Melinda Metz - The Watcher

[ front blurb] [ version history]

Max Evans gazed in the bathroom mirror. "Not looking good, chief," he said to his reflection. Hollow cheeks. Bags-more like a full set of luggage-under his eyes. His skin had a transparent, grayish quality. He noticed a zit on his neck. It was actually kind of… comforting. It made him feel young.

Max stepped onto the scale. Three pounds less than yesterday. A wave of panic rushed through him. He lost his balance, fell off the scale, and managed to land on the toilet. He covered his face with his hands. Am I having a midlife crisis at sixteen? he wondered. Why do I feel so weak?

He heard a shrill giggle from downstairs. God-I've got to get to work, he thought.

"Uh, I'm leaving now," Max called. He cleared his throat and descended the stairs. "To leave, I have to walk through the living room. I am now moving toward the living room."

Max stepped through the doorway. Oh, man. His sister, Isabel, and her boyfriend, Alex Manes, hadn't taken the hint. They were still all over each other. Max tried not to look as he rushed past them, but he still saw more than he wanted to. Lip lockage. Some buttons unbuttoned. Hands everywhere.

It just wasn't something a guy needed to see his sister doing. His little sister. Okay, she was a junior in high school. But still.

Max slammed out the front door and trotted over to his Jeep, relieved to be out of the house. He swung himself into the driver's seat, turned on the ignition, and backed out the driveway.

He made a left, heading toward the center of Roswell, then cranked the radio and put on his shades against the late afternoon sun. The cool air slid past him, blowing his blond hair off his forehead. He started feeling like a guy in a Jeep ad. An I'm-the-king-of-the-world-up-here-in-my-Jeep feeling.

It had been a while since he'd felt this good. But things were basically going his way. Isabel was with a guy Max actually liked, a guy who treated her right. Yeah, Max wished they would find a slightly more private place for their make-out marathons, but he approved of the whole Isabel-Alex thing.

He smiled. Isabel would be furious if she knew what he was thinking right now. She'd say just because he was her brother that didn't mean he had to give the guys she went out with the seal of approval, like they were sides of beef he thought were fit to be hamburger. She'd say it was none of his business.

But it was. Everyone in the group was his business. He was connected to all six of them. And they were connected to him. Sometimes when they were all hanging out, their auras would swirl together and create one huge aura filled with colors. Even when they were apart, that feeling of oneness lingered within him. Max didn't think he could feel this good if something was really wrong with one of the others.

Isabel and Alex were certainly happy. Maybe even a little too happy for Max's taste. He was almost scared to think of them getting any happier-they might break a natural law or something. That took care of two of the six.

Maria DeLuca was doing okay, too, especially considering that she'd almost died on them last week. She'd found a ring that contained one of the Stones of Midnight. It gave her psychic powers-by merely thinking of someone, she could experience their thoughts and emotions. Unfortunately bounty hunters from Max's home planet were tracking the stolen Stone. They tried to kill Maria, and they probably would have.

But Michael Guerin, Max's best friend, faced the bounty hunters with her and basically saved her. Now the worst thing Michael had to deal with was adjusting to his latest foster home. His new foster parents, the Pascals, had a lot of rules, but they seemed to really care about the kids who lived with them. That had to count for something.

And Liz… Admit it, Max thought. Now you've come to the real reason you're feeling good. Liz Ortecho doesn't hate you anymore.

He had come so close to permanently messing things up with Liz. He'd kissed her and then told her he wanted to be just friends. Then he'd kissed her again and told her he wanted to be just friends again. And then when she decided to go out with another guy, Max had followed her like some kind of lunatic stalker. Not exactly something a friend would do.

So Liz had gone into Max-hating mode. But when Maria got hurt, it took all six of them to get her through-so they put Max's maddening fickleness aside for the time being. They'd managed to find a way back to being friends. Just friends. But friends.

A new song came on the radio. One of those whiny, wailing chick songs about the pain of love. Not what Max wanted to hear right now. Not when he was actually feeling decent for once. He did a fast button punch to change the station.

A drum solo pounded out. It was loud. Way too loud. Louder than it would be if he were sitting next to one of those huge amps at a concert. Max fumbled for the volume control and turned the knob to the left. But the drums got louder. He felt as if the drumsticks were slamming into his brain. Stabbing through the gray matter.

Max pulled over to the curb and stopped the car. He snapped the radio off. The drumming stopped. But there were still so many sounds. A car honked as it passed him. Max jerked his head back and gritted his teeth. The honk seemed to pierce his delicate eardrum like a needle.

Max shoved his hands against his ears. He tried to keep from screaming. The sound of his own howl of pain would be agony.

He squeezed his eyes shut, leaned down, and pressed his forehead against the steering wheel. His hands weren't blocking out enough of the noise. He could still hear car wheels against the street, a bird chirping in one of the trees, two girls giggling. He could hear electricity pulsing through the power lines over his head. And the leaves of the trees brushing together. And his own blood rushing through his veins. It was too much. He couldn't take it.

Then it stopped. As if some giant hand had reached down and lowered the cosmic volume control. Max could hear only dim, muffled sounds through his hands. He slowly opened his eyes. He watched a car drive by. He could hardly hear it.

Max moved his hands a few inches away from his ears. He held them poised there, ready to slap them back in place if he needed to. But the sounds were… just normal sounds. Some louder than others, but none getting even close to the pain-inducing level.

What was that? Max thought. He glanced around the street. He spotted a woman a few houses down, working in her garden. She seemed too absorbed in her work to have experienced anything like what Max had.

Of course she hadn't. Maybe there had been a screwup at the radio station, something that made it blast out music at eardrum-popping levels. But that couldn't explain the volume on cars and birds and power lines. No, whatever that was had happened inside him.

Max let out a long, shuddering breath and lowered his hands to the wheel. He waited a few more minutes to make sure he wasn't going to get hit with another sound blast, then he pulled away from the curb.

He felt the tension in his neck and shoulders and arms as he drove. Even his fingers were curled too tightly around the wheel. Relax, he told himself. Just take a deep breath and relax. His body wouldn't obey-it was bracing itself for the next assault.

But it didn't come. Max made it to the UFO museum without even a flash of the mega-sound blast. He maneuvered the Jeep into an empty spot in the parking lot. Should I ask Ray about what happened? he wondered. Maybe it was an alien thing.

But Ray Iburg didn't like being asked questions about alien things. He said that even though Max, Isabel, and Michael were from his home planet, Earth was their home now. He didn't want them to spend their lives thinking about some other place.