Part 7

Isabel’s mind slowly digested what had happened. She lifts a finger to point at Tess and said in shock, “You’re right. She’s not Liz.”

Michael swore and slapped his thigh, raking his wild hair.

Max closed his eyes and mumbled, “Am I the only sane person in this room?”

Isabel narrowed her eyes, “Listen here buster, I saw what I saw and Liz is not Liz. Got that?”

Max nodded, not wanting to thread any further into uncharted territory. The only time Isabel was this mad was when they were about 9 years old and Max had twisted one of her Barbie doll’s head off of its body. Isabel got revenge by changing all his clothes pink and shaving him bald. He shuddered at the memory.

“So what do we do now?” Michael asked their leader.

Max turned to Tess and asked, “What did Nasedo say about this when you told him?”

Tess told him with pained eyes that Liz must’ve done something to Nasedo or else he wouldn’t have acted as out of character as he did. Looking around Max’s room, Isabel suddenly got an idea.

“When is the baseball game going to start?”

Liz and Maria had planned to go to a baseball game in the outskirts of the town. Liz didn’t really want to go but Maria, as always, managed to bribe her to go.

“What does the baseball game have to do with all this?” Michael asked.

“Maybe it’s because we can sneak into Liz’s room and see if we can find something there that will give us an idea of who she really is?” Isabel replied with sarcasm.

Max checked his watch. “It starts in about 11 minutes, they should be gone already.”

Isabel nodded satisfied, “Good. We can head over to Liz’s place now.”

The pod squad climbed out of Max’s window, into his jeep, and arrived at Liz’s place less than 5 minutes. The cool wind picked up as they began to climb up the ladder and into Liz’s balcony. Max thought back on the times he spent with Liz on her balcony with her scented candles surrounding them. Michael went back to the time when he took her journal. Isabel and Tess felt uncomfortable.

“Let’s do this quick and go,” Tess broke apart from the group and crawled into Liz’s neat room.

Max was the last to enter the room. He had done this many times before, but almost always with Liz’s permission first. He felt like as if he was invading her private space. As he closed the window on his way in, his paranoid side told him that someone was watching him. He stuck his head back out and looked around for any suspicious character. Seeing none but still feeling unsatisfied he joined the searching group. They looked over every corner and space possible but couldn’t find anything supporting Isabel and Tess’ firm statement.

“Guys! I think I found something!” Michael suddenly cried. He was positioned near her made bed.

Max flew over there and was peering over Michael’s shoulder, trying to get a good look of what Michael was talking about.

“What is it?” whispered both Isabel and Tess.

Michael was holding two objects in his hands. One was the orb identical to the one they used to activate their mother’s message. The other was also much like the orbs, but thinner and smaller, almost like a deep blue colored stick. On one end, there were tiny little black dots.

They stood frozen in their spot when a familiar voice spoke up somewhere in the room, “It’s called a Rotcu, but in a much simply definition, it’s a weapon that can either knock you out cold or kill you. It all depends on what the user wants. That’s my favorite out of my whole collection.”

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