unless she's with one of us,' he informed her, his voice as harsh as when he'd been talking to Liz.
'All I did was-' Liz began, her anger still hotter than lava.
'Let's discuss this inside,' Liz's mama interrupted. 'Unless you two want to ask the neighbors for an opinion poll.' She brushed distractedly at the flour covering the bib of her well-worn overalls as she led the way inside.
'There's nothing to discuss.' But Mr. Ortecho followed his wife into the house. Liz took a deep breath, trying to get some kind of control over her temper, and headed after them.
'I agree that Liz should be punished for lying to us about the trip to the caverns,' Mrs. Ortecho said as she closed the door.
'Of course she should be punished!' Liz's papa exploded.
The foyer was small, and his angry voice bounced off the walls. Liz felt bombarded, as if his words had physical weight.
Liz's mother made little patting, smoothing gestures in the air, as if she were trying to shape a loaf of bread. Not going to happen, Mama, Liz thought. There's no way to turn this situation into something Martha Stewart nice and neat.
'But not to let her go to the library or the store or even for a walk seems excessive,' Mrs. Ortecho continued.
'Excessive?' Liz's papa repeated. 'I'm trying to save our child's life, and you call it excessive?'
Liz's mama gave a little gasp, so soft Liz almost didn't hear it. Then she turned away and started to run down the hall.
As Liz watched her mother leave, she felt something tearing inside her, something that ripped away as her mother disappeared into her bedroom.
She pressed her hands over her abdomen, as if her body had actually been torn open.
It was the first time any of the three of them had even alluded to Rosa's death, even in such a roundabout way-at least in front of each other.
'I have something to tell you, and I want you both to listen,' Liz announced, her voice strong and steady. Her mama didn't open the bedroom door, but Liz knew she was listening. Liz waited until her papa locked his eyes on hers.
And then she said the thing she thought she could never say. The thing that had been eating away at her like acid for years.
'I'm not Rosa.'
'No one left but us,' Michael said, looking around at his friends. He locked the museum's front door.
'Should we start cleaning now?' Maria asked, checking out the empty soda cans and pizza boxes scattered around the floor. 'Or be lazy and-'
'There's something we need to talk about,' Max announced, cutting her off.
The sharp edge to his voice instantly had everyone gathering around him.
'What's going on?' Michael demanded. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed how messed up Max's aura was.
Max shoved his hands through his hair. 'Here's the deal,' he said, his eyes locked on Michael's. 'Alex felt something follow him through the wormhole, something that wanted to kill him.'
'But it turned out that he was wrong,' Maria protested. 'It was just Trevor.' A few of the silver sparkles in Maria's aura winked out.
'Alex and I thought there might be a third being in the hole with him. He asked me if I could get some information from the consciousness.'
Michael's teeth squeaked as he ground them together. He had a feeling he knew where this was going.
'I sent out sort of a feeler about Trevor because that was the starting place we had.' Max jammed his hands in his pockets and glanced around the circle without actually meeting anyone's eyes.
'You did what?' Michael demanded, although Max had said what Michael had been afraid he was going to say. He shot a look at Trevor. His brother's face was impassive, his aura a perfect, even beige.
'What I got back was-' Max continued, as if Michael hadn't even said anything.
'I don't want to hear it,' Michael interrupted again. 'If there's anything Trevor wants us to know about him, he'll tell us himself.' He glanced from Maria, to Isabel, to Adam, to Alex, looking for some backup.
'Usually I'd agree with you,' Alex told him. 'But not this time. All our lives could be at stake. That's why I asked Max to check Trevor out.'
Michael felt like punching something. Something he could whale on until his hands were bruised and bloody, until he was so exhausted that's all he could think about.
'I can't believe you're saying this,' he burst out. 'You're talking about my brother.'
'I realize he's your brother, but we don't really know anything about him,' Max answered.
'Right, we don't know anything about him at all,' Maria jumped in. 'Good or bad.'
But Michael noticed that she had backed up half a step away from Trevor, and he saw that threads of sickly yellow had begun twining through her aura. She was scared.
'What possible reason would Trevor have for trying to kill you?' Isabel asked Alex.
Isabel's question hadn't sounded challenging. It hadn't sounded like she was defending Trevor, either. It was more like she was staying neutral until she had all the facts.
Which was the same as siding against Michael's brother. The same as siding against Michael. Was Michael the only one who knew that there was no way his brother could be some kind of potential murderer? This was total insanity.
Michael positioned himself at Trevor's side, wanting him to know that at least Michael was with him however this thing shook down. He wished he had some clue what Trevor was thinking, but his brother still had that blank look on his face, and he hadn't said a word.
'Show them,' Alex told Max.
Max reached into his pocket and pulled out a stone that was filled with a pulsing blue-green light. The glow distorted the planes of his face, making him look like a stranger to Michael.
'A Stone?' Isabel breathed.
'What does that thing prove?' Michael demanded.
Alex ignored him and nailed Trevor with a hard look. 'You're not going to try to pretend you don't know what that is, are you?'
'Of course I know what it is. I doubt you could find anyone on my planet who doesn't,' Trevor answered, his voice flat. 'It's one of the Stones of Midnight.' He stretched his hand toward it, then caught himself and jammed his fingers into his pocket instead.
'It's power, pure power,' Isabel said. 'I can see someone killing for that.' Her tone was still neutral, as if she were talking about the weather or something.
Michael felt like shaking her.
'I can tell you for sure that someone was searching my room last night,' Alex jumped in again. 'I didn't see their face. But they teleported out, so that kind of narrows things down.' He turned to Michael. 'I mean, that does narrow things down, right?'
It's like he was begging Michael to understand that… that this wasn't personal or something. Michael looked away. He didn't know what he'd end up doing if he didn't. That I'm-sorry-but-I've-got-to-do-this expression on Alex's face was about to make Michael go ballistic.
'Max, I think we need to hear what the consciousness told you,' Maria said. She shot an apologetic glance at Michael.
Oh, so she was sorry, too. Well, that made this witch-hunt just fine, didn't it? As long as everybody felt bad, it didn't matter that they were accusing Michael's brother of something heinous.
'Just as, you know, a precaution,' Maria added. She bent down and picked up a soda can off the floor, then stared at it as if she'd never seen one before.
'I think you'd all be more comfortable discussing me if I wasn't here,' Trevor said suddenly. Then he turned on
