like he was part of me, you know? So how could I want him dead?' Adam answered. 'Maybe locked away in the compound himself, but not dead.'
'I never thought about the sheriff dying as you losing a father,' Liz said. 'But of course it felt that way to you.'
She reached over and took his hand. 'Do you have these times where you totally forget he's dead? When my sister died, there would be days where I'd get halfway home from school before I'd remember, especially right after it happened. Like I'd have a story I was planning to tell her, and then-bam!' She made a little explosion with her hands. 'It would hit me.'
'That's happened to me, too.' Adam felt a loosening in his chest. He hadn't realized that he'd really been needing to talk to someone about this. 'So when does it stop?'
Liz shrugged. 'When it happens, I'll let you know,' she answered. Then she turned her head and met his gaze. 'It doesn't happen nearly as much anymore. And the realizations are more like, I don't know, like oh-rights than bams.'
'I thought everyone would just think I was being a moron if I actually said I felt sad about Valenti,' Adam confessed.
'Of course you were sad. He was your papa,' Liz reassured him.
But he wondered if she'd switched over to talking more about herself and her own father. If Adam could feel so much for Valenti, how much more must Liz feel for Mr. Ortecho?
'You should talk to him. Your papa,' Adam said. He wasn't sure she'd want him butting in, but he thought she needed to hear it.
'You don't get it,' Liz burst out. 'He pretty much proved he doesn't even know me. He probably thinks he loves me and everything, but how can you love what you don't know?'
'So you're just going to run away?' he demanded. 'That's not you, Liz. You fight for things. You want him to know you-make it happen.'
'Make it happen,' Liz repeated. She snorted.
'Yeah, make it happen,' Adam insisted. 'You helped break Michael out of the Clean Slate compound. You faked out Elsevan DuPris's bounty hunters. You practically even brought Max back from the dead, the way he tells it. You make things happen all the time. Impossible things.'
Liz didn't say anything. She took her hand away and pulled her hair free from its knot, then immediately started twisting her hair back up again.
'You know what's going to happen if you don't, right?' Adam asked. He knew what he was about to say would probably hurt her, but he had to do it, anyway
Liz shook her head.
'If you don't, someday you're going to be coming home from school-or the job you get after college, or whatever-and you'll be all excited about telling your father some great thing that happened to you. Or even some awful thing,' Adam explained. 'And then-bam!-it will hit you. You don't talk to your papa anymore.'
Max's eyes went right to the group's usual table as soon as he entered the cafeteria. He felt a little of the tension flow out of his body when he spotted Michael sitting there. He hurried over.
'You're alive,' he said.
Michael shot him an angry look, and Max belatedly realized this wasn't exactly the time for humor, not that it had exactly
'I stopped by your place this morning, but you weren't there,' he continued. 'We need to talk.' He saw Isabel and Alex heading toward them. Maria would probably show up any second. 'Alone, okay?'
'Whatever.' Michael didn't sound too happy about it, but he shoved himself up from the table and followed Max to the bio lab. Max knew nobody would be hanging around in there at lunch. At least since Liz wasn't at school today.
He clamped down hard on the pain that shot through him when he thought about her. He couldn't deal with the Liz thing and the Michael thing at the same time. Even separately felt almost impossible.
'You wanted to talk, so talk,' Michael said, leaning against one of the lab station counters.
'I wondered what you were able to find out from Trevor last night,' Max told him.
'I wasn't trying to find out anything,' Michael shot back. He picked up one of the Bunsen burner strikers and flicked it, producing a few sparks. 'I wasn't with him to do some kind of undercover work for you.'
'I didn't mean it that way.' Max slumped down on one of the tall stools across from Michael. 'Look, according to the consciousness, Trevor could be a threat to all of us. You should have felt the fury coming off the beings when I sent out an image of him.'
Max saw Michael stiffen, and he rushed on before Michael could interrupt him. 'I didn't get any sense that Trevor is a killer, but that's what Alex felt from him in the wormhole. I just want to know if there's anything you and Trevor talked about that will help me get all this straight.'
Michael flicked the striker a few more times, then tossed it behind him. 'Have you ever considered the possibility that the consciousness could be lying to you?'
It was as if Michael had sucker punched him. Max actually felt a little dizzy, a little wobbly perched on the stool. He stuck one foot down to steady himself.
Max had linked himself to the consciousness for life. He was a part of it. It was a part of him. If it could lie… if it could have some kind of
No. Impossible. His parents were part of the consciousness. Ray was part of the consciousness.
'The consciousness isn't a single entity,' Max explained, talking to himself as much as Michael. 'It's an immense collection of beings-the number of them is practically unfathomable. I don't get how something of that size and structure could lie.'
'Well, how do you explain the fact that Trevor went through his
Wait, did that mean Max hadn't had to join? Did that mean-
Max shook his head. He realized there was a very obvious answer to Michael's question. But it didn't seem that Michael had given it a thought.
'Have you ever considered the possibility that Trevor could be lying to
'He's my brother,' Michael answered, as if that said it all.
Max stood up so fast, he knocked the stool over. 'So am I,' he insisted. 'In every way that matters, I'm your brother, too.'
Didn't Michael get it? Didn't he understand that the bond between them was deeper than the one created by being born of the same parents? He and Michael had shared every important experience of their lives. Michael and Trevor were practically strangers.
'If that's true, if you're my brother, then why don't you trust me?' Michael exploded. He shoved himself away from the counter. 'I'm out of here.'
Max watched him leave. He wanted to call Michael back, but what was the point? Michael had made his choice.
Max stood up and turned on the faucet next to him. He stuck his face under and let the water pour over him until his skin turned numb with cold. Then he snapped off the faucet and dried himself off with one of the rough brown paper towels.
Then he heard a little squeaking behind him.
'You're not going to give me grief, too, are you, Fred?' he asked. He walked over to the cage of white mice and pulled out the skinniest one. He stared into its little red eyes. 'Remember, you owe me. I saved your life once. I saved Michael and Liz's lives too, not that they're bothering to be grateful.'
Fred squeaked again. Max pretended he could understand him. 'Yeah, I know.' Max sighed. 'They've saved my life at least once each. So I should go try and work things out with them before someone wanders by and sees me going all Doctor Doolittle.'
He put Fred back in the cage, then felt a tingle of curiosity from the consciousness. No. No way. There are
