The Wild One (15 page)

With a little gasp Isabel rushed over and knelt beside him.

“That's it.” Michael slammed Nikolas against the limestone wall. “That's the last time you—”

Michael suddenly felt himself flying through the air, flying across the cave. Then hitting the opposite wall with a thump. His teeth came down on his tongue, and blood filled his mouth.

What just happened? Michael thought. What did he do to me?

Nikolas strolled toward Michael, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. “You're not much stronger than a human. That's what happens when you're too
careful
with your powers.”

Michael growled low in his throat. He started to hurl himself at Nikolas—but he was stuck to the cave wall. He couldn't move.

Nikolas laughed. “You must feel like a fly on flypaper right now.” He stopped inches away from Michael and studied him. Then he reached out and lightly rested his fingers on Michael's forehead. Instantly a wave of dizziness swept through Michael.

“I think I'll do this slowly,” Nikolas said. “I want to enjoy it.”

Where was Isabel? Was she just going to watch this happen? Michael shot a glance at her. She was healing Alex, lost in the connection.

Michael struggled against the cave wall. Straining his muscles.

I'm doing this the wrong way, he realized. His thoughts felt slow, as if his brain wasn't working right. Nikolas is using power to hold me in place. That means I have to use power to break free.

Michael closed his eyes. He needed to focus on the power inside him, not what was going on around him. He let the taste of blood in his mouth and the pain in his head fade into the background. He let his fury at Nikolas fade.

Yes. Now he could concentrate on the force field. Now he could feel it against his skin. Slick, and oily, and thin. Very thin.

“Aarrgh!” Michael channeled his power and smashed a hole in the force field. He broke one hand free from the cave wall.

His eyes opened, and he shoved his fingers onto Nikolas's chest.
Connect
, he ordered himself. And that's all it took. The connection was instantaneous. Maybe because Nikolas was an alien, too.

Michael focused his attention on Nikolas's left lung. He used his mind to
crush
the cells together.

Nikolas gasped for breath. Michael kept shoving the cells together. He would collapse Nikolas's lung if he had to.

Nikolas kept his fingers locked on Michael's forehead. Michael's head began to pound. Jagged streaks of red light flashed in front of his eyes.

He struggled to keep his focus on Nikolas's lung tissue. Crush it, he thought. I have to crush it. His vision blurred. His hand began to slip off Nikolas's chest. He dug his fingernails into Nikolas's shirt, keeping the connection. And he smiled when he heard Nikolas wheeze as he struggled to pull air into his damaged lung.

Michael gathered his strength and bashed another hole in the force field. Now his head was free. He shook it back and forth, trying to knock Nikolas's fingers off. But Nikolas wouldn't let go.

Michael's vision dimmed. He was going to black out. Nikolas was going to win.

“Stop it!” Isabel screeched. Her voice sounded far away. Outside the connection.

Suddenly her face loomed in front of his. She pushed Nikolas back, away from Michael's fingers. Nikolas's hand slipped off Michael's head.

The connection was broken.

The force field disappeared, and Michael tumbled to the floor. He didn't try to stand up. He turned his healing powers on himself. Dissolving the two blood clots Nikolas had formed in his brain. Repairing the torn blood vessels.

“Okay, let's just call that a tie,” Isabel said, her voice harsh. “I hope you've both figured out that there's no way one of us can kill the other—without ending up dead, too.”

Michael grabbed Alex's arm and pulled him up off the floor. “Come on, Isabel,” he said.

She didn't move.

“I said come on,” he snarled.

“You can't tell me what to do,” Isabel whispered.

“What the hell has happened to you?” Michael exploded. “This jerk just tried to kill me! He hurt Alex! I am not going to leave you alone with him. Now come on—we're going home.”

Isabel's eyes blazed. “No.”

Without another word, Michael turned his back and left her there.

Isabel gazed at herself in her dresser mirror on Sunday morning. She'd been staring for so long that her face didn't look like a face anymore—just a jumble of shapes and colors.

“We're going to the office for a few hours, honey. We'll be back around one,” Mrs. Evans called through Isabel's closed bedroom door. “Max is already gone, so you're on your own.”

“Okay,” Isabel answered. “Bye.”

The spell was broken. Her face looked like a face again. Isabel turned away from the mirror. She wondered if Nikolas would come by for her. Nikolas never made plans in advance. He just roared up on his motorcycle and she jumped on.

When he
did
show up, Isabel knew she had to have a talk with him. A long talk. Usually when she started to say something Nikolas didn't want to hear, he would kiss her. By the time she floated back to earth,
she would pretty much have forgotten her point.

But she wasn't going to let him do that. Not this time. She had to make it very clear that if she was going to be with Nikolas, he had to promise never to use his powers against Alex, Max, Michael, Liz, or Maria. If he wouldn't do that, she would walk away. No matter how she felt about him. No matter how
right
it felt to be in his arms.

She had a few little things she wanted to say to the others, too. It's not like they'd been so totally perfect. Isabel pulled her hair back into a ponytail and frowned at her reflection.

Why did it have to be this way? Why couldn't they all see how incredible it was to have Nikolas around? For all their lives they'd thought they were alone here. Just the three of them. And now there was someone else, someone like them.

Michael and Max should be excited about Nikolas. They should have accepted him as part of their group. And Liz, Maria, and Alex—even Alex—should be happy that Isabel had found one of her own kind to be with. Someone who understood her. Someone who taught her not to be afraid …

Isabel's thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell.
Nikolas!
She rushed out of her room and down the stairs. She swung open the front door and saw Alex standing there.

Of course it wasn't Nikolas. Nikolas was not a doorbell kind of guy.

Looking at Alex, Isabel couldn't help thinking about what she saw when she healed him last night. The inside
of Alex's mind was like an Isabel shrine. He remembered things about her that she didn't even remember.

Connecting with Alex convinced her that he was on her side. He was not happy with the whole Nikolas situation. But he would always be there for her.

Even after she let her boyfriend knock him out …

Isabel quickly pushed that thought aside. So Nikolas had a wild side. He was always nice to
her
. And that was all that mattered. Right?

Alex shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Was Isabel going to say anything?

“So are you here to see me or Max?” Isabel asked softly. “I know everything isn't about me.”

Was that supposed to be an apology? Alex wondered. “I'm here to see you,” he answered.

Isabel stepped back and swung open the door. “Do you want some toast or something?”

“You're offering to cook for me? I'm touched,” Alex answered. She does seem like she's trying to say she's sorry, in an Isabel kind of way, he thought.

“Come on.” Isabel led the way into the kitchen. “My parents and Max already ate, but I think they might have left some muffins.” She picked up a plate covered with crumbs. “Or maybe not.”

“I'm not really hungry, anyway,” Alex said. His stomach was in knots. He didn't want to have this conversation with Isabel. But he needed to.

“Are you feeling okay? Your head?” Isabel asked.

“Yeah, I'm fine. You do good work.” He sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. Isabel sat across from
him. Not next to him, across from him. So don't get too excited about the whole implied-apology thing, he thought. She's hardly throwing herself at your red-haired self.

“Uh, the reason I've called you all here …” Alex took a deep breath. “It's because I'm worried about you.”

“You don't have—,” she began to protest.

“Wait. Let me finish,” Alex said. “I know you hate being told what to do. But sometimes what people are telling you to do is the right thing to do, you know?”

Isabel stood up and started gathering the dirty dishes off the table. She dropped them in the sink with a clatter. “So you're here to tell me to stay away from Nikolas.”

“Yeah. I am. Because you're not thinking clearly,” Alex said. “I know you don't think Valenti is any threat to you and Nikolas because you have your power, but—”

“No. We are not having this conversation. Because that's not what it's about,” Isabel said. She scooped up a handful of silverware and hurled it into the sink.

“What is it about, then?” Alex asked.

“It's about that you're jealous. It's about that you see that there is something going on between me and Nikolas, and it's driving you crazy,” Isabel answered. She jerked on the hot water and sent it splashing over the dishes.

“I admit that,” Alex told her. What was the point of denying it? It was obvious. “But what about your brother? What about Michael? What about Liz and
Maria? They have no reason to be jealous, and they all think Nikolas is putting you in danger. No, not just you—all of us.”

Isabel snatched up one of the dishes and scrubbed it furiously. “I want you to leave,” she said, without turning around to look at him.

“Fine,” Alex said. “But you have to know this is it. I go now, I'm gone. I'm not going to come running back if you change your mind.”

“I can live with that,” Isabel answered.

“So do you feel any better?” Maria asked.

Liz glanced over at Alex. She knew Maria thought dragging Alex out for ice cream would cheer him up. But
cheerful
wasn't exactly the word Liz would use to describe him right now.

“Not really,” Alex admitted.

Maria turned to Liz. “What do you think? More M&M's?”

“Umm. No, I think the problem is the sprinkles. He needs the rainbow ones, not the chocolate ones,” Liz answered. “Rainbow equals happy, right?”

“Right. I'll take care of it.” Maria jumped up and snatched Alex's sundae off the table. She hurried over to the counter.

Liz took a bite of her frozen yogurt. She was basically stalling. She was hoping she'd come up with some great thing to say to Alex about the whole Isabel sitch. But there wasn't anything. Liz knew that. It's not like anybody had been able to say anything that made her feel better about Max wanting to be
just friends
.

“Those rainbow sprinkles don't taste like anything,” Alex mumbled.

“Yeah. They look like they should taste great. Like
they should just explode in your mouth with all these flavors,” Liz agreed. “Maybe you could do one of your lists on that, on food that tastes totally different than you'd expect it to.”

“Maybe.” Alex got really interested in smoothing out all the wrinkles in his paper napkin.

“Hey, I'm sorry.” Liz patted his arm as if he were a puppy or something, which made her feel like her
abuelita
. That's what she always did when someone looked upset. “I know sometimes it makes you feel worse when people try to cheer you up,” she said.

Liz definitely had times where she just wanted to curl up under the covers, listen to some really sad songs about love gone bad, and think of Max. When she was in that kind of mood, she didn't want anyone trying to make her feel better.

She leaned closer to Alex. “I know ice cream isn't going to help, either,” she whispered. “But it makes Maria feel better to do something for you.”

Maria had force-fed Liz the full menu of comfort food after Max told her he wanted to be
just friends
. Liz had choked down many varieties of chocolate, macaroni and cheese, french fries, and all the other greasy, fatty, sweet foods Maria could think of.

Which just proved what an amazing friend Maria was. Maria was a total natural food fanatic. She refused to eat anything with preservatives, additives, or artificial colors. She never ate meat or eggs or any dairy products. But when her friends were feeling blue, Maria made it her job to get them the food she thought would make them feel better. Even if she was
dying to stuff them full of blue-green algae, wheat grass, and tofu.

Maria hurried back over with Alex's new and improved sundae. She watched him intently as he took a bite, then shook her head. “It's not working. He doesn't look any happier,” she said. “I have a theory about why. Alex eats junk food three meals a day, so junk food doesn't give him that little boost it gives most people.”