Unbreakable - A Beautiful Lie · (Roswell Fanfiction) · √

SIX

I dreamt of hands. Of his hands.

I dreamt of them touching my arm, my face, my body, in whispered reverence. As if his hands were trying to talk to me; tell me something with deep urgency.

My eyes followed them across the parts of me that weren't covered by clothing, making the small hairs on my skin stand up, goose bumps erupt and nerve endings send signals of pleasure to my brain.

I tried to look up at him. To confirm that the hands belonged to whom I suspected. But I couldn't look away from his hands. Those strong, masculine hands with their soft touch.

I desperately yearned to look into his eyes, to see the gold flicker inside the amber, the black darken his pupils, the myriads of emotions blend into one another.

Just as I thought I had won back control of the dream, a soft yellow light spread out from beneath his palms. I felt my whole being gasp in fear, my brain freezing in recognition of a memory that I had forgotten.

As I mutely followed the trail of glowing yellow across my skin the dream flashed to the past. To his house. To that party.

My breathing escalated as my heart beat tripped and I watched the same light, from those same hands, flow across the bloody injury on someone else's arm. It didn't last long, and when he removed his hand, the glow was gone.

So was the injury.

I bolted out of the dream, sweat plastering my hair to my forehead, my breathing shallow and erratic, my hands fisting the sheets of my bed.

I remembered.

*****

Max Evans was not at school that next day. Or the day after.

On the third day without Max Evans' almost constant presence following me, my hands were shaking with nervousness and a faint sense of panic was settling into my very bones. The details of the dream were deeply imprinted into my memory and I needed to talk to him about it. To confront him. I needed to confirm that my crazy dream was just that. A crazy dream.

But the longer he was gone, the more I started to rationalize the facts of the dream. In some way it made sense that Max having some magic powers would be the big secret that he and his friends were trying to hide. A secret big enough to warrant Max stalking me every day since that party. So why not? Maybe he actually had powers of some kind. Maybe he actually was a freak.

What frightened me most, though, was that I might have been right all these years. That there was something odd and peculiar about Max Evans and possibly his friends. Maybe they were not vampires, which I had so vehemently claimed to anyone that had the energy to listen, but there was possibly something X-filey about them.

On the other hand, I didn't want Max to return. I was afraid to face him, afraid of what he might do now that I had possibly figured out his secret.

"What is wrong with you?"

Maria's irritated voice brought me out of my thoughts. My gaze flickered from the apple which I had been holding in my hand, staring at it unseeingly for the past ten minutes, to my friend's smooth, light fawn face.

"Huh?" I mumbled, putting the apple back down on the tray.

Maria narrowed her eyes, brushing a loose blonde curl behind her ear with hurried impatience. "You've been acting weird ever since..." She looked at me closer, as if my face was some kind of puzzle that she needed to solve. Her eyes brightened somewhat as she added, "Well, ever since Max Evans left."

So she had noticed, huh?

I couldn't hide the surprise on my face and I groaned inwardly at her triumphant smile. She wasn't going to leave the subject alone now.