The Rebel

"Maybe," Max answered. "I mean, it's not like I can type in his name and get a bio, but I might be able to get something. And I'd rather not talk to Michael until-"

"That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you alone," Alex agreed. "And I thought you should be the one to have this."

Alex gently placed the Stone in Max's hand. Max could feel the power churning under its smooth surface.

"Okay, just give me a minute." Max closed his eyes and let his co

Almost immediately the auras around him began to vibrate. Their hues changed rapidly in a cacophony of color that burned Max's eyes. Then the changes slowed down as all the auras got closer and closer to the same shade.

Red. The vivid bloodred of pure fury.

Max didn't know what the deal was exactly, but he knew that the rage was directed at Trevor.

And he knew that the consciousness believed Trevor was a danger to Max. To all of them.

EIGHT

"I can see you're having a wild Saturday night," the scruffy twenty-something guy behind the counter of the minimart said. He dropped the bottle of vanilla in a little brown bag and handed Liz her change.

Oh, great, she thought. You know your life has hit a new low when the minimart guy finds you pathetic.

"I'm just about to head over to a party my friends are giving at the UFO museum," Liz lied.

The guy gave her a knowing smile, and Liz felt her face get hot.

She didn't think there was any lower she could sink, but it turned out there was-trying to convince the minimart guy you had a life. And failing.

"Thanks," she muttered. She snatched up her bag and got out of the place as fast as she could.

But as soon as she was clear of the guy's sight, she slowed down. She was in no hurry to get home.

I wonder if Max will have called while I was gone, she thought. She'd expected him to call hours ago, but nothing. Like it would have killed him to tear himself away from the party for a few minutes?

Liz knew she had entered the self-pity zone, but she just didn't care. She figured she should just move in-pitch a tent or something. It wasn't like her life was going to get better anytime soon.

She turned onto her street. When she saw the porch light on at her house, she tried to remember if she'd flipped on the light when she left. She didn't think so.

Just as Liz reached the sidewalk, her front door swung open. Her papa stood there, glaring at her. His arms were folded across his chest, blocking out most of the line of dancing teddy bears printed on the front of his T-shirt.

"You were told not to leave the house," he said before she was halfway across the lawn.

White-hot anger erupted inside Liz. She strode up to her father and thrust the bag into his hands so hard, he almost dropped it.

"I was out scoring some drugs," she told him. She'd never said anything like that to her papa before, but it just came spewing out. And she was glad it had.

Her father took a quick look into the bag. His grim expression didn't soften.

"That isn't fu

"You know what else isn't fu

The front door opened again, and Liz's mama appeared. "I asked Liz to go to the store for me," she said. "I forgot I didn't have enough vanilla to finish my cake, and I have to deliver it first thing in the morning."

Liz's papa jerked around to face her mother. "I don't want Liz leaving the house except for school or work 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 a

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 a

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.