Empire
of the Son
By Karen
Rating: MATURE
Disclaimer: Characters from the show belong to Katims and co. Alyssa and Nate
are mine 
Summary: This is the sequel to The
Son Also Rises. Nate has now exposed the aliens and their secret.
What happens next?
Author's Note: Beautiful banner by IAmLongTimeFan.
It looks great, sweetie!
***************************************
Part One
There was no
turning back now. They were coming
for them. The deed was done.
Nate Evans
swallowed hard as the light atop his father’s camera went dark – they were
off the air. Anxiety and doubt
swirled in his stomach. Maybe this
had been the wrong decision after all. Maybe
they were all going to go die now. Maybe
this wouldn’t be the end to their struggles but rather the beginning of a
lifetime of hell. At any moment, he
expected the FBI Special Unit to bust through the TV station doors and mow them
all down with one round of machine-gun fire.
Dark eyes
wide, Max Evans poked his head from around the camera and tried to give his son
a smile of reassurance – it fell flat. Then
he turned to the other camera operator – Michael Guerin – and gave a short
nod of his head. Both men stepped
out from behind the cameras as Jesse Ramirez joined them from the back of the
studio.
“Well,”
Nate breathed, feeling like there was a foot planted deep in the center of his
chest. “That’s that then.”
Max nodded
grimly. Michael pursed his lips and
appeared ready to flatten Nate at any moment.
Jesse was extremely calm and collected considering the fact that Nate had
just told all of
“What
now?” Nate asked, trying not to choke. Somehow
his heart had climbed into his throat and was obstructing air passage.
Maybe he’d suffocate to death and none of this would matter in the end.
“We
wait,” Max said simply. His voice
was steady but Nate could see the trepidation in his eyes.
Maybe he was having his doubts as well.
“It’s
what we’re waiting for that worries me,” Michael muttered unhappily.
Around them,
they could hear the hurried, hushed whispers of the station crew.
Nate couldn’t see them, but he could imagine them all hiding under
desks or in closets, in fear of the aliens who had just taken command of their
world. He felt a wave of pity for
them – this was their turf and it had just been violated in a major way.
“All
right, get the fuck out of my seat!”
Nate jumped,
startled, then whirled in the direction of the angry female voice.
It was coming from the anchorwoman he’d ousted when they’d taken over
the station. Her face was red and
her blond hair was billowing behind her as she angrily stomped toward him.
“I mean
it, you little bastard!” she screeched and Nate flinched.
“Get up!”
He stumbled
from the chair and she jerked it from beneath him as he’d barely gained his
feet. “Did you see my
broadcast?” he asked, timidity suddenly overtaking him.
“No, I
didn’t,” she huffed, flopping herself down into the chair and starting to
adjust her clothing. “I was
phoning the police. They will be
here any minute to haul your sorry ass out of here.
I have a broadcast to do – so why don’t you just beat it?”
She shuffled her papers and turned to look at the cameras.
Her eyes settled on Max, Michael and Jesse, then drifted down to her
familiar cameramen, who were still incapacitated on the floor.
“Oh, fuck,” she mumbled, holding her head.
Nate felt
sorry for her as well. Sure, she was
rude and abrasive and swore like a sailor, but they’d pretty much interfered
with her job, her profession. “Ma’am,”
he said softly.
The woman
dropped her hand and snapped in his direction.
“Don’t you call me ‘Ma’am’, you little shit!”
She whipped toward Max. “Did
you assholes kill my cameramen?”
Max’s brow
furrowed in confusion, then he looked to his feet where the two men lay.
“No,” he said quietly. “They’re
not harmed.”
“Then tell
them to get the fuck up and start the cameras!”
There was no
movement in the studio. The
anchorwoman looked at each of the intruders, then slumped visibly in her seat.
“Miss,”
Nate tried again. “Did you see my
broadcast?”
Perhaps
somewhat deflated, she didn’t hurl any more insults at him, but simply shook
her head.
“Then you
didn’t hear what I had to say.” Trying
to put her at ease, he sat down on the edge of the news desk.
“What’s your name?”
“Christy
Carmichael,” she said with a snort – like everyone
was supposed to know who she was.
Nate cocked
his head. No way that was her real
name.
“Christy”
seemed a little sheepish. “Susan,”
she said quietly.
“Okay,
Susan,” Nate echoed. “If I knew
how to roll back video tape and show you what I said, I would.
But I can, so I’ll just have to tell you face to face.”
He looked over his shoulder at Max, who gave him a nod.
“Susan, I’m an alien.”
Susan’s
eyes searched his for a long moment, then her eyebrows rose to her hairline and
she started laughing. “Sure you
are, kid. That’s a good one.”
Nate shook
his head slowly. “I am.
The government already knows about us.
They’ve known about us for years.”
She laughed
again, but this time it was a little less certain.
Nate
gestured toward Max. “That’s my
father. We’ve both been tortured
by the FBI. My dad decades ago, but
only a year ago for me. So yes, the
government really knows about us.”
Susan’s
grin fell away permanently. “You’re
serious, aren’t you?”
Nate could
almost read the rest of her thought – Or
maybe you’re crazy. Without a
word, he waved his hand over the news reports she’d discarded on top of the
desk. The words distorted,
disappeared, then reappeared again. He
saw a flash of fear in her eyes and knew that he needed to calm her as soon as
possible. “We’re not going to
hurt you. We don’t want to hurt
anybody.”
Susan worked
her mouth and Nate could sense her flight instinct kicking into gear.
Maybe he needed to approach this differently; maybe he needed to appeal
to her on a more personal level.
“Susan,
this could be the story you’ve waited your whole life for.”
Some of the
fear dissipated and she looked at him with renewed interest.
“Think
about it,” Michael chimed in, approaching at a non-threatening pace.
“Do you really want to be a local news anchor for the rest of your
career? This could launch you
straight to the networks.”
Nate grinned
slightly – it was just possible that maybe Michael had gotten past his bias
enough to get Nate’s back now that he needed it.
Susan looked
at her visitors in turn again.
“Stick
with us no matter what,” Nate offered. “You
won’t be sorry.”
Her eyes
narrowed when they landed on Jesse. “Do
I know you?”
Jesse
grinned – the affable counselor once again.
“We’ve crossed paths more than once.”
She blinked,
obviously concentrating hard, then her eyes flew open wide.
“You’re Jesse Ramirez.”
He nodded.
“You’re
an alien?” she asked incredulously.
Jesse
chuckled. “No, I’m human.
I’m just here for legal reasons.”
One corner
of Susan’s heavily glossed lip quirked upward.
“Jesus Christ. Even the
extra-terrestrials have lawyers these days.”
She blew out a sigh and slumped backward in her chair, all composure
forgotten.
“So,
you’re with us?” Nate asked hopefully.
Susan nodded
in resignation.
Nate grinned
at Michael and Max, who still looked a little ill.
“But I
called the police,” the newswoman confessed apologetically.
“It’s
okay,” Max said, stepping up to join Michael.
“It’s what we want.” He
swallowed hard at the end of his words – Nate knew that Max was still a little
wary of this plan.
“How can
that be what you want?” Susan asked in disbelief.
“Being different isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
“That’s
why we need you,” Max said levelly. “That’s
why we need the press. This is so
much bigger than us. Bigger than
you. Bigger than you can even
imagine.”
Nate felt
another surge of uncertainty. It
wasn’t only the humans out there that they needed to worry about.
There were God knows how many other alien races on the planet and he was
sure that none of them – who had all been hiding in plain sight up to this
point – was going to be real happy about what they had just done.
A commotion
in the hallway prompted the group to turn in that direction.
Nate’s heart leapt from his throat to his temples and started to pound
painfully.
“Police!”
came a stern voice from the hall. “Put
your hands above your heads!”
Max looked
at the others and nodded barely perceptibly.
They raised their hands and turned to face the police squad that was
lining the hallway. Nate could just
make out many dark figures in SWAT gear, rifles pointed in his direction.
“Let the
woman go!” came the next command.
“You’re
free to go,” Max said softly, not turning to look at Susan.
“We’re not keeping you here against your will.”
Nate closed
his eyes, waiting for the scene to play out, then heard Susan’s chair squeak
as she stood. The clack of her high
heels sounded in the quiet studio as she rounded the desk and approached the
hallway. Hope fell to Nate’s toes
– she was going to abandon them.
But when she
got to the door, she walked casually to the person in charge and started
speaking with him in words that Nate couldn’t hear.
It could be that she was telling them to blast the daylights out of them.
It could be that she was telling them the group was all crazy.
To Nate’s
surprise, the policemen lowered their weapons and straightened out of their
combat stance. Max shot him a
startled glance, but left his hands over his head.
In a few minutes, a heavy-set police detective came from the hallway,
Susan in tow. A couple of deputies
slid inside the door, fell into an attention stance, blocking the exit.
The
detective crossed the room to the group, a smirk on his pudgy face.
He stopped before Max, who refused to look away or back down.
Nate would never stop being astounded at Max’s composure in such
situations. Then again, Max had
probably been a victim of much worse.
“So,
you’re an alien,” the cop said, chuckling.
“Yes,
sir,” Max answered.
“And you
want me to take you to my leader.”
There were a
few chuckles out in the hallway and Nate felt indignation flair in his gut.
“Yes,
sir,” Max said, never showing the insult Nate knew he must be feeling inside.
“Before we do that, however, there are some people that I’d like for
you to take into protective custody, people who are going to be in danger.”
The
policeman raised an eyebrow and Nate now felt a surge of fury – he was making
fun of them. “Is there now?
Who are these people?”
“There’s
a list in my pocket,” Max said, starting to lower his hand.
“Eh –
I’ll get it,” the cop warned. “Which
one?”
“Back
left,” Max said, raising his hand again.
The cop
patted Max’s pockets on the outside, then reached into his back pocket and
pulled out a piece of folded paper. He
skimmed over it, then laughed aloud.
“Are you
for real?” he asked. “How did I
guess that there would be someone in
“Sir,
these people are in eminent danger –“ Max began.
All humor
faded from the cop’s face. His
skin suddenly flushed a deep red. “No,
you’re in eminent danger, punk.
You have broken about a dozen FCC laws.
You’re guilty of breaking and entering.
And I don’t even want to know what you did to those men!”
He pointed angrily at the fallen cameramen.
“They’ll
wake up…in time,” Max said quietly.
The cop
stepped close to him. “I had
tickets to the Celtics game tonight, you stupid prick.
You ruined that for me. You
and your band of lunatic followers.”
Nate’s
eyebrows rose sharply and his mouth dropped open.
Oh, no.
“Cuff
them!” the cop yelled over his shoulder and the two men at the door hurried
forward to take the intruders into custody.
“Wait,”
Nate protested as they pushed him to the ground.
“You have to help the people on the list!”
“Ah, save
it, kid,” the cop snapped. “And
why don’t you exercise your right to remain silent while you’re at it.”
“But,
they’re in danger if –“
“Shut
up!”
Nate winced
as they slapped the cuffs around his wrists.
They didn’t believe them. No
one – except maybe Susan the anchorwoman – believed them.
It wasn’t something they’d planned on.
He craned his head to the side where Max had also been pushed to the
floor. Behind them, he could hear
Jesse rambling something in legaleze, but Nate couldn’t concentrate on it.
“It’s
okay,” Max whispered. “Just be
quiet. We’ll get through this.”
Then he was
jerked to his feet and out of Nate’s view.
Shortly, Nate was upright as well and being pushed rudely toward the
door. He felt like vomiting.
Because somewhere out there, every person he loved was now in terrible
danger.
Part Two
Nate landed
roughly on the back seat of the police cruiser, his head nearly colliding with
Michael’s as he was tossed in from the other side.
Michael grunted in indignation and shuffled his weigh to right himself
without the use of his bound hands. Nate
followed suit, struggling to sit up straight.
“Well,
that went well, dontcha think?” Michael snarked as the officers moved toward
the front doors of the car.
“Don’t
bitch at me,” Nate said sullenly, his mind a million miles away from Michael
Guerin and his selfish dismay at being arrested.
“You didn’t have to come.”
“What?
And stay home with the women and children?”
Michael’s eyes were hard and Nate suddenly got the impression he was
only being abrasive to avoid dealing with the situation at hand – so much
easier to make Nate feel like an ass than to fess up that he was worried.
“At least
you’d be safe there,” Nate tossed back, deciding to wound Michael’s pride
instead of letting him off the hook.
“For how
long?” Michael snapped back.
“Hey!”
the officer behind the wheel called over his shoulder.
“You two shut the fuck up!”
Nate sank
into the seat but Michael remained rigid, his jaw set and his lips pursed.
Nate was amazed at the man’s blatant disregard for authority.
Had he always been this way? Not
that Nate had the time to dwell on that – because what Michael had said was
very true. How long would the
“women and children” be safe?
Despair sank
into Nate’s bones as the cruiser’s lights suddenly split the cold
Nate tried
to imagine what Alyssa was doing at that moment, tried to picture her pretty,
flawless face as she worried over the situation.
He could almost see her in his mind’s eye, pacing Isabel’s family
room, wringing her hands together. Closing
his eyes in agony, he wished he could see her, could hold her against him one
last time. Because he knew in his
soul that if this night ended badly, he might never see her again.
The clink of
metal broke Nate from his sullen state. He
turned to look at Michael, who was dangling his handcuffs from one wrist.
Nate looked horrified, but Michael looked victorious.
“What are
you doing?!” Nate demanded in a heated whisper.
In the front seat, the officers had commenced making many jokes about
aliens and were oblivious to Michael’s escape.
Michael
laughed and twirled the cuffs around one finger.
“Put them
back on!” Nate demanded, his eyes following the shining silver in tight
circles.
“What’s
the point?” Michael asked in a normal voice.
“They already know I’m an alien.”
“What was
that?” the driver barked in the mirror.
Michael held
up the cuffs and Nate hung his head in defeat.
“Looks like Deputy Dog there didn’t do his job very well – my cuffs
fell off.”
The officer
in the passenger seat whirled around, his eyes hard as they fixed on Michael,
who was dangling the cuffs like a carrot before a donkey.
“Goddammit!” he spouted. “When
this car stops, you little punk, you’re going to be sorry you did whatever it
was you did to get out of those!”
Michael
shrugged and tossed the cuffs onto the floor of the cruiser.
Then he sat back and got comfortable.
The officer spouted a few more obscenities and when he resumed his
conversation with the driver, their words were a little less jovial.
Nate stared
at Michael with a mixture of disbelief and disappointment.
They weren’t to reveal any of their powers until the time was right.
In the back seat of a police cruiser with people who thought they were
crazy was not the right time. So
much for sticking to a plan.
Michael
suddenly turned in Nate’s direction. “What’s
wrong?” he asked. “Can’t get
yours off?”
Fury boiled
in Nate’s blood. His wrists were
hurting, he couldn’t sit comfortably with his hands behind his back and
Michael was being an ass. This night
couldn’t get worse.
“And so
we’re asking for your help. My
people are just like you. We’ve
walked among you for years and you haven’t been able to tell the difference.
We laugh, we cry. We have
families. Cut us, we bleed.
We don’t want to harm anyone, but our lives are now in imminent danger.
Just as we won’t harm you, we hope that you won’t harm us.
We only ask that the FBI is not sent to our aid – they already know
about us and haven’t been welcoming.”
On the
screen, Nate’s eyes shifted to the right and he gave a nod of his head.
Turning back to the camera, he swallowed hard and then finished his plea
for help. “I thank you for your
time and apologize for coming into your homes this way.
Please believe me. Please
help us. Thank you.”
The
television went black, then displayed the logo of the television station, a
message that there were technical difficulties.
Alyssa felt
suddenly uneasy, like she’d just been spotted racing across a battlefield with
no cover in sight. Her hand went to
her necklace and toyed with the gem Nate had given her last year on her
birthday. He’d looked so foreign
on the TV, so different than he did in real life.
He’d looked so alone…
“So now we
wait,” Liz said from behind Alyssa.
Alyssa’s
dark eyes went to the clock. How
long to wait? They were now sitting
ducks, waiting for someone – whether it be the police or an enemy about to
kill them – to come to the door. She
hated waiting, hated not knowing what was going on with Nate and the rest of
them.
Isabel
walked between Alyssa and the television set and pushed the button to turn it
off. The tall alien was remarkably
cool, considering her brother, best friend, husband and nephew were now at the
mercy of the world. She gave Alyssa
a small smile and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Come
on,” she said. “Sit down.”
Alyssa sat
on the couch between Liz and her aunt. In
the hallway, she could hear her cousins preparing to flee if necessary –
Jeremy was irritable, not a trait of his normal demeanor; the twins, as per
usual, were disaffected about what was taking place around them.
On Liz’s lap, Emily gurgled happily, oblivious.
Alyssa eyed
the baby and felt a pang of loneliness. For
the first time in what seemed years, she missed her mother, missed Maria and her
nagging ways. Yes, that woman was a
royal, inconsiderate pain in the ass most times.
But, sometimes she was very comforting and supportive.
And at least she respected
Alyssa’s relationship with Nate, even if her father didn’t.
“How long
do we wait?” Liz asked casually, like she was inquiring if the mail had gone
yet that that. She gnawed on
Emily’s neck, making the infant sputter in laughter.
“An
hour,” Isabel said levelly. “If
we haven’t heard anything in an hour, then we move for the shelter.”
The shelter.
She meant the hiding spot. They
all had them. There was one on the
east coast for present company, and one in the middle of the
“Liz,”
Isabel said softly, so softly that it unnerved Alyssa.
Liz glanced
up, bounced her baby a couple of times.
“What
about your parents?” There was
sympathy in Isabel’s dark eyes. A
secret kept so long, now exposed.
Liz looked
away for a moment and Alyssa wondered what she was thinking – was she upset
that the cat was out of the bag? Was
she afraid of being ostracized by her family?
Was she afraid they’d be the ones to lead the lynch mob?
“I guess
they know now,” Liz finally answered, her gaze on her daughter instead of on
the inquisitive eyes studying her. She
gave a shrug of non-committal. “I
guess it wasn’t probably the best way for them to find out…”
Sympathetic,
Isabel reached over and put a hand on Liz’s arm.
Alyssa felt
a tug of remorse inside. She’d
worked for Liz’s dad for a couple of years while she’d been in high school.
She’d liked Jeff Parker, had thought that he was a kind, giving man.
It wasn’t fair that he’d been betrayed in this way.
Then her mind shifted to Nate’s adoptive parents – people Alyssa had
never met – and her remorse doubled. What
must they be thinking? The same
things Liz’s parents were thinking? What
was Nate thinking about it?
The same things as Liz? This
whole situation was so unfair.
With a jolt,
harsh reality came tumbling down on Alyssa’s young shoulders.
Nate was really gone, out there somewhere with her dad and uncles,
perhaps never to return. She could
still feel him on her lips as he’d kissed her goodbye, could still smell him
on her clothes if she tried hard enough. It
was as if the ghost of Nate Spencer had been left behind when Nate Evans had
walked out the door of this
Alyssa
looked down into her lap, bit back her tears.
Nate had to come back.
He had to. She had something
to tell him.
And it
wasn’t something she wanted to tell him in a dream.
The ink felt
cool and slippery under Nate’s fingertip as the officer rolled his finger from
one side to the other then pressed it on a white card.
She was nicer than the other officers had been, if only that meant she
was a little aloof and didn’t care that Nate thought he was an alien.
Down the counter from him, Jesse, Max and Michael were also being
printed. Nate looked at the marks
his fingers left behind and felt a little ashamed inside – he’d never for
the life of him believed he’d be in the situation that demanded his
fingerprints. With a pang, he
thought of his parents and how crushed they’d be to see their son at this
moment.
Then again,
the fact that he’d more or less disassociated himself publicly by calling
himself by the name “Evans” had to have broken them into so many pieces
maybe there was nothing left to ruin.
“Okay,
spacemen,” a burly officer called. “Down
the hall to the holding tank.”
Stripped of
their possessions – including their belts – the quartet was ushered down the
corridor of cells, where drunks, prostitutes and probably murderers taunted them
as they passed. Nate kept his eyes
on the floor, hoping that he wasn’t as “pretty” as Alyssa was always
telling him he was. Being pretty
wasn’t necessarily a good thing in a prison…
The officer
opened an empty cell and held it open for the newest inmates.
“In you go,” he said. “Welcome
to the mother ship.”
There were
many guffaws all around and Nate burned with humiliation as the group filed into
the cell.
“You’re
making a mistake,” Max said to the cop in a quiet, non-threatening tone.
“I doubt
that,” the man said, giving Max a little shove to get him into the cell, then
closing the barred door behind him. “Freakin’
lunatic.”
“I want to
make my phone call,” Jesse called from behind Max.
“Later,”
the cop said and walked away.
The group
stood in silence for a moment, no one daring to speak. The
cell smelled like urine, Nate thought, glancing around for the odor.
“Yep,”
Michael said. “Wonderful fucking
plan, Junior.”
Nate cast
him an intolerant look, then tossed himself onto the bench that sat along the
solid outside wall.
“Just be
calm,” Max said. “We have to
remain calm.”
Nate felt a
tug inside of his chest. Somewhere
out there, Alyssa was probably telling herself the same thing.
But how much time had passed since the broadcast?
If they didn’t convince someone soon that they were serious, there was
a good chance she was going to slip from his life forever.
And that
wasn’t a way he wanted to live.
“Well, I
can tell you for sure the entertainment isn’t over,” Michael smirked
sarcastically.
The trio
looked at him questioningly.
“You can
just about bet they’re running our records,” he explained.
“That ought to really help our credibility.”
Nate closed
his eyes and counted slowly to ten to calm his nerves.
He didn’t even want to contemplate what that
comment meant.
Part Three
Too much
time had passed.
Nate knew
that now. He knew that somewhere out
there, the people who had been on Max’s list of those who needed to go into
protective custody were now scrambling for their lives.
It was preservation of their race, if nothing else.
Of course, Nate’s broadcast had not included pictures or names of the
affected parties, but anyone who knew him knew who he was associated with.
A sense of
loss settled over Nate’s soul as he imagined Alyssa gathering up the bare
necessities and fleeing
But it
wasn’t just fear for his loved ones that was troubling Nate.
There was something else. He
wasn’t sure exactly what. It
wasn’t necessarily a feeling of apprehension or of impending doom.
It was just…something. He
couldn’t put his finger on it, but it also wouldn’t just go away.
It was starting to severely frustrate him.
“We need
to talk,” Jesse said quietly to the group in the cell, trying not to draw the
attention of inmates in the other cells. “They’re
going to try to separate us,” he explained.
“They’ll take us out of here one at a time.”
Nate
swallowed hard, his mind immediately racing back to his imprisonment at the FBI
compound in
“I’m not
going to let that happen,” Jesse continued.
“When they come for you, tell them you want your legal counsel with
you. That will be me.”
Nate lifted
an eyebrow. Maybe having Jesse along
wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“That way,
they can’t question all three of you at the same time and you don’t have to
say anything without me being present. I’ll
know everything that is going on with all three of you – they can’t lie to
you and play their good-cop/bad-cop games.”
For the
first time in what seemed like days, Max smiled. “That’s pretty smart of
you, Jesse.”
Jesse
grinned, showing even, white teeth. “It’s
what I do, brother. It’s what I
do.”
“They’ll
take me first,” Michael said from the other side of the cell.
“Why do
you say that?” Max asked, turning in his direction.
Michael
shrugged, as though the answer should be obvious.
“Rap sheet.”
Max sighed
and any relief he’d appeared to have felt at Jesse’s clever plotting seemed
to slip away. Running a hand through
his dark hair, he looked at the floor like a man who had lost his last dollar
down the storm drain.
“They’ll
take me first,” Nate contradicted softly.
Michael pinned him with a gaze. “My
crime is a little more recent.” Recent
as in less than two hours ago.
Max turned
his head to regard his son, his eyes full of regret.
“It’s
okay,” Nate said with a nervous grin. “It
was my decision to do this. I’ll
take responsibility for it.”
Max clapped
a hand on his son’s knee. “I’m
not worried about our legal problems right now, Nate.
We have bigger things to worry about.
Aside from you, all of us have been in jail before so it’s really
nothing new.”
Nate felt
that familiar squeeze in his stomach – not only Michael, but Max and Jesse
too?
“I’ve
never been in jail,” Jesse corrected, though Nate thought he detected a hint
of glee under all of the attorney’s actions.
After years – decades? – of sitting on the bench, it seemed that
Jesse was more than excited to finally be part of the action.
“I stand
corrected,” Max offered in apology.
“Why were
you in jail?” Nate asked, silently wondering why he could ask Max that
question so freely, but asking Michael was out of the question.
Max’s eyes
drifted momentarily to Michael before returning to his son.
“I was in a fight in a casino in Vegas.”
Nate lifted his eyebrows in surprise - Max Evans didn’t seem the type
to pick fights in a casino. Max
waved him off with a hand. “I was
young. It was a long time ago.”
“Look,
that’s in the past,” Jesse said, trying to drag the conversation back on
course. “It’s going to show up on your records, but Max is right – we need
to concentrate on the issue at hand.”
Nate glanced
at Michael, who was remaining surprisingly silent, his lips pursed.
There seemed to be some concern over records here and Nate had the
feeling that Michael’s would be the most inflammatory.
“We stick
to what we decided earlier,” Jesse recapped.
“No one reveals anything until Max is questioned.”
Max nodded
gravely.
“Max will
assess the situation and decide from there what the next course of action is,”
Jesse continued.
“We’re
all in this together,” Michael said from the other side of the cell.
“We should all have an equal say.”
Nate watched
Max deflate slightly.
“Michael,”
Max began. “We’ve talked about
this. We agreed when the time came
to demonstrate what we can do, that it would be me to do so.
Listen, I have to be able to count on you to stick with that plan.
Can I – count on you?”
Michael’s
lips pushed out farther, but he nodded reluctantly.
Before
anything else could be said, the lights in the jail flickered three times, then
went dim leaving only security lights in their wake.
Nate felt a stab in his gut. What
time was lights-out in a jail?
“They
won’t come for us until morning,” Jesse said after a long silence.
Nate’s
stomach lurched. Their time was up.
Jesse
sighed. “I guess we know now that
Plan B is being followed.”
Alyssa was
glad it was dark in the back of the van so that the others couldn’t see her
silent tears. The time had come and
Nate’s plan had backfired. Now
they were crammed into the Scooby van, heading for an undisclosed location,
running for their lives.
Liz was
behind the wheel and Alyssa had to give her credit – she was managing to drive
like someone who wasn’t being hunted. Her
speed was steady and under the limit, her hand steady on the wheel.
They were drawing absolutely no attention.
But then again, if one were hunting aliens, would they look to a minivan
as being the get away car?
Jeremy was
riding shotgun, while the “creepy twins” (as Nate called them) were in the
middle seat with Emily’s car seat between them.
Isabel had taken the far back seat with Alyssa, her graceful demeanor
firmly in place. Did nothing ever
rattle that woman?
They were
heading north, to
This so
wasn’t what Nate had planned. The
hideouts had been a contingency none of them had ever considered seriously
using. It has been a stupid
assumption. But, lying in bed with
him, listening to his words in the dark, Alyssa had been convinced that he was
right – this was the first step necessary to them being able to achieve the
vision he’d seen in his dreams. Peace
for his people and the people of earth. She
felt another tug of grief as she remembered the conviction of his words, his
determination to convince the others that his plan would work.
What must “the others” be feeling right now?
Alyssa hoped
that her father wasn’t about to kill Nate.
Not that
Michael would do such a thing, but he had to be very, very angry at this point.
Alyssa had seen him truly angry before and it had been enough to send her
scurrying for cover. His wrath had
never been directed at her – she was his pumpkin, after all – but usually
aimed at the inconsiderate paparazzi and more than once at Maria.
Of course, Michael had never laid a hand on Maria, but their arguing
matches had been so volatile that more than one glass vase had been destroyed in
the Guerin home – whether it was thrown by Maria or simply combusted
spontaneously as a result of Michael’s pent-up powers.
Thinking of
the arguments that went on in her childhood home only brought into sharp focus
the absence of such things in the home Alyssa and Nate had created for
themselves. Tears stung the backs of
her eyes as she turned to look out of the darkened window, her mind filled with
all things Nate. He’d never so
much as raised his voice to her. That
wasn’t to say that they didn’t disagree.
They did – every once in a while. But
while Michael and Maria screamed, Nate and Alyssa discussed.
He was always considerate of her feelings, her opinion and he never once
made her feel stupid for speaking her mind.
Nate was the kindest, gentlest person she’d ever known.
Outside of her Uncle Max, that was.
“Does Nate
know?”
Alyssa
turned from the window to find her Aunt Isabel watching her sympathetically.
For a moment, panic flared inside of her.
There was no way that her aunt could know, was there?
“Know
what?” she snorted, thinking the snort only made her denial sound all that
much more unconvincing.
Isabel
smiled knowingly and reached over to pick up her niece’s hand.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
Alyssa
looked at the floor of the van. She
should know by now that you can’t keep anything a secret around the pod squad.
Silent, she shook her head.
“You
didn’t tell him,” Isabel said, more a statement than a question.
“I
couldn’t,” Alyssa said, looking up again.
Isabel
raised her eyebrows in question.
Tears
flooded Alyssa’s dark eyes again. “I
knew if I told him, he’d never go through with this.”