I felt as though something was wrong. Something had been wrong in David's eyes. I couldn't place what it was, and that's a rare thing for me to say. I would understand later, though.
We were walking away from the other Animorphs. I didn't miss Aximili's expression: disappointed. But he also looked afraid. Afraid for me.
Why?
But some voice inside me told me that he was right, that I needed to be scared, that David wasn't playing with a full deck. And yet, the simple fact that he had a chance at a family drove me on.
I'm a caring person. I care about other people -- to quote that poem "If" (by Rudyard Kipling), "If all men count with you, but none too much."
A perfect illustration. I didn't even know this David person, but something in the similarities between our situations told me to take a chance. Similarities such as the fact that we both were (or had been, actually) new Animorphs; the fact that we both had lost our parents, either permanently or temporarily -- those facts seemed to link us.
But, as I have said, David was not playing with a full deck.
"Perhaps we should formulate a plan," I suggested. "There is no use in charging into a potential battle unprepared."
"We have to hold them for three days," he said quickly.
"The minute they see an animal deterring from normal behavior, they will understand, David," I said gently. "They will know that it is you."
"How would they know that?!" he demanded.
"They know that you were an Animorph and they know that those are your parents. It won't be hard to contemplate."
"I guess so," he admitted. "Then what is the plan?"
I shrugged. "A raid on the Yeerk pool, I suppose?"
"I've never been down there."
"And neither have I." I laughed lightly. "I'm surprised that --"
~DAVID!~ an eagle shrieked, diving toward us. I whirled around and barely missed getting taloned in the face by an eagle.
David dropped and the Rachel flew over him. She crashed and he leaped to his feet and pinned her to the ground with his foot.
"Should I crush your backbone, Rachel?" he hissed in a horribly bloodthirsty voice. "Should I kill you, right now?"
~RACHEL!~ Cassie screamed. She dived from the air, aiming for David. He grabbed her out of the air and threw her on the ground. She lay there, gasping for air.
"Do you regret trapping me as a rat yet, Cassie? You formed the plan and Rachel carried it out -- two of the most instrumental people in my doom. And now, the tables are quite reversed, are they not?"
"David, you will release Rachel right now," I said angrily. He had broken my trust, his word, our deal. "Let. Them. Go."
"Back off, Renee!"
"No. We had a deal, remember? Or is your memory as worthless as your promise?"
Slowly he backed away. The eagle sprang up and I scooped Cassie up in my arms.
~You have a deal with this slimeball?!~ Rachel spat.
"He's not as evil as you may think, Rachel," I said. But I was shaken. What I had just seen bothered me. His thirst for revenge was strong and unbroken, despite his protests that he "only wanted the blue box."
~You saw what he did!~ she raged. ~And yet you --~
"I have my reasons," I said coldly.
~I'm sure you do. Goodbye, Renee. I thought you were a very different person. I guess I was wrong.~ She took to the air. ~And you'd better pray that Jake and the others don't see things the way I do.~
Cassie scrambled out of my arms, obviously recovered. She followed Rachel.
I spun on David, furious. "We had a deal," I said in a calm, cold voice. "And yet you run after my friends, ready to kill them. Is your word worth nothing?"
His eyes were blank, as mine had been so many times. With my practiced eye, I could see a hint of anger and a hint of smug satisfaction beneath the outwardly blank expression. "They tried to trap me as a rat, and succeeded. I guess the justifiable thirst for vengeance got the better of me, no?"
I almost screamed at him, but I conquered my rather furious feelings. "If you try any kind of destructive maneuver like that again, I'm sure the others will find you. And this time I won't be quite so merciful, David."
He smiled sweetly.
I narrowed my eyes. The question came surging to me -- "How did he escape rat morph?"
I didn't say anything. Not yet. I had to determine whether he was friend or foe, and when I did, I'd ask.
The answer would determine his outcome. If he was a friend, I'd help him. If he was a foe...the Animorphs would do what they had to do. What the others wanted to do.
"So. Raid on the Yeerk pool," David said, as if nothing had happened.
How could he just shrug it off like that?
"Yes, I suppose so," I said, trying to abandon my cold manner. It was justifiable, wasn't it? After all, he'd been trapped as a rat.
But how had he escaped?
~*~ Chapter Eleven ~*~
I watched him.
Every shade of emotion he betrayed...every word he spoke...all of that was recorded inside my memory, analyzed inside my ever-alert brain.
They told me he deserved his form. They tried to justify what they'd done. And I'd believed them.
But if his only goal was to free his parents...
His motives were excellent. His methods were sick. He'd tried to kill them, tried to nothlitize them as roaches, and they retaliated by the very means he'd used. They nothlitized him.
Both sides had stooped to the level of the other. What difference was there, then, between David and the Animorphs?
That David struck first, without cause, a voice whispered. You just don't want to admit that you were wrong.
Was I wrong?
Almost every emotion he betrayed was linked to hatred. Hatred of the Animorphs, hatred of the Yeerks, hatred of Visser Three, hatred of everyone.
I understood that, in the group of Animorphs, I alone was untouched by hate. All of the others -- even Cassie -- had felt it. But I, the orphan, had not.
I had accepted my circumstances and dealt with them. I did not hate. I felt sorrow and despair and love and happiness and almost every emotion in the world except hate and rage. I had turned my mind away from them because I knew that they would only weaken me. And I had to be strong.
David was not strong. David was weak. He was a feather in the wind, and the wind was his emotions, and the sky was his actions. His emotions blew him into his actions, and nothing more. Not determination or willpower. Just his emotions.
And his parents? His parents were gone, to him. He was only on this quest to murder the Yeerks who had ruined his life.
I had misjudged him. I had thought that there was a heart within that look of pure, cold rage. And I had been wrong.
I was in a trap. If I backed out, he would kill the Animorphs. If I kept my word, I would be assisting an attempted assassin.
But the other Animorphs -- they had killed so many times. Hork-Bajir. Taxxons. Yeerks.
And they had done worse to him.
Didn't he have a right to let that hatred smolder? Didn't he have a right to hate them? Didn't he have a right to abandon himself to rage?
But I knew the answer.
No. He had no right whatsoever to let it control his life. They had given him a chance to free his parents, and still he had that bloodthirsty rage in his eyes.
Even morphed, even as a lion, I could see it within him.
I had not yet morphed. I was getting ready to morph. But suddenly I realized that there was a question I had to know the answer to.
"David?"
~Yes, Renee?~
"How did you escape rat morph?"
He laughed carelessly. He turned his attention back to the Yeerk pool entrance near the base of a tree in the woods. The Animorphs -- Tobias and Rachel, actually -- had told us that it opened to reveal a stairway. All that remained was for me to find a way to open it from the outside, then morph.
~You'd better open it now,~ he suggested.
"David. Answer me."
He turned his cold gaze on me. The fire in his lion's eyes was wild. ~The Ellimist.~
"No," I whispered. "It wasn't the Ellimist. It was Crayak."
~And what if it was?~
"Then you had a deal with him. And that deal could not have existed with mine, could it, David? That deal was the opposite of mine. And still, you gave your word on both."
He drew his lips back, revealing his teeth. I suddenly remembered that I was human. And no human can take on a lion.
~There's too much at stake for me to keep both,~ he snarled. ~I will keep his, because then I will remain human.~
"Then I will leave," I responded gently. "You can save your parents by yourself. I have nothing more to do with you."
~No, no, no, Renee,~ he said in a calm tone that was all the more terrifying. ~The deal was to kill all the Animorphs. And you, my friend, are an Animorph.~
With that, he turned from the tree and began to stalk towards my frozen form.
I could have screamed. I could have run away. But I was too horrified.
The liar. The sickening, pitiable liar.
Even now, I did not hate him. But I could not believe what he had done.
RUN! every part of my mind screamed. Run! Run! RUN! You can't take him on!
~What's the matter, Renee?~ he said with a horrible, twisted laugh. ~Didn't think I could do this to you?~
When he was not more than five paces from me, I recovered my wits and started to run.
He was so much faster! He was gaining! No!
I threw myself to the side and he barreled past.
I had done so much for him! I had saved him from the Animorphs. I had agreed to help him. And was this the price I would pay for my kindness? Was this the price of innocence? Was this the price of my naive, peace-loving dream?
Was this the price?
Once again bare-footed and in the forest, I felt the pine cones slice deep into my feet. I ignored the pain, knowing that the pain of death would be so much worse. I increased my speed and bit my lip to keep the tears back. I'd never cried in despair; there was no way I would cry in pain.
I felt the crunching of twigs behind me. He was closing in!
I leaped at a tree and used it as a child would use a pole -- to change direction very rapidly. He didn't anticipate the move and once again flew past.
~You can run, Renee, but you can't hide!~ he yelled. ~And this morph is so much faster than a human, so much faster than you! You'll fall to the ground exhausted, and then...~
I wanted to scream for mercy. But I forced myself to stay silent as I ran.
There was nowhere to run! Nowhere to hide...
I tripped and began to fall. I tucked my head and arms in close and did a forward roll, then leaped up and ran still faster. The briars and thorns sliced my legs through the leotard.
My hair went wild in the close forest. It caught on branches and left a few silken strands of dark-blond everywhere.
Sunlight streamed through the forest, illuminating my cut feet. I almost smiled in irony remembering the wild night where I'd run from an unseen enemy, and unseen threat, to an unseen destiny.
Why had I doomed myself to this? There was so much I could have lived for! Why hadn't I just allowed Jake and Marco and Aximili and Tobias to kill him?
Aximili. There might have been a future for us. But that was irrelevant now.
I stumbled over an exposed root and fell. I hit the ground and rolled over on my back, trying to collect my crazed thoughts and get up.
I was dazed. I stared up at the sky, wondering why I had done this. I wondered why I had been trusted, this one time. I never trusted. And now, I had trusted someone and I would die for my trust.
~Thanks for all your help, Renee,~ David laughed. ~Without you, I'd already be dead. Sorry I can't return the favor.~
He towered over me. There was no chance of escape now.
He drew back a paw and --
FWAAAPP!
What the...
FWAAAPP!
GROOOOOOOAAAAAR!
David howled in pain as he stared at the gash down his paw. He backed away, hatred once again boiling up in his eyes.
I stood up, wondering what had attacked him.
FWAAAPP!
The Andalite tail blade hit him again, this time in the side. He stumbled back, roaring in fury and rage and hatred and all the emotions so common to him.
"Aximili?" I said in disbelief.
~Hello,~ he said in a perfectly calm tone. ~I expected this.~
~DIE!~ David roared. He dived at me, knowing that I would be the easier to kill.
I whirled out of the way. He dived past me and hit a tree. His form sagged as he lost consciousness.
I leaned against another tree, almost dizzy from the rapid speed of events. "Thank you," I gasped. I could feel the blood beginning to coagulate in some areas. My feet would end up looking like I'd sprayed them with spray paint. Red spray paint.
~I assumed that he would betray you,~ he said gently. ~You did not know him as we did. You could not know what he was capable of. I do.~ He looked back at the unconscious form. ~We should dispose of him.~
"Kill him?"
I looked back at the lion. Moments earlier, I had been struggling to grasp who was more guilty; the Animorphs or the traitor. Now that it was I who had been almost killed, I wanted to find some way to justify it. But cold-blooded murder is cold-blooded murder.
"If we kill him, where is the barrier between our actions and his?" I asked. "How do we judge who is the killer? If we kill in retaliation, what is the difference between us?"
~He instigated the war. It is up to us to end it.~
He was right, I realized. He was right.
But what about David and his parents? What about --
I shook my head, trying to clear it. No. I could not allow anything to blur my decision.
But what was my decision? To become a killer, like him? To murder him in cold blood when he was helpless to resist? To sink to his level?
But he would kill me if he lived! I shivered. My life would be in danger.
Even so, if I killed him, I would become the same as he I killed. And nothing is worth that.
"No," I said. A single word.
And in that word was contained all the differences between me and he who lay unconscious.
Goodbye, David, I thought as we walked away. The next time we meet, perhaps your luck will not be quite as good.