The Intruder

As soon as Adam was gone, Isabel turned to her brother. "What's the deal? We both know Mom and Dad are at their office in Clovis. They won't be home for hours."

"Something happened when Adam and I practiced combining our powers," Max answered.

His tone jerked Liz out of her thoughts and pulled all her attention to him. Max almost sounded frightened. This wasn't about coming up with a plan to get Michael out. Something else was wrong. Something major.

"We were trying to set a rock on fire, and this rabbit hopped out," Max continued. "Adam was just about to incinerate the poor thing, until I tackled him. One second its nose was twitching, the next second it was squealing. I think he's got an evil side or something."

A small sound of distress escaped Maria's lips.

"Oh, man," Alex muttered.

No. The word exploded in Liz's brain.

"It had to be an accident," Isabel exclaimed. "The power slipped out of his control or something."

Max shook his head. "You weren't there. You didn't see it. The rabbit screamed. It sounded almost like a person, really loud and high. And Adam was smiling like he was watching a good show on TV or something."

"I can't believe Adam could do that," Maria said.

"We have no idea what he's capable of," Max answered, his voice flat. "We don't know what they did to him in that place. Maybe they've spent years turning him into some kind of killing machine."

"Max is right," Alex said. "We've only been around Adam a few days."

Liz got a flash of Adam spi

"Of course you'd say that," Max answered. She felt his body tighten, and he shifted away from her.

"Of course I'd say that because what?" Liz demanded. "Because Adam has a little crush on me? You really think that's why I'm defending him?"

"Yeah. I do," Max said bluntly.

"I'm glad to know you think so highly of me," Liz shot back. She wrapped her arms around her waist.

"Adam doesn't have a crush on me, and I agree with Liz," Isabel cut in. "He's completely gentle and sweet."

Maria turned to Max. "Do you think he's dangerous to us?"

"That's the question we need to decide before we go into the compound," Alex said. "What do you think, Max? Do you think there's any chance he could turn on us?"

Michael paced around his cell. Sometimes only needing two hours of sleep a night totally sucked. In here, he wouldn't mind needing twenty.

Okay, maybe not twenty. Twenty would mean he slept way more than Cameron, and Michael wouldn't want to miss any Cameron time. He shot a quick look into her cell. All he could see was the top of her head as she lay on her cot. He liked her hair, which was kind of weird because he usually went for long hair on girls.

He also usually went for girls with a few more curves. Cameron was long, lean, and had more muscles, well, not more than he did, but she was definitely a hard body.

Don't go any farther in that direction, Michael told himself. It wasn't a good idea for boys who lived in glass cells to think about sex stuff too much.

He flopped down on his bed and stared up at the glass ceiling and the cement ceiling far above it. He wondered how far underground they were. Sometimes the idea of being underground completely creeped him out. It was like being buried alive.

Michael jumped up, suddenly feeling way too much like he was lying in a coffin. He shot another glance over at Cameron. He would let himself look at her a little longer if the guards weren't around. He didn't like the feeling of having people out there going, "Look, Alien Boy wants the human girl."

Was that even true? Did he want Cameron? Oh, yeah.

Okay, harder question, Michael thought. Would you want Cameron if she wasn't the only girl in this place?

The answer came just as fast. Oh, yeah.

Even harder question. Do you want her more than you want Maria or Isabel?

Isabel, whoa. How did she get in that question? Isabel was practically like his sister. He didn't think of Isabel that way.

Except, remember that day you were wrestling over the remote? he asked himself. He'd gotten this flash of what it would be like to see her in the non-almost-like-a-sister category, and it had been… intense. Body-burning intense.

That explained how Isabel got into the question. Michael shoved his hands through his hair. He'd really been trying not to think about Maria down here. He had enough to deal with without trying to decide how he felt about Maria saying she loved him.

The love word. It pretty much freaked him out. It felt too monumental. Maybe it didn't feel that way to people who had real families. Max and Liz had their parents saying "I love you" practically all the time. So it's like they'd had the chance to get used to hearing the words. Michael hadn't.

Okay, here's another question, he thought. Do you love any of them?

Isabel. He definitely loved Isabel, not that he'd ever actually told her that.

Stop right there, he ordered himself. You know we're not talking about an I-love-you-like-a-sister kind of thing. Or the you're-a-great-friend-and-I-love-you kind of thing. So what's your answer? Do you love Maria, Cameron, or Isabel?

Liz flipped her pillow over and pressed her face into the cool side. Why wasn't she asleep? She needed to be asleep.

Tomorrow they were going into the compound, and she couldn't be all fuzzy and out of it.

Well, she could be. She could also be dead if she screwed up.

Oh, there's a thought that would put her right to sleep. Liz decided that as long as her brain was spi

There was yttrium, symbol Y, atomic number 39, atomic weight 88.9059. It wasn't always classified as a rare earth element. Sometimes it was classified as a transition-

A soft sound from the backyard grabbed Liz's attention. Was Adam moving around down there? She swung herself out of bed and hurried over to the window-just in time to see Adam slipping back into the shed.

Where had he been? Liz pulled on her robe and headed to the back door even while she was telling herself he probably just had to pee or something. She slid open the door, crept over to the shed, and gave a little knock. Adam answered instantly, a huge smile spreading across his face when he saw her.

Oops, Liz thought. By visiting him in the middle of the night, I have now probably destroyed any of the I'm-with-Max hints that did manage to make it into his head.

"Hey, I heard you come back in," she said. "I just wanted to see if you were okay. Is there something you needed? Are you too cold out here or anything?"

"Everything's good," Adam answered. "Do you want to come in for a minute? I could make toast."

Liz smiled. She had gotten him a toaster as sort of a housewarming present. How could a guy whose biggest love in life is making toast be dangerous? she thought. Max has to be wrong about what happened out in the desert. Killing the rabbit had to be an accident.

"I better not. My parents will freak if they notice I'm gone," Liz answered. She turned toward the house, hesitated, and turned back to Adam. "So where'd you go?" she asked.

"Huh?" Adam asked.

"You went out. I just wondered where you went," Liz said.

Adam scrunched his eyebrows together. "Where I went," he repeated softly. "I don't think I went anywhere."

"I'm not mad or anything," Liz assured him. "Although you do need to be careful. I was just curious because, like I said, I saw you coming back home."