busy talking with another deputy behind the front desk and seemed to be ignoring her entirely. While she watched the two police officers carrying out their conversation, Isabel noticed that Deputy Blackwood looked considerably younger than he did the last time she had seen him. She wondered if that was some kind of clue, or if it was just that Kyle remembered the man differently in his dreams. Remember these are just images, she thought. Don't expect it all to be true to life.
Soon, Isabel grew tired of waiting. «Deputy Blackwood?»
He continued his conversation as if she wasn't there.
«Deputy Blackwood?» she tried again, but still received no answer. She wondered if he even saw her there in the first place. «Great.»
Feeling the need to move on, Isabel continued her search
for Kyle in the lobby of the police station. Unable to find her friend, she decided to broaden her search area. Being where she was, she naturally looked for a dream image of Sheriff Valenti as well, but she could not find him, either.
Making her way through the station, she did her best to stay out of the way of the many, many officers tending to their affairs. It did not seem to Isabel that they were in any rush or in an emergency. They all seemed to be going on about their daily business.
In Kyle's dream, the police station was much larger than it was in real life, with winding and twisting halls that simply did not exist. She knew this for a fact, since she was at the Roswell Police Station far more times than any girl her age should have been. Making her way to where she felt was the most logical place to go, Isabel walked a circuitous route to the sheriffs office.
Once she finally reached the office, she found the door closed. As she placed her hand upon the knob, she could hear from within the sounds of a man sobbing. Carefully turning the knob, Isabel pushed the door open and walked right into the Valenti living room.
The crying had stopped.
The room was empty.
Back in the place she had left a short time ago in reality, she found the house looked pretty much the same as when she had been there. There were some notable differences, however. For one, daylight now shone through the windows, making the place much brighter than it had been. Naturally, Kyle was no longer on the couch, where she had left him, although it was made up to look like a bed. Then, she remembered that for the last several months of the
school year, the couch had been Kyle's bed. His actual room had been taken over by someone else. A feeling of trepidation came over her as she realized this part of the dream was taking place in the not so distant past.
Again, Isabel checked around for Kyle, but he wasn't in the room. This is really odd, she thought. Where is Kyle?
Voices.
Coming from Kyle's bedroom.
The voices were familiar and they sounded very angry. Isabel knew exactly what was going on behind the closed door to Kyle's room, but she did not want to see it. At the same time, however, she was drawn to the room. Whether it was because of the dreamwalk or her own curiosity, Isabel could not be sure. But suddenly, the door was open, and she was standing at the threshold about to witness an event that she had her own nightmares about.
It was Alex. Her Alex. The Alex she had tried to ignore for so long, until it was too late. He was in pain, talking about Las Cruces and mindwarps. He could barely stand. His face was twisted in what Isabel could only imagine to be excruciating pain.
Tess was there too. Alex was leaning on her, holding on to her as if he did not have the power to stand on his own. She looked frightened and trapped. There wasn't a trace of the anger Isabel had expected to see, only fear. It had been so much easier to think that Tess had acted out of anger. It made hating her all the more effortless.
Tess turned, looking directly at Isabel. «Kyle, get out!» she yelled, with anger finally creeping into her voice as if Kyle had done something wrong simply by walking into his own bedroom.
But Kyle wasn't standing there, Isabel was.
It was the first time she had seen Tess since she'd found out the truth behind Alex's death. The evil alien had left Earth before Isabel had had a chance to confront her and make her either explain why or suffer for what she had done. And even though Isabel knew that the image standing before her was only a dream, she still wanted to lash out… to hurt her… to kill her.
Through her own boiling anger, Isabel heard Alex say that he might as well be dead.
«No!» Isabel yelled as if the strength of her voice could stop past events. «Don't say that! Don't wish that!» she screamed, trying to tear him away from Tess, but something held her firmly in her spot. She could not move. She could not stop what was happening.
She could only watch as Tess grabbed Alex's hands and closed her eyes performing the mindwarp… the last mindwarp… the fatal mindwarp.
«No!» Isabel screamed in unison with Alex.
Still locked in place, Isabel watched Alex crying out in pain, trying to pull away, then falling… to the floor… to his death.
Isabel broke loose a torrent of sobs. Not even her most horrific dream had prepared her for witnessing the events as they had played out. She had never even imagined the feeling of helplessness Kyle must have experienced watching the scenario unfold and not knowing what was going on, ultimately realizing there was nothing he could have done. An intense feeling of guilt washed over her worse than she had ever felt before.
A moment later, Isabel was dragging a duffel bag. She
was confused by what was going on. Where is Alex? Did it really happen? Did I really see what I saw? The bag was heavy, and the weight was unevenly distributed. It didn't feel right to her.
Tess followed as Isabel dragged the bag out of the Valenti house. There was a forced smile on Tess's face, and Isabel knew that she should hate the girl, but couldn't figure out why. She carelessly deposited the bag into the car, stuffing it into the front seat.
Suddenly, realization struck Isabel. It hit with the force of a train. There was no duffel bag. Alex was the thing she had loaded into the car. He was the thing slumped in the passenger seat… broken… dead.
«You want me to come along?» she asked Tess without knowing why.
«No,' Tess replied in a hollow voice. «Go in the house. I'll take care of everything from here.»
Although she wanted to stay, Isabel was drawn back into the house. She did not even stop to look at Alex for a final few seconds as Tess pulled away. She heard the car engine start as, crying, she made her way back through the Valenti home.
I didn't want to see this. I didn't want to live through this.
The pain was unimaginable.
She was back in Kyle's bedroom. Echoes of Tess and Alex resonated through her head. The fight played over in her thoughts… His final words… his final scream of pain.
Isabel collapsed onto the floor on the spot where Alex had died, weeping uncontrollably.
Why?
The bedroom door slammed behind her, drawing Isabel's attention away from the empty spot on the floor.
With tears in her eyes and streaming down her face, she looked at the closed door, but there was no one there.
Then she felt his presence in the room before she saw him.
Still on the floor, she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at the bed beside her. A small boy was sitting on the edge, with his legs gently swinging back and forth. He was looking down at her, both sad for her and frightened of her at the same time. «It's all my fault,' he said in a hollow voice.
Jim Valenti crept silently through his house taking extra care not to wake up his son, who had crashed on the couch. He was used to the hushed puttering around because Kyle used to sleep there regularly while Tess had been staying with them.
