He wasn't Zan. It was clear that he had long since established a destiny of its own.
A destiny that did not include Ava. She wondered if Tess had seen that. If that had been the reason Tess had died… or had been killed. The explosive psychic flash Ava had experienced wasn't been clear on that score.
So she began then, reluctantly, to accept that she would never sway Max's heart the way she had captured Zan's. And even though she knew she could never forgive or forget Rath and Lonnie for what they had taken from her, she was also aware that they were all she truly had in this world.
That day she had forever turned her back on whatever roads led to Roswell. There was only one path left for her to take, even though she knew it would lead her right back to Zan's killers.
Ava let go of her remembrances and returned to the present. She listened to the deep thrum of the jet engines and looked down at the cuffs that restrained her. Shame warmed her face. Maybe if I'd taken the other road that day, none of this would have happened. Maybe everything that's gone wrong now is because of me. Those Antarian-possessed freaks and the cops and the Men in Black swarmed all over us, and I just let it happen.
Just like with Zan.
Then Ava's shame changed temperature and texture, morphing into a dull red… red anger that finally came into balance with her omnipresent fear. She'd finally had enough of being a victim.
She concentrated, trying to focus her powers onto her bonds.
Nothing. The handcuffs on her wrists remained as solid as ever. The only reward she got for her efforts was a sudden dizzy, headachy feeling. She hadn't felt so lightheaded since the first time Zan had taken her to a rave. All four of them had had quite a bit to drink that night; they'd all learned the hard way just how powerfully alcohol affected their half-alien systems. The MiBs must have drugged me, she thought.
Closing her eyes again in the hopes that her head would clear soon, Ava wondered what had become of Rath and Lonnie. Had they gotten away? From just before she'd lost consciousness in the hands of the MiBs, she vaguely remembered Rath's attempt to rescue her and Lonnie. If he only had a chance to free one of us, he would have picked Lonnie. So maybe I'm the only one the bad guys managed to hang on to.
"Morning, Your Majesty," came a voice from behind her, startling her out of her anxious ruminations.
It was Rath.
She turned in her seat as much as the unyielding cuffs permitted. She saw that Rath was seated several rows behind her, no doubt drugged and handcuffed as well. She figured his head must have been slumped forward in the seat earlier, or she would have seen him when she'd taken her first look around the planes cabin.
"You almost gave me a heart attack, Rath!" Ava's tongue felt clumsy in her mouth. The drugs, she thought.
"Sorry," Rath said, grinning without any evident humor. "I just woke up from a catnap. You looked like you needed some company." His speech, too, was slurred by whatever the feds had pumped into his veins.
"Where's Lonnie?" Ava wanted to know.
Before Rath could say anything, Ava heard a moan coming from a few rows behind Rath. They both turned sideways as far as they could, and Ava saw a bleary-eyed Lonnie getting slowly upright in her seat. Blinking in the harsh cabin lights, she seemed unaware of where she was, as well as unable to speak. Almost zombielike, Lonnie stared out an unshaded oval window at whatever lay beyond their flying prison.
Which prompted Ava to ask, "Where are they taking us?" Her own window shade was almost all the way down, and she was seated too close to the aisle to reach it.
Rath nodded toward his own window, whose shade was all the way open, though all Ava could make out from beyond the double-layered Plexiglas was a sliver of bright blue sky.
"Judging from the lay of the land, I'd say we're heading for L.A.," Rath said.
" Los Angeles?" Ava said, frowning.
"Yup. Swimmin' pools. Movie stars. Probably gonna be on the ground pretty soon. “
Ava thought of Langley, the first alien they had met from their home world, and their sometimes "protector." He had worked for the last several years as a television producer. On the rare occasions when any of them had heard from Langley, he had explained that his main goal in working in Hollywood was to gather wealth and power, which would make him better able to protect them.
It was, after all, Langley 's job to keep them out of situations like this one.
A sudden flicker of hope warmed Ava. Had Langley subtly influenced the feds into bringing them right to his doorstep? Maybe he was secretly planning to rescue them.
True to Rath's prediction, the jet touched down a few minutes later, jouncing slightly just before the engines went into reverse to slow the plane down. The sudden deceleration threw Ava forward in her seat, and she had to grab the arms of her seat to keep the cuffs from biting into her skin. The plane stopped, and a charged silence fell across the cabin for several minutes.
"The service is lousy on these alien-class flights," Rath muttered. "You'd think Uncle Sugar could spring for a bag of peanuts, at least. “
Ava ignored him, concentrating instead on the sounds she heard coming from the front of the cabin, just beyond the first-class curtains. Footfalls.
When the curtains opened a moment later, Ava half expected to see the face of their occasional protector.
Instead several hard-faced men in black suits entered the cabin. Guns drawn, they marched purposefully toward the three incapacitated teens.
Feeling naked with her powers knocked out, Ava tried to shrink down into her seat, making herself as small as possible, the way she did whenever Rath and Lonnie browbeat her into going along with whatever they planned to do. All of the helplessness she had felt when she'd watched Zan die came flooding back to her. She wondered if this, too, was an effect of the drugs she'd been given.
And she silently cursed herself for having been foolish enough to hope for rescue, from Langley or anyone else.
So far, so good, Special Agent Matthew Margolin thought.
The armored car and the motorized stairway met them on the tarmac, just as the agents hustled their three prisoners toward the open hatches at the front of the plane.
"I don't get it, Viceroy," Dale Bartolli said, pitching his voice so that no one but Margolin could hear him. "We go to all the trouble of requisitioning a black-windowed car to take them to the West Coast interrogation facility. But on the way to L.A. we let them look out the windows. “
Margolin smiled at his lieutenant, enjoying for a moment the momentary absence of Bartolli's customary sly, wolfish expression. "Just a little mind game, Dale. “
"Those kids are alien beings of some sort, and they have some extraordinary powers," Bartolli said. "We can't afford to take any chances with them. Christ, we aren't even sure yet how many duplicates of them are running around loose. “
"Maybe that's something they'll shed some light on for us," Margolin said. "Particularly if we keep them off balance psychologically." He imagined that this was a condition with which Bartolli was well acquainted.
"We should have taken them to a secure military facility “
Margolin appreciated Bartolli's thorough attention to his duties, but he sometimes thought the man lacked both a certain flair and the good sense not to question his superiors too much. This was such a time.
"They're drugged and therefore disoriented," Margolin said, fixing his deputy with what he calculated to be a dangerous stare. "They're young and therefore relatively easy to intimidate. It's important that they know how completely we've pulled their claws. It's important that they know we're not frightened of them. Just as it's important that you follow my orders. “