling back to the cellar door adjacent to the kitchen.
Taking a deep breath and terrified of what he would find when he got downstairs, he opened the door and started down the steps.
He caught sight of her before he reached the bottom and his steps faltered as black rage filled his heart, his eyes taking in the horror before him.
What he had seen through the filthy window didn't prepare him for the sight of her.
The right side of her face was blackened and swollen, bruised beyond recognition. Blood caked her features and her hair and he could see the beginnings of finger-shaped welts at her throat, even from the stairs.
It was the sight of this that spurred him forward.
He crossed the dirt floor to the middle of the room and fell to his knees, dropping the gun beside him.
He couldn't tell if she was breathing from the stairs, but now that he was beside her, he could hear shallow, wheezing pants.
She was alive.
He closed his eyes for a long moment, relief flooding his heart that he wasn't too late after all.
His fingers reached out to tenderly touch her cheek.
"Liz," he whispered, his voice trembling.
At first, she didn’t respond.
"Liz, please," he said. "You have to wake up."
A tiny groan fell from her lips, and her head wove from side to side.
"Liz," he said again, his eyes blurring with tears.
Her unmarred eye cracked open and he watched her try to focus on his face.
"Max?" she croaked.
"Yeah," he said, his fingers stroking her collarbone. "I came to get you out of here."
"Is this a dream?" she said groggily.
Max shook his head.
"No, it's no dream," he said softly. "If it were, you wouldn't be in this condition."
She winced, as if his words reminded her of her injuries.
"Hurts," she said.
"I know," he answered, trying to paste a reassuring smile on his face. "I know."
How he wanted to heal her right then and there. But he couldn't take the chance. If she freaked out, he needed it to be somewhere safe. The healing would have to wait.
"We have to get out of here," he said.
"He's going to come back," she mumbled, coughing. Max cringed at the gurgling sound that seemed to come from her chest.
"I know," he said. "I can get your feet free, but I'm going to have to right the chair to get to your hands. Do you think you can handle it?"
"I've handled much worse," she said, in a dry attempt at humor.
Her face suddenly, stiffened.
"My mother?" she asked.
"She's safe. I brought her home. She's at the house with my father and Maria," Max said.
"You...?" she trailed off.
"I'll explain everything later, but right now I have to get you out of here, ok?" he asked gently.
She closed her eyes and nodded, swallowing hard.
He shuffled himself down to her feet, pulling the nylon bindings that were slashed tightly across her ankles.
"This is going to hurt in a minute," he said regretfully.
"I can't feel anything," Liz said in a gravelly voice.
"You will," Max muttered.
He pulled the nylon free, seeing blood well in the ruts it had dug into her skin.
He crawled back toward her head.
"I'm going to right the chair now, ok?" he asked.
She stilled and turned her head.
"How did you get here?" she asked. "Why are you here, Max?"
"I decided that the ogre thing wasn't doing anything for my rep," he said dryly.
She chuckled, a small laugh that quickly turned into a moan.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
She nodded, closing her eyes.
Bracing himself behind the chair, he tried to right it as gently as possible.
But it wasn't gently enough and he heard her small whimper of pain as the front legs thumped against the earthen floor.
"I'm sorry," he said, "there wasn't any other way."
She shook her head.
"Don't," she said in a low voice.
He moved around to the back of the chair, once again loosening her bindings and seeing that her wrists were in just as bad shape as her ankles, but bled more profusely.
She slumped back against the chair.
He tore the sleeve of her shirt, quickly binding her wrists.
"I can't go anywhere Max," she said in a low voice. "I can't feel my legs."
She sighed again, coughing.
"You shouldn't be here. If he finds you..." she said, her voice cut off as she once again broke into a fit of coughing.
He knew the pain she was in. He could see her bravely fighting the tears in her eyes.
She was bruised and beaten, but in that moment, he realized with perfect clarity that he loved her, for her bravery, for her will, for being who she was after everything she'd been through.
He reached out to touch her cheek tenderly.
"I'm not going anywhere without you, Liz Delatorre...Cruz, or Parker, or whatever you're calling yourself these days," he said. "You've...gotten under my skin."
"What are you saying, Max?" she asked warily.
"I'm saying that I love you," he whispered. "It's crazy, because I barely even know you. But I do...I love you, and I'm sorry I didn't trust you. I'm sorry I drove you away, and I'm sorry that you've had to live like this."
She stared at him with her uninjured eye, her breath coming in short pants.
She shook her head slowly.
"Max, being with me..." she began in a miserable voice.
"Don't," he said, silencing her with a gentle finger to her upper lip.
"Liz, I know what you're going to say, so don't. You think you're the only one with secrets, but you're not. There are things that I need to tell you about me, and after I do, you may not want to be with me," he said quietly. "But we can't do this right now. We have to get out of here."
She nodded and then suddenly leaned forward, a harsh cry of pain bursting from her lips as she pulled her wrists to her chest.
He knew she was getting the sensation back in her hands and he imagined every nerve was probably screaming in agony.
"I know it hurts," he said stroking her hair from her face.
"I promise you, we'll fix all of it, but I need to get you out of here," he said. "Are you getting feeling back in your feet?"
She shook her head, eyes squeezed shut, tears streaking through the blood crusted on her face.
"Ok," he said. "I'm going to try to get some circulation back into your legs. Look at me, all right? It's going to be ok."
She nodded, her eyes meeting his.
Max rested his hands on her shins above the wounds and took a deep breath. He was going to have to chance using his powers if they were going to get out any time soon.
"This might hurt a little bit, just for a minute," he said softly.
He concentrated on feeling the blood flowing through her veins, feeling its sluggish thrum to her extremities.
He started to rub her legs, adding little bursts of healing energy, seeking out the major damage.
Immediately he was barraged with images of what Pierce had done to her in this room, her fear, her utter sense of hopelessness, her regret in the moments when she was alone that she would never see Max again. He experienced it through her eyes, with her heart, and it shredded his.
He vowed that she would never feel this way ever again, not as long as he had a breath in his body.
Knowing that time was short, he set those thoughts aside, his mind perusing her cells for injuries.
Right away he sensed a tear in her lung. and he concentrated on knitting it together, reforming it into undamaged tissue.
"Your hands are warm," she said, groggily.
"It's just the circulation coming back," Max said, feeling the awakening of the nerves in her legs. He passed his hand over the lacerations on her ankles, coagulating the blood to stem the bleeding.
Her brow furrowed and she whimpered, as her nerves came to life.
Max took his hands away.
"Just give it a few seconds. It'll go away," he said.
She nodded.
He reached out to stroke her cheek, pushing her hair out of her face.
"Do you think you can stand now?" he asked, his hand on her shoulder.
She nodded again.
"I'll help you, I promise," he said. "This will all be over soon."
Her face twisted in a grimace of pain.
He put his hand gently under her elbow to support her while she rose from the chair.
She stood shakily almost stumbling, and he caught her elbow, steadying her.
"Are you ok?" he asked.
"I'll live," she gasped.
Still bearing the weight of her elbow, he stooped to pick his gun up off the floor, and shoved it in his waistband.
He helped her to the stairs as she limped beside him.
Slowly and carefully, he guided her up the stairs to the first floor.
He knew that Liz would never make it back through the woods, despite the healing he'd done. She was dehydrated and exhausted. They would have to chance using the road.
Their only option was the front door.
He was distracted with Liz's sudden pallor as she slumped against the wall in the living room, leaning heavily against it.
"Max, this isn't going to work," she said wearily.
"It's going to be fine," he answered. "We're almost there."
He was thinking that the best thing to do would be to hide her somewhere close until he came back with the car.
But that thought was cut off, for when he opened the door, he came face to face with Pierce.
To Be Continued
As always, thanks everyone for the feedback. Sorry for the suspense/tension. You will all probably want to kill me for jacking it up another notch.
See you Wednesday.
*maj quietly slips off thread before people start yelling at her, hehe.*
Last edited by Majesty on Sat Apr 24, 2004 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
28
Well, this probably isn't as long, or as drawn out as you all probably would like, but it is what it is. Don't worry, there's still lots of story to tell.
Part 28
Max barely had time to react before Pierce drew his gun. He pushed Liz behind him, making himself a barrier between Liz and the gun. She staggered backward into the wall.
Everything seemed to happen so quickly, with nightmarish clarity. Max's arm shot out, trying to deflect the gun as it went off. Two quick successive shots rang out as Pierce's arm was jolted to the right, the gun clattering to the floor, the acrid smell of gunpowder filling the air.
"Max!" Liz cried out, and he heard her body hit the wall.
Max stumbled back a few steps, his own gun falling to the floor.
His left shoulder felt as if it were on fire.
Despite his effort to deflect it, Pierce had made the shot. He heard Liz's cry as if from a distance, eerily reminiscent of that night they'd fled the beach when he was a boy.
But the hit was nowhere near as deadly as that one.
Without a pause, he rushed at Pierce, shoving him up against the wall, but Pierce was quick, and trained in self-defense.
He ducked Max's blow and jumped out of his reach.
"You've made a big mistake coming here," Pierce growled. "Who the fuck are you?"
Max delivered a thin smile never taking his eyes from Pierce as they circled each other warily, looking for any opening to deliver a blow. Max's left arm hung uselessly, and he felt the warm and sticky flow of blood underneath his shirt.
"It doesn't matter who I am. She's leaving with me," Max said in a threatening growl.
"I don't think so," Pierce said, shaking his head his black eyes trained on Max. "We have...unfinished business."
"Your business with Liz is done, permanently," Max said, fury welling in the pit of his stomach, now that the monster he had always feared stood before him.
Pierce threw a punch, and Max dodged it.
He allowed his eyes to glance over at Liz for only an instant seeing that she had slid down the wall, her legs out in front of her. She stared at him with fearful eyes, her mouth moving, but no sound coming from her lips.
"Do you have any idea who I am? What I can do to you?" Pierce asked, shaking his head with a cruel smile.
Max delivered a quick and powerful jab to the left side of Pierce's face.
Pierce lifted his head, spitting blood to the floor.
"What did she tell you to rope you in, friend?" Pierce asked. "She's a con artist, a smuggler. Was she holing up with you all this time?"
He heard her voice behind him.
"Max," Liz whispered.
"And what does that make you?" Max returned. "How could you treat her like this? She's your daughter!"
Pierce's face tightened, his mouth thinning into a hard line.
"You shouldn't have concerned yourself with things that are none of your affair," Pierce said, lunging at Max, hooking a right into his jaw.
Max recovered and drove a hard punch into Pierce's stomach, causing him to double over.
"You...think I don't know who you are," Max said, panting. "But you have no idea who I am."
Breathing heavily, he knew he was losing a lot of blood from the gunshot wound.
He felt the energy building in his body, fueled by his anger, and he embraced it. There had been a time when he'd been afraid of using them, convincing himself that he had to hide it, for to reveal what he was meant certain death.
But he wanted Pierce to know.
Pierce straightened slowly, laughing.
"What does it matter, who you are? You won't leave alive," Pierce threatened, in a surprise tactic, his leg shot out, hitting Max full force in his stomach.
Max stumbled a few steps, doubled over. The kick had momentarily knocked the wind out of him.
The adrenaline rage that coursed through his body at the devastation this man had caused in the lives of the Parkers and his own family boiled to the surface, and he felt his energy reach its peak.
He turned his head slightly, his eyes burning from beneath his brow as he stared Pierce down.
Max saw a flash of fear in the man's eyes before he masked it.
He didn't feel his body move. He merely willed it, and it did. One second he was feet away from Pierce, and in the next instant, at a speed that no mere human could travel, he had Pierce pinned up against the wall near the front door, his fingers around his throat, his shoulder pressed against Pierce's chest for leverage.
"Do you want to know who I am?" Max hissed, teeth bared. "I'll give you a hint. Remember the woman your brother tortured in that Colorado hell-hole? She's my mother."
Max lifted his hand from Pierce's throat so that he was sure to see the crackling green electricity dancing at his fingertips.
"You're the kid... from the beach," Pierce said in amazement.
"Your brother and his men would have tortured my mother until she was dead," Max said in an ominous voice. "He died because she was trying to defend herself. It wasn't murder."
Pierce stared at him for a long moment.
"It was murder," Pierce growled. "She fried my brother alive."
"And what would you have done if you were in her shoes?" Max returned. "You terrorized Nancy Parker for helping her. You terrorized my family on that beach that night. I saw you. It was you that shot me."
Pierce laughed cruelly.
"Am I supposed to care about any of this? You aren't human. As far as I'm concerned, you're a virus that needs to be wiped off my planet," Pierce spat.
Max clamped his hand to his throat and sent a jarring painful shot of energy through his system.
"You want to see inhuman?" Max asked, shaking his head in disgust. "Take a look at what you did to your daughter."
Pierce spit in Max's face, and raised his knee to strike, his eyes filled with hate, and Max threw him to the floor.
"Did you think that I was dead? That you finished me off on the beach that night?" Max grated, kicking Pierce in the side.
"If wishes were dollars," Pierce muttered, turning to look at him, scrambling awkwardly to move away, from Max. "Then again, I also hoped she would be taken down by Carlo's men somewhere along the line. It would have made my life a lot easier."
Pierce jerked his head in Liz's direction
"Nancy never told her, you son of a bitch," Max panted. "She didn't know, about my mother, your brother, any of it."
Pierce tried to get up, and Max slammed him back to the floor with a well-placed heel at the small of his back.
"Nancy was a low-life whore," Pierce growled. "I never believed a word she said."
Max shook his head in disgust.
"A whore," Max muttered. "You raped her. What does that make you?"
"I am a servant to my country, protecting its citizens from the likes of you," Pierce retorted, unabashed.
Max didn't attempt to hide the scowl of disgust that marred his features.
"You're insane," Max said, taking his foot from Pierce's back.
He hadn't been prepared for what happened next.
Pierce swung his leg like a pendulum, smashing Max's calf and throwing him to the floor on his back. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his gun and aiming it at Max as he rose.
A cruel smile crossed his features as he cocked the gun toward Max's face.
"Finally, vengeance is mine," he hissed.
Max didn't dare turn his head toward Liz. He'd been careless in his anger, and now he was trapped. He watched as Pierce's finger tightened on the trigger.
The loud crack of a shot echoed through the room, and Pierce stumbled back.
Max raised his hand and pushed a fatal bolt of energy from his fingers, but he was too late to stop Pierce's gun from going off.
Max watched the quick lick of flame from the muzzle as the bullet left the barrel, his head whipping toward Liz to see a small area of her shirt at her abdomen explode outward, her arm slumping to her side as his gun fell from her hand to the floor with a thud.
"Liz!" he shouted, already crawling toward her as she slumped to the floor.
He didn't need to look back at Pierce to know he was dead. No human could have survived the intensity of the power he'd released.
"Liz," he said frantically, taking her face into his hands.
Her eyes blinked slowly, her head lolling backward.
He put his hand behind her neck, supporting her head.
"He was going to kill you," she slurred. "I had to."
"It's ok," he said, pulling her to his chest, fighting back the tears that were threatening to spill from his eyes.
He held her for an instant before lowering her carefully to the floor.
Her eyes had closed, and her skin had gone ashen, her lips taking on a blue tinge.
"Liz," he pleaded frantically. "You have to stay awake. Open your eyes."
Her eyes focused on him once again.
"Tired," she mumbled.
He nodded, his vision almost completely blurred.
"I know. Just hold on a little longer," he said, swiping at his eyes with his right hand to clear them.
He looked directly into her eyes.
"I need you to trust me, Liz. Can you do that?" he asked softly.
She nodded almost imperceptibly.
"You have to look at me. Look into my eyes," he said, moving his hand under her shirt and laying it on her stomach where the blood was already welling.
The instant her eyes met his, he was drawn into her.
For the first time, he felt everything she was feeling toward him; love, fear, longing, desire. She too thought it was crazy to have such strong feelings for him when she barely knew anything about him. He felt her sadness knowing that he did not trust her, though she wished she could tell him the truth so badly.
He felt the joyous leap of her heart despite the enormous pain she'd been in only moments before, when he confessed that he loved her. But that joy was quickly replaced with fear. Fear for him, for the life she was sure he'd have to lead if he was to love her. Always running, always hiding. It was all she had ever known.
If only she knew how closely their lives resembled each other's. If only she knew he was just as afraid as she was.
He was pulled further in, down to the cellular level. The damage the bullet had done was devastating.
It had ripped through her spleen and into her abdomen, and she was hemorrhaging.
He concentrated his energy on repairing the damaged tissue, knitting the cells together and restoring normal function.
There was nothing he could do about the blood she'd already lost, but he'd stopped it.
He gasped at the drain on his life force, feeling sweat breaking in his brow, but he wouldn't stop. He moved his hand upward to span her ribcage, feeling the energy pulsing from his hand, melding the cracks in her ribs.
Her eyes widened but she never broke contact with his. Their breathing synchronized, her breath falling from her lips in cadence with his.
His hand slid from beneath her shirt, to cup her cheek, dissolving the bruises and the broken blood vessels in her eye.
Finally, he was satisfied that all of the major damage was repaired, and he reluctantly drew his hand back from her warm skin, slumping back to rest on his haunches, his breathing ragged.
He closed his eyes for a moment, lowering his head.
Liz sat up slowly, never taking her eyes off of him.
With trembling fingers, she reached out to touch his cheek.
"Max, what did you just do?" she asked, her voice a whisper.
He opened his eyes, afraid to look at her, afraid of what he would see.
"It....doesn't matter," he said in a cracked voice. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," she said in a soft voice, tinged with wonder. "I'm...perfectly fine. How...?"
He shook his head.
"Not now," he said quietly.
Her fingers trailed down to his chin, lifting it so his eyes met hers.
He was terrified, terrified that he would see fear, or something worse. But he saw nothing like that. When he looked into her eyes, he saw wonder, love and confusion.
But she wasn't frightened.
She cupped his face with her hands.
"I was dying," she said.
He nodded.
"And you...." she trailed off.
He lifted his hands to encircle her wrists, pulling them from his face, resting them palms up on his thighs.
He carefully unwrapped the makeshift bandages, exposing the welts on her wrists.
His fingers ran over them tenderly.
She watched as his fingers seemed to illuminate themselves from within, and as they passed over the cuts, they disappeared, leaving unbroken skin in their wake.
A wondrous laugh bubbled from her mouth, and he looked up meeting her eyes.
She was smiling at him, tears in her eyes.
"I love you too, Max Evans," she whispered. "I didn't get to tell you that."
Max couldn't control the thrill that raced through his heart at hearing those words, though he couldn't bring himself to hope that she would still feel the same way once she knew the full truth.
He didn't know how much of the conversation she'd heard between he and Pierce, but she hadn't run away.
And for now, he wanted nothing more than to believe it. It didn't matter what would come later. For these few stolen moments, he was loved, and loved by the most beautiful creature on the planet.
"You're hurt Max," she said with a frown, seeing the blood darkening his shirt at his shoulder.
He shook his head.
"It's fine," he said, dismissing it.
"Can you...do what you did for me? You know, to yourself?" she asked.
He hesitated and then nodded.
He reached up to his shoulder, healing the damage as she watched.
The energy he'd expended over the past few minutes had worn him out, but he still had one thing left to do.
"We have to go," he said in a shaky voice.
She nodded, her eyes cemented to his.
He rose slowly and her gaze never left his as he held out his hand to her, and she took it without hesitation, rising to stand beside him.
He turned to look at the body on the floor.
"Why don't you wait outside," he said quietly. "I'll take care of this, and then we'll go home."
She turned her eyes to the man lying on the floor, her face hardening. She felt no remorse that he was dead. She felt nothing but relief, both for herself and for her mother.
She turned once again to look at Max, one hand grasping his, the other impulsively sliding around his neck, as she pressed a lingering kiss against his lips.
A kiss that spoke of promise, promise for all of them.
It was bittersweet for Max, for he still feared her reaction once she knew the truth. He was sure she thought he had special abilities, but he was certain it hadn't occurred to her that he wasn't completely human.
She pulled away slowly, even something as simple as a kiss leaving her breathless.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He nodded, finding himself without words.
"Go," he whispered, motioning toward the door.
She let go of his hand reluctantly, pausing to stare at Pierce as she stood beside his body.
Then she opened the door and went out to the porch, never looking back.
To Be Continued
Part 28
Max barely had time to react before Pierce drew his gun. He pushed Liz behind him, making himself a barrier between Liz and the gun. She staggered backward into the wall.
Everything seemed to happen so quickly, with nightmarish clarity. Max's arm shot out, trying to deflect the gun as it went off. Two quick successive shots rang out as Pierce's arm was jolted to the right, the gun clattering to the floor, the acrid smell of gunpowder filling the air.
"Max!" Liz cried out, and he heard her body hit the wall.
Max stumbled back a few steps, his own gun falling to the floor.
His left shoulder felt as if it were on fire.
Despite his effort to deflect it, Pierce had made the shot. He heard Liz's cry as if from a distance, eerily reminiscent of that night they'd fled the beach when he was a boy.
But the hit was nowhere near as deadly as that one.
Without a pause, he rushed at Pierce, shoving him up against the wall, but Pierce was quick, and trained in self-defense.
He ducked Max's blow and jumped out of his reach.
"You've made a big mistake coming here," Pierce growled. "Who the fuck are you?"
Max delivered a thin smile never taking his eyes from Pierce as they circled each other warily, looking for any opening to deliver a blow. Max's left arm hung uselessly, and he felt the warm and sticky flow of blood underneath his shirt.
"It doesn't matter who I am. She's leaving with me," Max said in a threatening growl.
"I don't think so," Pierce said, shaking his head his black eyes trained on Max. "We have...unfinished business."
"Your business with Liz is done, permanently," Max said, fury welling in the pit of his stomach, now that the monster he had always feared stood before him.
Pierce threw a punch, and Max dodged it.
He allowed his eyes to glance over at Liz for only an instant seeing that she had slid down the wall, her legs out in front of her. She stared at him with fearful eyes, her mouth moving, but no sound coming from her lips.
"Do you have any idea who I am? What I can do to you?" Pierce asked, shaking his head with a cruel smile.
Max delivered a quick and powerful jab to the left side of Pierce's face.
Pierce lifted his head, spitting blood to the floor.
"What did she tell you to rope you in, friend?" Pierce asked. "She's a con artist, a smuggler. Was she holing up with you all this time?"
He heard her voice behind him.
"Max," Liz whispered.
"And what does that make you?" Max returned. "How could you treat her like this? She's your daughter!"
Pierce's face tightened, his mouth thinning into a hard line.
"You shouldn't have concerned yourself with things that are none of your affair," Pierce said, lunging at Max, hooking a right into his jaw.
Max recovered and drove a hard punch into Pierce's stomach, causing him to double over.
"You...think I don't know who you are," Max said, panting. "But you have no idea who I am."
Breathing heavily, he knew he was losing a lot of blood from the gunshot wound.
He felt the energy building in his body, fueled by his anger, and he embraced it. There had been a time when he'd been afraid of using them, convincing himself that he had to hide it, for to reveal what he was meant certain death.
But he wanted Pierce to know.
Pierce straightened slowly, laughing.
"What does it matter, who you are? You won't leave alive," Pierce threatened, in a surprise tactic, his leg shot out, hitting Max full force in his stomach.
Max stumbled a few steps, doubled over. The kick had momentarily knocked the wind out of him.
The adrenaline rage that coursed through his body at the devastation this man had caused in the lives of the Parkers and his own family boiled to the surface, and he felt his energy reach its peak.
He turned his head slightly, his eyes burning from beneath his brow as he stared Pierce down.
Max saw a flash of fear in the man's eyes before he masked it.
He didn't feel his body move. He merely willed it, and it did. One second he was feet away from Pierce, and in the next instant, at a speed that no mere human could travel, he had Pierce pinned up against the wall near the front door, his fingers around his throat, his shoulder pressed against Pierce's chest for leverage.
"Do you want to know who I am?" Max hissed, teeth bared. "I'll give you a hint. Remember the woman your brother tortured in that Colorado hell-hole? She's my mother."
Max lifted his hand from Pierce's throat so that he was sure to see the crackling green electricity dancing at his fingertips.
"You're the kid... from the beach," Pierce said in amazement.
"Your brother and his men would have tortured my mother until she was dead," Max said in an ominous voice. "He died because she was trying to defend herself. It wasn't murder."
Pierce stared at him for a long moment.
"It was murder," Pierce growled. "She fried my brother alive."
"And what would you have done if you were in her shoes?" Max returned. "You terrorized Nancy Parker for helping her. You terrorized my family on that beach that night. I saw you. It was you that shot me."
Pierce laughed cruelly.
"Am I supposed to care about any of this? You aren't human. As far as I'm concerned, you're a virus that needs to be wiped off my planet," Pierce spat.
Max clamped his hand to his throat and sent a jarring painful shot of energy through his system.
"You want to see inhuman?" Max asked, shaking his head in disgust. "Take a look at what you did to your daughter."
Pierce spit in Max's face, and raised his knee to strike, his eyes filled with hate, and Max threw him to the floor.
"Did you think that I was dead? That you finished me off on the beach that night?" Max grated, kicking Pierce in the side.
"If wishes were dollars," Pierce muttered, turning to look at him, scrambling awkwardly to move away, from Max. "Then again, I also hoped she would be taken down by Carlo's men somewhere along the line. It would have made my life a lot easier."
Pierce jerked his head in Liz's direction
"Nancy never told her, you son of a bitch," Max panted. "She didn't know, about my mother, your brother, any of it."
Pierce tried to get up, and Max slammed him back to the floor with a well-placed heel at the small of his back.
"Nancy was a low-life whore," Pierce growled. "I never believed a word she said."
Max shook his head in disgust.
"A whore," Max muttered. "You raped her. What does that make you?"
"I am a servant to my country, protecting its citizens from the likes of you," Pierce retorted, unabashed.
Max didn't attempt to hide the scowl of disgust that marred his features.
"You're insane," Max said, taking his foot from Pierce's back.
He hadn't been prepared for what happened next.
Pierce swung his leg like a pendulum, smashing Max's calf and throwing him to the floor on his back. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his gun and aiming it at Max as he rose.
A cruel smile crossed his features as he cocked the gun toward Max's face.
"Finally, vengeance is mine," he hissed.
Max didn't dare turn his head toward Liz. He'd been careless in his anger, and now he was trapped. He watched as Pierce's finger tightened on the trigger.
The loud crack of a shot echoed through the room, and Pierce stumbled back.
Max raised his hand and pushed a fatal bolt of energy from his fingers, but he was too late to stop Pierce's gun from going off.
Max watched the quick lick of flame from the muzzle as the bullet left the barrel, his head whipping toward Liz to see a small area of her shirt at her abdomen explode outward, her arm slumping to her side as his gun fell from her hand to the floor with a thud.
"Liz!" he shouted, already crawling toward her as she slumped to the floor.
He didn't need to look back at Pierce to know he was dead. No human could have survived the intensity of the power he'd released.
"Liz," he said frantically, taking her face into his hands.
Her eyes blinked slowly, her head lolling backward.
He put his hand behind her neck, supporting her head.
"He was going to kill you," she slurred. "I had to."
"It's ok," he said, pulling her to his chest, fighting back the tears that were threatening to spill from his eyes.
He held her for an instant before lowering her carefully to the floor.
Her eyes had closed, and her skin had gone ashen, her lips taking on a blue tinge.
"Liz," he pleaded frantically. "You have to stay awake. Open your eyes."
Her eyes focused on him once again.
"Tired," she mumbled.
He nodded, his vision almost completely blurred.
"I know. Just hold on a little longer," he said, swiping at his eyes with his right hand to clear them.
He looked directly into her eyes.
"I need you to trust me, Liz. Can you do that?" he asked softly.
She nodded almost imperceptibly.
"You have to look at me. Look into my eyes," he said, moving his hand under her shirt and laying it on her stomach where the blood was already welling.
The instant her eyes met his, he was drawn into her.
For the first time, he felt everything she was feeling toward him; love, fear, longing, desire. She too thought it was crazy to have such strong feelings for him when she barely knew anything about him. He felt her sadness knowing that he did not trust her, though she wished she could tell him the truth so badly.
He felt the joyous leap of her heart despite the enormous pain she'd been in only moments before, when he confessed that he loved her. But that joy was quickly replaced with fear. Fear for him, for the life she was sure he'd have to lead if he was to love her. Always running, always hiding. It was all she had ever known.
If only she knew how closely their lives resembled each other's. If only she knew he was just as afraid as she was.
He was pulled further in, down to the cellular level. The damage the bullet had done was devastating.
It had ripped through her spleen and into her abdomen, and she was hemorrhaging.
He concentrated his energy on repairing the damaged tissue, knitting the cells together and restoring normal function.
There was nothing he could do about the blood she'd already lost, but he'd stopped it.
He gasped at the drain on his life force, feeling sweat breaking in his brow, but he wouldn't stop. He moved his hand upward to span her ribcage, feeling the energy pulsing from his hand, melding the cracks in her ribs.
Her eyes widened but she never broke contact with his. Their breathing synchronized, her breath falling from her lips in cadence with his.
His hand slid from beneath her shirt, to cup her cheek, dissolving the bruises and the broken blood vessels in her eye.
Finally, he was satisfied that all of the major damage was repaired, and he reluctantly drew his hand back from her warm skin, slumping back to rest on his haunches, his breathing ragged.
He closed his eyes for a moment, lowering his head.
Liz sat up slowly, never taking her eyes off of him.
With trembling fingers, she reached out to touch his cheek.
"Max, what did you just do?" she asked, her voice a whisper.
He opened his eyes, afraid to look at her, afraid of what he would see.
"It....doesn't matter," he said in a cracked voice. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," she said in a soft voice, tinged with wonder. "I'm...perfectly fine. How...?"
He shook his head.
"Not now," he said quietly.
Her fingers trailed down to his chin, lifting it so his eyes met hers.
He was terrified, terrified that he would see fear, or something worse. But he saw nothing like that. When he looked into her eyes, he saw wonder, love and confusion.
But she wasn't frightened.
She cupped his face with her hands.
"I was dying," she said.
He nodded.
"And you...." she trailed off.
He lifted his hands to encircle her wrists, pulling them from his face, resting them palms up on his thighs.
He carefully unwrapped the makeshift bandages, exposing the welts on her wrists.
His fingers ran over them tenderly.
She watched as his fingers seemed to illuminate themselves from within, and as they passed over the cuts, they disappeared, leaving unbroken skin in their wake.
A wondrous laugh bubbled from her mouth, and he looked up meeting her eyes.
She was smiling at him, tears in her eyes.
"I love you too, Max Evans," she whispered. "I didn't get to tell you that."
Max couldn't control the thrill that raced through his heart at hearing those words, though he couldn't bring himself to hope that she would still feel the same way once she knew the full truth.
He didn't know how much of the conversation she'd heard between he and Pierce, but she hadn't run away.
And for now, he wanted nothing more than to believe it. It didn't matter what would come later. For these few stolen moments, he was loved, and loved by the most beautiful creature on the planet.
"You're hurt Max," she said with a frown, seeing the blood darkening his shirt at his shoulder.
He shook his head.
"It's fine," he said, dismissing it.
"Can you...do what you did for me? You know, to yourself?" she asked.
He hesitated and then nodded.
He reached up to his shoulder, healing the damage as she watched.
The energy he'd expended over the past few minutes had worn him out, but he still had one thing left to do.
"We have to go," he said in a shaky voice.
She nodded, her eyes cemented to his.
He rose slowly and her gaze never left his as he held out his hand to her, and she took it without hesitation, rising to stand beside him.
He turned to look at the body on the floor.
"Why don't you wait outside," he said quietly. "I'll take care of this, and then we'll go home."
She turned her eyes to the man lying on the floor, her face hardening. She felt no remorse that he was dead. She felt nothing but relief, both for herself and for her mother.
She turned once again to look at Max, one hand grasping his, the other impulsively sliding around his neck, as she pressed a lingering kiss against his lips.
A kiss that spoke of promise, promise for all of them.
It was bittersweet for Max, for he still feared her reaction once she knew the truth. He was sure she thought he had special abilities, but he was certain it hadn't occurred to her that he wasn't completely human.
She pulled away slowly, even something as simple as a kiss leaving her breathless.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He nodded, finding himself without words.
"Go," he whispered, motioning toward the door.
She let go of his hand reluctantly, pausing to stare at Pierce as she stood beside his body.
Then she opened the door and went out to the porch, never looking back.
To Be Continued
29
Part 29
Liz stood outside on the porch, both unwilling and unable to turn around to look at the house again.
Her mind was racing, trying to process everything that had just happened. In a matter of mere moments, her life had changed forever.
It was an extraordinarily short span of time, when compared to the years she’d spent living in terror, both for herself and for those that she loved.
And now, now for the first time in her memory, she didn’t have to look over her shoulder. Carlo was dead; Pierce was dead.
And it was all because of Max.
Max, the man who had distrusted her, who had thought that she was out to harm his family.
She’d already resigned herself to her fate in the bowels of that house. She’d been ready to die, so that her mother might live.
She’d had no regrets about her decision, save one. She wished that things could have been different with Max. She wished she hadn’t left him angry.
She’d started to realize a long time ago that she cared what Max thought of her, and the idea that she’d left under those circumstances was devastating, but she’d had no other choice.
So when she’d heard his voice while tied to the chair, she’d thought she’d been dreaming.
She still didn't understand how he’d found her, or why he’d come for her.
He was the last person she’d expected to see.
But he had come, and he’d told her he loved her, and he knew her real name, and when he said it, it sounded like music to her battered heart.
Max had been her savior.
And now she knew with certainty that Max was like no other man on Earth.
Everything had happened so quickly, and it had all been so confusing. She’d heard what Pierce had said to him. She heard Max mention a beach, and that Pierce had shot him. She’d heard Pierce say that Max wasn’t human.
But that had to have been a figurative insult. It couldn’t have been literal.
She felt her heart quicken, thinking of his unusually warm hands against her skin, taking the pain away, seeming to pour healing heat into her body.
It was a gift. It had to be.
Max’s gift was the secret that Phillip had kept from her. And Pierce had known about it.
She heard the door creak behind her, but she didn’t turn around. She couldn’t bear to take the chance that she might have to look at Pierce’s face again, even dead.
“We can leave now,” Max said in a low voice behind her, and she nodded, looking out over the fields across the road.
“What about his car?” she asked, dully.
“It doesn’t matter. No one will think anything’s amiss,” he said.
“What did you do, Max?” Liz asked softly.
“Do you trust me?” he asked again, from behind her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Then just know that nothing that happened here is going to come back to us,” he said.
She nodded, as he moved to stand beside her.
She turned to look at him, his head held high as he stared over the very same fields she’d perused only seconds before.
He looked drawn and weary, but the sun’s rays were kind to him.
His eyes seemed to glow, liquid gold in the waning afternoon rays, almost ethereal.
He was beautiful.
She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His tone had been neutral, his eyes gave away nothing.
It was as if he’d closed himself off before he’d walked out the door.
She wondered if he thought she was afraid of him now.
The truth was she hadn’t had time to be afraid before he’d saved her life. She’d seen the best and the worst of people, seen things so horrific she couldn’t bear to think of them for too long.
Maybe she should have been frightened. Most normal people would be. But she wasn’t like most normal people.
She knew what it had taken to find her. She knew that Max had put himself in danger to take her out of here. He’d told her he loved her, and having seen the guarded wall he’d built around himself to protect his heart, she knew that telling her had probably been terrifying for him.
It still seemed like a dream, one of her girlish fairytales she’d conjured up when she had been too young to truly know the realities of life.
How she wanted to reach out to touch him again, to prove to herself that Max was really there, that Pierce was really gone.
So she did.
She reached out and took his hand tentatively.
He turned his head to look at her, and his eyes held hers for a long moment.
“We need to go,” he said finally, squeezing her fingers gently.
Together, they walked to the road, Liz hand clasped in Max’s.
He slowed and turned to look back, and as he did, Liz caught the faint scent of smoke.
She turned to see flames climbing up the curtains in the front window, and she understood what Max had done.
There would be no discernible evidence to speak of.
She stared at the house for a long moment, her eyes hard. If it had been up to Pierce, she would have died in there, but in a strange twist, fate had turned it around on him.
“Does it make me a bad person that I’m glad he’s dead?” she asked quietly.
His fingers reached out to tilt her chin toward him.
“No,” he said meaningfully.
“A good person isn’t supposed to feel like that,” she said in an ashamed voice. "He was my father."
“Liz, after everything he’s done to you,” Max began. "He was never a father to you. He would have killed you."
“I'm not so different from him. I’ve killed, Max,” she said quietly interrupting him.
“So have I,” he said, looking toward the house.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “More than once. There's so much you don't know about me, Max. Things I'm ashamed of, things I've done...”
Max sighed.
“Liz, do you remember what you said to me in Mesilla that day?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“I was talking about Billy the Kid, but you were talking about yourself, weren’t you?” he asked.
She looked down at the ground, but said nothing.
“I’d guessed it even back then. You said that you thought he did what he did to survive. You said that you didn’t necessarily think what he did was right, but that you understood it, that sometimes people have to do things that aren't pretty in order to survive. Sometimes they don't have a choice," he said. "I understand that. It was a way of life for my family, running...hiding, even once, even killing," he said softly.
“There’s a lot that I still need to tell you too, Liz. But know this, I know without a doubt, especially now, that you did what you did to survive, and I understand, more than you can possibly guess,” he said quietly.
He raised her hand to his lips, and brushed her knuckles with a velvet caress.
Her emotions were in shreds, and they bubbled beneath the surface of her heart, threatening to erupt at any moment.
"Let's go home," he said in a husky voice.
She looked up at him and nodded slowly.
As they started to walk to the car, she realized that she had no idea what was going to happen from here, where her life would take her, and for the first time, it really didn’t matter.
*****
Max hadn't called home before they'd boarded the plane.
Liz didn't question it. In a few hours, there would be more discussions than she was probably ready to deal with.
When they'd gotten into the car, everything seemed to hit her at once. All of the fear, the running, hiding for all those years seemed to catch up with her all at once.
She stared out at the passing landscape, unable to stop the tears from streaming down her face.
It finally hit her that Pierce was gone, that she and her mother were finally safe.
"Liz," Max said softly, and she turned toward him.
"About what happened back there...what I did," he said, glancing at her before turning his eyes back to the road.
She took a deep breath and sighed.
"You know what, Max? What you did back there was a miracle. How you did it, or why you could do it isn't really important," she said.
"You don't understand," he said shaking his head.
"No, I don't," she agreed. "And I want you to tell me everything. I want to know everything about you, and you...you should know everything about me."
"I still can't believe you came for me," she said softly, shaking her head in wonder.
"I was the reason you ran," Max said, his voice laden with guilt.
"Don't do that," she answered. "You didn't know. There were so many times I wanted to tell you..."
"Dad told me some of it," Max said. "But there's much more to it, so much more."
She nodded, studying him, noting his tense demeanor.
She rested her hand on his arm.
"Max, I'm not afraid of you," she said quietly. "Whatever it is, it won't...it can't change the way I feel about you."
He took a shuddering breath.
"I'm not used to this," he admitted. "I'm not used to having these feelings. I've been off balance from the moment you walked through our front door."
"Me too," she said.
Max knew he should tell her the whole truth right then. She needed to know the secret he'd been hiding his whole life, if there was ever to be anything between them. But something inside him wanted to hold off, to commit this truce that had finally developed between them to memory, to hold onto the memory of her words, that she loved him, for just a little while longer. He didn't know how she was going to react to it, despite her reassurances.
And what would he do if she reacted badly?
His family would have to disappear again.
He knew he had to tell her before they returned to New Mexico, but there was something he had to know first.
"Tell me," he said. "Tell me about everything."
Liz sighed and looked out the window.
"I don't know where to begin," she said quietly.
"My mother and I moved from place to place with Maria and Amy," she said. "We never stayed anywhere too long. We couldn't," she said.
"Maria and I were close, like sisters. Neither of us went to school. Amy taught us at home. When I said I was a history buff, I meant it. I would lose myself in the stories of the people I read about, imagining what it must have been like. Most of the people I read about didn't have easy lives, and I guess I felt a sort of kinship with them."
"Carlo found us in Miami. It was pure luck that Amy and Maria were out that day. Carlo blackmailed David, and we were the bait. My mother said that if anyone ever found out about the rape, about me, that his career would be ruined. My mom's disease started to manifest itself before we even moved to Miami. She started to forget things, and then would say the strangest things," she trailed off.
"When they found us, they took us to that warehouse in New Jersey. That was the first time I'd ever seen David. He said he'd have killed me there if he could have."
"Carlo was a greedy bastard, and he couldn't stand the thought of anyone under him not pulling their own weight. I tried to escape with my mom a few times, and we'd come so close. He decided that I would be the perfect messenger his drugs. I had no identity, no way to tie myself to anyone. He had my mother, and he knew that I would never leave her. He threatened to kill her, so I did it."
“I ran his cocaine for him, bringing to the buyers. Some of them were so strung out,” she said, shaking her head.
“Either they thought I was a narc, or that Carlo was ripping them off. A couple of them came after me, but I always came back with Carlo’s money, because if I didn’t, I knew he’d hurt my mom,” Liz said quietly.
“The one time I came back empty-handed, because they had me at gunpoint, he didn’t beat me. He beat my mother,” she said in a quavering voice.
“I never got caught, not once. I couldn’t. I knew that the moment I was apprehended, my mother was dead. Carlo knew I knew it. I became….really good at running his product. It was almost like a talent,” she said bitterly. "One I hated, but it kept us alive."
Max looked over at her, wondering how she’d ever survived those years. It was one thing to live with the fear of the possibility of captivity, and quite another to experience it every day, for years.
“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing that his apology was ineffectual, and didn’t change one second of what she’d lived through.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Carlo’s brother Frank seemed to take some kind of perverse pleasure in tormenting my mother. Maybe it was because she was so confused, so helpless most of the time. Most times, he was high. Everyone knew he was a junky. Carlo overlooked it, and none of his men dared to say anything, for fear of being permanently shut up,” she said dispassionately.
“But this one time, Carlo had to go out to Vegas overnight for an important meeting with a dealer, from Columbia. He left Frank in charge,” she said quietly.
“I don’t know how much coke he did, but he was acting crazy,” Liz said. “He decided he wanted to play Russian roulette with my mother. He took us out of the room they kept us in, and brought us to the shop in front of the warehouse. It was dark, and cold," she said. "He didn't think that I would chance doing anything when he had the gun pointed at my mother's head," she said shakily. "I had to, he would have killed her."
"My mother didn't know what was happening through most of it. I was so terrified the bullet would be in the chamber before I could stop him. I...I picked up a crowbar that was lying on the bench and I...I hit him with it. I killed him. He was the first," she said quietly. "But he wasn't the last."
Max felt the air rush out of his lungs. He remembered the flash.
"I'm sorry."
"This has to stop. We can't live like this forever. We can't keep running like this."
"I'm sorry..."
His jaw tightened as he kept his eyes on the road.
"I got my mother out of the warehouse, but Carlo's flight had gotten cancelled because of the fog that had rolled in, and he had come back early. We started to run, and we made it to the woods behind the warehouse, but my mother was slow. She didn't understand what was going on. I hid her, and hoped they wouldn't find her. I tried to lead them away from her, and Carlo caught me. He almost killed me that night. How ironic is it that it was only David's interest in me that saved me that night?" she asked ruefully, shaking her head.
"Carlo sent me away after that," she said. "To Mexico, and then to South America. I was running drugs for two years before I was caught. I killed three men, and one of my only friends there was murdered because of her ties to me. Only it wasn't just her, her child died too," she said, half-sobbing. "When I was taken in by the Federales, her younger brother, Felipe was killed because he was with me and he wouldn't talk."
Max pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it into park.
"Liz, you can't blame yourself for that," he said, wishing that he could erase everything she'd been through.
"How can I not?" she exclaimed bitterly, as she turned toward him with fierce eyes. "They were killed because of me!"
He knew the time had come to tell her. He couldn't keep it from her any longer.
He was terrified of her reaction, but he would rather risk that than to see her continue to blame herself.
"If anyone's to blame, it's not you. It's my family's fault," he said. "We're the reason for what you went through."
"What?" she whispered.
To Be Continued
Liz stood outside on the porch, both unwilling and unable to turn around to look at the house again.
Her mind was racing, trying to process everything that had just happened. In a matter of mere moments, her life had changed forever.
It was an extraordinarily short span of time, when compared to the years she’d spent living in terror, both for herself and for those that she loved.
And now, now for the first time in her memory, she didn’t have to look over her shoulder. Carlo was dead; Pierce was dead.
And it was all because of Max.
Max, the man who had distrusted her, who had thought that she was out to harm his family.
She’d already resigned herself to her fate in the bowels of that house. She’d been ready to die, so that her mother might live.
She’d had no regrets about her decision, save one. She wished that things could have been different with Max. She wished she hadn’t left him angry.
She’d started to realize a long time ago that she cared what Max thought of her, and the idea that she’d left under those circumstances was devastating, but she’d had no other choice.
So when she’d heard his voice while tied to the chair, she’d thought she’d been dreaming.
She still didn't understand how he’d found her, or why he’d come for her.
He was the last person she’d expected to see.
But he had come, and he’d told her he loved her, and he knew her real name, and when he said it, it sounded like music to her battered heart.
Max had been her savior.
And now she knew with certainty that Max was like no other man on Earth.
Everything had happened so quickly, and it had all been so confusing. She’d heard what Pierce had said to him. She heard Max mention a beach, and that Pierce had shot him. She’d heard Pierce say that Max wasn’t human.
But that had to have been a figurative insult. It couldn’t have been literal.
She felt her heart quicken, thinking of his unusually warm hands against her skin, taking the pain away, seeming to pour healing heat into her body.
It was a gift. It had to be.
Max’s gift was the secret that Phillip had kept from her. And Pierce had known about it.
She heard the door creak behind her, but she didn’t turn around. She couldn’t bear to take the chance that she might have to look at Pierce’s face again, even dead.
“We can leave now,” Max said in a low voice behind her, and she nodded, looking out over the fields across the road.
“What about his car?” she asked, dully.
“It doesn’t matter. No one will think anything’s amiss,” he said.
“What did you do, Max?” Liz asked softly.
“Do you trust me?” he asked again, from behind her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Then just know that nothing that happened here is going to come back to us,” he said.
She nodded, as he moved to stand beside her.
She turned to look at him, his head held high as he stared over the very same fields she’d perused only seconds before.
He looked drawn and weary, but the sun’s rays were kind to him.
His eyes seemed to glow, liquid gold in the waning afternoon rays, almost ethereal.
He was beautiful.
She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His tone had been neutral, his eyes gave away nothing.
It was as if he’d closed himself off before he’d walked out the door.
She wondered if he thought she was afraid of him now.
The truth was she hadn’t had time to be afraid before he’d saved her life. She’d seen the best and the worst of people, seen things so horrific she couldn’t bear to think of them for too long.
Maybe she should have been frightened. Most normal people would be. But she wasn’t like most normal people.
She knew what it had taken to find her. She knew that Max had put himself in danger to take her out of here. He’d told her he loved her, and having seen the guarded wall he’d built around himself to protect his heart, she knew that telling her had probably been terrifying for him.
It still seemed like a dream, one of her girlish fairytales she’d conjured up when she had been too young to truly know the realities of life.
How she wanted to reach out to touch him again, to prove to herself that Max was really there, that Pierce was really gone.
So she did.
She reached out and took his hand tentatively.
He turned his head to look at her, and his eyes held hers for a long moment.
“We need to go,” he said finally, squeezing her fingers gently.
Together, they walked to the road, Liz hand clasped in Max’s.
He slowed and turned to look back, and as he did, Liz caught the faint scent of smoke.
She turned to see flames climbing up the curtains in the front window, and she understood what Max had done.
There would be no discernible evidence to speak of.
She stared at the house for a long moment, her eyes hard. If it had been up to Pierce, she would have died in there, but in a strange twist, fate had turned it around on him.
“Does it make me a bad person that I’m glad he’s dead?” she asked quietly.
His fingers reached out to tilt her chin toward him.
“No,” he said meaningfully.
“A good person isn’t supposed to feel like that,” she said in an ashamed voice. "He was my father."
“Liz, after everything he’s done to you,” Max began. "He was never a father to you. He would have killed you."
“I'm not so different from him. I’ve killed, Max,” she said quietly interrupting him.
“So have I,” he said, looking toward the house.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “More than once. There's so much you don't know about me, Max. Things I'm ashamed of, things I've done...”
Max sighed.
“Liz, do you remember what you said to me in Mesilla that day?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“I was talking about Billy the Kid, but you were talking about yourself, weren’t you?” he asked.
She looked down at the ground, but said nothing.
“I’d guessed it even back then. You said that you thought he did what he did to survive. You said that you didn’t necessarily think what he did was right, but that you understood it, that sometimes people have to do things that aren't pretty in order to survive. Sometimes they don't have a choice," he said. "I understand that. It was a way of life for my family, running...hiding, even once, even killing," he said softly.
“There’s a lot that I still need to tell you too, Liz. But know this, I know without a doubt, especially now, that you did what you did to survive, and I understand, more than you can possibly guess,” he said quietly.
He raised her hand to his lips, and brushed her knuckles with a velvet caress.
Her emotions were in shreds, and they bubbled beneath the surface of her heart, threatening to erupt at any moment.
"Let's go home," he said in a husky voice.
She looked up at him and nodded slowly.
As they started to walk to the car, she realized that she had no idea what was going to happen from here, where her life would take her, and for the first time, it really didn’t matter.
*****
Max hadn't called home before they'd boarded the plane.
Liz didn't question it. In a few hours, there would be more discussions than she was probably ready to deal with.
When they'd gotten into the car, everything seemed to hit her at once. All of the fear, the running, hiding for all those years seemed to catch up with her all at once.
She stared out at the passing landscape, unable to stop the tears from streaming down her face.
It finally hit her that Pierce was gone, that she and her mother were finally safe.
"Liz," Max said softly, and she turned toward him.
"About what happened back there...what I did," he said, glancing at her before turning his eyes back to the road.
She took a deep breath and sighed.
"You know what, Max? What you did back there was a miracle. How you did it, or why you could do it isn't really important," she said.
"You don't understand," he said shaking his head.
"No, I don't," she agreed. "And I want you to tell me everything. I want to know everything about you, and you...you should know everything about me."
"I still can't believe you came for me," she said softly, shaking her head in wonder.
"I was the reason you ran," Max said, his voice laden with guilt.
"Don't do that," she answered. "You didn't know. There were so many times I wanted to tell you..."
"Dad told me some of it," Max said. "But there's much more to it, so much more."
She nodded, studying him, noting his tense demeanor.
She rested her hand on his arm.
"Max, I'm not afraid of you," she said quietly. "Whatever it is, it won't...it can't change the way I feel about you."
He took a shuddering breath.
"I'm not used to this," he admitted. "I'm not used to having these feelings. I've been off balance from the moment you walked through our front door."
"Me too," she said.
Max knew he should tell her the whole truth right then. She needed to know the secret he'd been hiding his whole life, if there was ever to be anything between them. But something inside him wanted to hold off, to commit this truce that had finally developed between them to memory, to hold onto the memory of her words, that she loved him, for just a little while longer. He didn't know how she was going to react to it, despite her reassurances.
And what would he do if she reacted badly?
His family would have to disappear again.
He knew he had to tell her before they returned to New Mexico, but there was something he had to know first.
"Tell me," he said. "Tell me about everything."
Liz sighed and looked out the window.
"I don't know where to begin," she said quietly.
"My mother and I moved from place to place with Maria and Amy," she said. "We never stayed anywhere too long. We couldn't," she said.
"Maria and I were close, like sisters. Neither of us went to school. Amy taught us at home. When I said I was a history buff, I meant it. I would lose myself in the stories of the people I read about, imagining what it must have been like. Most of the people I read about didn't have easy lives, and I guess I felt a sort of kinship with them."
"Carlo found us in Miami. It was pure luck that Amy and Maria were out that day. Carlo blackmailed David, and we were the bait. My mother said that if anyone ever found out about the rape, about me, that his career would be ruined. My mom's disease started to manifest itself before we even moved to Miami. She started to forget things, and then would say the strangest things," she trailed off.
"When they found us, they took us to that warehouse in New Jersey. That was the first time I'd ever seen David. He said he'd have killed me there if he could have."
"Carlo was a greedy bastard, and he couldn't stand the thought of anyone under him not pulling their own weight. I tried to escape with my mom a few times, and we'd come so close. He decided that I would be the perfect messenger his drugs. I had no identity, no way to tie myself to anyone. He had my mother, and he knew that I would never leave her. He threatened to kill her, so I did it."
“I ran his cocaine for him, bringing to the buyers. Some of them were so strung out,” she said, shaking her head.
“Either they thought I was a narc, or that Carlo was ripping them off. A couple of them came after me, but I always came back with Carlo’s money, because if I didn’t, I knew he’d hurt my mom,” Liz said quietly.
“The one time I came back empty-handed, because they had me at gunpoint, he didn’t beat me. He beat my mother,” she said in a quavering voice.
“I never got caught, not once. I couldn’t. I knew that the moment I was apprehended, my mother was dead. Carlo knew I knew it. I became….really good at running his product. It was almost like a talent,” she said bitterly. "One I hated, but it kept us alive."
Max looked over at her, wondering how she’d ever survived those years. It was one thing to live with the fear of the possibility of captivity, and quite another to experience it every day, for years.
“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing that his apology was ineffectual, and didn’t change one second of what she’d lived through.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Carlo’s brother Frank seemed to take some kind of perverse pleasure in tormenting my mother. Maybe it was because she was so confused, so helpless most of the time. Most times, he was high. Everyone knew he was a junky. Carlo overlooked it, and none of his men dared to say anything, for fear of being permanently shut up,” she said dispassionately.
“But this one time, Carlo had to go out to Vegas overnight for an important meeting with a dealer, from Columbia. He left Frank in charge,” she said quietly.
“I don’t know how much coke he did, but he was acting crazy,” Liz said. “He decided he wanted to play Russian roulette with my mother. He took us out of the room they kept us in, and brought us to the shop in front of the warehouse. It was dark, and cold," she said. "He didn't think that I would chance doing anything when he had the gun pointed at my mother's head," she said shakily. "I had to, he would have killed her."
"My mother didn't know what was happening through most of it. I was so terrified the bullet would be in the chamber before I could stop him. I...I picked up a crowbar that was lying on the bench and I...I hit him with it. I killed him. He was the first," she said quietly. "But he wasn't the last."
Max felt the air rush out of his lungs. He remembered the flash.
"I'm sorry."
"This has to stop. We can't live like this forever. We can't keep running like this."
"I'm sorry..."
His jaw tightened as he kept his eyes on the road.
"I got my mother out of the warehouse, but Carlo's flight had gotten cancelled because of the fog that had rolled in, and he had come back early. We started to run, and we made it to the woods behind the warehouse, but my mother was slow. She didn't understand what was going on. I hid her, and hoped they wouldn't find her. I tried to lead them away from her, and Carlo caught me. He almost killed me that night. How ironic is it that it was only David's interest in me that saved me that night?" she asked ruefully, shaking her head.
"Carlo sent me away after that," she said. "To Mexico, and then to South America. I was running drugs for two years before I was caught. I killed three men, and one of my only friends there was murdered because of her ties to me. Only it wasn't just her, her child died too," she said, half-sobbing. "When I was taken in by the Federales, her younger brother, Felipe was killed because he was with me and he wouldn't talk."
Max pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it into park.
"Liz, you can't blame yourself for that," he said, wishing that he could erase everything she'd been through.
"How can I not?" she exclaimed bitterly, as she turned toward him with fierce eyes. "They were killed because of me!"
He knew the time had come to tell her. He couldn't keep it from her any longer.
He was terrified of her reaction, but he would rather risk that than to see her continue to blame herself.
"If anyone's to blame, it's not you. It's my family's fault," he said. "We're the reason for what you went through."
"What?" she whispered.
To Be Continued
What a week. Big week in NYC too for some of you, some of you I probably saw on Monday. Ah well....you know what? I'll just refrain from what I was going to say....except:
I am off to Wilmington NC for the weekend, so you may not get a new part till Monday.
Part 30
“What are you talking about, Max?” Liz asked warily.
Max turned to look out the window, his heart pounding at what he was about to do. He wondered if it was this hard for Isabel when she told Alex.
“Liz, we’re not like other people,” he said in a low voice, unable to stop the slight tremor that laced it.
“I kind of got that,” she said, nodding.
“It’s more than that. I know you’re probably thinking that I have some sort of abilities,” he said pausing, taking a deep breath.
He closed his eyes.
“There isn’t any other way to say it, so I’m just going to tell you. My family…my father, Michael, me, Isabel…we’re not…completely human,” he said. “Pierce and his brother were part of a Special Unit of the FBI. Its sole reason for existing is to hunt us down.”
Liz was silent, and the seconds seemed like they would drag into minutes.
“So if you’re not…human, then what are you?” she asked, in a tiny voice.
“We are human, in most of the ways that count,” Max said. “My parents were created from human DNA, mixed with the cells of their old forms. They died on our planet, and were brought back, to live here. Their cells were melded with human cells so that they could live here undetected.”
“Your planet?” she asked weakly.
“Yes,” Max said quietly. “Our planet was called Antar. It’s…very far away. My parents were sent here with two protectors, my Uncles. My Uncles were pure Antarian, shape-shifters. Our planet was under attack, and my Uncle Edward was able to get their bodies onto a ship. They thought that once my parents grew, that they could return to Antar to save our people. But they hadn’t foreseen the crash,” Max said.
Max glanced over at Liz, and she was staring out the windshield at the road ahead of them. A car passed on the shoulder, its speed causing the sedan to rock on its frame a bit. It was all too quiet, and Max shifted in nervousness. Now that he’d started to tell her the truth, he had to finish it.
“The ship crashed in 1947,” he said.
“Let me guess, in Roswell, New Mexico,” Liz said in a toneless voice, her eyes unblinking as she continued to stare out the windshield.
“Yes,” Max said. “My Uncle Cail was captured by the United States government. He died. That ship was our only chance of ever seeing our planet again.”
He rested his hand on the steering wheel to try to steady his nerves.
“My Uncle Edward took my parents’ pods to a safe place,” he said.
“Pods,” Liz repeated, shakily.
Max cringed inwardly.
“I know how this must sound,” Max said shaking his head. “I know it sounds crazy, and I’m probably scaring you. But I want you to know the truth, Liz.”
Again she was silent.
“Edward assumed care of my parents, and they grew up fairly normally, and all took jobs. Before my parents married, my mother took a job at a hospital in Colorado. She healed a few children with cancer, and someone saw her do it. The FBI captured her, and they…tortured her,” he said, his voice brimming with emotion. “She escaped, and they came after her. They would have caught her, if your mother hadn’t stopped to pick her up.”
“My mother…knew your mother? She knew what she was?” Liz gasped.
Max nodded.
“I only found out after you left. Your mother stopped and picked my mother up because she saw she was in trouble. FBI agents, one of them Pierce’s brother, chased them and ran them off the road. There was a struggle, and the agents were killed,” he said. “My mother used her…abilities when one of them tried to kill your mother.”
“Your mother helped my mother to escape. But Pierce came after your mother because…”
“Because they killed his brother,” Liz said, her eyes filling with tears, turning her head away from him.
“Yeah,” Max said, ineffectually. “My mother always thought of your mom. She never forgot her. And when she found out what Pierce was doing, she tried to help,” Max said.
A small sob escaped Liz’s throat.
“Why didn’t I ever know about her?” she asked. “Why didn’t she tell me? God, this all makes sense now. She started mentioning “others” when she started having her spells. I didn’t realize…”
“Your mother was the woman…the one who got my Mom into ‘Without a Trace’,” she said
Max nodded.
“She knew what Pierce was capable of,” Max said.
“Pierce killed my Uncle Edward, Michael’s father, the same night he shot me on that beach,” Max said. “I was only six.”
“The woman my parents hired as a nanny was an undercover agent. She betrayed us, and almost killed Isabel. After that, my father never trusted humans again,” Max said. “We moved, changed our names, our appearances.”
“My mother never told my father about Nancy, not until she was dying,” Max continued. “In the beginning it was because it was of the guilt she felt for being captured, and had put them all in danger. Later, it was because of what happened on the beach. But she told him everything when she got sick, and she made my father promise to find the two of you, to protect you, for what your mother did for her.”
“That was why he found you in South America. That was why he offered to marry you, to keep the both of you safe, because he promised her,” Max said, blinking back tears he hadn’t expected to form.
“That was why he said you couldn’t know,” Liz said. “Because if you knew I was David’s daughter, you would have been certain I was working with him, with the FBI.”
“Dad wanted to protect all of us. He set up that elaborate story the two of you concocted to throw me off so that I would come to the conclusion that your “mother”, Sharon Cruz was trying to extort money from my father, through you,” he said.
“And…he was right, if I had known, I would have thought the worst. I don’t even know if I would have believed what I’d seen if he’d shown me when you’d first come,” he said.
“What do you mean, seen?” Liz asked.
Max lowered his eyes.
“My mother left something, sort of a holograph if you will, and that was how I found out the truth,” he said.
“It was only because I saw it in you, when you were running from Carlo the night you killed Frank, and the woman, Lucinda who died-” he said, and she interrupted.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, half fearful, half angry.
“That day in Mesilla, I had reached for your arm at the restaurant, and it just happened. I saw that night you were running from Carlo, only I didn’t know what it was at the time. It was confusing, jumbled. I saw him hit you. I saw…him cut you,” he said, feeling the horror of it all over again. “He would have killed you if hadn’t been so greedy.”
“And you saw what happened with Lucinda then?” she asked, shrinking back.
“No,” he said quietly. “I saw that when I kissed you on the terrace.”
“What, were you reading my mind?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just do that from the beginning? It would have saved all of us the trouble!”
“I can’t read minds!” he said quickly. “I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before. I was always told that connections like that only happen between two beings who…it’s usually when one of us…when a bond is formed.”
“How could you have formed a bond with me? You didn’t even know me, and you sure as hell didn’t trust me,” she said.
“I wanted to,” Max said. “From the minute you got out of that car with my father, I was battling with myself, because you were so beautiful, because I saw something in your eyes…pain like mine. I saw that you had secrets. I saw...that despite the front you put up, you were afraid, and I know that kind of fear,” he said. "I've lived that kind of fear. I don't know why I had this connection to you, Liz. There are some things I'm just as in the dark about as you are."
“Everything has always been black and white for me. I couldn’t afford to let it be anything else. I made it my job to protect my family when Uncle Edward was murdered. That woman would have killed Isabel, and they almost killed me,” he said. “But you…you made me want to believe that there was such a thing as gray. You made me want to believe you, to trust you. And I need to trust you now, Liz. The safety of everyone I love hinges on the secret I’ve kept all of my life, until now, until I told…you.”
“You don’t have to worry,” she said in a curiously flat voice. “Your father took me in when no one else would have. Your…secret is safe.”
Max looked over and his heart plummeted. He saw the trembling of her lower lip, the tears that glistened in her eyes.
“Liz I’m sorry,” he said, reaching over to touch her, his heart breaking when she shied away.
“Don’t,” she said softly. “Please Max. I need time…I need to think about all of this.”
Max withdrew his hand, a part of his heart resigning himself to reality. What else could he have expected from her?
What exactly had he expected?
He’d just told her not only that he was an alien, but his family’s very existence was the reason her life had been a hell for as far back as she could remember.
With a heavy heart, he paused before guiding the car back onto the road.
****
Max pulled into the airport, heading for the rental return, his expression carefully revealing nothing.
Liz knew better than to think that he had brushed her retreat off.
She hadn’t said a word to him since he’d pulled back onto the road, her mind and heart reeling with what he’d told her. She didn’t know how to process all of it, and she didn’t know how to feel about any of it.
While she had already seen that Max had special…abilities, her mind wasn’t really quite prepared to deal with the idea that he was not of this world. He’d said that they were essentially human, and there was a part of her that wanted to accept it. After all, the difference was just a few strands of DNA.
But then there was another part of her that balked at the idea that those strands came from some other part of the universe. It colored everything she thought she knew about Phillip, about all of them.
Her mother knew Diane Evans. It all made so much sense now, the connections, Phillip finding her in South America. Phillip had known all about her and Nancy. He knew almost every detail of their situation. He’d said that he’d decided to help her because of his own dislike of David, but he never told her the reasoning behind that.
Now she knew, and she almost wished that she didn’t.
Diane Evans had crashed into her mother’s life all those years ago, and Nancy had paid for it. And by default, so had she.
David had never given up on finding Diane, but he also wanted to be rid of Liz. Her existence could have ruined everything he’d worked for.
Her mother had never once mentioned Diane by name. The things she’d said as her dementia progressed that had then seemed nonsensical, now suddenly became clear.
She remembered the vague mumbling of a burning car, and the healers from “out there” and killing hands.
Her mother must have been terrified, thrust into that terrifying world merely by being a samaritan. Diane’s life was saved by the kindness of a stranger, a stranger who had no idea what she was getting herself into when she stopped the car to pick up the bloody young girl that late night.
And her mother never told her a thing. Liz had always thought that David had been an abusive boyfriend, but he hadn’t even been that. No, he was something much more monstrous and cruel.
She’d always secretly wished for the day that David would be gone, for she imagined that when that day came, she and her mother might finally have a normal life.
But now it had happened, and nothing was normal. Everything she thought she knew wasn’t as it appeared.
And mixed in with all of that were the undeniable feelings she had developed for Max.
She couldn’t just turn them off. She’d never felt anything like this for anyone. But the Max she thought she had known was so much more than she had ever even contemplated. The simplest and most logical answer was that she should take her mother with her and run. But this was far from simple, and though her head fairly screamed at her to flee, her heart was just as loudly proclaiming that this was what she’d wished for, that the prince she’d always dreamed of was there, that he had saved her, that he loved her. It just turned out that her prince was…an alien. Did it matter? She didn’t know.
Max stopped the car and pulled the keys from the ignition, handing them to the attendant and signing the return release, and Liz noted that he carefully avoided looking at her, his face impassive.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or upset over that observation.
Max made a quick phone call to the pilot.
“The jet’s waiting,” Max said keeping his eyes averted.
Liz followed without a word, torn between wanting to get back to her mother and distancing herself from the situation she now found herself in, and wanting to reach out to Max. This flight or fight reaction had been ingrained in her personality since she was young, and she warred with it even now.
****
Max settled into his seat, buckling the belt across his lap. Liz settled in beside him, still silent.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He hadn’t been able to since he’d started the drive to the airport.
He wasn’t sure that he could bear to see what he feared would be in her eyes, anything ranging from fear, to anger, or even loathing.
He supposed he wouldn’t blame her if she was feeling any of those things. After all, his family was the reason she’d had to live the way that she had. He’d treated her horribly when she’d first come to New Mexico. And all of them had lied to her about what they were.
How ironic it was that he’d been so unwilling to trust her, and now the tables had now turned.
It didn’t matter. She was alive, and he had saved her from Pierce. Whether she ever accepted him or returned his affections again, the fact remained that she was still alive and safe. What he had done for her could never make up for the circumstances she endured because of her mother’s encounter with his, but she was alive.
He closed his eyes, not exactly feigning the weariness he projected. In fact, he felt about a hundred years old. The past few days of trying to find her and the healing had severely drained him.
Though he desperately wanted to talk to her, to answer any questions she might have, to touch her, to hold her, he knew he wouldn’t push her. She’d been forced to do too many things in her young life, and above anything he wanted to honor her newfound freedom. Whatever decisions she made from here on out would be hers, and he would accept them, even if it tore his heart out to do so.
The jet taxied down the runway, cleared for takeoff, and he felt the slight bump of the wheels as they moved across the tarmac, the whirring of the pre-flight equipment check muffled by the rising noise of the engine.
He hadn’t thought of anything else but saving Liz’s life. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of what would happen afterward. Now that he’d told her, he felt a certain sense of relief. There were no longer any secrets between either of them.
He admitted to himself that on some level he’d been afraid to tell Liz the truth not only because the safety of his family was at risk, but also because he didn’t think he could bear her rejection or fear of him.
She hadn’t run, but then she had pulled away from him too. He could almost feel the distance between them now. She was sitting right next to him, but she might as well have been a million miles away.
She’d destroyed the walls he’d erected around his heart, but he’d already started to rebuild them for his own self-preservation.
If she decided to leave, then he wouldn’t stop her. She had a right to a normal life, a life free of hiding.
She deserved that. It was what his mother had wanted for both her and Nancy, and he would honor that last wish, both for her and for Liz, even if it broke his own heart to do it.
******
Liz stared at the small porthole that looked over the landscape below. They’d been in the air an hour and her mind hadn’t stopped replaying everything that had happened over and over again.
She chanced turning her head to look at Max. She sighed softly, taking in his haggard appearance.
She’d known he’d been awake for the first half hour, but now his chest rose and fell in an even staccato, signaling that he had in fact gone to sleep.
It gave her the opportunity to look at him once more, without fear that he’d think she was studying him like some specimen in a jar.
His head had fallen to rest against the seat, facing her, and her eyes filled with unbidden tears.
His haggard countenance clearly spoke of what he’d been through since she’d disappeared from the house that rainy night.
Dark smudges painted the skin under his eyes, evidence of lack of sleep. His skin had lost its healthy olive glow, replaced with a paler ashen color. Even in sleep, she could see the tension written across his features, the slight tightness of his mouth, the small furrow in his brow.
But despite this, her heart quickened merely looking at him, remembering what it was like to be in his arms, remembering the tantalizing press of his lips against her own, a mere hint of the promise of what it would be like were he to take it further.
She shivered involuntarily, almost feeling the heat of his fingers against her skin, the slide of his tongue at her lips, the hardness of his body pressed against hers.
She knew that to be loved by Max Evans would be to be loved completely, fiercely, and without reservation. He did not give his heart lightly, very much like herself.
She now knew she held his heart in her hands despite this, and she was terrified of the consequences of any decision she would have to make.
Max had loved her enough to endanger his family’s existence and his very own life to save hers. In that one act, he had done something no one had ever done for her, proven that he cared for her more than he cared for his own safety. He had healed her body, even as his own was injured.
She wasn’t even aware that her fingers had moved from the armrest, trembling as they paused in mid-air near his cheek.
A lump formed in her throat. She wished that she could just forget everything he’d told her, and just be content with the fact that finally, after all these years, she finally had her freedom.
She’d thought them kindred, but their differences seemed monumental now, and truthfully, she worried about the unknown.
She thought suddenly of Alex. How had he handled knowing about Isabel? Or had she even told him? Something told her he knew.
The Evans were obviously so much more than normal human beings. Max had said that he had seen things inside of her. Could any of them possibly be content loving mere humans? Could she be content knowing that she couldn’t be to Max what a being more like him might be? That somewhere along the line she might fall short in his eyes? And could she accept what he was without feeling that tiny shiver of fear she felt when she thought about the reality of what he was?
Her hand fell to her lap, as she swiped at her eyes, turning back toward the window. If she couldn’t give herself and her love to Max without reservation, then she couldn’t be with him. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
TBC….
I am off to Wilmington NC for the weekend, so you may not get a new part till Monday.
Part 30
“What are you talking about, Max?” Liz asked warily.
Max turned to look out the window, his heart pounding at what he was about to do. He wondered if it was this hard for Isabel when she told Alex.
“Liz, we’re not like other people,” he said in a low voice, unable to stop the slight tremor that laced it.
“I kind of got that,” she said, nodding.
“It’s more than that. I know you’re probably thinking that I have some sort of abilities,” he said pausing, taking a deep breath.
He closed his eyes.
“There isn’t any other way to say it, so I’m just going to tell you. My family…my father, Michael, me, Isabel…we’re not…completely human,” he said. “Pierce and his brother were part of a Special Unit of the FBI. Its sole reason for existing is to hunt us down.”
Liz was silent, and the seconds seemed like they would drag into minutes.
“So if you’re not…human, then what are you?” she asked, in a tiny voice.
“We are human, in most of the ways that count,” Max said. “My parents were created from human DNA, mixed with the cells of their old forms. They died on our planet, and were brought back, to live here. Their cells were melded with human cells so that they could live here undetected.”
“Your planet?” she asked weakly.
“Yes,” Max said quietly. “Our planet was called Antar. It’s…very far away. My parents were sent here with two protectors, my Uncles. My Uncles were pure Antarian, shape-shifters. Our planet was under attack, and my Uncle Edward was able to get their bodies onto a ship. They thought that once my parents grew, that they could return to Antar to save our people. But they hadn’t foreseen the crash,” Max said.
Max glanced over at Liz, and she was staring out the windshield at the road ahead of them. A car passed on the shoulder, its speed causing the sedan to rock on its frame a bit. It was all too quiet, and Max shifted in nervousness. Now that he’d started to tell her the truth, he had to finish it.
“The ship crashed in 1947,” he said.
“Let me guess, in Roswell, New Mexico,” Liz said in a toneless voice, her eyes unblinking as she continued to stare out the windshield.
“Yes,” Max said. “My Uncle Cail was captured by the United States government. He died. That ship was our only chance of ever seeing our planet again.”
He rested his hand on the steering wheel to try to steady his nerves.
“My Uncle Edward took my parents’ pods to a safe place,” he said.
“Pods,” Liz repeated, shakily.
Max cringed inwardly.
“I know how this must sound,” Max said shaking his head. “I know it sounds crazy, and I’m probably scaring you. But I want you to know the truth, Liz.”
Again she was silent.
“Edward assumed care of my parents, and they grew up fairly normally, and all took jobs. Before my parents married, my mother took a job at a hospital in Colorado. She healed a few children with cancer, and someone saw her do it. The FBI captured her, and they…tortured her,” he said, his voice brimming with emotion. “She escaped, and they came after her. They would have caught her, if your mother hadn’t stopped to pick her up.”
“My mother…knew your mother? She knew what she was?” Liz gasped.
Max nodded.
“I only found out after you left. Your mother stopped and picked my mother up because she saw she was in trouble. FBI agents, one of them Pierce’s brother, chased them and ran them off the road. There was a struggle, and the agents were killed,” he said. “My mother used her…abilities when one of them tried to kill your mother.”
“Your mother helped my mother to escape. But Pierce came after your mother because…”
“Because they killed his brother,” Liz said, her eyes filling with tears, turning her head away from him.
“Yeah,” Max said, ineffectually. “My mother always thought of your mom. She never forgot her. And when she found out what Pierce was doing, she tried to help,” Max said.
A small sob escaped Liz’s throat.
“Why didn’t I ever know about her?” she asked. “Why didn’t she tell me? God, this all makes sense now. She started mentioning “others” when she started having her spells. I didn’t realize…”
“Your mother was the woman…the one who got my Mom into ‘Without a Trace’,” she said
Max nodded.
“She knew what Pierce was capable of,” Max said.
“Pierce killed my Uncle Edward, Michael’s father, the same night he shot me on that beach,” Max said. “I was only six.”
“The woman my parents hired as a nanny was an undercover agent. She betrayed us, and almost killed Isabel. After that, my father never trusted humans again,” Max said. “We moved, changed our names, our appearances.”
“My mother never told my father about Nancy, not until she was dying,” Max continued. “In the beginning it was because it was of the guilt she felt for being captured, and had put them all in danger. Later, it was because of what happened on the beach. But she told him everything when she got sick, and she made my father promise to find the two of you, to protect you, for what your mother did for her.”
“That was why he found you in South America. That was why he offered to marry you, to keep the both of you safe, because he promised her,” Max said, blinking back tears he hadn’t expected to form.
“That was why he said you couldn’t know,” Liz said. “Because if you knew I was David’s daughter, you would have been certain I was working with him, with the FBI.”
“Dad wanted to protect all of us. He set up that elaborate story the two of you concocted to throw me off so that I would come to the conclusion that your “mother”, Sharon Cruz was trying to extort money from my father, through you,” he said.
“And…he was right, if I had known, I would have thought the worst. I don’t even know if I would have believed what I’d seen if he’d shown me when you’d first come,” he said.
“What do you mean, seen?” Liz asked.
Max lowered his eyes.
“My mother left something, sort of a holograph if you will, and that was how I found out the truth,” he said.
“It was only because I saw it in you, when you were running from Carlo the night you killed Frank, and the woman, Lucinda who died-” he said, and she interrupted.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, half fearful, half angry.
“That day in Mesilla, I had reached for your arm at the restaurant, and it just happened. I saw that night you were running from Carlo, only I didn’t know what it was at the time. It was confusing, jumbled. I saw him hit you. I saw…him cut you,” he said, feeling the horror of it all over again. “He would have killed you if hadn’t been so greedy.”
“And you saw what happened with Lucinda then?” she asked, shrinking back.
“No,” he said quietly. “I saw that when I kissed you on the terrace.”
“What, were you reading my mind?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just do that from the beginning? It would have saved all of us the trouble!”
“I can’t read minds!” he said quickly. “I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before. I was always told that connections like that only happen between two beings who…it’s usually when one of us…when a bond is formed.”
“How could you have formed a bond with me? You didn’t even know me, and you sure as hell didn’t trust me,” she said.
“I wanted to,” Max said. “From the minute you got out of that car with my father, I was battling with myself, because you were so beautiful, because I saw something in your eyes…pain like mine. I saw that you had secrets. I saw...that despite the front you put up, you were afraid, and I know that kind of fear,” he said. "I've lived that kind of fear. I don't know why I had this connection to you, Liz. There are some things I'm just as in the dark about as you are."
“Everything has always been black and white for me. I couldn’t afford to let it be anything else. I made it my job to protect my family when Uncle Edward was murdered. That woman would have killed Isabel, and they almost killed me,” he said. “But you…you made me want to believe that there was such a thing as gray. You made me want to believe you, to trust you. And I need to trust you now, Liz. The safety of everyone I love hinges on the secret I’ve kept all of my life, until now, until I told…you.”
“You don’t have to worry,” she said in a curiously flat voice. “Your father took me in when no one else would have. Your…secret is safe.”
Max looked over and his heart plummeted. He saw the trembling of her lower lip, the tears that glistened in her eyes.
“Liz I’m sorry,” he said, reaching over to touch her, his heart breaking when she shied away.
“Don’t,” she said softly. “Please Max. I need time…I need to think about all of this.”
Max withdrew his hand, a part of his heart resigning himself to reality. What else could he have expected from her?
What exactly had he expected?
He’d just told her not only that he was an alien, but his family’s very existence was the reason her life had been a hell for as far back as she could remember.
With a heavy heart, he paused before guiding the car back onto the road.
****
Max pulled into the airport, heading for the rental return, his expression carefully revealing nothing.
Liz knew better than to think that he had brushed her retreat off.
She hadn’t said a word to him since he’d pulled back onto the road, her mind and heart reeling with what he’d told her. She didn’t know how to process all of it, and she didn’t know how to feel about any of it.
While she had already seen that Max had special…abilities, her mind wasn’t really quite prepared to deal with the idea that he was not of this world. He’d said that they were essentially human, and there was a part of her that wanted to accept it. After all, the difference was just a few strands of DNA.
But then there was another part of her that balked at the idea that those strands came from some other part of the universe. It colored everything she thought she knew about Phillip, about all of them.
Her mother knew Diane Evans. It all made so much sense now, the connections, Phillip finding her in South America. Phillip had known all about her and Nancy. He knew almost every detail of their situation. He’d said that he’d decided to help her because of his own dislike of David, but he never told her the reasoning behind that.
Now she knew, and she almost wished that she didn’t.
Diane Evans had crashed into her mother’s life all those years ago, and Nancy had paid for it. And by default, so had she.
David had never given up on finding Diane, but he also wanted to be rid of Liz. Her existence could have ruined everything he’d worked for.
Her mother had never once mentioned Diane by name. The things she’d said as her dementia progressed that had then seemed nonsensical, now suddenly became clear.
She remembered the vague mumbling of a burning car, and the healers from “out there” and killing hands.
Her mother must have been terrified, thrust into that terrifying world merely by being a samaritan. Diane’s life was saved by the kindness of a stranger, a stranger who had no idea what she was getting herself into when she stopped the car to pick up the bloody young girl that late night.
And her mother never told her a thing. Liz had always thought that David had been an abusive boyfriend, but he hadn’t even been that. No, he was something much more monstrous and cruel.
She’d always secretly wished for the day that David would be gone, for she imagined that when that day came, she and her mother might finally have a normal life.
But now it had happened, and nothing was normal. Everything she thought she knew wasn’t as it appeared.
And mixed in with all of that were the undeniable feelings she had developed for Max.
She couldn’t just turn them off. She’d never felt anything like this for anyone. But the Max she thought she had known was so much more than she had ever even contemplated. The simplest and most logical answer was that she should take her mother with her and run. But this was far from simple, and though her head fairly screamed at her to flee, her heart was just as loudly proclaiming that this was what she’d wished for, that the prince she’d always dreamed of was there, that he had saved her, that he loved her. It just turned out that her prince was…an alien. Did it matter? She didn’t know.
Max stopped the car and pulled the keys from the ignition, handing them to the attendant and signing the return release, and Liz noted that he carefully avoided looking at her, his face impassive.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or upset over that observation.
Max made a quick phone call to the pilot.
“The jet’s waiting,” Max said keeping his eyes averted.
Liz followed without a word, torn between wanting to get back to her mother and distancing herself from the situation she now found herself in, and wanting to reach out to Max. This flight or fight reaction had been ingrained in her personality since she was young, and she warred with it even now.
****
Max settled into his seat, buckling the belt across his lap. Liz settled in beside him, still silent.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He hadn’t been able to since he’d started the drive to the airport.
He wasn’t sure that he could bear to see what he feared would be in her eyes, anything ranging from fear, to anger, or even loathing.
He supposed he wouldn’t blame her if she was feeling any of those things. After all, his family was the reason she’d had to live the way that she had. He’d treated her horribly when she’d first come to New Mexico. And all of them had lied to her about what they were.
How ironic it was that he’d been so unwilling to trust her, and now the tables had now turned.
It didn’t matter. She was alive, and he had saved her from Pierce. Whether she ever accepted him or returned his affections again, the fact remained that she was still alive and safe. What he had done for her could never make up for the circumstances she endured because of her mother’s encounter with his, but she was alive.
He closed his eyes, not exactly feigning the weariness he projected. In fact, he felt about a hundred years old. The past few days of trying to find her and the healing had severely drained him.
Though he desperately wanted to talk to her, to answer any questions she might have, to touch her, to hold her, he knew he wouldn’t push her. She’d been forced to do too many things in her young life, and above anything he wanted to honor her newfound freedom. Whatever decisions she made from here on out would be hers, and he would accept them, even if it tore his heart out to do so.
The jet taxied down the runway, cleared for takeoff, and he felt the slight bump of the wheels as they moved across the tarmac, the whirring of the pre-flight equipment check muffled by the rising noise of the engine.
He hadn’t thought of anything else but saving Liz’s life. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of what would happen afterward. Now that he’d told her, he felt a certain sense of relief. There were no longer any secrets between either of them.
He admitted to himself that on some level he’d been afraid to tell Liz the truth not only because the safety of his family was at risk, but also because he didn’t think he could bear her rejection or fear of him.
She hadn’t run, but then she had pulled away from him too. He could almost feel the distance between them now. She was sitting right next to him, but she might as well have been a million miles away.
She’d destroyed the walls he’d erected around his heart, but he’d already started to rebuild them for his own self-preservation.
If she decided to leave, then he wouldn’t stop her. She had a right to a normal life, a life free of hiding.
She deserved that. It was what his mother had wanted for both her and Nancy, and he would honor that last wish, both for her and for Liz, even if it broke his own heart to do it.
******
Liz stared at the small porthole that looked over the landscape below. They’d been in the air an hour and her mind hadn’t stopped replaying everything that had happened over and over again.
She chanced turning her head to look at Max. She sighed softly, taking in his haggard appearance.
She’d known he’d been awake for the first half hour, but now his chest rose and fell in an even staccato, signaling that he had in fact gone to sleep.
It gave her the opportunity to look at him once more, without fear that he’d think she was studying him like some specimen in a jar.
His head had fallen to rest against the seat, facing her, and her eyes filled with unbidden tears.
His haggard countenance clearly spoke of what he’d been through since she’d disappeared from the house that rainy night.
Dark smudges painted the skin under his eyes, evidence of lack of sleep. His skin had lost its healthy olive glow, replaced with a paler ashen color. Even in sleep, she could see the tension written across his features, the slight tightness of his mouth, the small furrow in his brow.
But despite this, her heart quickened merely looking at him, remembering what it was like to be in his arms, remembering the tantalizing press of his lips against her own, a mere hint of the promise of what it would be like were he to take it further.
She shivered involuntarily, almost feeling the heat of his fingers against her skin, the slide of his tongue at her lips, the hardness of his body pressed against hers.
She knew that to be loved by Max Evans would be to be loved completely, fiercely, and without reservation. He did not give his heart lightly, very much like herself.
She now knew she held his heart in her hands despite this, and she was terrified of the consequences of any decision she would have to make.
Max had loved her enough to endanger his family’s existence and his very own life to save hers. In that one act, he had done something no one had ever done for her, proven that he cared for her more than he cared for his own safety. He had healed her body, even as his own was injured.
She wasn’t even aware that her fingers had moved from the armrest, trembling as they paused in mid-air near his cheek.
A lump formed in her throat. She wished that she could just forget everything he’d told her, and just be content with the fact that finally, after all these years, she finally had her freedom.
She’d thought them kindred, but their differences seemed monumental now, and truthfully, she worried about the unknown.
She thought suddenly of Alex. How had he handled knowing about Isabel? Or had she even told him? Something told her he knew.
The Evans were obviously so much more than normal human beings. Max had said that he had seen things inside of her. Could any of them possibly be content loving mere humans? Could she be content knowing that she couldn’t be to Max what a being more like him might be? That somewhere along the line she might fall short in his eyes? And could she accept what he was without feeling that tiny shiver of fear she felt when she thought about the reality of what he was?
Her hand fell to her lap, as she swiped at her eyes, turning back toward the window. If she couldn’t give herself and her love to Max without reservation, then she couldn’t be with him. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
TBC….