The Salvation

'Liz's sister died,' Maria interrupted, seeming to grow smaller in front of him. 'People our age die all the time. It's not just Adam.'

'But-'

'I used to think there was all this time,' Maria said, a tear spilling over. 'Huge amounts of time. I even thought you could control time with your mind-how stupid is that? I thought if you concentrated, you could stretch one minute out forever-see the tennis ball slowly coming toward the racket, you know?'

Actually, Alex didn't, but he let her go on. Maybe venting would help. Besides, interrupting hadn't worked so far.

'But now I know that you can't control time. Time controls you,' she babbled, tears trembling on her eyelashes now. 'And there are so many things I want to do. God, so many things.'

Alex shoved his hands into his pockets and felt around. He didn't have a tissue or anything, of course. He ripped a sheet of blank paper out of his binder and handed it to Maria. He figured it was better than nothing, but she crumpled it up in her fist and kept on talking.

'It's so stupid to want things,' she continued, looking around her like the answers were on the crappy concrete walls. 'Or make plans. Or-'

'Wait. Hold up,' Alex said, firmly this time. 'Go back to the part about the things you want to do. Tell me some of them.'

If he could get her to actually say something specific, he might be able to turn this around. Whatever it was she wanted to do, he'd help her do it. Start her own aromatherapy business or track down Brad Pitt so she could kiss him just once. Whatever it was, he'd probably only have to work on it for a couple of days. He loved Maria, but the girl did have sort of a short attention span. She'd forget about her mission the second another animal hit the endangered list.

Maria leaned against the dusty wall and slid down to the floor, arms wrapped around her knees. 'There's no point in telling you,' she said.

'Come on. I'll be your best friend,' Alex teased. He sat down next to her, pulling his long sweatshirt down to cover the butt of his baggy pants. 'Whatever it is you want, I'll help you figure out how to get it.'

She snorted and covered her eyes with her hands. 'You can't,' she answered. 'I've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting… and Michael still doesn't love me. At least he doesn't love love me. And I just don't know if I'm going to live long enough for him to actually figure out that… that… he should. That no one else is ever going to care about him as much as I do.' Tears coated her cheeks and hands, and there were little smudges of makeup under her eyes. 'Even if we both live to be a hundred, I don't think he's going to get it.'

She pressed her forehead against her knees. Alex stared helplessly down at her crazy curls, his heart going out to his friend. This was way out of his league. He'd known she had a thing for Michael, but he hadn't realized that she had fallen heart and soul for the guy.

'If he doesn't get it, then he's a fool,' Alex told her, putting his hand on her back.

Maria snorted a laugh. 'Unfortunately we both know that's exactly what he is.'

***

Liz's heart gave a little flutter as Trevor sat down across from her at the cafeteria table. She wasn't fooled into thinking he was actually Max, but it still affected her to see him.

'How's it going?' she asked, trying not to look at him. 'Any trouble?'

'Nope,' Trevor said, sliding his cafeteria tray into place in front of him. 'Isabel told me Max is pretty quiet in class, doesn't really volunteer, but knows the right answer if he's called on. The information the Kindred gave me to study before I came here covered way more than what I needed to know to be a good high school student.'

'I bet,' Liz answered, looking past him at the door to the hallway. She was relieved when she spotted Maria, Alex, and Isabel coming toward them. Talking to Trevor one-on-one would be no problem if he looked like Trevor, but it was too painful this way. Every time she glanced at him, she was slammed by the memory of her encounter with Max that morning.

Not Max, she reminded herself. The consciousness.

'What's shakin'?' Alex asked hypercheerfully, clearly having appointed himself group morale booster. He sat down on one side of her, and Maria sat down on the other, Isabel sliding onto the bench next to Trevor.

'There's something I need to tell you guys, but I want to wait for Michael to get here,' Liz said, playing with the cap on her water bottle.

'You're going to cut an album and you want us to sing backup?' Alex joked. But his voice had gone down several points on the cheerometer, and Liz knew that he knew her news was of the not-good kind.

'He's coming,' Isabel said, lifting her chin in the direction of the food line, where Michael was just accepting his change. She carefully spread a layer of grape jelly on her turkey sandwich, then added dollops of ketchup. Her blue eyes were focused on the sandwich as if it was the most important thing in her life. Clearly she'd picked up on the not-good vibe, too.

'Liz has something to tell us,' Maria blurted out before Michael's butt got all the way into the seat next to Isabel's.

'What now?' Michael said, sounding resigned.

'When I was visiting Max this morning, he woke up,' Liz said.

'What?' Isabel said, her eyebrows shooting up.

'Wait,' Liz said, lifting her hands before Isabel could get too excited. 'At least I thought it was him. Then I realized he was being completely controlled by the consciousness.'

'How?' Isabel demanded. She picked up her sandwich, then put it back down as if she couldn't remember what it was for.

'He said some un-Max-like stuff,' Liz answered, avoiding Isabel's gaze. She didn't want to go into it. In fact, she wanted to forget that it had ever happened. Not that that was possible. His words-its words-were seared into the flesh of her brain. 'The consciousness wants Max to return the Stones. I don't think it's going to give up until it gets them.'

Michael and Trevor exchanged a glance that sent a chill down Liz's spine.

'If the Stones are returned to the home planet, it's over,' Trevor said with a serious doomsday tone. 'Without them we have no chance of shattering the consciousness.'

'Then we have to keep Max from finding them,' Alex said, rubbing his hands together. 'Simple, right?'

'Yeah, but you haven't seen what Max can do when the consciousness has control of him,' Liz said, her stomach feeling as heavy as lead as she remembered how consciousness Max had once brutally attacked DuPris. 'He's… dangerous.'

Isabel dropped her head into her hands, and Liz immediately wished she hadn't said anything. She knew it was hard for Isabel to hear everyone talk about her brother like this. But it was all, unfortunately, true. And it wasn't Max's fault.

'Then we need two teams,' Alex said as he leaned back in his chair. 'One team will keep working on a way to annihilate the consciousness, and the other…'

'The other can hang with Max and take him on a wild-goose chase,' Maria finished, perking up slightly. 'We can make the consciousness believe we want to help it find the Stones and keep it distracted.'

'We are so on the same wavelength,' Alex said, crunching into a nacho.

'Huh. Go figure,' Michael said, rubbing his chin.

'What?' Alex asked, his brow scrunching up.

'You two came up with a good plan,' Michael deadpanned. 'Didn't think it was possible.'

'Oh, very funny,' Maria said.

'I'll be on the distract-the-consciousness team,' Liz volunteered, raising her hand to shoulder level.

'I've got to be on the other one,' Trevor said, leaning his elbows on the table. 'No way would the consciousness accept that I'd be willing to give it the Stones.' He took a sip of his Lime Warp and grimaced.

Michael tossed him a couple of packets of hot sauce. 'I'll work with you on trying to figure out what we can do