Liz forced open her eyes, and she felt her heart give an erratic flutter. Adam was sitting on the side of her bed.
Don't let him know that you're afraid, she instructed herself. Just listen to what he has to say, and maybe he'll leave.
'Do you remember when I picked you flowers?' he asked.
Liz nodded. All she could hope was that Mama and Papa wouldn't hear a guy's voice coming from her bedroom in the middle of the night. If they did, they'd be in here in half a second. And Liz was very afraid Adam would hurt them.
'I remember,' she said.
Adam smiled his sweet, shy-little-boy smile. Liz forced herself to smile back, her top lip sticking to her teeth because it was so dry.
Now what? Adam wasn't saying anything else. He was just staring at her with his bright green eyes. She noticed that his gaze kept flicking to her mouth. Was he thinking about kissing her? She couldn't let that happen. He could make the connection with the slightest bit of contact and do to her what he'd done to Isabel.
'I'm really cold. I need to put on, uh, more clothes,' Liz mumbled. As she stepped from her bed to the floor, she gasped. Her floor was soft, and patches of color had appeared before her eyes. A waft of pollen filled the air, and Liz realized her room had been transformed into a vibrant flower garden. Reds and lavenders, chrysanthemums and roses, all resting on a soft bed of mossy grass. She looked at Adam in astonishment.
'I need to tell you-something important. But I need you to trust me first. I thought it would help if you could remember something good about me,' he explained. 'That night it was good, wasn't it?' He smiled again, in a serious way this time. 'Even though you did say that Max was the only one who could touch you.'
'I'm ready to hear what you have to say,' Liz answered, relieved to hear that her voice sounded steady. The flowers were comforting, but she was still suspicious of Adam.
He nodded nervously. 'You're in danger. All of you. There's something inside me. It's-'
A hideous gagging sound spewed from his throat. He bent over, hacking and choking.
Liz scrambled over the bed to his side. 'Adam, what's wrong? What's happening to you?'
He straightened up, and she could see that his face had taken on a faint bluish tint. 'Inside… inside.'
He gave a deep, ragged cough. Liz screamed as he lunged forward and landed on the bed, then began to writhe with seizures.
'You don't need to be here. I told you, I'm keeping Adam knocked out,' Michael told Max.
Obviously Max didn't trust him. Obviously he planned to spend the day watching Michael watch Adam.
'I'm not staying,' Max answered. 'I thought you might be hungry.' He thrust a white paper bag into Michael's hands.
Michael opened the top, and the smell of fresh crullers hit his nose. He peeked inside. Max, Mr. Reliable, had remembered the hot sauce.
'Uh, thanks,' Michael mumbled.
'I hope Cameron likes crullers, too,' Max said. 'I didn't think about getting something else so she'd have a choice.'
Michael snagged the Star Wars comforter off the living-room floor, rolled it up, and tossed it into the corner. 'She says she's taking off, anyway. She doesn't like to stay in one place too long.'
'Hmmm.' Michael caught a flash of concern in Max's eyes, but Max didn't push for details.
'You were right about Adam,' Michael said, doing a fast subject change. Not that the new subject was anything he really wanted to talk about, either, but he knew he had to bite the bullet. 'What you said on the phone last night was true. What happened to Isabel was my fault.'
Max shook his head. 'I was out of line,' he answered. 'All you did was take a shot on someone you thought you could trust. It's not like I've never done it. When I told Liz the truth about us, I didn't listen to your warning signals.'
'That turned out fine. Good, even,' Michael said.
'It could have gone the other way, though,' Max countered.
'You want a cruller?' Michael asked. He was ready to end this little discussion. If he'd just screwed up on the Adam call, it would be bad enough. But Cameron had been strike two. He'd actually believed he could trust her.
Max pulled a cruller out of the bag. 'I'm not eating any of that hot sauce.'
He and Michael flopped down on the floor and attacked the bakery bag.
'Hey, before I leave, you want to help me with something?' Max mumbled through a big wad of cruller. 'I think if I let myself connect with the consciousness, I can spread all my molecules out so far I disappear and then re- form them. I think. But since my brain could disappear, too, maybe not. Maybe it won't occur to me-or what used to be me-to rematerialize. Does that make sense? I figured you could help bring me back if there's trouble.'
'Do you think we could re-form you in a different place?' Michael asked.
Max shrugged. 'Maybe.'
Michael snorted so hard, he could feel hot sauce stinging the inside of his nose. 'Now you're really going to be king of the science fiction geeks. No contest. You've got to let me hear you say it. Just once,' he begged.
'What are you talking about? Say what?'
'Beam me up, Scotty.' Michael laughed, spraying little cruller bits onto the front of Max's shirt.
'I haven't watched that show in a long time,' Max protested.
Michael wiped his mouth with his sleeve. 'So you want to do it right now?'
'Yeah. Let's make the connection.' Max grabbed Michael's wrist. 'Don't leave me hanging out there.'
'I've got you covered,' Michael answered. Then his mind was filled with images from Max. The pictures flew past faster and faster until the last one shattered in a rain of sparks that dazzled Michael's eyes.
When his vision cleared, he saw that Max's right arm had disappeared to his shoulder. His shirtsleeve hung limp and empty.
Would the connection hold when Max didn't have a body for Michael to touch? They hadn't even thought of that.
Michael closed his eyes again and focused his mind on Max's body, on their body. He could hear Max's heart beating along with his own, feel Max's breath in his own lungs.
Yeah, this should be okay. With the connection it was like he and Max shared a double body. So when Max was gone, the Michael part of their body would still be here to re-form him.
Unless because of the connection Michael's body flew apart, too. Something else they hadn't thought about.
Michael heard one of their hearts stop. He felt a chill rush through him. Max's heart was gone. He opened his eyes and saw Max's eyes staring back at him.
Only his eyes.
An instant later they disappeared, too.
Time to bring him back. Michael focused on Max's molecules. He could feel them all around him. But there were so many of them, an almost infinite number.
A wave of dizziness swept through him. Where was he supposed to start? Yeah, he could squeeze some of the molecules together, but which ones? It's not like they were spread out in exactly the right groups, waiting for Michael to put Max back together like some preschooler's puzzle where the head goes up there and the feet go down there.
Michael shoved his hands through his hair and tried to deepen his concentration. But he had no clue which of the billions of molecules came from Max's brain tissue and which came from the muscle of his heart.
Why didn't Max think of this? Max's whole reason for existence was thinking of things like this. He was always so careful, so logical. Why did he have to choose now to experiment with recklessness? Couldn't he have just squeezed a toothpaste tube from the middle or something?
You said you would bring him back, so bring him back, Michael ordered himself.
He ignored the molecules and concentrated on Max. Just Max. He felt sweat breaking out on his forehead and
