Re: Lethal Whispers (ML, some MM, MATURE), Ch 25 5/30/15 p.
Posted: Sat May 30, 2015 7:22 pm
Love it!
Roswelllostcause - You have a very good point! Thank you for the feedback
Eve (begonia9508) - Thank you so much for your reflections and input
L-J-L 76 - Some of your questions will be answered in this chapter. Thank you for the feedback
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Previously on "Lethal Whispers"...
The nightmare that Max's premonitions had been foretelling him about for weeks finally came true. Liz was attacked by her co-worker David Perkins in a dark alley as she was walking home alone after work. Max was detained by Tess, who tried to mindwarp him (but he noticed and pushed her out of his mind), but managed to get to Liz before David did too much damage. Max took Liz to his place and told her in vague terms that he was not humans and had certain "abilities".
And that's where we left off...
CHAPTER 26
Liz
Not human? Alien?
She shook her head as she absent-mindedly stripped down to nothing. The water was just right as she climbed into it and let it enclose every inch of her traumatized body. Her head felt like it might explode. There were so many questions that needed answers, so many that she had momentarily forgotten the horrific event she had just experienced.
Isabel had said that they had found her and her brother as children, wandering around. Max had only referred to himself as he was giving her answers earlier, but Liz was pretty sure that there were more like him. His sister being one.
The most mind-blowing detail was that she had been brought back to life by this man. He had given her a life that otherwise would have ended before it barely had a chance to start. In addition, a connection that Max himself didn’t seem to understand had been evolved and forged between them. A connection that enabled them to share emotions and, as was evident from today’s events, even physical afflictions.
The thought brought her back to what had happened earlier, to David’s hands around her neck cutting off her air supply, the violence and him forcing himself on her. There was now no doubt in her mind that David would have gone the whole way through with it.
Fueled by anger and God knows what, he had been intent on raping her and maybe even killing her (intentionally or not), not necessarily in that order.
What had Max done to David?
She had registered that David had been lying inert to the side of the alley, several feet from where she had been, as if he had been flung a great distance.
She started scrubbing down her skin, wanting to get her enforcer’s smell off her. Her skin objected to the forceful scrub, reddening from the assault, but she didn’t notice.
After twenty minutes in the bath, the questions had grown monumental in her mind and the urge to see Max again was paramount. She wrapped her reddened body in a towel and looked down at her clothes on the floor. The prospect of putting them back on was making her nauseous.
Instead she walked up to the door and pushed it ajar. “Max?”
He was not far away, stepping into her field of vision after no more than three seconds. “You okay?”
He looked nervous; ready to fall apart. She nodded. “Could I borrow some clothes? Mine are…”
She left it hanging and saw him relax. Maybe it was because it hadn’t been the question he had expected or maybe he was just happy about getting something to do.
“Of course,” he answered. “I’ll get you something.”
He returned with a pair of sweatpants and a hoody with the text ‘North Eastern University’ across the front and gave it to her through the door. She smiled at him and closed the door between them again to change.
As she was stepping out of the bathroom, there was a knock on Max’s front door. She automatically shrunk back and her first irrational thought was He’s back! But of course, how would David even know where Max lived?
She caught Max throwing her a glance before he walked up to the door.
Liz didn’t recognize the skinny girl with tall legs next to Isabel, but for some reason she wasn’t surprised to see Max’s sister outside the door. Max had made a phone call from his cell while he had taken Liz to his apartment.
Had it been to his sister?
“Max,” Isabel said relieved and next smacked him on the shoulder. “Why are you not picking up your phone?”
Liz saw the skinny blonde’s attention drift to the inside of Max’s apartment and her eyes came to a full halt when they landed on Liz. Liz shied back into the doorway. “Who’s that?”
The girl’s, slightly demanding, question had both Max and Isabel look in Liz’s direction. The girl’s eyes widened (in recognition) and she gasped, “Max, is that-?”
Liz watched Isabel’s eyes grow round in surprise and her question interrupted what the strange girl was about to say, “Liz?”
Liz bit her bottom lip and answered sheepishly, “Hi, Isabel.”
The skinny girl looked at Isabel and then back at Max. “It’s the girl I drew… The girl… Isn’t it?”
Liz saw Isabel look at Maria sharply, before Max interrupted, “Maria,” and stepped to the side so that the girls could enter his apartment, “this is Liz.”
The girl called Maria scoffed. “Yeah, I got that.”
Then Isabel was moving through the hallway and before Liz had the chance to blink Isabel had stepped into her personal space, grabbed a hold of Liz’s chin and angled her face towards the dim hallway light. “Oh my God, Liz. What happened?”
Liz tried to shake Isabel’s hand away, feeling like an animal at the zoo with three sets of eyes staring at her. She felt her heart rate increase.
Were they all aliens?
“She was attacked,” Max answered quietly and Liz got an appreciation for how Max was in a group setting. His voice was subdued, but he exuded power, a type of authority.
The blonde skinny girl didn’t seem to answer to that authority though. Her emotions were vivid and very well displayed.
Through clenched teeth, she whispered loudly, “Max, what is she doing here?”
“Liz works with me,” Isabel offered and to Liz’s amazement neither Max nor Isabel seemed too affected by the strange girl’s heated reactions. Maybe it was not something out of the ordinary.
“And what is she doing here?”
Isabel ignored the girl with the questions and focused concerned motherly eyes on Liz’s face. Isabel was easily taller than Liz by a head, which made Liz feel like crumbling into herself, as a child would upon experiencing the offered comfort from its mother. “Who attacked you?”
“David,” Liz answered simply.
Isabel’s eyes widened, but she didn’t seem too fazed with the idea. “David Perkins?”
Liz nodded.
“And he would’ve killed her,” Max filled in, his words causing a shudder to run through Liz.
Isabel looked at Liz for a second, before saying, “Good thing my brother was close by then.”
Liz felt as if Isabel was trying to gauge Liz’s reaction. Of course, Liz thought. She’s trying to figure out if Max has told me their secret.
Liz did her best to hide her thoughts (Could they read minds?) as she nodded.
Isabel smiled at her, the smile strained, before she let go of Liz and walked up to her brother. “Max, I need to talk to you.”
“Isabel, now is not the time.”
“Why is she not in the hospital?”
“She was in shock-“
“Which is a very good reason for taking her to the hospital.”
Max looked pained. “I didn’t want her there.”
Isabel sighed and lowered her voice markedly. But Liz could still hear her say, “She’s human. It’s normal for her to go the hospital after something like this. She needs to, for them to be able to build a case against David.”
Max looked up at Liz, horrified, and Liz realized why the second their eyes met. She had taken a bath. Which quite possibly had washed away important DNA and maybe even other clues.
“Do you get me now?” Isabel hissed, watching Max’s face.
“Is she it, Max?” the skinny blonde called Maria cut in, looking at Liz.
Liz swallowed. It?
“Yeah,” Max whispered.
Liz couldn’t keep quiet any longer. They were, after all, three strangers standing in a circle as far away from her as they could get and whispering about her future. “What’s ‘it’? What is she talking about?”
Three sets of eyes turned to her again; one pair of amber eyes filled with sadness and oddly enough, regret.
“Nothing,” the strange girl shrugged.
“I know that you probably lie all the time,” Liz said, squaring her shoulders. “But this is possibly my life you’re talking about here and I’ve seen and heard some pretty weird shit today, so I would at least expect to get included in your discussion.”
Two sets of eyes turned to the third.
“You told her?” Isabel breathed, an elaborate mixture of fear, anguish, shock and betrayal in those mere three words.
“I told her that I have abilities. That I healed her as a young and can’t remember my childhood.”
Liz easily picked up on the emphasis Max put on announcing that it was he alone with abilities and childhood amnesia. Isabel seemed to pick up on it as well, because she visibly relaxed. Isabel was being lulled into a false security about Max being the only abnormal one in this room.
“So why did Michael mention the police?” Maria asked.
“I needed him to take care of the attacker while I looked after Liz.”
“Is he dangerous?” the girl asked frankly.
Max’s face softened. “Michael’ll be fine, Maria. He can handle himself.”
“Liz needs to leave a statement,” Isabel interjected.
“I’m quite aware of that,” Max said. “Which is the reason why I didn’t heal her completely.”
Maria looked wearily in Liz’s direction. Apparently still not used to Max speaking so freely of his powers in front of ‘strangers’.
“Look,” Liz said. “I won’t tell anyone. You have my word. Max saved my life. Twice. The least I can do to repay him is to keep his secret.”
Isabel looked at her seriously, before stepping up to her. “You might be in danger now, Liz.”
Liz gave a short humorless laugh. “In more danger than before?”
Isabel shook her head, her solemnity making Liz nervous. “This is different. There are people out there that would do anything to get a hold of u-“ she swallowed and corrected her almost-slip of the tongue, “of Max. And we’re pretty sure that they are not the ‘good guys’. By keeping this secret you are paying back your debt to my brother, because his life will essentially be in your hands.”
Liz might have laughed at Isabel’s almost over-the-top conspiratorial account if she hadn’t let her eyes flicker over the serious faces of the other two people in the room.
This was serious. Dead serious.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” she whispered, barely finding her voice.
“Don’t scare her, Iz,” Max said tiredly.
“She needs to understand the importance of knowing these things,” Isabel said and took a step back, making it easier for Liz to catch her breath.
“Which is why it’s important that we do this the normal way and not your way,” Maria said. “Which means that we should get her to the hospital to get a written account of her injuries and then contact the police to report the asshole that did that to her.”
Liz had a feeling that she was going to like Maria. She had a simple frankness about her which was very refreshing in a world where just about everyone seemed to lie.
Max was at her side then, looking down at her with concerned eyes. He softly brushed a tendril of hair behind her ear and for a second she closed her eyes and forgot that they were not alone. “Are you okay leaving right now?”
She really didn’t want to. She would rather crawl into her bed and hide under the covers for a couple of days or weeks. But she knew that it needed to be done if she were to be able to return to her workplace and not spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Let’s get this over with.”
TBC...
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