Unbreakable - A Beautiful Lie (AU M/L ADULT) COMPLETE 5/5/17 + A/N 5/5/19

[max and liz believer]

You're just waiting to post until my birthday... sneaky girl! I'm going to take that as a hint that the next chapter has lots of M/L lovin'.

*ahum*

Lots of M/L lovin... Weeell....

[Morning Dreamgirl]

The awkward reply just lends credence to my assumption. You know, since writing them isn't your favorite part. Even though you're wickedly good at it.

So I shall eat an early chocolate cupcake (or three) and eagerly await the next steamy chapter. *chews happily*



(A girl can dream, right?)

[max and liz believer]

The awkward reply just lends credence to my assumption. You know, since writing them isn't your favorite part. Even though you're wickedly good at it.

So I shall eat an early chocolate cupcake (or three) and eagerly await the next steamy chapter. *chews happily*



(A girl can dream, right?)

*laughs*

You crack me up

A girl certainly can (and should) dream <3

[max and liz believer]

Helen (roswelllostcause)

What the hell? Who is is this that just killed Diane?!

The enemy. An alien.

Thank you for the feedback!


Carolyn (keepsmiling7) - Thank you for the feedback!


Natalie36 - Thank you


Eve (begonia9508)

And I am totally enthralled at Liz's Vision of the Future, because, it is a certainly a vision she had - or even a dream - with Diane, who is having her head cuts by an awful Alien?... And which came out (for me!) directly from a nightmare...

It's a vision? You're sure?

Thank you so much for the feedback!


mela3

Whoa! I loved this part.

Thank you

They need to practice blocking with Liz, if that is an alien power.

Yeah. She knows how to, but she has to do it actively, meaning that it's not something she can do when she's asleep and that's when Tess visits her.

I can't imagine how unhinged Max is going to be now. This will truly affect his ability to concentrate on the mission, since he is the most "emotional" of the aliens.

Yes, possibly


From ONE ZERO SIX:

Before the door completely closed, she announced loudly, the smile clearly audible in her voice, ”Found you!”

With the thump of the door closing, I heard her scream.

With trembling fingers, I turned the small key in the lock and took a step back, staring at the closed door. Only a second passed before I realized that it couldn’t be her scream. It was too terrified, too raw.

And with a jolt, it brought me out of sleep.

Straight into a real-life nightmare.

Before I saw anything else, before I registered anything else, I saw Diane. I saw the stranger behind her, the thick arm wrapped around her middle, and then the desperate look in Diane’s eyes.

Next I saw her husband getting to his feet and Dresden cautiously approaching from the other side.

The stranger hissed like a snake, his human face removed, exposing his alien face: the lower part of his face lacking mouth, the upper part containing two black eyes, and his massive stature towering behind Diane’s body.

The fear in her face was accentuated by how small she looked in comparison, restrained by the large monster, his body completely covering the door he was standing in front of.

”She’s human, don’t-” Mr. Evans started, his voice sounding nothing like I was used to.

Terrified.

The alien quickly wrapped his long bony fingers around Diane’s thin throat and before anyone could do anything about it, her skin beneath and around his fingers turned red and she started screaming. A scream that broke everything in me. A scream I will never forget.

It only lasted a second. I sat frozen while melted skin and thickened fresh blood started trickling over the alien’s hands, and with a large snap that silenced everything, Diane’s head was severed from the rest of her body.

____________________________________

ONE ZERO SEVEN

Maria let out a blood-curling scream, breaking the second of silence. All I could do was stare at the head of Max’s mother, discarded on the floor.

My brain had stopped functioning. Everything had happened so fast, so close to the dream I had just had, that I for a second was convinced that it was all a dream.

I must be dreaming. I must still be dreaming.

But then Mr. Evans roared, grabbing the limp arm of his lifeless wife and pulling her out of her murderer’s grip. As soon as Diane’s body was pulled into her husband’s, Dresden, Max and Michael in unison fired energy blasts at the intruder, the combination of the blasts enough to have the alien disintegrate into a fine dust.

Before the dust had settled, Dresden spun round the doorframe of the entrance to the room with his arm raised in front of him, to see if anyone else was there.

I couldn’t feel my heart anymore. I was still waiting to wake up.

”Mom…”

The broken sobbed whisper came from Isabel, who was stumbling to her feet and almost drunkenly hurrying up to her mother. It was painful to watch her confusion in deciding where to go. Her mother was in pieces.

Max had already left my side, running forward and - seemingly without acknowledging what exactly he was doing - picked up his mother’s severed head and brought it to his father.

”We can fix her,” he told Mr. Evans hoarsely.

Maria was crying hysterically next to me and in shock I slowly reached out and placed my arm across her shoulders, pulling her into my side. Her tears were hot against my skin when she turned her face into the curve of my neck.

”No,” Mr. Evans said, giving Max a slight push away from him. ”She’s gone.”

His voice was garbled and unrecognizable, while his stance signaled strength. He would not break down. Not now.

Max pushed his mother’s head towards his father again, the scene looking morbid, and I could hear the tears in his voice now as he desperately cried, ”Using enough energy we can-”

Mr. Evans slapped Max. ”No!”

Paying Max no further attention, Mr. Evans tenderly placed Diane’s broken body on the floor and took his wife’s severed head from Max’s hands, placing it on the floor as close as possible to where it had been attached just a minute ago.

Michael stepped forward and grabbed Max by both arms, pulling him backwards.

Mr. Evans looked back at his son, his eyes blazing with anger. ”She’s dead.”

Max resisted Michael’s hold with everything in him, his movements turning more and more frenzied as he tried to get loose.

I squeezed my eyes closed and mumbled to myself, ”Wake up wake up wake up.”

”She can’t be dead,” I heard Isabel sob loudly and then wail, ”Noooo! She can’t be dead. Mom! Mom!”

I looked into Diane’s unresponsive eyes. Even from the distance, I could see the enlarged pupils and the mild clouding of her corneas. The eyes of a dead person.

”We can’t fix this,” Mr. Evans said, echoing my own distant thoughts.

At Dresden’s authoritative bark, I opened my eyes again, ”We have to leave. Now!”

I didn’t hesitate. They had just killed a very loved person of our group. We didn’t have time to delay.

”Come on, Maria,” I told my friend and got to my feet. ”We have to move.”

Her strong sobs didn’t lessen, but she followed my instructions without debate.

”We’ll leave through the other exit,” Dresden hurriedly instructed. ”Leave everything behind.”

I heard sounds from outside the opened door, before Dresden turned around and slammed it shut. Placing his hand over the lock, he melted it, before he took a hold of Alex and told him to, ”Get Isabel!”

Grabbing Maria’s hand, I pulled her towards the alternative exit, looking over my shoulder to make sure that Max was coming too and being relieved to see that Michael was forcibly pulling him across the room.

Alex was struggling to get Isabel to come along with him, but her need to not abandon her mother was stronger than Alex’s muscles.

Soon enough, Mr. Evans left his wife’s side to help Alex transport Isabel.

As if a spell had been broken, Max forcibly stopped thinking about what had just happened to his mother the second we left the room. Like closing a door. I heard him arguing with Michael, convincing him that he was okay, and then he was next to me.

He grabbed my free hand tightly, giving Maria a glance over - to assure that she was okay (as okay as she could get) - before he looked at me. We never stopped running and I couldn’t fully take in his expression. But when I saw the wetness on his cheeks from his tears, I grew aware of my own tears.

But I couldn’t think about that just yet. I couldn’t think about the fact that both of our mothers were dead. I couldn’t let the horrific death of Max’s mother feed into the memory of my own mother’s death. It would cripple me.

And that was just what our enemies wanted.

Instead I squeezed his hand and sent him as much love as possible through the connection. His pain was hitting me in almost unbearable proportions, but sadly enough I recognized the pain from grieving my own mother. I never thought I would benefit from that grief, but right then I realized that it had - in a sick way - prepared me for this. Stopped me from being bulldozed by what had just happened.

Otherwise I might be like Maria right now: stumbling along under the weight of her own wrenching loud sobs.

The sobs and wails echoed off the walls as we ran further down the corridor. They came from Maria and Isabel. The rest of us were disturbingly quiet.

When we reached the thick door that would lead out of the underground bunker and into the underground dirt tunnels, I remembered my dream. Max should have seen it, but with everything that had happened, I couldn’t be sure if Diane’s murderer had entered the room just as my dream had been underway, distracting Max.

Either way, I needed to inform him that, ”Tess is here.”

His steps slowed and I adapted my pace to his, making Maria barrel into my side.

Dresden got the door open and was ushering people through, into the unknown darkness on the other side, while Max came to a complete stop and looked into my eyes. He was searching my brain for answers, and with the dream at the front of my mind right then he easily found what he needed.

Looking both troubled and worried, Max turned to Dresden and gained his attention by placing a hand on the leader’s shoulder.

Dresden distractedly looked at Max and said hurriedly, ”Just go on through, Max.”

Max inconspicuously shook his head and stated firmly, ”Theresa Carter is here.”

Dresden paused in the act of ushering my father through the door and slowly turned to Max. His face was unreadable, but his body had gone rigid.

Answering the unspoken question that hung in the air, Max said, ”She visited Liz’s dream right before the attack, stating that she had ’found’ her.”

”Right,” Dresden said slowly, his gaze flickering around the remaining members (Maria, Max, Mr. Evans and I) and moving over the opened door. ”That’s not good.”

He rapidly pointed towards the door and told the remaining members of the group to go through.

My stomach clenched and my chest tightened up as my nostrils were filled with the murky smell of damp dirt. The smell brought back memories of the hole in Max’s abdomen. It brought back memories of blood and death.

I gagged, just barely stopping myself from throwing up. Max squeezed my hand tighter.

”Alright, listen up,” Dresden said after closing the door and sealing it shut after him.

I looked at the seal he had just made and wondered why such a seal hadn’t been done before so that the alien wouldn’t have been able to come in and murder Diane. Or maybe it had been done, but had failed at keeping them out. If that was the case, why bother with doing it now?

Only the occasional hiccuped sob from Isabel was heard as Dresden started talking. I looked over at her, realizing that she was seeking comfort in Alex’s arms. He had wrapped both of his arms around her trembling body, hugging her tightly.

”There are reasons to suspect that Tess is close by. Which complicates things further. Be suspicious and objective about what you see from now on. If she gets close to you she might manipulate your mind and make you see things that are not real. If something seems odd, out of place, too extreme; use caution. It might not be true. Trust your gut feeling. It’ll be the only thing that has a chance of guiding you if Tess hijacks your mind. She might be clever enough to try and turn you all against each other. Don’t believe it. We’re working together now, right? So if someone seems to have turned against you, it might be a trick.” He took a deep breath. ”Do. Not. Feed. Into. It.”

There was a second of silence before Isabel’s voice, thick with tears, croaked, ”Maybe she already did it. Maybe mom dying was all a trick-”

Isabel instantly got the hopes up in the group, while I felt a twinge of horror at having left Diane behind. What if she was actually okay? What if her death actually was a trick of the mind?

But Mr. Evans crushed that belief and there was no mistaken that he would have wished for Isabel’s hopeful theory to be true. ”Tess is strong, but she’s not strong enough to manipulate so many minds into seeing the same thing at the same time. Because you all saw it, didn’t you?”

I nodded mutely and felt that heavy grief brutally suffocate the momentary shred of hope when the rest of the group joined in with nods of affirmation.

A broken sob tore over Isabel’s lips, but there was no more after that. She swallowed harshly and nodded, mostly to herself. My heart ached when Alex pressed a slow gentle kiss to Isabel’s forehead and she automatically pressed into his body.

”Okay,” Dresden said. His voice was incredibly jaded. ”Stay together unless you are ordered otherwise. Look out for each other.”

”We’re about 4 miles from Command’s location,” Mr. Evans said evenly. ”We might not have a chance to rest going there. There is a high risk that we have to go into battle immediately when we get there or most likely before then. We will be traveling underground the whole time. We will not light up the tunnels if not needed. Traveling in darkness gives us better protection.”

That’s when we heard the sounds on the other side of the closed door. My heart plummeted to my stomach and my deep gasp collided with Maria’s. The alien murderer had not been alone.

Dresden lowered his voice into a hissing whisper, ”Okay. Go!”

We scampered off, like frightened mice.

The tunnels were dark and frightening. Our nerves were on high alert, jumping at any possible sound that was out of the ordinary. For the most part, we only heard the sound of our own footsteps and nervous breaths. But occasionally, I thought I heard echoes of far-away laughter. But maybe it was just my stressed-out brain making things up.

Just like the tunnels leading up to the underground bunker where we had spent the last six days, the tunnels leading away from that bunker had sporadic exits. During the first stretch, those exits had doors, but the further we got, they were just holes in the densely packed dirt walls. I didn’t like those exits one bit. Every time we got closer to one, I expected someone to be hiding there waiting to spring out at us.

To keep the fear at bay, Max was talking to me through the connection. Even though it was 99% strategy and going through abilities we had practiced, there was that 1% of comfort and love declarations. He didn’t seem to want to linger too long on those ’subjects’ though. I understood rather early on that letting how much he loved me sink in too much would put him in a fragile place of just wanting to take one of those many exits with me and have us escape what was waiting for us at the end of the tunnels. It made him feel vulnerable and lacking control.

It was all becoming glaringly obvious that we were about to risk our lives. It had become frighteningly real for Max the moment his mother had been killed. There was no way to prepare yourself for how quickly she had been robbed of her life. Max wouldn’t let himself get sucked in by the very real fear of the same thing happening to me.

At one point during that tunnel marathon I had a silent discussion with Max about Maria. Wasn’t she supposed to be hidden away?

But everything had happened too soon and there had been no time for neither my father nor Maria to be hidden. We decided to discuss it with Dresden at a time when it wouldn’t frighten Maria too much. She needed to calm herself down enough from the trauma of seeing Diane become beheaded with someone’s bare hands before we could spring on her the plan to hide her away somewhere. Where she wouldn’t have any alien powers to protect her, only the feeble fortune of a good hiding place and her ability to stay as quiet as possible.

Apparently, Dresden had already thought of this.

Through a communication device no larger than an USB flash drive, Dresden was in contact with other members of the rebellion. The device was clearly alien, being made invisible at will and clearly visible and present when it would physically change hands. Dresden kept it attached to the top of his jacket and his mind processes would activate it when he was being called for by his allies. It also functioned just about everywhere, which was especially important when traveling underground.

We could hear him communicate in a language foreign to me throughout our run. Max had taught me some words, but a lot of the words spoken by Dresden was not known to me and almost not known to Max. Max only knew basic Antarian.

This meant that our leader had arranged for Maria’s asylum long before I had started worrying about it. Right around the time when we had escaped into the tunnels.

Unfortunately, this also meant that I would have no time to discuss this with Maria before it actually would happen. Maria already knew of the original plan, but I personally knew that Maria wasn’t all that keen about that plan. She wanted to stay with the group.

”We are closing in on a meeting point,” Dresden basically warned us, saying the first words to the group in about 30 minutes. I called it a warning since Dresden probably said it out loud just so that the people meeting us wouldn’t scare us to death. We were all as tense as a cat in a dog pound filled with starving malicious dogs.

”We will be splitting the group up,” Dresden continued and my heart grew ice cold.

What did he mean by that? We were stronger together. Right? That’s what had been drummed into us.

His words had us all come to a halt and my grip on Max’s hand tightened at the same time as his grip on mine.

Before we had found words to question or protest, Dresden continued, ”Williams will take care of Maria-”

”Whoa whoa whoa,” Michael said loudly, putting his hands up. ”That won’t happen.”

Maria’s hold on my hand had loosened and my glance on her face took in her sudden paleness.

”She can’t take part of this battle,” Dresden said calmly.


Even though Michael had, just hours before, emphasized how wrong it would be for Maria to be play an active and fighting role in an alien war, he was right now opting for Maria to stay with us. ”She won’t be safe.”

”I’m not going anywhere,” Maria said, her voice a weak version of what it usually was.

I didn’t say anything. I was torn. I just wanted Maria to be safe. But I wasn’t sure what route was best suited to accomplish that.

If she didn’t participate, she was less likely to get hurt just by not being in the midst of everything. But if she was stowed away, what protection would she get? The best men would be needed in the war. They would not be appointed to protect a human teenager.

”If she goes, I’m going too,” Michael declared firmly.

All eyes were on Michael at his statement.

Max was the first to say what was probably on everyone’s (except Michael’s) mind, ”Don’t be stupid, Michael. You’re needed in the battle.”

”Must I remind you,” Mr. Evans said, his voice still worn and oddly unrecognizable from the events earlier, ”that you are appointed to protect my son? It would be-”

Before Max’s father had finished what he was saying, I knew it was a bad decision to bring their archaic laws into this. Michael’s eyes flashed with anger and he opened his mouth to say a thing or two, at which point I interrupted.

Addressing Dresden, I fought to keep my emotions under control and asked, ”Will you leave Maria alone to fend for herself or will she be protected?”

The expression in Dresden’s eyes was soothing and reminded me of the magnificent color and size of his true (alien) eyes behind that human mask. ”Dan Williams will take care of her.”

Michael’s one-worded opinion on this was final. ”No.”

”You have no say in this,” Mr. Evans said with cold impatience.

”Is he good? Can he protect her alone?” I asked, curling my fingers tighter around Maria’s hand.

”He’s good,” Dresden answered simply, his tone telling us that his reply marked the end of the discussion.

But Michael wasn’t sensitive to those indirect ends of discussions. Instead he looked ready to pop. Like a boiler ready to explode. His face was turning red, even in the darkness of the tunnel, and his eyes were growing larger and more distinct, taking over his face. It looked like he was fighting with himself to remain where he was and not run up to Maria.

”He’s not good enough,” Michael pushed out between clenching jaws. ”Fucking Williams.”

My throat was getting drier by the second and I forcibly tried to swallow past my heavy tongue.

Should I trust Dresden or Michael?

Michael obviously knew who this Williams was. And he didn’t seem overly impressed with the man’s capabilities.

They’re not gonna waste their best men on protecting Maria, Max told me grimly through the connection, confirming what I had myself suspected but hadn’t wanted to believe.

I felt cold all over, magnified by the feel of Maria’s cold hand in mine. It felt as if I was going to lose her. Like the hold on her hand right now was the only thing keeping her alive. As soon as our hands would separate, her life would be hanging by a thin thread.

”We’re losing men by the minute,” Mr. Evans said darkly, his voice having dropped almost a whole octave. ”We don’t have time to select a man of your preference, Mr. Guerin.”

”We should all be grateful that we are able to spare someone to look after Ms. DeLuca,” Dresden filled in.

I’m sure it was not supposed to come off as so cold and indifferent, but the words instilled a streak of hopelessness in me. It was becoming very clear that we were all hanging on by a thread by now.

We were losing this war. And keeping one human girl safe from aliens was certainly not very high on the priority list.

To be frank, their only reason to keep Maria safe right now might only be to keep me sane and thus keep my connection to Max intact, ensuring their own survival.

I looked over at Maria and met her frightened eyes.

She might not be much to the aliens, but to me, Maria was family.

At the thought, my eyes moved to my father. He was disappearing into the background. The only times he became noticeable was when he was alone with me or Maria. On those occasions he became more like himself. But in all honesty, my dad hadn’t truly been himself since my mother had been murdered.

I wondered now, catching his eyes from across the small circle we had formed, if he was only surviving because of me. If he was only keeping my mood up in training, making sure that I ate and slept, and running with me through underground tunnels, in order to make sure that I survived. Looking into his shiny tired eyes, which lacked that sparkle of the person who used to be my father, I wondered if he was already dead. If he had died that day when my mother died. I wondered if this whole alien business had robbed him of everything normal and if he would ever be able to find his way back to himself.

With his lack of active participation, I realized that everyone in the group had forgotten about him. He had formed a small group with Diane earlier - them being both human parents - but now Diane had been killed just a couple of feet from my father. With Diane’s death he had all but faded into inconspicuousness.

”What about my dad?” I asked, before the lid on the boiler that was imitating Michael would shoot off. ”Will he go with Maria?”

Dresden cleared his throat, almost looking embarrassed for a second (making me suspect that he had indeed forgotten about my father), and glanced over at dad before answering, ”Yes.”

”Don’t worry, Ella,” my father said quietly, his voice as comforting and warm as I always remembered it to be. My heart trembled. ”I’ll look after Maria.”

I swallowed back the tears. A few feet from me, Michael was calming down, his anger possibly interrupted by the prospect of Maria not being alone with Williams. Not that my father could do much in ways of protecting Maria, but it must have comforted Michael some - just like it did me - that Maria would be with someone she knew very well.

I was relieved by the idea of my father being hidden from the battle. Without the will to fight for his own survival, he would not survive in an alien conflict. Knowing what Maria had learnt during her stay with us in the bunker, Maria was most likely the one to protect my father if needed, not the other way around.

”Yes,” Dresden declared. ”Maria and Jeffrey will go with Williams. The rest of us will continue.”

I swallowed and nodded. Gauging the other’s reactions, they seemed complacent. We all knew that we were running out of options and that this was probably the best solution.

I squeezed Maria’s hand and met her eyes. She gave me a weak smile, which I tried to return, when my father surprised me by stepping up to me and wrapping me in a tight hug.

Goodbye.

This was goodbye.


TBC...

[L-J-L 76]

Wow Can't believe Diane is dead. Poor Liz she doesn't want Maria or her father to leave her. But Jeff and Maria need to be protected and that is understandable. Oh no the crazy bitch Tess found them and now they are on the run again.

From:
L-J-L 76

[Roswelllostcause]

Poor Diane! I hope that she didn't feel any pain as she died. I hope that Maria and Jeff will be safe. But it is far to dangerous for them to go into battle. Oh I so hope that crazy ass bitch Tess fries!



Helen

[begonia9508]

Poor Diane and Family! What's a awful death...
For the time being, it seems that they have not really lot of hope that they will win this war...

But I just hope that - in the end - it will be the case! Hope never die, no?

Thanks EVE

[keepsmiling7]

It's hard to get past Diane's horrible death.
Thanks,
Carolyn

[Natalie36]

you have left me speechless this is so good

[max and liz believer]

Hi everyone!

So sorry for the delay. As you are all aware of, Christmas is coming up and it's been a bit hectic. Both for me and my editor. To try and make up for my absence, this chapter is slightly longer than my average chapters.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting! <3

L-J-L 76

Poor Liz she doesn't want Maria or her father to leave her. But Jeff and Maria need to be protected and that is understandable.

Liz is very conflicted about that. A bad case of "you're damned if you do and damned if you don't".

Oh no the crazy bitch Tess found them and now they are on the run again.

*clears throat and looks a bit guilty*

Thank you so much for the feedback! It's good to "see" you


Helen (roswelllostcause)

Poor Diane! I hope that she didn't feel any pain as she died.

Unfortunately, it was not the quickest and less painful of deaths...

Oh I so hope that crazy ass bitch Tess fries!

Don't we all?

Thank you so much for the feedback!

Eve (begonia9508)

Poor Diane and Family! What's a awful death...
For the time being, it seems that they have not really lot of hope that they will win this war...

You're right. It does seem pretty bad right now...

Hope is the last thing that leaves the human being after all...

Thank you so much for the feedback!


Carolyn (keepsmiling7)

It's hard to get past Diane's horrible death.

That's completely understandable

Thank you for the feedback!


Natalie36

you have left me speechless this is so good

Thank you



From ONE ZERO SEVEN:

I looked over at Maria and met her frightened eyes.

She might not be much to the aliens, but to me, Maria was family.

At the thought, my eyes moved to my father. He was disappearing into the background. The only times he became noticeable was when he was alone with me or Maria. On those occasions he became more like himself. But in all honesty, my dad hadn’t truly been himself since my mother had been murdered.

I wondered now, catching his eyes from across the small circle we had formed, if he was only surviving because of me. If he was only keeping my mood up in training, making sure that I ate and slept, and running with me through underground tunnels, in order to make sure that I survived. Looking into his shiny tired eyes, which lacked that sparkle of the person who used to be my father, I wondered if he was already dead. If he had died that day when my mother died. I wondered if this whole alien business had robbed him of everything normal and if he would ever be able to find his way back to himself.

With his lack of active participation, I realized that everyone in the group had forgotten about him. He had formed a small group with Diane earlier - them being both human parents - but now Diane had been killed just a couple of feet from my father. With Diane’s death he had all but faded into inconspicuousness.

”What about my dad?” I asked, before the lid on the boiler that was imitating Michael would shoot off. ”Will he go with Maria?”

Dresden cleared his throat, almost looking embarrassed for a second (making me suspect that he had indeed forgotten about my father), and glanced over at dad before answering, ”Yes.”

”Don’t worry, Ella,” my father said quietly, his voice as comforting and warm as I always remembered it to be. My heart trembled. ”I’ll look after Maria.”

I swallowed back the tears. A few feet from me, Michael was calming down, his anger possibly interrupted by the prospect of Maria not being alone with Williams. Not that my father could do much in ways of protecting Maria, but it must have comforted Michael some - just like it did me - that Maria would be with someone she knew very well.

I was relieved by the idea of my father being hidden from the battle. Without the will to fight for his own survival, he would not survive in an alien conflict. Knowing what Maria had learnt during her stay with us in the bunker, Maria was most likely the one to protect my father if needed, not the other way around.

”Yes,” Dresden declared. ”Maria and Jeffrey will go with Williams. The rest of us will continue.”

I swallowed and nodded. Gauging the other’s reactions, they seemed complacent. We all knew that we were running out of options and that this was probably the best solution.

I squeezed Maria’s hand and met her eyes. She gave me a weak smile, which I tried to return, when my father surprised me by stepping up to me and wrapping me in a tight hug.

Goodbye.

This was goodbye.

____________________________________

ONE ZERO EIGHT

An hour later I could still feel the phantom pressure of Maria’s hand in mine, like a whispered memory of her warmth and presence. I was relieved that she wasn’t with me right now, hoping that she was safer wherever she was, but her absence left a hole in my heart and put an ache in the center of my abdomen.

It was surprising that I was aware of those sensations, that I was even thinking about it, while I was sitting in a small room with my heart beating loudly in my ears. Maybe it was because I was scared out of my wits. Maybe it was because I was squeezing my eyes tightly closed against the intermittent flashes blinking from the crack underneath the closed door. Maybe the reason to why I was thinking of Maria right now was because I was wishing I was somewhere else - anywhere else.

While trying to deny the reality I was in, I was thinking of late nights spent eating ice cream out of a shared ice cream container. I was thinking of fits of laughter that made your stomach hurt and tears run down your cheeks. Of gossiping about boys. Of binge watching tv-shows. Of making fun of reality shows and being horrified about toddlers with fake eyelashes and teeth prosthesis in beauty contests. Of laying awake into the early hours of the morning talking during sleepovers.

Those memories seemed so far away right now. While previously the alien world had appeared surreal, those memories of a normal childhood and teenage existence now seemed unreal and impossible. The world was backwards.

Max and I had been separated from the rest of the group in the chaos of smoke, enemies and screams that we had abruptly been thrown into when entering one of the underground areas where the battle was very real and present.

I hadn’t seen the blast that had seared the outer contour of my right arm, but it had been enough to throw me backwards against the wall. If Max hadn’t been holding so tightly onto my other hand, I might have been separated from him as well.

Something had been on fire. The smoke was thick enough to cause my eyes to sting and my lungs to struggle in receiving air. There was no chance of seeing anything in the smoke, and I’m pretty sure that no one had actually aimed at me. Instead I had just been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

At least the pain of my burning skin was enough to momentarily distract me from the flashbacks of being so close to fire. The memories of having been fatally burnt. I would have died at the hands of fire had not Max saved me that day. A day that seemed forever ago.

”Fuck!” I heard Max exclaim, pulling on my uninjured arm to get me closer to the human-alien shield his body provided.

Unaware of what we were walking into, we were late at getting the shield up, failing in protecting me from getting hurt. But the protective field was activated before I had registered my burnt skin and had understood what had happened.

Max’s conscience was already telling him - rather harshly - that he had already managed to fail me.

And we had barely gotten started.

”I’m fine,” I mumbled, pressing my teeth tightly together at the burning sensation of my skin.

He couldn’t hear me over the noise of our surroundings, and even if he had, he probably wouldn’t have taken my assurance seriously.

To be accurate, I was not fine. But I was not incapacitated either. Far from it. It only took a couple of seconds for the shock of having been shot to disintegrate, but by then, we had already lost the others.

Max tugged on my left arm. ”Come on!”

The air was more breathable inside the protective cocoon. I had no idea of how it worked, but maybe the foggy barrier protected against the large smoke particles somehow. It did not, however, help us find our way.

A blast hit the field and I instinctively jumped as it exploded with a golden light against the shimmering protective wall five inches from our faces.

”We’re safe,” Max hurriedly assured me, when my feet froze for a moment.

They had tried to prepare me for this. They had trained my body, trained my mind, taught me a foreign language, informed me of their culture and what horrendous things they could do to humans, and even shown me their true alien form.

Still, I was not prepared.

Nothing would have been able to prepare me for the reality of this civil war between two different groups of aliens.

A bleeding face of someone I didn’t recognize appeared to the right in my field of vision and I instinctively raised my arm and did what I had been trained to do; I rapidly tapped into the connection, assimilated energy and released it at the stranger.

Since our protective field was created by our own energy, energy blasts always went through the shield, the energetic wall recognizing the blast as self, which meant that the blast hit the man in the head, instantly demolishing a good part of the left side of his face.

I screamed as I saw it happen, the reality of what I had just done shocking me, and my hands started shaking violently as I watched the man fall forward, his legs bending at the knees, his hands not supporting his fall as he collapsed face down on the concrete floor.

I had killed him.

”He was the enemy,” Max was quick to tell me, a mixture of his feelings slipping through the connection. He already knew what would be my next question.

Had I killed the right man?

It was not like in school, like in dodge ball, when people of the opposite them wore different team colors. I would not be able to easily tell which ones were on our side, since I didn’t know these people.

Well, that was not entirely true. ’Our people’ were supposed to have a mark on the neck. I had it. Max had it. The Antarians had manufactured it into their skin through manipulation of cells, while mine was drawn on by permanent marker. The mark was so that we could identify each other. But no one told me about the possibility of fires and obscuring smoke. And I hadn’t thought of injuries possibly hiding the team label.

To complicate things further, I had been told not to trust the marks too much. Even though they had an intricate design enemies could copy them and put them on their own necks.

”He was going to kill us,” Max added, guiding me forward. Or backwards. Or sideways. I wasn’t really sure. I stared over my shoulder, down at the man I had just killed - lying still on the floor - until I no longer could see him through the thick veil of smoke.

There were orders and instructions being screamed all around me, but I rarely saw the people responsible for the call-outs. It was like the voices were coming out of loudspeakers, giving Max and I the illusion that we were completely alone.

The orders were a mixture of English and Antarian. I presumed they were from both sides. The commands ranged from instructions to move in one specific direction, to duck, to fire, to take cover, to personal exclamations along the lines of ”What the fuck are you doing?” and ”You’re with them, you son of a bitch?!”

This was obviously a very personal war. Which made it all the more horrible. It meant that the individuals firing blasts and killing each other all knew one another. It was not about killing strangers. It was about killing your own kind.

We had moved as fast as was possible through the smoke until Max had found a door and guided us into the small room where we were now. Max had finally let go of my hand, had melted the lock on the door and pushed on the top of my shoulders to get me to sit down. Next he had crouched in front of me and groaned with frustrated concern when he had been able to fully inspect my burnt arm before quickly healing it. The relief of suddenly having normal, painless skin was as amazing as it was sudden.

He had looked deeply into my eyes at that point, his gaze almost probing. He hadn’t ask me anything. Hadn’t vocally checked if I was okay. Because he already knew the answer. I would never be ’okay’ as long as I was in our current situation. But he still needed to make sure that I was at least functioning. That I wasn’t shutting down.

Our survival depended on it. Just as much as Max needed to be present for us to make it through this, I needed to keep it together to keep the connection working.

After searching my face for a second or two, I guess he found the answer he was looking for, because he slowly pressed his lips against mine, his kiss prolonged and still, as if he was resting in the mere warmth of our lips touching, before he pulled back and took a seat next to me.

He was seated closest to the door, with his back resting against the well. But his body was tense and ready to fight. His face was hard and emotionless - probably what one might call a ’Warrior Face’ - and he was staring straight ahead, seemingly disconnected from reality.

But I heard him strategize in his head. I heard him assimilate one plan after the other now that we had been separated from the group.

That’s when my mind had started to drift. To Maria. To normalcy.

Max was doing what made him feel in control and feel safe. In other words; thinking of war strategies and how to keep me out of the worst of it.

I was doing what I needed to do to be in control and feel safe. Thinking of home and family.

”Okay,” he interrupted my thoughts and turned to me.

The darkness was thick around his head, and the smoke had irritated his voice enough so that I could barely recognize it as he spoke, but the determined expression in his eyes was hard to miss.

His hand whispered across my cheek, tempting me to close my eyes at the sensation, but I struggled to keep my irritated eyes open to not miss anything he had to say. ”It’s going to be harder than we anticipated for you to see who’s on our side and who’s not. So I’ll be telling you through the bond who is a threat and who can be trusted.”

Max knew a lot of these people by appearance. I didn’t.

”Unless they are behaving threateningly - like the one you just shot - await my decision on them, okay?”

I nodded. The smoke had a heavy headache spread at the front of my skull.

”Isn’t this all a moot point though?” I croaked, my vocal cords damaged by the smoke inhalation. ”Can’t the purists assume any shape or person?”

Max shook his head. ”In a way, yes. Momentarily they can, but usually it demands a lot of energy. They usually stick to their original human shapes, since they have become a part of them and are not making them use too much energy. They don’t have to constantly think about keeping their facade up, which is something they have to do if they assume a new shape. For them to take on a new shape in a situation like this, they would have to be desperate for that solution since they would be risking their own survival by doing so.”

I thought of Sean shapeshifting into Max when I had been held in captivity. The memory of how relieved and happy I had been when he had walked through the door - giving me the false hope that the real Max had come to save me from the horrible torture I was enduring - meshed with the memory of the fear and crippling disappointment when realizing it was all a lie.

Had the fact that Sean had been wasting energy on portraying Max made me stronger? Had it been a contributing factor to how he had ended up almost dead when the connection had hurled him through the air?

Max’s eyes were dark, dangerous. There was a twitch in his jaw muscles. He was reading my mind perfectly and right now he wanted to kill Sean. Even though Sean was already dead.

”Okay,” I voiced, in response to his explanation, trying to calm my breath and the hard thumping of my heart to alleviate the storm brewing inside Max right now.

He inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly, his eyes never leaving my face.

Next, he gave a nod and confirmed, ”Okay,” before he took another breath and, ”It would be best to find the others. Dresden informed me very quickly about the last whereabouts of Command, but chances are slim that he’ll still be in the same place.”

Command.

Our job was to take out Command.

”Dresden still knows more. And moving on to Command without anyone backing us up would be foolish.”

I swallowed. But it hurt my dry throat. My affirmation was barely a croak.

He placed his hand against my cheek again, his expression softening. ”We need to find the others.”

He hadn’t fully let himself accept the possibility that his whole family might be dead by now. His sister. His father.

I was myself guilty of consciously avoiding thinking about Alex and whether he was still alive.

”Yes,” I whispered hoarsely.

He frowned for a second, his eyes looking so sad, before he bent his head to connect our foreheads. ”I love you.”

I closed my painful eyes for a second, sinking into his words before I whispered back, ”I love you.”

With a regretful sigh, Max pulled back and got to his feet. With his back towards me while facing the door, he pushed his arm out behind him, towards me, and directed sharply, ”Get back.”

I quickly did as instructed, meeting his eyes as they briefly glanced over his shoulder to make sure that I had moved, before he raised his other hand and blasted a hole the size of a basket ball in the door, obliterating the previously melted lock.

I didn’t have time to reflect over how easy it was for an alien to get through a door where the lock had been melted, before Max had reached behind him to catch my hand and pull me towards the now opened door.

The minutes that followed were terrifying. As we moved back out into the main corridors, we took turns firing blasts at enemies. We didn’t encounter many of our own men, which frightened me. Too often, we stumbled over dead individuals on the floor. Max didn’t look closely enough at them to find out if they were friends or foes.

Keeping the protective field up for so long - mostly to give us protection against what the smoke was hiding, but also to prevent most of the dangerous smoke particles out - was slowly draining us. The decline of our energy was obvious the further we got and the more blasts we had to expend. When my first blast had basically taken a piece off someone’s head, my blasts were after a while just causing them mild burns. Which meant that we had to fire at one individual more than once to hold them back until we eventually, after having weakened them with smaller blasts, had to fight in the most basic of ways - with fists and kicks - to finally overtake them.

It was with both relief and fear that we reached the corridor where there was no fire. The fire had been horrible to move through, limiting our vision, but it had also provided protection in that it had hid us and enabled us to surprise enemies. Obviously, our enemies had enjoyed the same advantages and disadvantages with the obscuring smoke.

With the absence of smoke, we retracted the protective field. Max weighed the pros and cons of using some of our precious energy to clear our lungs, blood, eyes and throat from the effects of the smoke (rather than saving it for fighting), quickly deciding that we needed our health and healing us.

Eagerly, I pulled in a large intake of air, before my nerves took a hold of me again and I scanned our surroundings, not relaxing for a second.

Some of the fluorescent lights were blown or had gone bad - black or blinking in the army green corridor - turning our minds tired and distracted.

There was no activity here though. As if everyone had been where the fire had been. As if we had - when avoiding the smoke - run away from the battle itself.

The calmness, the ability for me to see several feet ahead to the end of corridors and closed doors, did nothing to relax me. Rather it scared me even further. I constantly looked for hide outs, for corners from where enemies could hide and jump out. I felt naked without the protective field.

But I knew that we could not sustain the field all the time. We needed to let our energies refuel whenever possible.

Stay behind me, Max instructed, but I only partly obeyed. I didn’t like it when he decided to be the main - and solitary - wall against every threat. I had learnt a long time ago that we were better together, with me standing next to him rather than behind him.

Either he was satisfied with my partial level of conformation or rather he chose not to argue, since he didn’t say anything else as we cautiously walked down the corridor keeping our bodies close to one of the walls.

Thus, when a woman came around the corner, Max was only a fraction of a second from shooting her before I recognized who it was behind the blood that covered her face. Automatically, a block flew up in my mind - to prevent Max from accessing the connection - while I grabbed his hand that was already heating with a blast and deflected it towards the floor.

”No!” I cried, but Max didn’t hear me. He was already focusing on who I had just prevented him from harming.

His sister.

Her hand was raised in front of her, her blonde hair matted with dried blood, her usually flawless skin scratched and bruised underneath dark red. Her eyes were wild and dangerous and from the frightened widening of her eyes I presumed that she had been as close to shooting us as her brother had been at shooting her.

”Jesus,” Max mumbled.

I let go of Max’s hand, rounded him and moved up to Isabel. ”Are you hurt?” I grabbed her upper arms, the dried blood on her arms the texture of dried clay against my palms. I swallowed back the instant nausea, the sick notion that I was getting used to seeing blood.

I searched her eyes, which were flickering between Max and I. There was a wildness in her gaze, as if she was having troubles believing that it was us.

”Is that your blood?” Max demanded, clarifying my question.

”They’re all dead,” Isabel said then.

An ice cold chill raced down my spine. I felt my pulse throb frantically in my temples.

My grip tightened on her arms, demanding her to look at me. ”What do you mean?”

”Dead,” she repeated, her lips tight. She was not crying. Isabel was - for lack of a better description - stoic.

Fear dug its claws into my very soul and I barely heard Max’s question over the loud buzzing sound in my ears. ”Who? Who are dead, Iz?”

I stared at Isabel, willing her to not confirm what Max and I already suspected.

Isabel’s lips tightened in a thin line, her body seemed to stiffen further, and her face was devoid of color underneath the blood that we still didn’t know the owner of.

Her voice was eerie with monotony, pausing time, as she listed, ”Michael. Dad. Dresden. Alex.”

Everything was spinning.

”Everyone,” Isabel finished, a single tremble of her bottom lip being the only sign of sadness.

I continued to look at Isabel, unable to do anything else. My body was frozen while I could only see Alex’s face in front of me. I heard his laughter. Saw his warm smile, his teasing smile, his mischievous smile. I saw him make fun of Maria. Felt his hugs. Felt his warmth. Saw him make goo-goo eyes at Isabel.

I swallowed, my throat dry.

I couldn’t feel any more. I had died inside, I was sure of it.

”Did you see it happen?” Max asked, his voice too cold.

He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t.

Isabel’s eyes flashed with anger. ”You think I would make this up?!”

She took a step forward, but stopped when she realized I was in the way. She looked down at me, being about half a foot taller than me, and her eyes told me something that couldn’t be put in words. A mixture of fear, loneliness, grief and panic.

”How did it happen?” Max asked, causing Isabel to look at him.

Her previously frozen state was thawing with frustration. Just like Max and I, she was trying to keep it together. In the absence of sadness, anger was a very good go-to emotion. I had tried it on for fit myself on occasion.

”Shortly after we got separated from you, they ambushed us. They were everywhere.” Her voice was moving up and down too much, breaking and trembling. ”I only survived because I fell backwards into a cleaning closet.”

Abruptly, she stopped talking, pressing her teeth together.

”What?” Max demanded.

I finally managed to move my eyes from Isabel’s face and looked back at Max. I was surprised at the coldness of his voice, but I could see the disaster brewing in his eyes the second our gazes connected.

They were the same, Isabel and Max. They handle crisis the same way. Turning off. Acting like robots.

Isabel pulled out of my grip, making me look back at her.

Taking a step back, her voice tore when she cried, ”I hid like a coward, okay? I hid in there until the screams stopped and the footsteps disappeared.” Shame and anger broke her face, causing tears to create long pale lines in the blood and dirt on her cheeks. ”I stood in there like a fucking wimp, not protecting my family or friends, while I smelled their blood on my skin.”

With the silence that followed, she took another protective step backwards.

I knew I couldn’t blame Isabel for doing what any 16-year-old girl would do to survive in that situation, but Alex’s face was still swimming in my mind and the start of my conflicted violent feelings was nipping at my core.

But whatever might have been said next was unexpectedly interrupted by the loudest alarm I had ever heard.

I screamed in fright, but the sound of my surprised fear drowned in the repetitive alarm while everything around us went black as the lights turned off and were replaced by red security lights, engulfing the corridor in an eerie dark red hue.

My chest constricted as panic ensued and I grabbed a hold of Isabel again while looking over my shoulder at Max. He was already moving up to me, his face dark with shadows.

I screamed at him that we needed to move, but he couldn’t hear me and I wasn’t sane enough to think of communicating with him through the connection. There was no need though, because he was already pointing towards the darkest end of the corridor, and I was already pulling Isabel in that direction.

Isabel came to life quickly, pulling out of my grip to move with a newfound confidence next to Max and I. The alarm was so loud I couldn’t even hear myself think as we were moving quickly down the corridor, still following the wall.

Amongst the monotonous sound of the alarm a metallic noise rose. Like the sound of several large chains clanging together. I reached for Max’s hand while I tried to find the source of the noise.

As his fingers closed around my hand, I heard his voice in my head, The gates are closing.

The gates?

Then I saw them. Moving out from slots in the sides of the walls were dividers made of metal bars, like doors in jails, running from top to bottom. They were positioned further down the corridor and looking behind me I could see the same type of door closing from where we had come.

The gates were sealing off sections.

Should we stay? I asked Max in desperation, even when I kept moving towards the quickly closing doors. The thought of becoming trapped down here was suffocating me.

We didn’t know if the same type of gates were closing in more places of the underground system or if it was just here. At least we seemed to be alone here, it might be better to be locked in here instead of moving to a new foreign place where there might be enemies waiting.

No, Max answered shortly, but I could hear the indecisiveness in his mind. He didn’t know. He just didn’t want to get stuck here.

Isabel stumbled in front of me and straightened, before stumbling again and falling. I immediately bent down to help her up, keeping an eye on the slowly closing gates in front of us. It couldn’t be more than ten feet between us and the gates, but with them being close to fully closing, ten feet might as well be miles away.

Max came up on Isabel’s other side and together we got her to her feet.

I’ll take her, Max said when I stumbled due to Isabel’s floundering gait.

So I let go, but stayed just behind them to help them if needed.

I felt the panic build in my chest as the opening between the two closing doors approached three feet, just enough for both Isabel and Max to get through.

Hurry! I yelled at Max and watched him basically push Isabel through before he followed.

He stopped just on the other side of the gate, looking at me, and I was just about to take his outstretched hand when his eyes widened and he yelled in terror in my head, Watch out!, but it was too late.

Just before the two opposing doors closed, leaving an opening that would have been big enough for me to squeeze through but not for Max to squeeze back, something grabbed my pony tail and tugged on it sharply, pulling me back. Away from the closing doors. Away from Max and Isabel. Trapping me on the wrong side of the closing gates.

My heart jumped into my throat and my eyes were on Max’s face, his mouth shaping to scream words that were not audible over the sound of the alarm, my mind stating one simple fact.

I’m dead. This is when I die.

But with the final clanging of the gates, signifying the completion of the closing process, the alarm stopped and the lights blinked back on, leaving only the consequential ringing in our ears.

An arm had snaked around my throat, pressing tightly against my windpipe, another arm was around my waist.

With the gradually tapering ringing, I started hearing Max’s voice, who was still yelling words. On the other side of the closed gates.

Max’s eyes were furious, his body language wild as he seemed to want to break down the bars with his bare hands.

Cold moist lips touched my ear and a whispered exclamation chilled my blood with déjà vu. ”Boo!”

Finally, Max’s words got through my crippled eardrums. ”Get the fuck away from her, Tess!”


TBC...