The Wild One

She glanced over at her brother. "Are you still here?" she asked.

He left without another word. Good. Everything he said to her made her more furious.

Isabel searched her closet. Not one pair left. She turned around and studied the pile of shoes behind her. How should she organize them. Color? Style? Heel height?

Her phone rang. She picked it up. "What?"

"Hello to you, too. It's Maria."

Great, Isabel thought. Maria wants her turn to tell me to stay away from Nikolas.

"Michael's at my house, and we want you to come over. We made a cake, and we need help decorating it," Maria said.

"Oh, gee, that sounds like so much fun. But I bought one of those new toilet paper dispensers, the ones that give off a fresh scent every time you use it, and I'm pla

Decorate a cake. Yeah, right, she thought. Decorate it with the words Isabel, You're in Danger in big letters.

She wasn't stupid. She knew how to take care of herself. Why were they all treating her like a baby? They probably came up with a schedule for themselves. Max will baby-sit Isabel from nine to eleven, Michael from eleven to two…

The phone rang again. "Hello. You've reached Isabel Evans. If you want to leave a message telling me to stay away from Nikolas, press one. If you want to leave a message telling me I'm in danger, press two. If you want to leave a message telling me what a horrible person I am for what happened to Liz, press three. If-"

"Uh, Isabel. It's Alex. I don't want to do any of those things. I just wanted to say that I lied to you this morning. If you changed your mind, I would come ru

Isabel felt tears sting her eyes. She blinked them away. Alex wanted the same thing as the rest of them. He was another one of the baby-sitters. She had to remember that.

"Beep," she said softly. Then she hung up. She switched on her answering machine. She couldn't take another call.

Shoes. That's what she needed to be thinking about. Maybe she should divide them into different seasons. But did that really make sense in Roswell? Some of the seasons weren't that different.

The phone rang again. That would be Liz, Isabel thought. Her last baby-sitter.

The beep went off. "Hi, Isabel, this is Liz."

Isabel shook her head, disgusted.

"I just had a question about… a math problem. I know you're a math whiz, so could you call me?" Liz said.

Liz was going to be valedictorian, and she couldn't think up a better story than that? She needed to take a remedial lying class or something. Yeah, Isabel was good in math. But she was a junior, and Liz was a senior. Besides that, Max, boy genius, lived in the same house. If Liz really wanted help, she would just ask him.

The next time that phone rings, I'm throwing it out the window, Isabel decided.

Max glanced over at his dad. His eyes had almost glazed over. His father needed a movie with a good explosion every few minutes to keep him awake.

He checked out his mom. She seemed pretty into the movie. Max knew Isabel would be loving it, too. She was the only reason he had broken down and rented the dumb movie.

And now he was stuck watching this movie about a girl who falls in love with a guy who's really an angel. It was pretty stupid. When Nicolas Cage told Meg Ryan he was a messenger from God, she was just kind of like, "Okay, fine."

Nobody real would react like that. When he'd told Liz that he was an alien, she had totally freaked out. Well, first she'd just thought he was messing with her. Then she had freaked out.

Max wondered if Liz would like this movie. He didn't think he'd mind it so much if he was watching it with Liz snuggled up next to him. Get serious, he told himself. You'd watch the Barney movie and love it if it meant getting close to Liz.

He grabbed a handful of popcorn. He decided to time himself, to see how long he could go without thinking about Liz. If he could start stretching out the amounts of time by a few seconds, maybe someday he would regain his sanity. He checked his watch. Okay, go, he told himself.

He tuned back in to the movie. Some guy was explaining to Nicolas Cage that he could be with Meg Ryan if he was willing to give up all his angel powers.

Would I do that for Liz? Max thought. Would I give up my power, which would probably mean giving up any chance of ever seeing my home planet? Would I-

Max checked his watch. Three seconds. He'd gone three seconds without thinking of Liz.

He sighed. Try going for four this time, he told himself.

Then he heard it-the sound of a motorcycle roaring up to the house. He jumped up and hurried to the front window.

Just in time to see Isabel run across the front lawn and climb up behind Nikolas.

Isabel fastened the diamond te

"It's fine. Are you done yet?" he answered.

It was obvious Nikolas didn't appreciate the joys of shopping, even when they had the entire mall to themselves. Isabel loved it. No matter how bad she was feeling, shopping always made her feel better. And strolling from shop to shop, taking anything she wanted, made her feel like the queen of the world.

Well, she wasn't exactly taking anything. More like borrowing. She pla

She studied the bracelet. "It's a little too quiet, I think. A little too upscale suburban mom's special a

Aha. There was a safe underneath the register. "Nikolas, open, please."

Nikolas gave a little growl in his throat, but he used his power to pop open the safe. "You could do this yourself if you bothered to work at it," he told her.

Isabel reached into the safe and pulled out three velvet bags. She opened the first one. "This is more like it," she said. She slipped the pearl chain around her neck. The heart-shaped ruby pendant fell just above her breasts. It would look so perfect with a low-cut evening gown, like they wore at the Oscars. She was going to have to get her one of those.

"One more minute and I'm out of here," Nikolas warned her.

Isabel shot a quick glance at him, evaluating. No, he wasn't serious. He wasn't going anywhere.

She opened the next bag and gave a little sigh of happiness. She'd always thought she should have a tiara. She gently placed the circlet of glittering diamond-studded silver leaves on her head.

"Just one more," she told Nikolas. She greedily tore open the last bag. It was the biggest diamond ring she had ever seen. A rock with a capital R. "That is too tacky," she pronounced. "It looks like something you'd get out of a bubble gum machine."

"So can we go?" Nikolas asked.

"Yes, we can go." She dropped the ring back in its sack and tossed the sack back in the safe.

"Let's hit the food court," Nikolas said.

"Okay, it's upstairs." Isabel grabbed Nikolas's hand and headed toward the escalator. She kept taking little peeks at herself in the store windows. Mmm-hmm. She was definitely born to wear jewels. She could get very used to this.

The sound of their footsteps on the metal escalator stairs sent a bunch of little shivers down her spine. She still wasn't used to how quiet the mall was. She'd never been here when there weren't crowds of people-shopping, strolling, eating, talking, flirting people.

"You're sure that security guard won't wake up while we're still here?" she asked.

"Does the word gutless mean anything to you?" Nikolas answered.