The Dark One (rh-9) by Melinda Metz

Author:Melinda Metz [Metz, Melinda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf

***

"I can't even describe how it felt," Isabel said. She pulled her comforter tighter around her shoulders, even though Michael felt it was a little too warm in her bedroom already.

"It's like I was… dissolving," she continued, her eyes wide. "Or like I was being swallowed up. Then I guess I fainted. I've never fainted in my life."

Lightning bolts of yellow fear zigzagged across her aura as she spoke. And when she glanced over at the communication crystals on her bedside table, her entire aura became the color of fear. The yellow light surrounding her gave her face a corpselike appearance.

"I probably would have fainted, too," Michael told her. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to force all the little hairs back down. What she'd described sounded a lot like death to him. Wasn't that what death was-complete loss of self?

A loud knock sounded at the door, and before he or Isabel could answer, Max came in and stood awkwardly at the foot of Isabel's bed.

"I just wanted to see if you were okay," he said.

"You should have thought about that before you forced me into the connection," Isabel told him, her voice cold enough to turn lava to ice.

"I didn't know it would make you feel so-" Max told her.

"So much like I was dying?" Isabel interrupted.

Max picked a little glass kitten off her dresser and turned it over in his hands.

"Most of the time for me, it's like a tropical ocean, with lots of salt in the water, so that you're really buoyant," Max explained. "Sometimes you hit a bad stretch-like a riptide, I guess. But most of the time…" He raised the kitten to his lips and licked one of its glass ears. Michael's stomach turned just watching him. "I really thought you'd see that it was nothing to be so afraid of."

"What are you doing to that thing?" Michael burst out.

Max's eyebrows drew together. "I was just looking at it. So?"

"You were licking it," Michael informed him, his face a mask of disgust. His best friend was getting freakier by the second.

Max put the kitten down fast but didn't offer any explanation.

"Let me guess. Some of the beings wondered how it tasted?" Isabel asked.

"I just wanted to be sure you were okay," Max said. He gave the communication crystals a pointed look. "You should use those before the pain gets too bad." He glanced from Isabel to Michael and seemed to tense up. Then he hurried out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Probably afraid he'd start licking something else and totally push Isabel off the sanity cliff, Michael thought.

"I feel like I don't even have a brother anymore," Isabel whispered, staring at the closed door.

Don't go there, Michael ordered himself. If he started thinking about what Max had become, Michael would go flying off the sanity cliff himself. He had to concentrate on Isabel.

"You know if I-when I-get too weak to stop him, he's going to force those crystals into my hand," Isabel said, sounding like a small child.

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