Her shoulder screamed in protest as she grabbed Adam under the armpits and hoisted him. She ignored the pain as she and Maria half carried, half dragged Adam back to the others.
When Adam was in place beside Michael on the cold, dank floor, Liz fell to her knees beside Max. She was gasping for breath as she touched his face.
'Wake up, Max! Please!' she said, taking his hand with both of her own. There was no response, and Max's hand was as cold as ice. Liz's heart slammed to a stop. He couldn't be-
Max gasped for breath, his eyes opening. Liz burst into tears of relief.
Isabel started to sit up, and Michael stirred slowly. Liz quickly kissed Max's forehead and went to check on Adam.
He wasn't breathing.
'Oh my God,' Liz choked out. They'd left him down there too long. They hadn't been fast enough. She held her ear to his chest, knowing with an awful certainty that she would hear no heartbeat.
Please, please, prove me wrong, she prayed. For a long moment she heard nothing but silence in his body. Then Liz picked out a faint, irregular thump.
She held her fingers up in front of his mouth and nose. He still wasn't breathing. He needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or he would die.
Without a moment of hesitation Liz pressed Adam's nostrils closed with two fingers and covered his soft mouth with her own.
Adam woke to the bizarre feeling of his lungs being inflated by three short puffs of breath.
Then he realized that Liz's lips were pressed against his own. He didn't know why. He didn't know how it happened. All he knew was… soft. Liz's lips were so soft. He'd thought about Liz's lips a lot, but he'd never realized how soft they would feel.
How would they taste? Would they taste the way he'd imagined? He flicked his tongue across her bottom lip, and Liz pulled away, startled.
Adam sat up dizzily, not ready to give up the contact with Liz. She leaned forward, hugging him tightly. 'I thought you were dead,' she said softly.
Adam buried his face in her hair and hugged her back. 'Are you okay?' Liz asked, pulling back to look into his eyes.
Adam tried to nod, which wasn't a great idea. His head was flooded with darkness the moment he moved, but it faded. Through his shaky vision he could see Max, Isabel, and Michael struggling to their feet behind Liz. 'What… what happened?' Adam asked.
Liz smiled and rubbed his arm gently, which made Adam feel like curling up against her warm body and going to sleep.
'My guess is that you guys got a good dose of that chemical weapon you read about in the Major's files,' she answered.
'That's a good guess,' Max added softly.
Michael stood up, rubbing his temples. 'Well, we've found out that the weapon works,' he said ruefully. 'I was out before I even knew what hit me.'
Isabel coughed harshly. 'Ugh!' she cried. 'That's a taste I could do without.'
Adam still felt pretty ill himself, but his head was starting to clear. 'You saved us?' he asked Liz. His heart lurched. 'You pulled us away from the gas?'
'Well, Maria and I did,' she said, her eyes meeting his quickly, then flicking away.
Max shuffled over to Liz and wrapped his arms around her. She clung to him, closing her eyes tightly. Adam forced himself to look away. He didn't need to torture himself.
'What now?' Max asked the group.
'We go home, right?' Maria said. 'You beam us out of here, and we all go home until you've recovered enough to try again.'
'I say we keep going,' Isabel countered. 'This might be our only chance to get to DuPris. We have to do this for Alex.'
'You almost
'Not for the first time,' Isabel shot back. Her words sounded tough, but Adam could see from the bleached white squiggles in her purple aura that she was terrified of what lay ahead.
'And probably not for the last time, either,' Michael added. 'I, for one, want Alex back here as soon as possible. I say we go ahead.'
'I'm with you guys,' Max said. 'That gas is quick, but its effects don't seem to linger very long. I say we go for it.'
'Yeah,' Liz said. 'Let's get this over with.'
'Adam?' Max asked. 'What do you want to do?'
A shot of guilt struck Adam like a shovel. Max was treating him like an equal, and all Adam could think about was getting him out of the way. At least far enough out of the way that Adam could taste Liz's lips again.
'Let's go get DuPris,' Adam said, looking Max in the eye. 'And the Major. They've gotten away with enough.'
'Fine,' Maria piped up. 'I'm not going to be the only holdout here. Let's go get Alex back.'
Adam led again as they searched for another, untainted passage through the jagged maze of hollowed-out, intertwined tunnels. Maybe it was because he'd spent his life wandering down the labyrinthine corridors of the Clean Slate compound, but Adam didn't hesitate as he forged ahead.
As Adam scrambled over a wide, convoluted mass of hardened limestone deposits, he felt it again-the violent surge of power that had knocked him senseless back in the Painted Grotto. But this time he was prepared for the torrent of energy and closed his mind to it before it could hurt him again.
He glanced back to see how the others had fared. Isabel, Max, and Michael looked pained and weakened, but they had weathered the intense flood.
'It's close,' Adam said.
'Very close,' Max agreed.
Once he had cleared the deposit of limestone, Adam ran toward the source of the surge, the others keeping close behind.
Then he stopped in his tracks. He'd hit a dead end.
'It's this way,' Adam said. 'I know it is.'
'We need to go through the wall,' Michael said. 'You guys feel strong enough?'
'Let's connect,' Isabel suggested.
Adam held out his hands to Max and Isabel, and Michael took Isabel's other hand. Their connection was forged as easily as if they'd been doing it their whole lives.
Ready? Adam asked.
Ready, came the reply.
They had to be careful not to blast away too much, or the cave ceiling would come tumbling down and bury them all. Adam used his trained skills to focus their energy down to a single beam of pure force. They collected their power for a moment, building up a reservoir.
Now! Adam ordered. They released the built-up beam at the center of the cave wall.
The explosion was deafening. Clouds of dust and debris billowed around them, and for a second the only sense of his surroundings Adam had was the pressure on his hands from Max and Isabel.
Finally Adam's ears stopped ringing and the dust settled.
'The ship,' Isabel exclaimed.
And there it was. The ship was docked directly in front of them, its otherworldly metal hull shimmering and rippling. It looked as unreal and out of place as an animated cartoon character walking down the main strip of Roswell.
Adam dropped Isabel's and Max's hands and started toward it. But then he saw something that made his heart freeze in fury and fear.
