'Come on. We're friends, remember? Friends talk to each other. Tell me about the compound,' she coaxed. 'Tell me how you met Michael. Tell me something about Cameron. Anything.'
A big, fat nothing. That's what she was going to get from him. Isabel stood up. It would have been nice to know exactly what she was dealing with, but it wasn't necessary. The day she couldn't make a guy, any guy, forget about another girl was the day Isabel's coffin slammed shut.
She took a step toward the door, then Adam grabbed her arm. 'Oh, so now you're ready to talk.' She turned to face him. His blank green eyes stared right through her.
'I don't have time for this,' she muttered. She tried to pull her arm away, but Adam tightened his grip, digging his fingers into her bare skin.
And then they were connected. But it wasn't like any connection she'd ever experienced. This was a violation. The images were being ripped from her mind.
She tried to scream, but the muscles in her throat contracted, as if they'd been squeezed by a hand jammed down her mouth.
She had to break the connection. She reached over and slashed the back of Adam's hand with her nails. She could feel warm, slick blood under her fingers, but Adam didn't loosen his hold on her.
She tried to think through the pain tearing through her mind. They were connected. She should be able to feel an artery in Adam's head or his heart and squeeze the molecules together until he collapsed or died. She didn't care which.
Isabel used all her will to fight the pain and search for the most vulnerable spot available to her. But she got nothing from Adam. She couldn't even feel his heartbeat or hear him breathing. She wasn't receiving any images from him, even though she could feel him digging through her mind.
There had to be something there. The connection had to go both ways. She squeezed her eyes shut and reached out with her ravaged mind, out and out. Yes. There. Just a little farther.
A flood of images pounded into Isabel. Too many. Too much. Blasting her raw brain.
She opened her lips again. 'Michael.' She forced the word through her bruised throat. 'Michael, please…'
Michael unbuttoned another button on Cameron's shirt and discovered a tattoo low on her left shoulder-a hummingbird. He traced one of its wings with his tongue, and Cameron gave out a gasping sigh. She ran her nails lightly across his shoulders, shoving all thoughts out of Michael's brain. He heard a low whimpering sound, and he wasn't even sure if it was coming from him or Cameron.
Then he realized it wasn't coming from either of them. He jerked up his head and listened hard. It was coming from the bedroom, and it sounded like Isabel. He hurled himself to his feet and raced down the hall. He hadn't even realized Isabel was there.
He yanked open the door, and he felt an electric jolt sizzle through his body when he saw Isabel's face contorted in fear and pain. Then he noticed Adam's hand locked on her arm.
Michael gave a growl of fury and grabbed Adam by the back of the shirt. He yanked him away from Isabel and shoved him to the floor, then scooped Isabel up in his arms and laid her on the bed.
'Isabel, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't hear you. I didn't know.' He brushed her hair away from her face with trembling fingers. 'Can you tell me what happened? What did Adam do to you?'
Why was he wasting time talking? He had to heal her. He took a deep breath, getting ready to make the connection, then Isabel reached out and grabbed his hand.
'Not Adam,' she whispered, her eyes bright. 'I saw… for a second I saw… not Adam. Something controlling him.' Her fingers went limp in his. 'It's… I saw. Evil.'
'You disappeared?' Liz exclaimed. 'You must have been terrified.'
'Well, I didn't really disappear. I just became kind of see-through. I could see my heart, Liz,' Max said.
Liz flashed him a look of horror.
'And guess what? My heart has your name on it,' Max said, grinning. As Liz giggled, he slid his fingers through her thick, silky hair, then leaned in for a kiss.
Maybe I should call and check up on the Adam situation. The thought barged into Max's head. He shoved it back out. He wasn't going to waste his Liz time stressing about Adam. Michael and Isabel were with him, and he'd made Isabel swear to let him know if anything strange happened.
He returned all his attention to kissing Liz. Each kiss was a kind of miracle. He'd spent years dreaming about what it would feel like to touch Liz, torturing himself by imagining one perfect kiss over and over. Back then he'd been sure dreams were all he'd ever have. But he was wrong. Liz was right here, sitting next to him on the living- room sofa, her lips a breath away from his. He closed the distance and gave her bottom lip a playful nibble.
Liz pushed him away and shoved one of the big sofa pillows between them. 'You stay on your side,' she ordered. 'No more kissing until we finish talking about the collective consciousness. What do you think would have happened if you hadn't broken away when you did? Would your whole body have disappeared?'
'Disappeared is the wrong word to use. The molecules of my body had flown so far apart that it seemed like it was invisible,' Max answered.
'When actually it was just scattered in a billion pieces?' Liz asked, her brows drawing together.
'Exactly. Once I realized what happened, I just focused my mind and squeezed the molecules back together. It was actually kind of cool.' He grabbed the sofa pillow and tossed it across the room. 'And that concludes the discussion of the collective consciousness.' He looped his fingers around her turquoise necklace and gently pulled her toward him.
'Uh-uh.' Liz grabbed another pillow and re-formed the barricade. 'Have you thought about the fact that if you'd stayed connected longer, the molecules of your brain could have been separated from each other, too? Then what? How would you have had the capacity to realize anything? How would you have been able to focus and squeeze without a mind?'
'I hadn't thought of that,' Max admitted. Count on Liz to zero in on the most important piece of information. 'I bet it would feel amazing, though. I panicked when my memories started to dissolve into the consciousness. But for the three seconds before I freaked, it was… I can't even come up with the right words to describe it.'
'Are you going to do it again?' Liz asked.
Was he going to do it again? He had to do it again. Now that he knew it was possible, he couldn't go through the rest of his life without ever allowing himself to experience being part of something monumental, a living entity of cosmic proportions.
Liz wrapped her arms around herself. 'You are. I can see it in your face.'
He didn't have to ask what she thought. Yellow tendrils of fear were spreading through her aura. A couple of crimson splotches of anger had sprouted, too.
'It's like I've discovered a whole new world, and I have to explore it. The only way I'll really be able to do that is by giving myself over to it, becoming it,' Max said, struggling to express how he felt about the consciousness.
'Even if it means you won't ever come back to this world? To me?' Liz asked.
Her voice was steady, but he thought he glimpsed the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. 'That would never happen,' he promised. 'You're what would bring me back. Even if my molecules were spread out from here to whatever galaxy my home planet is in, that wouldn't stop me. All my molecules would be like little homing pigeons. They'd all zoom to you, and then I'd re-form.'
'That's very romantic and all, but I don't think there's any scientific basis for your theory,' Liz answered. But a few of the crimson splotches disappeared from her aura.
'Wait. I've got it,' Max said. 'I'll use Michael or Isabel as a spotter the next time. Then if I do disappear completely and have no way of squeezing myself back together, they can do it for me.' He ran his hand across the pillow separating them. 'Can I get rid of this now? My molecules are really missing your molecules.'
Liz snatched up the pillow and tossed it over the back of the sofa. Max didn't need an engraved invitation. He slid his hands along the curve of her waist. He loved the feel of her. Could not get enough.
