But I didn’t. And I wouldn’t.

  Because at that point, I knew I’d rather die than lose.

  Marco’s voice broke. A drop of blood from a torn ear trickled down my cheek. My neck. It tickled and caused me to jerk my eyes open and sit up with a scream that probably woke up everybody in the house.

  Sweat, not blood, was trickling down my face.

  I wasn’t on the lawn of the White House.

  - 11 -

  Not in Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol.

  No. I was in my bed. At home.

  And I’d been having a nightmare.

  Again.

  ———

  Chapter Four

  “Where’s Cassie?”

  Marco sat at the keyboard of Ax’s souped-up computer.

  “I don’t know. Did you look in the barn?”

  “Yeah. Not there.”

  Cassie’s barn is where we usually meet. Home of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. Ax looked at me. Ax is Andalite. Not human. Technologically brilliant, but emotionally thick as a brick.

  Or at least that’s the assumption we go on. Don’t ask me why. Because it’s usually Ax, who, in his own strange way, seems to understand what’s going on beneath the surface.

  I threw myself down into the beanbag chair Marco had dragged to Ax’s scoop when he realized he was going to be spending a lot more time there from now on. Reality check: Marco is officially dead. He lives with his parents—also officially dead—and the free Hork-Bajir. Sometimes with Ax. He doesn’t go to school anymore. He wouldn’t be on a class trip.

  I should have known the dream was a dream.

  “There’s really nothing in particular I want to talk about,” I lied. Ax looked at me and held his gaze for longer than necessary. He knew I was lying. Then he turned to peer at the computer screen over Marco’s shoulder. Okay, so I did want to talk to Cassie about something in particular.

  - 12 -

  Alone.

  Cassie’s the only one of us who might really be called “sensitive.” Marco, like Ax, is perceptive. But that’s not the same thing as being sensitive. Besides, Marco has a way of making everything I say or do seem reckless. No way was I going to confide in him.

  But I did need to talk. I was getting a little worried about these nightmares. The same thing over and over.

  Me and Jake. One-on-one. A final showdown.

  Jake is our leader. I respect him. I don’t always agree with his decisions, but he’s in charge and I’m not. And that’s the way I want it.

  Especially after my one disastrous attempt at playing general. When I stupidly let Cassie get captured by the Yeerks.

  So why the dreams?

  “Wow!” Marco sat up and stared intently at the screen. “Look at this. On the Net. An

  ‘I was there’ first-person account of an alien attack on a nuclear sub. And here’s another one. Some guy who doesn’t want to be identified. He says he’s a humanController whose Yeerk has joined the resistance.”

  Ax said thoughtfully.

  “Woo-hoo!” I pumped my fist.

  Marco shook his head in disgust. “Could you at least try to act like you’re not thrilled at the prospect?”

  Sometimes it’s really hard not to like Marco.

  This wasn’t one of those times.

  “Look,” I said, “covert war stinks. It’s a nasty, underground kind of thing that screws up your head. Look at what it’s done to us. Look at the moral compromises we’ve had to make. You guys act like I’m some kind of psycho. But all I want is a fair fight. And you can’t have a fair fight with an enemy that won’t declare war!”

  I was semi-breathless when I finished with righteous indignation. But also with a kind of shame.

  - 13 -

  Ax and Marco were giving me that big-eyed look. The kind of look that clearly said they didn’t believe what I was saying and were pretty sure I didn’t believe it, either.

  “I mean it,” I insisted.

  Lame.

  I looked up at the branch overhead where Tobias was perched. His eyes fixed me with an intense stare.

  Now remember, Tobias is a hawk. So he’s always intense and staring. But this time there was something in his stare that looked embarrassed. For me. It was Marco who broke the silence. “I don’t think any of us should fool ourselves. If this war is exposed, we’re out of it.”

  Ax blinked.

  Tobias rustled his feathers and tightened his talons on the branch.

  “And that’s fine with me.” Marco smiled, folded his hands behind his head. “I’m ready to be pushed aside. I am ready to try normal again. Go back to school, graduate, get a good job, get married, have kids. I’m just living for the day when we can hand this over to the people who know what they’re doing and who actually like doing it.”

  “I’d say we’ve done pretty good for people who don’t know what they’re doing,” I snapped.

  Silence. Three sets of eyes stared at me. Okay, four—because Ax has two sets of eyes.

  I felt my face turn hot and red. I knew what the nightmares were about. Why had I been trying to fool myself and pretend that I didn’t? I wasn’t fooling anybody else. My deep, dark secret was like an elephant in the living room. A big purple one. With polka dots.

  Nobody talked about it.

  But everybody knew it was there.

  The secret was that whatever we’d been doing, I did like it.

  - 14 -

  And the good guys aren’t supposed to like it.

  ———

  Chapter Five

  I wheeled in a circle. Examined the ground for signs of Yeerk activity. I’d gotten over feeling embarrassed and now I was peeved. Which is a polite way to say I was ticked off.

  Tobias asked, flying near but not close enough to arouse suspicion if we were being observed from the ground. A bald eagle and a red-tailed hawk are not usually flying buddies.

  I said in my surliest tone.

 

  There was a long pause.

  < Can you talk about it?>

  I said quickly.

  Tobias turned below me.

 

 

  Tobias said quietly.

 
  “Why me? Why us?” stuff all the time. How come everybody lets him get away with it?>

  Tobias came up besides me, riding easy on a thermal.

 

  - 15 -

 

  He broke off and glided downward and away.

  I pressed, following.

  Tobias didn’t answer.

  I reminded him.

 

  Tobias poured on the speed and shot past me.

  he said suddenly. He didn’t wait for an answer, but went screeching downward, talons raked forward. I watched him close in on the rat. I felt even more isolated than usual. Was he right?

  Did the others think I was some kind of blood-thirsty sadist they were only willing to put up with because they needed me?

  Were they really starting to dislike me as much as I was beginning to think they did?

  I watched Tobias scoop the rat and head off for a distant tree. I felt a shiver of revulsion.

  Then anger.

  Where did Tobias get the nerve?

  Where does a kid that’s a hawk that eats rats get off talking about me creeping people out?

  And as far as my being into it? My liking it? Did they really think Jake didn’t?

  - 16 -

  Maybe Jake didn’t like the bloodshed. But the larger battle?

  Of course Jake liked it. Who wouldn’t?

  The thrill of command. The adrenaline. The victory!

  I flew away, leaving Tobias to his dinner. In the distance, the red winking light of a radio tower seemed to beckon.

  Marco might be speaking for Cassie, Ax, and Tobias. But not for Jake. Jake wasn’t a whining coward at heart, like Marco.

  Jake wasn’t overemotional like Cassie.

  He wasn’t withdrawn and passive like Tobias, or a blindly faithful follower like Ax. Jake was like me. Strong, brave, and aggressive.

  WAIT.

  That’s it.

  Jake was threatened by me.

  So threatened that he was turning the others against me. Trying to demoralize me.

  Trying to be sure I didn’t take over.

  I stabilized my flight path and corrected my course by lining myself up with the red light on top of the tower.

  A few moments later, I saw the roof of my house below and veered away from my path.

  Tried to veer away…

  I couldn’t.

  Couldn’t change directions. Couldn’t change course.

  I was flying right toward the radio tower. Toward the red light. Turn, Rachel, turn!

  But I couldn’t do anything but continue to fly straight ahead.

  - 17 -

  Closer. Closer!

  Something was wrong. Very wrong. It was like being in the grip of a tractor beam. It was pulling me toward the tower. Toward the red light. I was going to crash right into it.

  I was going to crash.

  And I was going to burn.

  ———

  Chapter Six

  “Rachel! Get up. Breakfast in five minutes.”

  I jerked awake.

  Again.

  My heart was pouding. My nightgown was wet with sweat.

  I heard Mom thumping on my sisters’ doors, waking them for school before running downstairs.

  It was early. Not even light yet.

  I threw back the covers and rolled out of bed. Tried to shake off the creepy postnightmare feeling.

  The old nightmare within a nightmare.

  Was it over now? Really over? Was I finally awake?

  I walked to the window. Felt the cold floor under my feet. Pinched my arms. It hurt. I looked out. In the distance, I saw the faint red blinking light on top of the radio tower several miles away.

  The source of the image in my dreams.

  I changed into jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. Ran downstairs. Bacon and eggs sizzled on top of the stove. The door that led from the kitchen down to the basement was open. I could hear Mom down there doing laundy, opening th elid to the washer and then closing it with a bang.

  - 18 -

  Mom’s a morning person. Full of furious, noisy energy when everybody else is dragging around trying to keep their eyes open.

  I turned down the fire under the eggs, opened the fridge, and poured myself some juice.

  While I sipped, I pulled my nightmares apart, taking inventory. What was real? What wasn’t real?

  Yeerk references were starting to pop up on the Internet. That much was real. But we all agreed that it didn’t mean a whole lot at this point. On the plausibility meter, an alien invasion ranks lower than an Elvis sighting to most people. But what if people did start to believe it?

  What if this thing started to get some real play?

  It probably would mean an escalation of the conflict.

  If that happened, there was no way Earth could win. Not unless the Andalites came riding to the rescue. And we weren’t really relying on that. Or unless the Animorphs were willing to dramatically increase the numbers on our side. To give more people morphing ability.

  That was dangerous. We’d tried it once.

  The result was not pleasant.

  The result was David.

  David, who had been a kid just like us. David, who had turned traitor and tried to sell us out to the Yeerks.

  David, who was no longer David because we had deliberately trapped him in rat morph and left him on a barren rock island with nothing but wind, rain, and other rats for company.

  Suddenly, the sweet juice turned sour in my mouth. My appetite disappeared. That usually happens when I think about David.

  I can’t help it. Every time the memory surfaces, I feel afraid and guilty. What we’d done to David hadn’t been fair. Though at the time it seemed the only solution. Short of murder.

  - 19 -

  Still.

  The idea was Cassie’s. She determined that forcing David to become a nothlit was kinder in the end that killing him.

  Sometimes I wonder: Kinder for who? For David or for us?

  Anyway, I’m the one who morphed a rat and went down into the dirt with David. The one who bit off her own tail to catch him in our makeshift trap. It was a dirty job. Somebody had had to do it and, as usual, I’d been the one. I’d been the only one with the stomach to stay with David for the full two hours it took for him to lose everything. To cease to be human. To become a rat. Permanently. Actually, Ax did stay with me, to keep track of time. Maybe also to give me support.

  And when it was over he told me he never wanted to talk about what we’d done. Ever.

  I knew it was stupid to feel guilty. David had been a threat. Not just to us, but to the entire fight.

  He wasn’t a threat now. Maybe he wasn’t even still alive. How long does the average rat live, anyway?

  SNAP!!!

  I jumped and juice splashed out of the glass.

  “Mom?” I yelled, reaching for paper towels to wipe up the mess. “What’s going on?”

  “A rat!” she shouted. “I put out some traps last night and I just caught one. Rachel, honey, can you come down here and do something with it? You know those things make me sick.”

  I felt like I’d been slapped.

  My mother knew nothing about my real life. About the Animorphs or the Yeerk invasion. She wasn’t trying to insult me.

  But at that moment she was just one more person who thought that when there was dirty work to be done, Rachel was the one to do it.

  Still, I ran downstairs.

  - 20 -

  The rat lay on the cement floor, its neck broken in the trap. I grabbed a cardboard box from a pile of trash, lifted the rat with a broom handle, and dropped it inside.

  “Just take it out to the garbage, please,” Mom said, shivering a little. Then she turned back to the pile of laundry she was folding.

  I carried the rat upstairs, out the back door of the kitchen, and around to the front of the house.

  The garbage cans were already out on the curb, waiting for the morning pickup. It was light now. But I could still see the faint red flicker of the radio tower in the distance. In another few seconds, I wouldn’t be able to see it at all. It would disappear into the light of day.

  I looked up and saw Tobias circling overhead, dipping his wings in greeting. My heart lifted a little. Some of the creepy depression receded. But as he wheeled more and more slowly, seeming almost to be drawing a bead on me, I had a horrible thought.

  Maybe Tobias wasn’t circling overhead to say hello.

  Maybe he had his eye on the garbage. He’d been having a hard time hunting lately—we’d had almost no rain for a month—and I’d been bringing him food from time to time.

  At first, it had hurt his pride. But eventually, he’d accepted the food. My stomach lurched. I threw the rat and the box into the garbage can and shut the lid with a bang.

  I hurried into the house and let the door slam behind me. There was a time when Tobias had hidden his feeding habits from me. A time when he had been ashamed of killing and eating. Unbearable humiliated at having, in hard times, to scavenge garbage and roadkill.

  But Tobias had shed his inhibitions. Had learned to follow his animal instincts. And to do what he had to do.

  Maybe Tobias wasn’t the only one who’d faced up to himself. Was that what my dreams were about?

  Shedding my inhibitions. Following my instincts. Doing what I had to do.

  - 21 -

  Becoming the leader.

  ———

  Chapter Seven

  School was the same old, same old.

  Teachers chatted with one another in the halls.

  Girls giggled.

  Guys punched one another in the arm.

  Stupid stuff, but familiar.

  Not to me.

  Not anymore.

  I felt like I was watching everyone from behind a Plexiglass window. I just wasn’t there. I couldn’t relate, not to the teachers, the boys, the girls. I couldn’t even pretend to relate.

  I didn’t know how much longer I could keep up the pretense that I was just another kid. Just another kid with nothing more important to worry about than zits and pop quizzes.

  I felt like I was going to explode.

 

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