Max showed up early for his meeting with Michael. The campus was beautiful; the little park was secluded with its tall think trees. Max couldn't get the image of the pregnant Liz, clutching onto Michael out of his head. It wasn't the way it was supposed to be.
Max watched Michael make his way out of the Fine Art building and wade through the sea of students. To Max's surprise, he smiled and stopped to talk to a few students, the students gesturing to papers in their hands, motioning frantically to syllabi and art books.
Finally, Michael entered the grove of trees. "So, the great Professor Lawson decides to make an appearance."
"Good to see you again, Mr. Omundsen." Michael nodded and gestured to a bench. "So, the missus and I had a talk last night."
"About?"
"See, our son really wants to go to this physics camp but we're a little iffy about it, considering his medical problems." Michael pulled out a pocketknife and plucked a stick from the ground. "I know you're fully aware of that but we want to withhold consent until you've heard about the other thing we discussed last night."
"Which is?" Max set his jaw.
"You." Michael blew out a breath. "She wanted to tell you herself but the stress would be too much for her. It'd kill her if she lost the twins."
"Tell me what? That you guys were sneaking around behind my back?" Max desperately grasped at the last shreds of control that he had.
"Look." Michael snapped. "She wanted me to tell you the whole story. You don't deserve it from my standpoint but I'm doing this for Chrissy."
Max sat back and crossed his arms. Michael took a deep breath before starting. "I'll tell you everything I know, everything that we believed..."
Max kept trying to leave Liz's room but she kept kissing on him. "Babe, if your parents catch me in here I'm dead."
"I wouldn't let them kill you. What time are you getting back?" Liz pressed another kiss to his neck.
"That depends on Kyle and Tess. I'll pick them up at the site and head straight back. Kay?" Max dropped one last kiss on her lips before he was out the window.
Liz sighed and pulled on her uniform to go to work. When she got downstairs she spotted Michael sprawled out on the break room couch. She sat next to him. "She still hasn't called me either."
"I just don't understand. I thought we were finally good." Michael mumbled.
"I don't know where she went. Her mom won't tell me." She took his hand, trying to comfort him.
"Alex knows where she is." Michael sat up.
"He does?"
"I can tell. He won't tell anyone. Him and Izzy are on the outs so he won't talk to me at all." Michael let go of her hand to run his through his hair. "I... I miss Maria. I know we still fought a little but she just up and left, no good-byes."
"She'll come around. I know she will." Liz stood up. "We should get to work."
"Oh the joy of my life. Flipping burgers." Michael muttered before getting to his feet. "Romeo finally leave?"
"Went to go pick up Kyle and Tess. They got stranded out in Frasier Woods." She shrugged.
"You know your folks are going to catch him scaling that wall one day."
"I'm 18." Liz shook her head.
"Whatever."
Alex strolled into the Crashdown around noon and sat at a booth. His eyes were red. Liz immediately zoned in on him. "Alex... what happened?"
"Isabel left. She ran away... Her parents don't even know where she went." Alex let one more tear fall down his face.
"Omigod... are you okay?" Liz studied his face. "Michael!"
"I went over last night and she wasn't home. I waited and waited. She never came home. This morning I went back and her Mom was crying. She knew that Max was probably here with you but Isabel... if she wasn't with me then..." Alex choked up. He looked up at Michael. "Did she tell you anything?"
"No. I swear, I didn't know a thing." Michael furrowed his brow.
"I don't like this." Liz whispered and sat down. "I wish Max would hurry."
"He's probably towing Valenti's car." Michael mumbled. "He doesn't have a phone, does he?"
"No. Isabel had the phone." She shook her head. "We have to go tell him. He has to know she's gone."
"Let's go. Go tell your dad we're taking off. I'll go grab the truck." Michael ordered.
The threesome pulled into the entrance to Frasier Woods and talked to the park rangers. "The red car left this morning. I never saw the Jeep."
"Shit." Michael hit the steering wheel and pulled out.
"Where are they?" Alex mumbled.
"Back track the way they would have gone home." Liz said while staring out the window. The feeling of dread kept growing. Half an hour down the road, they spotted Kyle's car. Empty.
Michael jumped out of the truck and looked around. No sign of the passengers or their equipment or Max. Alex spotted the skid marks first. "Michael, check these out... pretty fresh."
Michael knelt and rubbed his fingers over the black marks on the road, the black came off on his fingers. "Really fresh."
"Max." Liz's eyes widened and she scrambled back into the truck for the map. "Can you guys... like tell which way they go?"
"Look like they go off into the woods." Michael murmured.
"Let's go. Sooner we find Max and the others, the sooner we can find Isabel." Alex took the map from Liz. "Crap."
"What?" Michael and Liz said at the same time.
"I really hope that they didn't go that way... look at the contour lines off that way." Alex pointed. "They're so close together, that means ravines and cliffs and those woods are just... dark to begin with."
"Max knows this area. If he went in there in the Jeep then he had a damn good reason." Michael hopped into the truck, really wishing his truck were smaller but then they'd need the truck's power if thinks got hairy. They traveled through the woods in silence, studying the landscape carefully.
"Michael you have to stop. There's a steep drop about fifty feet ahead." Alex ordered glancing at the map.
"Alex... y... do you see that tree?" Liz squinted her eyes and looked closer.
"I see the broken tree and smoke." Michael was out of the truck in a flash. He stared down into the ravine at the smoldering Jeep. He sank to his knees and got sick. He motioned for Liz to stay back. He'd been expecting to find something, just not the charred remains of his best friend's Jeep. The smell, the smell was awful.
The police combed the area, watching over the three kids that found the wreckage. Sheriff Valenti arrived later than the others, still confused at why he'd been called out. Then he'd had to identify the bodies of his son and his son's girlfriend.
It took Liz a long time to get up the courage to ask one of the officers. "Whe-- where's the other body?"
"Other body?" The officer looked at her tear-streaked face confused. "What other body?"
"There were three people in that Jeep. Kyle Valenti, Tess Harding and Max Evans... where's Max?"
No one could answer her. They didn't find a third body. They told her that if he did get out, then he'd turn up soon. They didn't mention what she already knew. If he was hurt, he'd attract animals, especially predators. Liz, Alex and Michael took one last look at the wilderness that had swallowed up their friends and headed back to town.
The funerals came and went. Nothing.
Two weeks and nothing.
The three of them were gathered to finally discuss what they needed to. They chose the desert, so they could see in all directions around them.
"Iz hasn't called. She doesn't even know that Max is gone." Alex whispered. "I.."
"The Sheriff keeps asking me if I knew of any trouble. I keep telling him that we were fine..." Liz trailed off.
"I told him about the skid marks." Michael leaned forward on the table. "I think it was the FBI."
"I think you're right." Alex nodded. "I've been playing at my hacking lately..."
"What?" Liz finally looked up from the tire she'd been staring at.
"I think I can make us disappear." Alex whispered. "You guys want that? I don't want them to take us. I know I'm not strong. I'd never intentionally give up any information but... I think it's the only way."
"That's probably a good idea. You can do that?" Michael started pacing.
"It could be easy or it could be hard." Alex shrugged. "Depends. I'm going to do this for Maria too."
"Where is she? Does she know?" Liz sat up.
"I promised that I wouldn't tell. She's fine and she knows." Alex took a deep breath. "Thing is... I'm just going to show you how to do it. I'm not going to do it for you. I think it's better if we all went our separate ways, scatter to the winds."
"Okay." Liz nodded. Michael nodded.
"Alright. I'm going to go do some work and see if I can find the easy way. Make sure your goodbyes are said by tomorrow." Alex made his way to his car, leaving them alone.
"Why won't she talk to us?" Michael whispered almost to himself.
"I don't know. I really needed her and she didn't come back." Liz sniffled. "Michael..."
"What?"
"I'm scared." Her lip trembled and tears filled her eyes. She let him hug her.
"Me too."
"That's not it." Liz pushed him away. "I..."
"Spit it out." Michael didn't mean to sound annoyed but he couldn't stand her recent mood swings.
"I'm pregnant and I don't know what I'm gonna do." She burst into tears. "He’s gone and I don't know what I'm going to do."
"We don't know that he's gone." Michael pulled her to him again.
"He's dead. That's the only way we wouldn't have heard from him." She sobbed.
"Sh... it'll be okay." He tried to reassure her. "Do your parents know?"
"No. I haven't told anyone. I can't do this alone, Michael."
"I'll take care of you. Max would want me to. It'll be okay. Sh." His mind was reeling. He could barely take care of himself and now he was offering to take care of two more people.
"Eight and a half months later... Tarek was born." Michael glanced over at Max.
"Tarek is my son?" Max swallowed hard. "Not yours?"
"Definitely not mine." He nodded. "He doesn't know that though."
"And you guys thought I was dead?"
"You never contacted us. The rangers and the Sheriff led us to believe that if you didn't come back on your own then... you were dead." Michael's expression hardened again. "Liz was so upset. We got our new identities, posing as a newly married couple, entering the country from Lebanon or someplace. We tried going to school but it got hard... so I started scanning books in the University bookstore and taking equivalency tests."
"Why?" Max whispered.
"We needed the money. I needed to get a decent job. Liz's progress with school was coming slow because she couldn't concentrate. I made her take a break from school after the first semester. As it was she was getting the grades from the books and only showing up to class on test days."
"When did it happen?"
"I don't know exactly. We shared the bed because she didn't want to be alone at night. After Tarek was born, I was the one getting up with him in the middle of the night, changing his diapers... I fell in love with him first." Michael's gaze shifted to the ground. "It was a gradual thing. I'd come home from work at Office Max and kiss Tarek, kiss Liz's cheek and we'd all play together. Then the kisses stopped being on the cheek, stopped being chaste. Holding each other at night, turned into cuddling, turned into something more."
"You love her?"
"Yeah." Michael nodded. "Then came Karen, and she was happy enough in that period of time to actually pass her classes. When, she got pregnant that third time, we... I got fired and was working on getting a university job, something to pay better and it was really tight. When she miscarried we made the connection to the critical fourth month." Michael closed his eyes at the memory. "I was finally able to finish school pretty early. I signed up for a ton of classes and financial aid and I just scanned the information and wrote the papers. I worked all day and had people from classes hand in my assignments. I graduated on the B.A.M.A. program. Been teaching ever since then."
"Do the kids... you know?"
"Yeah. They take after me." Michael took a deep breath and cleared his head. "She's going to want some answers. I suggest you start talking."
"God, it's been so long." Max sighed and closed his eyes. "It's a really short story but it was terrifying..."
Max spotted Kyle's car and pulled in front of the convertible. He was expecting some smart ass comment from Kyle about taking so long to get there but it never came. He hopped out of the Jeep and walked over. He saw them asleep. "Hey Kyle. Tess! Wake up guys!"
No answer.
"Guys?" Then Max saw the handprint on Tess's chest and the singed cloth around the v-neck she wore. A glance at Kyle confirmed there was also a hole burned through his shirt. Max spun around.
He didn't see anyone but he knew they were watching. Then he was falling. Max's face hit the asphalt hard. Something had hold of his ankles. By the time he flipped over, they were surrounding him. Men and women that he'd never seen before.
"It's her husband." One said. "He stinks of human... just like his wife."
Max couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. Just looking at these people sent chills all the way to his heart. 'You will know them by the evil within.' His mother's words came back to him.
"Put him in the truck. We need him. Take care of the evidence." A woman motioned to the convertible. Max tried to get away when they reached for him but the woman touched his head and he passed out.
Max opened his eyes with a jerk. The back of the truck opened and he was pushed out, landing on his face once more.
"Get him up. I want him to see this." The woman barked. She stood in the doorway of a building that Max had never seen before. Max was brought to his feet and shoved through the door. There was a large screen set up. "Rewind a little... I want him to see it all."
Max watched as Kyle and Tess were put into his Jeep and the Jeep was made to speed through the woods. Max recognized the area, the Jeep hit a tree hard before it went over the edge and into a ravine. The fire and smoke billowed up into the air as the gas tank exploded. Max closed his eyes.
"Open your eyes!" The woman yelled.
Max did as he was told. The scene returned to the road where Michael's truck pulled up to Kyle's car. They walked around, looking at the skid marks from the Jeep. He heard Alex's voice. "Let's go. Sooner we find Max and the others, the sooner we can find Isabel."
Isabel was gone? Max's head spun as he watched the truck follow the path that the Jeep had just taken. It stopped and Michael jumped out. Max watched his friend look over the edge then get sick. The images faded.
"Perfect. This will be a warning to your people to stay out of our way." She reached out and touched his head. Max blacked out.
"I was tortured every day for a year. I thought that the FBI had Isabel. I knew that as long as they had me, you guys would be safe." Max closed his eyes. "I escaped one night. One of their guards had a crush on me. When she wasn't looking I slipped away. I ran and found myself a place to heal up. Then I started hunting them. As long as we were out there, they would be after you guys."
"You killed?"
"I had to. I would corner one at a time. It took another year. I didn't contact anyone in case they had a trace on me. I finally got all of them. I made that woman beg for her life before I took it." Max felt shame at that thought. "I went back to Roswell. Liz wasn't there, Alex wasn't there, Isabel wasn't there, you weren't there. I knew Maria hadn't been there for a couple months before I got captured. I was scared. I didn't know what happened. I didn't go to my parents because I thought the FBI had gotten you guys."
"What then?"
"I went and I started fresh. Milkdud, Iowa or something like that. I took up physics, got a license to teach... been traveling a bit... I settled here about four years ago."
"We've been here about 15." Michael nodded. Of all the things that Max could have said... being captured by the enemy hadn't even crossed his mind.
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