Jake felt like he was watching himself from the outside, as he morphed to tiger and killed Tom. Since he had found his brother at the Yeerk pool, but was not able to save him, he had this dream every night for a week now. It was getting harder and harder for him to look at Tom and resist the urge to rip the Yeerk out of his head. He switched on his light and looked at his watch. It was almost midnight, he felt very tired, but he also knew that he would not be able to go back to sleep any time soon.
Luckily it was Friday and he would not have to go to school the next day, so he sat up in bed and listened for any signs that Tom or his parents had woken up. Nothing happened, so he decided to go flying for a while. He locked the door, then he focused on the barn owl he had acquired recently. After the morph was finished, he flew out the window, in the direction of Cassie´s barn. It had always been a sanctuary for him, a place where he would not be disturbed.
But since the whole Animorphs thing had started, he had begun to think of it as something where he could get away from the madness his life was quickly becoming.
About halfway there, he almost collided with another barn owl, heading in the opposite direction, towards his house. He turned in midair and called in thought-speech: "Cassie, is that you?" The other owl slowed down immediately and came flying back to him. When she was close enough, Cassie put her left wing on Jake´s own, which made him feel better. Even in owl morph she was able to cheer him up, that was one of the many things he liked about her.
They returned to the barn, landed and started to demorph. Once they were both fully human again, Cassie took Jake´s hand and asked: "Is it the Yeerk pool again? Jake, please talk to me. I can not stand to see you like this. You look like you have not slept more than a few hours in the last three days! I know you feel guilty that you could not save Tom and that Tobias is now trapped as a hawk, but Jake, we were all there. If you can not talk to me, talk to Rachel or Marco, but this has got to stop.
You are our leader and if you have problems, you have to tell us. We are all that stands between the Yeerks and their wish of total control over Earth, we can not allow personal problems to get in the way." Her unusual harsh words stung, but she was right and he knew it. She waited until she was sure she had gotten through to him, then she squeezed his shoulder and said: "It is okay. We can sit here as long as you like, but if you need to talk, just do it. I have my own nightmares about seeing Visser Three kill Elfangor almost every week." She led him out of the barn, towards the edge of the forest, where she sat down on a tree log. He sat next to her and they put their arms around each other. They spent the rest of the night watching the stars together and as the morning came and Jake had to go home before anyone noticed he was missing he felt much better than he had the entire week.