Note: Set at the end of 'The Warning' --also known as the one where they meet the other Esplin 9466--and takes on the hanging question left by Jake.
Trial by Fire
Jake's left the living room abruptly, his footsteps drowning out the breaking-news report; and all the long while, his rage has gone dead-still.
(and who could it have been; all by themselves, cutting the space across the ocean alone, fire in one's hands, taking and consuming, what are we now?)
See, it wasn't him who did it and he's bitterly sorry that it wasn't.
It wasn't him, and the fact kind of makes him want to throw up even as he goes white hot and doubt recedes and it all make no sense— what kind of boy like him wishes for blood and ash on his hands?
Wrong question.
(no, he can't bear to face the answer)
"I don't even know—"
.
.
.
He strays between black thoughts and his own clear-blinding reason: that sort of being, human or not, deserves whatever it got.
(Yes, deserves, and no, he will certainly not take that back)
.
.
.
Jake has conviction that this time around, he won't hold a hand out for Cassie if she reaches out for him. That he won't hold her gaze from across the room, if she ever looks at him for absolution.
Not this time. Not after what she'd thought of him.
(He wishes he could take that back—but right now, he can only wish it.)
.
.
.
"Who was he? What are we?"
"I don't even know who I—"
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.
.
If anything, there is this— human has diverged to mean so many things; and not all of them bode well, not for who they are.
Stuck in crossfire between the most disquieting definitions he can pull from himself, he wonders—is he possibly made of those damning things he saw, and could he bear it if he were?
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.
(Jake thinks distantly: better me than any of the five of them.)
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.
It's a dream and it's most of the same— Ax and Rachel stay eerily unmoving, Marco and Tobias fall back at their own accord— but this time, Cassie arcs into the deadly leap, teeth bared to a snarl, and he only watches—
(and he doesn't quite wake)
And then he dreams again(sleep isn't kind to him, never is anymore), a shaded one where he's the one who makes that crossing, takes on fire, and watches his misplaced hate go up in crimson and ashes.
(Jake wishes, he only wishes. This he can't stop)
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.
.
"Hey," is all he says to them the next day, and he locks his gaze tighter, syllables falling iron as he greets them with, "Fire at the island…I take it you all heard?"
They all cast clear eyes on him, but he doesn't look for signs or truths or lies, doesn't listen between the words they give.
(- because then, what would he find in all of them, what might they see in him, that he didn't even know he was so afraid of?)
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Like the way one goes in wars, he will move on from this. He will.
(Only, it will trace his tracks and never be far behind.)
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It's the truth, what he said. He doesn't know what he's becoming anymore.
Jake seeks his solace, knowing that none of them truly ever will.
* In case of any confusion, all the 'he's and 'him's refer solely to Jake, except for the one in italics which is referring to Esplin 9466 the other. 'They' are the Animorphs, of course.
I know the book wires you to think that Jake was the Fenestre mansion arsonist (including me) but then I thought…what if he wasn't?
I'm not entirely happy with this, but apparently, rage can unleash a muse. Yup.