I was exhausted. Sleep hadn't come easily to me; my nightmares of Edelman and the battle the previous night had kept me awake for hours. My dreams had ranged from crazy to crazier, with sanity only in the most necessary amounts.
For this reason, I was not expecting to ace the algebra test in the morning.
"Cassie?"
She glanced at me. "What?" She seemed distant, preoccupied, but not too preoccupied to notice the circles under my eyes. "Good grief, do you ever sleep?"
"When the urge seizes me," I grunted. I stared at her and suddenly forgot my question. Her eyes seemed darker, almost haunted, maybe a little cruel. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nightmares," she answered quietly, lowering her voice so no one in the halls would hear. "The standard... you know."
Satisfied, I nodded, and after searching my brain for a moment I remembered what I'd meant to ask. "Have you seen Jake yet today?"
"Jake?" Her eyebrows rose. "Why do you ask?"
"I wanted to ask him if we had some kind of meeting today. "
"We do," she said quickly. "I talked to him earlier, and we do. Four o'clock, my barn."
"It never stops, does it?" I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "Man, I'm going to have nightmares for weeks. Yeerks getting in my head, going insane. Being in the pool. Morphing ant in the pool. Two really fun fears to combine, you know?"
"Yeah."
We were passing Chapman's office. I repressed a shudder and twisted my head to glance through the glass door and through the white blinds. What I saw made me miss a step; as I staggered against Cassie, I processed the unbelievable, horrifying sight I'd just seen.
"Jake's in there."
Cassie gave me a quizzical look. "Kids do go see the assistant principals sometimes, Rachel."
"Cassie, are you not getting this? The day after a huge battle Jake's in there?"
Realization seemed to dawn, maybe a little too quickly. "Oh crap... and there's nothing we can do..."
"What if they infest him?"
She seemed visibly shaken. "Just get to class, Rachel. Get to class, and I'll try to find Marco. Tell him what's going on."
"Marco? What if..."
"Just go!" She took off running down the hall, and I stared after her. Cassie isn't a leader. She doesn't bark out orders. And she's "with" Jake. I'd expected her to be even more shocked than I... was...
I swore, loudly, and got a few stares from teachers in the hall. Forcing a smile, I headed for the bathrooms, for that one screen window, that one chance.
The bell rang and sent an adrenaline rush surging through me. Run!
I let the fear instinct take over, and I ran, ran past the students and teachers and substitutes. My books were weighing me down, slowing me down.
Why was I running? It would just call attention...
Screw it, Rachel, you can't get any more attention than you're about to get! Go!
I hit the bathroom door hard and it swung open easily beneath my scrabbling hands. I dropped to my knees, checking for the telltale shoes beneath the stall doors. What I was about to do could not have witnesses. No one to grab me before I could get all the way to...
Oh, crap. Crap, crap, crap. At least, that's the censored version of what was running through my head as I dumped my books on the bathroom sink. I paused -- they had my name in them -- a giveaway -- but I was still thinking like a spy, like I still had some stealth, but that was blown. The look in Cassie's eyes made sense now. I started morphing as fast as I could.
I always wear my morphing suit, and that's a good thing, because after this it was going to be the only piece of clothing I owned.
Were my parents taken already? Was Marco?
Was Tobias?
Suddenly it all made sense. Ax had been captured. I'd seen him when I was down there in the Yeerk pool, separated from all the others. We'd rescued him, him and Jake and Tobias, but he'd been there longest. And none of us had seen it.
Had Jake been taken then, too? Tobias couldn't have. No Yeerk could fit inside the brain of a red-tailed hawk. For the first time I could remember I thanked heaven profusely for his nothlit form. If he was still alive he hadn't seen them being taken, because the Yeerks would have killed him before they'd give him a chance to warn us.
I'd started morphing without even realizing it. I was shrinking rapidly. I snatched in panic at the screen window, twisting it open with my now-twisting fingers. My eagle beak would do the rest.
I am Rachel, and I am an Animorph.
And we are now extinct.
My mouth erupted into a curved beak. I turned, watching the door as my eyes shifted within my skull. My vision sharpened. My hearing intensified as my head shrunk down to the head of a bald eagle.
I glanced to my left, at the wide mirror that revealed my three-foot-high form, my softball-sized head, my still-long arms. With a horrible sucking noise the arms sucked entirely into my shoulders. I fought down a scream. Morphing is never pretty, but it was going to save my life. My hands were still protruding from where my arms had been, and slowly they grew, stretching out and out to form wings.
My hair fanned out and melted onto my back, forming gold feathers that shimmered in the overhead lights. The feathers gleamed for a moment, then darkened to brown.
I shrank some more. My clothing was a tent around me. The morphing outfit would be preserved, but my jeans and long-sleeved shirt would be sacrificed. I flapped my way out from under the confining shirt and kicked my shoes off just as my feet stretched and sharpened into talons.
Was it complete? Could I fly? Probably. I focused my razor-sharp gaze on the window and flew for all I was worth, slashing at the screen with my beak and tumbling out to collapse in a heap of feathers on the grass.
For twenty seconds I lay there, breathing in shallow gasps. Then, with my eagle hearing, I heard the door open. I heard Cassie's voice.
"She morphed!" the Yeerk screeched. "Find her! Find her! She could be anything, an insect, a spider, a... bird..."
I lay very still for one beat of my eagle heart, then took off, flapping madly.
"THERE! Fire! Fire now!"
A Dracon beam sliced the air. I was fast. I wasn't that fast. My right wing was singed. I broke into a dive and banked hard, barely evading the second blast.
"GET HER!"
It was strange, even then, to hear my best friend screeching an order for my destruction. I felt smothered. This couldn't be happening. But then again, that had never stopped reality before.
I struggled for altitude, then dived again. Dracon beams futilely lacerated the air. I was gone.
Is there enough time to find Tobias...? I headed for his meadow, my heart pounding. The meeting! The meeting at four o'clock. That was for him. They had Ax, and they'd get us at school, but what about him?
The flight was a long one. Exhaustion jerked my muscles, made them move in ways I didn't want them to, random twitches... I landed in his tree. {Tobias?}
Nothing.
{TOBIAS!}
{Rachel!} Ax was galloping beneath the tree. {You must come see Tobias!}
I went completely still, and my breathing became more erratic. I didn't answer, swallowing again and again, my eagle throat dry.
{Rachel? Is that you?}
Of course it's me. I held still. Go away, Yeerk. Go away.
{Tobias is in the clinic, Rachel. If that's you. He's injured. Come quickly, my friend. He may be...}
You fake emotion well, Yeerk. He may be... a trap? A trap for me? Of course he is. Where's the real Tobias?
Ax tilted his head, looking at me. His Yeerk was a good actor. But I'd figured it out, put it together, and there was no chance that was really Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill standing below me.
It clicked in his mind suddenly. I saw the northern harrier feathers sprouting. He was going to chase me unless I hauled before he could finish morphing.
I let go of the branch and powered my huge wings. I was on the run, and there was no time to find Tobias.
Wherever I was going, I was going there alone.