"I don't care how they'd feel. At least they'd be alive to feel something," Michael said harshly.

"Try to think how you'd feel if Max gave up his life for you," Maria answered. "Or Isabel. Think about how it would really feel if Isabel sacrificed her life to save yours."

Michael couldn't answer that. He couldn't get close to imagining how he'd feel. His mind kept leaping away from the thought.

"They love you," Maria said softly. "Everything you feel for them, they feel for you. I know you think they have each other and their parents, so they can't possibly care about you the way you care about them since you have no one. But it's not true."

Michael felt tears sting his eyes, and he blinked them away fast.

"Alex and Liz, they love you, too. Something else for you to deal with," she added. "Anything you do to hurt yourself hurts us. If you let the bounty hunters kill you, it would kill us. It would kill me." She looked up at him. "Because I love you, too. I love you, Michael."

She wasn't saying she loved him as a friend. She was saying she loved him loved him. Whoa. He didn't even know what to do with that.

Maria reached out and slid the ring off his finger. He let her.

"So, is it okay if I touch you now?" he asked.

"Just don't mess up my hair," she answered.

He choked out a laugh and wrapped his arms around her.

"We'll find the ship," Maria promised him. "All of us. Together. We can do anything."

Michael didn't answer. He just pulled her even closer and held on tight.

"Can't you go any faster?" Isabel demanded. She was sure Michael had decided to use the Stone. She never should have let him walk out of the house. It's just that the movie screen inside her head showed Max lying in a coffin, his face pale except for garish smears of makeup. And the coffin being lowered into the ground by a creaking metal cable.

Isabel squeezed her eyes shut as the images flooded her again. It didn't help. Eyes open or closed, the movie filled her vision. The movie's odorama was working fine, too. She could smell the dirt and the thick, cheap blush.

"If we get pulled over, it will take us a lot longer to get there," Alex answered. But he goosed the accelerator a little.

"Okay, you're right." Isabel turned and stared out into the desert. But the movie of Max's funeral kept running. And then the theater in her mind became a multiplex. One screen still showed Max being lowered into the ground. One showed Michael using the Stone and then collapsing. One showed a classic-her old boyfriend Nikolas being shot by Sheriff Valenti.

And one showed Isabel standing alone in a flat, endless, snow-covered field. All alone in the frigid, silent whiteness. All alone until it was finally her turn to die.

She shot a glance at Alex. She knew if she told him what was in her mind right now, he'd say that no matter what happened, she wouldn't be alone. He would be right there with her, to comfort her, to warm her.

But it wasn't the same. Max and Michael, and even Nikolas, shared a bond with her that was stronger than anything she could possibly share with Alex. The bond of identity, and powers, and species memories. The bond of living in a world where you were hunted.

To have all those bonds severed would be like standing in that field. The movie Isabel opened her mouth wide and screamed. Only an echo answered her.

If it seemed as if Max was going to die, Isabel would go after Valenti. She didn't need the Stone to find out what she needed to know. She would use her mind to squeeze his pathetic excuse for a heart until he squealed like a pig and told her everything she wanted to know.

If he ended up dying, fine. It was a lot better than Max dying. Or Michael. Or her.

"Almost there," Alex told her as he pulled off the road. The Rabbit bumped and jerked as they sped across the hard-packed sand of the desert. "Looks like Maria beat us to it."

He was right. That was definitely Maria's mom's car, which she'd driven over to the Evanses'. It was parked right next to the Pascals' wagon. Isabel felt a pang of jealousy that Maria had found Michael first, then a pang of guilt for her jealousy.

"How did she know to come here?" Isabel asked.

"Same way you did, I guess," Alex answered.

Alex parked next to the other two cars. He and Isabel climbed out and started toward the cave. Alex slid his arm around her shoulders as they walked. Isabel wished he hadn't. It felt too heavy. Not warm-and-reassuring heavy. More a slowing-her-down heavy.

She knew that Maria had probably stopped Michael from using the Stone. But she wanted to see for herself. "Let's run." She broke away from Alex and pounded toward the cave. She scrambled down, feeling for the big rock with her toes.

A quick scan of the cave showed her that Michael was fine. It also showed her that he had his arms wrapped tight around Maria, his face buried in her hair.

Right now, that's where Isabel wanted to be. In Michael's arms.

Alex rushed up behind her. He slid his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him. "See? It's okay. We made it in time."

Isabel nodded. But she couldn't help wishing they'd arrived a few moments earlier. At least a few seconds before Maria and Michael ended up wrapped around each other.

"Max, you and Liz take this section here." Michael pointed to a quadrant of desert on his worn map.

"Got it," Max answered. He kind of wished Michael hadn't paired him up with Liz, though. Liz was the one person who'd been able to penetrate his plastic bubble. This afternoon, when she'd held his face in her hands and insisted that he tell her about the akino, a big piece of his protective coating had been torn away. When he was with her, he was a hundred percent Max, not the anonymous patient X.

It had felt good to tell her the truth. But it'd hurt, too. Almost more than he could bear.

"My name is Liz, and I'll be your chauffeur tonight," she told him. She tried to say it in a joking way, but he could tell the memory of his seizure, or whatever it was, was still raw in her mind.

Max tossed her the keys as they headed to the Jeep. "It's always been a fantasy of mine to have, well, not a female chauffeur-more like a female butler," he answered. He wasn't all that much better than Liz at hitting a jokey tone.

"You know, someone who does everything Alfred does for Batman but who does it while being a young, hot female instead?" Alex called after them, a hint of strain in his voice, too.

"Exactly," Max replied. He hoisted himself into the Jeep, trying to make the movement look easy, although it really took some effort now. One of the hundreds of little things that were becoming harder every day.

"You going to put your seat belt on?" Liz asked after she snapped hers in place.

"What's the point?" he asked, without thinking. Then he heard Liz's sharp intake of breath, and he quickly strapped himself in. This keeping-up-normal-appearances thing was trickier than he realized.

Liz turned the Jeep around and headed out the south driveway. About twelve minutes later they were alone on the highway, heading into the desert.

"I forgot how hard it would be to find that chicken rock Maria described now that it's dark," Liz commented.

"Michael, Isabel, and I can see better at night than during the day," Max reminded her. "It's good we divided the teams the way we did."

Except he probably would have preferred being matched up with Alex or Maria. Just sitting next to Liz, now that she knew the truth, poked more holes in his bubble. The feelings, the sorrow, the fear, the anger were finding ways in. And the anesthesia wasn't working quite so well.