Eve (begonia9508) - A fourth alien, huh?
Thank you for your ideas and reflections!
Roswelllostcause - Hmm... Is Liz an alien? Time will tell, I guess
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dreamon - Is Max Liz's protector? Weeell... Thank you for the feedback!
L-J-L 76 - Thank you for the feedback!
saori_1902 - Thank you!
Carolyn (keepsmiling7) - And I love that you're loving the direction this story is taking
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From TWELVE:
I followed his movement, sitting up next to him, and grabbed his hand. “Max, what did you do? What the hell did you do?”
Maybe it was not the right time to interrogate him, but I would bet my hat that Max Evans had just healed me. Brought me back from life-threatening injuries. And I was pretty certain that I had just been able to see into Max’s mind.
Which was insane.
Max looked ready to faint. He tried to pull his hand away, but it shook so badly from exertion that he failed in that regard. I felt my inquisitive nature being muted and my concern for him exponentially increasing.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, wanting to touch his face, run my fingers across his body to look for more injuries. But the burn wounds on his face stopped me. My touch would only hurt him.
He took a shuddering breath, his upper body swaying, “You can’t tell anyone.”
Tell them what? I didn’t even understand what had just happened.
“You don’t look so good,” I said worriedly.
“Call my dad,” Max said faintly, before his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he collapsed against me.
____________________________________
THIRTEEN
Call my dad.
I shivered. The prospect of speaking to Mr. Evans - especially to inform him that his unconscious son was draped across my lap - was pushing my anxiety to a whole new level.
But it didn’t take me long to realize that my concern for whatever had happened to Max greatly overshadowed my fears of speaking to his father.
“Max?” I whispered, trying to jostle him back to awareness.
Please, wake up. Please, wake up.
But Max’s body remained heavy, like dead weight, his arms draped around my hips and his head in my lap. A fierce protectiveness rushed through me. I had never seen Max so vulnerable, so helpless.
His breathing wasn’t right. It was short and interrupted; irregular. He looked pale underneath the bright pink skin burns and he was trembling.
Phone.
I needed to get to his phone. Biting my bottom lip insecurely, I reached across Max’s back and padded his back pockets, trying not to dwell on the fact that I was practically groping him.
Left. It was in his left pocket. I pushed my hand into his pocket, ignoring the flush in my cheeks, the acceleration of my heart beat, and fished out his cell phone.
Leaning back, I was relieved to see that his phone was not protected by a password and I quickly rushed through his contacts, trying my best not to pry at the odd combination of names that flickered past, until I found ‘Dad’.
I pressed ‘dial’ and waited for him to pick up.
“Where are you?”
No hello. Just rough coldness.
“Mr. Evans? This is Liz Parker.”
Silence. And then, “Ms. Parker.” His voice had turned polite, warm almost. “What are you doing with my son’s phone?”
“He needs your help,” I replied and looked down at the head of dark hair on my lap. My free hand unconsciously threaded through the thickness of his hair. “He’s unconscious. He got badly burnt in a fire.”
I was just about to tell him where to find us when the call was disconnected.
“Mr. Evans?” I frowned, removing the phone from my ear to look at the screen and verify that Max’s father had actually hung up on me.
I considered re-dialing, but I had a feeling that the call hadn’t accidentally been disconnected.
I shiver raced through me as I raised my eyes towards the burning remnants of my house and I recalled the vision (or whatever) that had been in my head when Max had done…whatever he had done. Of Max walking up to the house and seeing me run into it.
Why would Max be wandering around the outsides of my house this early on a Sunday morning?
Coincidence? I think not.
And I had a feeling that Max’s father didn't need an address to where Max could get burn injuries, because Mr. Evans already knew the only place in Roswell where there was a fire raging.
My whole body froze as a scary paranoid thought hit me. Had
they caused the fire?
Far-off sirens, coming closer, interrupted my dark line of thinking and my attention was back to my house - or what was left of it. Max had dragged me pretty far away from it. The fire truck was the size of a pony from this distance.
The arrival of the fire truck also shifted my attention. I had been temporarily distracted by pain and whatever Max had done, but my focus was now fully back on track.
Mom.
Dad.
Where were they?
But I was stuck. With Max’s body overlapping mine, I couldn’t go search for my parents. I could only hope that my dad had been successful where I wasn’t. In saving mom.
“Max,” I said softly, pleadingly. I felt lost, afraid, broken and drained. At the moment, he was my only confidant. An unconscious confidant.
I pushed at him when he didn’t answer, trying to rearrange him so that he was in a more comfortable position. Instead, his body rolled off mine and fell to the hard unyielding ground.
“Shit,” I mumbled and kneeled next to him, brushing his fringe to the side.
Even with horrible burns, he was beautiful. I leaned in, watching the unsteady breaths jerk his body, and a tear from my eye rolled off my cheek and landed on his lips.
“What were you doing here?” I whispered brokenly. I desperately didn’t want my suspicions to be correct. Because that would mean that Max Evans, who had just miraculously saved my life - twice - was somehow responsible for hurting my family. Responsible for hurting my mom.
He didn’t answer. Of course.
In the silence that followed - broken only by the shouts from the firemen as they hauled out large hoses form their trucks - I heard the distinctive sound of rubber screeching against concrete.
I looked up just in time to see a black SUV stop with a screech barely ten feet away from us. Three adults jumped out; Mr. Evans and (I frowned) Mr. Guerin? I didn’t recognize the third man.
Mr. Evans stalked up to me and I instinctively shied away, unconsciously shielding Max’s inert body with mine.
“Ms. Parker,” Mr. Evans said calmly, his face blank as he looked between me and his son. “We meet again.”
“He asked me to call you,” I replied, my body tightening as if it was preparing for combat. I suddenly felt like preventing the men from taking Max. The same conflicted feeling I’d experienced when I had dropped Max off at his father’s after he had been abused.
“Are you okay, Ms. Parker?” Mr. Evans asked and I saw a hint of concern flash in his eyes.
That minuscule concern threw me off and I lost my answer.
“Did you get burned?” Mr. Evans continued, his eyes searching my body.
Call it instinct. Call it intuition. But I had the feeling that I shouldn’t tell this man that I had been covered in lethal burns not five minutes ago.
“No,” I answered and swallowed. “Only Max.”
I looked down at him and added softly, “He got burnt trying to rescue me.”
“I see,” Mr. Evans said, his tone clipped. I looked back at him just in time to see him gesture something to his ‘friends’.
“I’m glad that you’re okay,” Mr. Evans said as the two men walked up to me and gently pulled Max away from me. “We’ll take care of Max now.”
My mouth was dry as I watched them pull Max to his feet and position his slack body between their bodies, with his arms across their shoulders. My heart ached as I watched Max’s feet drag against the ground as they semi-carried him to the backseat of the SUV.
“Thank you for calling us, Ms. Parker,” Mr. Evans said with a polite nod of his head, turned on his heel and disappeared into the car.
Men in black, I thought. They came, swooped in, and disappeared. Leaving barely a trace.
I pushed my feet under me and got up on wobbly legs. Next I commenced a desperate gait of hopping, stumbling and running. My body was not fully cooperating.
“Lizzie!”
Hope and warmth filled my chest at the sound of that voice saying my name. A smile spread across my lips and tears threatened to fall yet again, as I spun towards the voice and saw my dad sitting in the back of the ambulance, a yellow blanket across his shoulders.
I ran.
And fell into his arms. His embrace was tight. Alive. He kissed my head, my forehead and cradled my face between his blackened hands as he looked at me.
“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.
I nodded and sniffled. “Are
you okay?”
He nodded. “I tried to go in there,” he looked embarrassed for a second, “but there was just too much smoke. It was too hot.”
I realized that he couldn’t know. I probably looked healthy - unharmed - so there was no reason for him to suspect that I had been inside the house.
“Where did you go? I was so worried. I was certain that you had gone in.”
I shook my head and attempted a wobbly reassuring smile. “I walked around the house, to see if mom was anywhere close by.”
I dropped my head, quiet tears running down my cheeks. “I couldn’t find her.”
He put his arms around my shoulders then and pulled me in for another hug. “She’s dead, baby.” The words were whispered into my hair, but it was like he was slicing my skin with sharp knives. “They found her body.”
“No,” I whimpered, my legs folding underneath me.
His arms held me up as he stroked my hair. His own tears were wetting the top of my head as he broke down. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
“No,” I sobbed again. There was nothing else to say. Nothing else to do.
My mom was dead.
*****
“Can I get you anything?” Maria asked, her eyes glistening with unshed tears in the dimness of her room.
She had brought out the spare mattress, but had refused to let me sleep on it.
She would take the mattress.
I was to take the bed.
I shook my head mutely, pulling the duvet up to my chin.
My eyes were sore and dry from the crying. I felt empty; all cried out. There was a big hollow pounding emptiness in the center of my chest, which intermittently sent out spikes of pain into my body. They were worse than the pain from the skin burns. Much worse.
Speaking of…
Making sure that Maria had her back turned, I pushed the duvet slightly to the side and pulled my top up, revealing an area of red aching burning skin just beneath my ribs on my left side. Max had forgotten one spot. Or his energy had run out before he’d had the chance to heal it.
Whatever the reason, I was glad that he had missed it. The pain from that small area of 2x2 inches was the only thing that kept me real, that reminded me that this whole thing was real. Not just a horrible nightmare.
My mom was dead.
Max Evans had been watching me since he was little.
Max Evans had been involved in taking my blood when I was younger.
Max Evans had just healed me.
My dad and I were homeless and out of employment.
My mom was dead.
I wanted to die too.
Heavy agony and anguish pushed on my chest and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, tightening my whole body to prevent the screams from escaping.
I was special. Just like my mom. That’s what a young Michael had told a young Max.
Was that why she had died? Because she was special?
Was I next?
TBC...
