The Wild One

happened if you'd stayed away from Nikolas.'

'You're blaming me?' Isabel cried. 'I didn't do anything.'

'You went out with him after we all told you he was dangerous,' Max shot back. 'We knew he was going to bring Valenti down on us. But you had to go chasing after him, anyway.'

'Nikolas says we don't have to worry about Valenti,' Isabel protested. 'And he's right. With our power we can get rid of him so easily.'

'Kill him, you mean?' Max demanded. 'Suddenly you have no problem with murder?'

'Not if it means saving our lives,' Isabel exclaimed, her blue eyes bright with anger.

'Our lives weren't in danger, remember?' Max asked. 'We found a way to get rid of Valenti-without hurting anyone. At least until you and Nikolas started playing around with your power. I hope you had fun, Isabel.'

Liz pushed herself to her feet. 'Don't do this, you guys. Let's just figure out what to do.'

Max slid his arm around her waist. She didn't look too steady on her feet yet. 'Isabel obviously needs help figuring out what to do, so I'm going to tell her.' He turned to his sister and said every word slowly and deliberately. 'Isabel is not going to see Nikolas again. Isabel is not going to use her power. Isabel is-'

'Isabel is leaving!' she screamed. She ran out of the room. A moment later Max heard the front door slam. Great, he thought. I handled that real well.

'She'll cool down,' Liz said. 'What Nikolas did to me got her thinking, I could tell. She'll figure out the right thing to do.'

Max suddenly realized he was alone with Liz, holding her in his arms. It would be so easy just to pull her close to him and bury his face in her hair. That's all he wanted to do.

But he couldn't. Being close to him was dangerous for Liz. Everything that had happened to her today just proved that.

Max slowly eased his arm away from her. 'I better take you home.'

*** 9 ***

'I brought a couple of boxes. I wasn't sure if you had enough,' Maria said.

'I don't really have a ton of stuff,' Michael replied.

He's not kidding, Maria thought, glancing around his room. Michael had his clothes in neat stacks on his bed. A pair of sneakers and a pair of hiking boots were in one corner. A box of CDs and a Walkman sat on the dresser next to a pile of books on the Roswell Incident, a couple of maps, a compass, and a thick binder.

And that was it. Maria had more junk on the top shelf of her closet than Michael had in his entire room.

A picture of her memory box flashed into Maria's mind. It was a big cardboard box covered with flowers that had all these things from Maria's childhood in it. Baby shoes and crayon drawings and old report cards. Even little notes that Maria had left her parents on the fridge. Her parents had saved all of it for her because they knew she would want it someday, maybe when she had kids of her own.

Actually, that was the thing they'd had the biggest fight over when her dad moved out. He'd wanted to take Maria's and Kevin's memory boxes with him. Maria's mom said no way. They ended up giving the boxes to Maria and Kevin right then, although they had planned to keep them until the kids were ready to move away from home. Her parents still liked to add little things once in a while. Or at least they used to B.D., Before Divorce.

Maria grabbed one of the boxes and started packing the books. Did Michael ever wish he had something from elementary school? Some science project or book report? Or maybe even some special toy. She smiled as she imagined Michael playing with those Trans Formers practically every boy had at least one of.

'What?' Michael asked.

'Huh?'

'You're over there grinning like an idiot,' he teased.

No way was she going to tell Michael that she'd been noticing he didn't have any stuff from when he was little. It would probably come out sounding all sentimental or like she pitied him or something, and he would totally hate that.

'Okay, I admit it. I was sort of daydreaming I was the heroine in one of those romance novels,' Maria said. She figured the best thing she could do for Michael right now was keep the mood light. It had to hurt packing up your stuff-your really little piles of stuff-for the millionth time and getting shuffled off to another group of strangers.

Michael snorted. 'You mean one of those girls in those long dresses with their ya-yas hanging out?'

Maria added the CDs and the Walkman to her box. 'Yeah, one of those girls,' she answered. 'But I have to tell you, no romantic hero in those books ever uses the expression ya-yas.'

'What do they call them, then?' He unzipped a gym bag and stuffed his clothes inside.

'They call them orbs,' Maria said primly.

'Oh, baby. You don't know what it does to me when you say the word orb,' Michael joked.

Maria glanced around the room, searching for something else she could stick in her box. She spotted a pair of ceramic salt-and-pepper shakers shaped like bumblebees on his windowsill. She picked them up. 'Should I pack these?' she asked.

Michael took them out of her hands. 'They were from my first foster home. I thought I was going to live there forever, even though the social worker told me it was only temporary. I kept thinking that the Salingers would change their minds and keep-'

A deep flush spread across Michael's cheeks. He tossed the bumblebees in the trash. 'I don't know why I've been hauling those around with me everyplace,' he muttered.

'Hey, are you sure? They're kind of cute.' Maria took one step toward the trash to retrieve them.

'Leave them,' Michael ordered.

Maria grabbed the tape and got very busy sealing up her box. She could feel tears stinging her eyes, and she didn't want Michael to notice them. He was obviously already feeling totally humiliated for revealing he was once a little kid who wanted a real home. She didn't want to make things worse by letting Michael see how sad she thought that was.

'Don't you want to know what they call a guy's, um, a guy's equivalent of ya-yas in those books?' Maria asked.

'You've got a lot to learn if you think there even is an equivalent,' Michael answered.

'You know what I mean.' Maria laughed.

'I want to hear you say it,' he said. 'I don't believe you can. Not with your innocent little lips.'

'I told you not to call me innocent,' Maria complained.

There. She'd done it. She'd steered them away from a subject that Michael obviously couldn't stand to talk about. She hoped he realized that if he ever did want to talk, she would be there for him. She would always be there for him.

***

Max stared at the computer screen. No matches. How could there be no matches to aliens and Elvis? Not two hours ago there had been thousands of matches.

He checked his search request. He had spelled both words wrong. Max dropped his head back and closed his eyes. At least I spelled and right, he thought. After what had happened that was pretty good.

He couldn't stop picturing Liz collapsing onto the floor. He couldn't stop thinking about the way Nikolas had just strolled out of the house as if what he did to Liz was no big deal. And he couldn't stop wondering where Isabel was.

'Having problems?' Ray asked.

Max jerked up his head and opened his eyes. He was losing it. He hadn't even heard Ray walk up to him. This was only his second night on the job. Ray must think he'd hired a total moron.

'No, no problems,' Max said quickly. 'I should have some stuff on that photographer really soon.' He typed in