Free The Wild One by Melinda Metz Page A

His family moved away before he started school. That’s why we didn’t know.”
    Alex felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Oh, man. Nikolas didn’t just have brown hair. He was an alien, too. There was no way Alex could compete.
    For a moment everyone just stared at Nikolas.
    â€œWow, you must have been so lonely,” Maria finally said. “At least Max, Isabel, and Michael had each other.”
    â€œI don’t buy it,” Michael said before Nikolas could respond. He turned to Isabel. “I can’t believe you just brought this guy over without talking to us first. He could be anyone. He could work for Valenti. What were you thinking, Isabel?”
    Alex’s first impulse was to defend Isabel. But he wasn’t sure she would want that from him right now.
    â€œI didn’t believe him right away, either,” Isabel answered. “But I went into Nikolas’s dream. He has the same memories we do—of the home planet. And he knew exactly where our cave was.”
    Max shook his head. “I don’t care—I can’t feel his emotions like I feel yours and Michael’s. I think he’s lying.”
    Nikolas snorted. “You guys are pathetic. You’ve been so busy
not
using your powers that you don’teven know what powers you have! Don’t you know how to block your emotions? You don’t feel me because I don’t want you to feel me.”
    â€œThat’s a pretty convenient excuse,” Michael muttered.
    â€œIf you don’t believe me, I could just use my powers to set that tree on fire,” Nikolas told Michael.
    â€œDidn’t Isabel warn you not to use your powers?” Max asked, his voice low and urgent.
    â€œSee, he’s definitely lying. We can’t use our power to set fires,” Michael said at the same time.
    Nikolas rolled his eyes.
    â€œNikolas’s power is a lot more developed than ours,” Isabel explained. “He’s going to give me some lessons.”
    Look how fast she jumps in to defend him, Alex thought. And look how obvious it is that she plans on spending a lot more time with him.
    â€œI don’t want you taking any lessons from him,” Max told Isabel. “I don’t want either of you using your power at all.”
    â€œYou know what? I don’t really care what you want,” Nikolas shot back.
    â€œUh, this isn’t the part where you challenge each other to some kind of battle to the death, is it?” Alex asked. “’Cause if it is, I want to get out of the way. This is a new shirt, and my mom will freak if I come home with any blood or brain matter on it.”
    Nikolas and Max both ignored him. Which was probably a good thing. He didn’t think he really wanted to find himself in the middle of something with those two. Alex could hold his own in a fight. Growing up with three older brothers had madesure of that. But none of his brothers had alien power.
    â€œIf you use your power, you put us all in danger,” Michael said. Alex noticed the muscles in Michael’s neck knotting up. He was not too thrilled with Nikolas. And Alex couldn’t help feeling a little happy about that.
    â€œDidn’t Isabel tell you about Sheriff Valenti?” Max asked. “The guy’s mission in life is to track down aliens.”
    â€œAnd he works for an organization called Project Clean Slate,” Michael added. “So it’s not likely that he’s looking for us just to say hi.”
    Nikolas stared back and forth between Michael and Max. “Wait. Am I getting this? I knew Isabel was afraid. But you two are also scared of a
human?
That’s like being afraid of a fly. If this Valenti guy gets too close, I’ll just squash him.”
    â€œNikolas is right,” Isabel insisted. “Why are we so scared of Valenti? We have the power. He doesn’t.”
    â€œI can’t believe I’m hearing this.” Liz spoke