A New Beginning Read online

  * * *

  that Liz saw another figure beyond and partially behind

  Michael. Though Max was mostly blocking the figure and

  it was not. . . completely intact, Liz was certain that it was

  Isabel. And that she was also much more than hurt.

  Max got to his feet. He was wobbly, unsteady. He

  turned slowly to look at her and the site of her seemed to

  steady him—to give him strength. He gestured vaguely to

  Michael and Isabel. And she nodded that she understood.

  Somehow, she found her voice. "It's coming, Max," she

  said, pointing behind him, from where the thing, what-

  ever it was, was coming. "You have to get out of the way"

  Then Liz realized there was something odd about Max.

  "Liz, you look different," he said, speaking her own

  thought about him out loud.

  He was different. He wasn't the Max who waited for her

  back in the band room. He wasn't even the Max who was

  sitting beside her in the van, up above the waterline of her

  dream.

  This Max had not happened yet, and would not happen

  for almost fifteen years. Nevertheless, he had come to visit

  her. She and Maria had called him Future Max. He had

  come to warn her once.

  Now it was her turn. "Max, behind you!" she shouted.

  He held his eyes on her for a moment. She saw all the

  pain and grief in his eyes. And something else. Something

  just for her. Then she could see that he was determined.

  He would fight for her. He would give everything for her.

  It won't be enough, the voice inside her said.

  Darkness was racing toward Max as he steeled himself

  and lifted his right hand. Liz didn't need her newfound

  ability to see the future to know what would happen next.

  * * *

  She felt it, from someplace older and deeper than the

  source of her new powers.

  "NO!" Liz screamed.

  She didn't want to be here. She wanted to wake up, but

  she sensed this was not a dream. She didn't want to watch

  what was about to happen. Liz found that she could not

  even close her eyes. She watched Max steel himself from

  the darkness that was flying toward them now.

  When the darkness was almost upon them, energy

  flared from Max's hand, and a green defensive shield

  appeared in front of them.

  It's too big, Liz thought. Too strong.

  She knew she had to do something. She had to help

  Max, but she knew it was already too late. Then the dark

  shape reached the shield and tore through it after less than

  a second's pause. There was only a moment now, Liz knew,

  and Max used that moment to fire a burst of energy into

  the darkness that swallowed it without even hesitating.

  "NO!" Liz screamed as she watched the darkness tear

  into Max. Finally she was able to turn away, but she didn't

  need to see it to know what happened next. Whatever had

  raced into Max almost instantly tore him apart, and Liz felt

  him die.

  Liz Parker screamed.

  Liz was stirring.

  She's having a bad dream, Max realized. No, not just a bad

  dream—a full-on nightmare.

  As she tossed in her seat, Max considered waking her.

  He couldn't remember if it was better to let someone who

  was having a nightmare sleep or to wake them up.

  * * *

  Maria would know, Max realized.

  "No!" Liz practically shouted in her sleep.

  "Maria—," Max began, but he was interrupted by Liz

  saying, "Max, behind you!" Her voice was clear, and for a

  moment Max was certain that she had woken up.

  Then she lapsed into unconscious moaning and twist-

  ing in her chair. That's it. That's enough, Max decided.

  He reached for Liz. Maria did the same and said, "Hey,

  Parker."

  As they did, Liz let out a terrifying scream and pitched

  violently forward in her seat. "NOOOO!" she howled as

  she thrust her hands forward.

  Her hands would have cracked into the windshield if it

  were there. But a burst of white energy exploded from her

  hands and shattered the windshield outward. Max

  slammed on the brakes and swerved the wheel as the van

  skidded.

  He was vaguely aware that the blast that came from

  Liz's hands traveled down the highway. Hoping there were

  no cars in front of them, Max skidded onto the road's

  shoulder.

  As soon as the van came to a stop, Max turned to Liz,

  who was wide awake and reaching for him.

  "Max," she sputtered as her hands cupped his face and

  she studied him with a wide-eyed stare.

  As someone opened the side door of the van, Max

  pulled Liz toward him. "It's okay, Liz," he said, fighting to

  keep the worry out of his voice.

  "No," Liz said forcefully, pulling back from him. "It's

  not okay. Oh my God, Max, you died."

  She's terrified, Max thought. Completely terrified.

  * * *

  "No, I didn't, Liz. I'm right here," he said gently.

  Max could see that Liz was fighting for control. She

  pulled him toward her and started to cry. When her sobs

  began to die down, he whispered reassuringly into her ear,

  "Liz, it was just a dream."

  Pulling away again, Liz looked at him with a new

  expression on her face. It wasn't fear this time. It was grief.

  "No, Max, it wasn't," she said clearly.

  * * *

  3

  L

  iz crumbled into Max's arms as Michael appeared at

  Max's side.

  "There's a pretty big hole in the ground a few hundred

  yards ahead, but I don't think-anyone saw anything. Isabel

  is filling the hole now."

  Old habits die hard, Max thought. He's making a report.

  Max simply nodded and held Liz. The others kept a

  respectful distance, though Max could feel Maria's tension.

  She was pacing a few yards away. Max was aware of move-

  ment in front of the van, and Isabel appeared, joining

  Kyle, Michael, and Maria.

  As Liz's breathing returned to normal, he noticed for

  the thousandth time how small she felt to him. She was

  the smallest of the three girls, both in height and stature.

  As she nestled under his chin, Max gently stroked her

  straight, dark hair and felt a reflexive desire to protect her.

  Protect her? Max thought. He had not done a very good

  job of that in the last three years. She had suffered too

  much because of him.

  * * *

  When her breathing slowed, he leaned back and said,

  "Did you have a premonition?"

  Liz nodded. "I watched you die, Max," she said.

  Michael stepped forward and said, "Where was it?

  What happened? And what do we have to do to stop it?"

  Liz shook her head and said, "It's not that simple. . . ."

  "Tell us what you can from the beginning," Max said.

  Starting from the beginning of the dream, Liz told about

  being in school and meeting Max in the band room like

  they had the day after he had healed her in the Crashdown.

  "I think you touched my cheek while I was sleeping," Liz

/>   said.

  Max nodded.

  "That's when the dream changed into one of my premoni-

  tions," Liz said, and told about seeing Michael and Isabel

  dead. And then seeing Max face the unseen force on his own.

  "You fought, Max, but. . .," she said as her voice broke.

  Max nodded and kept his expression neutral.

  "Maybe it was a dream, at least partly," Isabel said.

  Liz thought for a moment and then said, "Partly, yes,

  but I'm sure I saw Max die, as well as you and Michael."

  "Do you have any idea how far in the future this was?"

  Max asked.

  "Fifteen years," Liz replied immediately.

  Max started at that. There was something unnerving

  about her certainty. "That is pretty exact. Are you sure?"

  Liz nodded and said, "I recognized you ..." Then she

  shot a glance at Maria, and something passed between the

  two girls.

  "Future Max!" Maria exclaimed.

  "What?" Michael said. "Who is that?"

  * * *

  Maria immediately looked sheepish, as if she had said

  too much.

  Max looked down at Liz and said, "Future Max?"

  "Who the hell is Future Max?" Michael said to Maria.

  "What are you two talking about?"

  "Sorry, Liz," Maria said.

  "It's okay," Liz replied. Then she turned to Max and

  said, "There's something I have to tell you."

  "We'll just give you guys a minute," Maria said.

  "No," Max said, raising his hand. "This involves all of

  us. No secrets."

  "This involves Tess and Kyle and ..." Liz collected her-

  self for a moment, and then spoke quickly and clearly. "It

  goes back to just before you found Kyle and me together."

  The memory of that night came back suddenly, like a

  blow. He remembered seeing Kyle and Liz in bed together.

  He remembered the shock and the feeling like someone

  had reached into his stomach and twisted his insides.

  "Max, it wasn't an accident that you saw us. I set that

  up for a reason," Liz said.

  Max felt the beginnings of understanding and said, "You

  wanted to be free of all this. You wanted a normal life."

  Shaking her head, Liz said, "No. I did it for you,

  because you asked me to."

  Max could remember few times in his life when he was

  as surprised as he was now. "I asked you to?"

  "The night before you came to visit me, but not you,

  exactly. It was you from the future, fifteen years in the

  future," Liz said.

  "How?" Max asked, finding things making less and less

  sense.

  * * *

  "You had used the Granilith. You explained that it had

  powers we had not discovered yet. You brought a warning

  and asked me to do something," Liz said.

  "Go to bed with Kyle?" Max said, feeling even more

  confused. He looked over at Kyle, who was keeping his

  eyes to the ground. The boy looked as embarrassed as Max

  was confused.

  "No," Liz replied. "You described a scene similar to the

  one in my premonition, where there was a battle and both

  Isabel and Michael died. And it was all because Tess had

  left and the four of you were not together for the battle.

  Max, Tess had left because—"

  "Of you and me," Max said, finally beginning to

  understand.

  "You told me that 1 had to give you up to keep peace

  between Tess and the group," Liz said.

  "Why didn't you just tell me?" Max said.

  "You told me not to. You from the future told me that

  you would try to find another way," Liz said. "You said the

  only way to be sure was if you believed that it was over

  between us."

  Then the totality of it hit Max. Liz had given up so

  much—all because he had asked her to. Not who he was

  now, but some version of him from the future.

  "It was all for nothing," Max said finally. "Tess . . ."He

  didn't have to say any more. Everyone there knew what

  Tess had done. She had killed Alex and betrayed them all.

  She had given birth to Max's son and tried to turn him

  over to Max's enemy Kevar on their home world. Then,

  when Kevar rejected Max's son as heir, she had come back

  looking for shelter.

  * * *

  "You didn't think to mention any of this before?'

  Michael asked. Then he turned to Maria and said, "And

  you knew?"

  "What good would have it have done?" Liz said.

  That stopped Michael in his tracks.

  "How would you prepare for some mysterious danger

  fifteen years in the future?" Liz continued.

  Then Max understood the final piece. Liz had taken all

  of that on herself. She had once accused him of taking too

  much on his shoulders, and now she was doing the same.

  She turned to him and said, "I hoped that so many things

  had changed that there was a chance that that had changec

  too. And I didn't think you needed any more weight to

  carry You blame yourself for things that happened on

  another planet and in another life. You blame yourself for

  Alex and everything that happens to every one of us."

  Max shook his head. She didn't think he could have

  borne another burden. So she had taken it on herself.

  He marveled at this small, slight girl in front of him. She

  had tried to protect him. Unfortunately she could not pro-

  tect him from the truth. He had been responsible for the fall

  of their home planet. He had been responsible for Alex's

  death and the pain his friends and his sister had suffered.

  "What now, Max?" Isabel asked.

  Max realized that everyone was looking at him—looking

  to him. He knew what they wanted. They wanted him to

  lead. To solve the problem. To keep them safe. Well, his

  track record on that score hadn't been very good so far. Max

  shook his head. "I don't have any answers here," he said.

  "So we just chalk it up that in fifteen years we're going to

  take second place in a duel to the death?" Michael asked.

  * * *

  "I told you, Michael—I told you all before we left: I'm

  not the leader of this group anymore. And from what Liz is

  telling us, it's under my leadership that everything goes to

  hell," Max said.

  Isabel was looking at him with a look of disbelief in her

  face. After a long moment, she said, "Well Max, as a mem-

  ber of this group, do you have any thoughts at all?"

  "Yes," Max said. "I think it's very important that I not

  make all the decisions here. I honestly think that following

  me will lead us to ruin again. I brought us there on our

  home planet. I bring us there in the future that Liz

  describes."

  "Maybe third time's a charm, Maxwell," Michael said.

  It was a surprising attempt at humor for Michael, and

  Max found himself smiling. The effort won Michael a hard

  smack in the arm from Maria, however.

  "I do have a few other thoughts," Max added. "If what

  Liz said was correct, then we lost because all four of us,

  including Tess, were not fighting together."

  "But Max," Liz said, "Tess is dead. She
died when the air

  force base blew."

  Max nodded. In perhaps the only selfless act of her life,

  Tess had walked into the base instead of endangering the

  group further. She had chosen to die fighting instead of

  living out the rest of her life in the Special Unit's White

  Room. Shuddering from his memory of that place, Max

  wondered how much of his youth he had left in that room.

  How much had been burned out of him by Agent Pierce

  under those bright white lights?

  Just about all of it, I guess, Max thought.

  Max understood Tess's decision. He had vowed to him-

  * * *

  self that he would die fighting before he ever went back

  there. Oddly, Max had died and had seen things, glimpses

  of the other side that he wished he could forget. Neverthe-

  less, he would go there before he would go back to the

  White Room, because he had seen both death and Hell—

  and Hell was white.

  "I think the three of us have to become stronger, to

  .compensate for Tess's loss," Max said.

  "How do we do that?" Isabel asked.

  "By doing the opposite of what we have done up until

  now," Max said. He saw the light of understanding go on

  in Michael's eyes.

  "Our powers," Michael said.

  "What? What about them?" Isabel said.

  "Up until now," Max explained, "we have tried to not

  use them, or to do so only when absolutely necessary."

  "But not anymore," Michael said.

  Max nodded his agreement. "The point of this trip for

  me was to do things differently. We've been hiding our

  whole lives, denying who we are. Now I'm ready to use

  my powers to do whatever good I can. We're not hiding

  anymore and we're not exactly running. I think if we can

  keep moving we can stay ahead of... our enemies. Maybe

  as we use our powers more, well gain extra strength."

  "Sounds like a plan, Maxwell," Michael said.

  Isabel nodded her agreement, and Max realized that in

  spite of what he wanted and in spite of what he had just

  said, he had just mapped out their future. And the others

  had agreed.

  Old habits, he thought. As he approached the van, he

  sighed and thought, Well, Rome wasn't built in a day. And if

  * * *