A/N to returning readers: I'm so happy you are still reading! Thanks for bearing with me for this long! I know I'm not the best writer and I don't update as often as I should, but I really love to see the old faces (/pennames) reviewing. It's great to have you back!
To new readers: Okay, I figured the only people who would read this are those who read the first one... and was surprised when the first reviews I got were from new readers. I don't expect you to go back and read all of the first one (though some did! Thanks, nunya and SouthrnBelle!) so this is the shortest recap I can offer. A lot happened in the first one; if you want to read it, that would probably be better than this lame summary.
The Animorphs went to Spain to find V1 and met the International Yeerk Resistance (IYR) which began from a kid named Sam, who we learn committed suicide so the Yeerks couldn't infest him. They find that Manny now leads this resistance. Jake is worn out from leading, so Marco goes behind Jake's back and makes a deal with the IYR that he will kill V1. Rachel gets wind of this, and offers to help him.
Rachel and Marco go to find V1 with the IYR as backup, but when they get into a little trouble they find Jake had Tobias follow them. The story ends with Marco, Rachel, and Tobias stumbling into a room that has V1 tied, blindfolded, and gagged. They're forced to demorph and hear one of the "Spaniards'" voices over the intercom. But he no longer has an accent, because he'd been faking it. You find that Manny was never the driving force of the IYR. Sam is still alive, undercover as our dearly beloved Raúl.
Oh, and Sam and V1 have been trying to find each other since forever.
Ah, chapter 2:
MARCO
I half-expected us to be taken back to the concrete basement of that one building downtown, the place we held primary negotiations. But they blindfolded us, knocked us out, and when I came to, we were in some kind of room that felt like a prison. One entire wall had cells against it, but each cell was only separated from the next by bars. So from one cell at the end of the wall, you could see through all of them to the other end of the wall. Each cell was maybe 12x12 feet. We were all in separate cells, with Rachel in the corner, then Tobias, then me.
When I woke up I still had the blindfold on, but the handcuffs were gone. I reached to the back of my head and untied it. Tobias wasn't up yet, but Rachel was awake and pacing back and forth in her cell.
"You're up," she noted. "Finally."
"How long have you been awake?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. A couple hours."
I didn't have a headache or anything like that. They'd used a chemical cloth to knock us out; I remembered everything. Except the blindfold.
"Where are we? Have you seen them?"
Rachel extended her arms through the bars between her cell and Tobias's. I could see red marks all the way around her wrists, some skin scraped off here and there. "Look at what those jerks did to me," she spat. "When we get out of here, they're dead."
"What's that from?"
"The handcuffs."
"Did they hurt you?"
She scoffed and pulled her arms back to herself, resting them on her hips now. "No, they haven't touched me since I got up," she replied. "But I did see Manny."
I surveyed the place a little closer. The walls had been painted an obnoxious shade of white, which used to be a bright, pure white but now it was dirty here and there. It was obvious the place was old. For a second I hoped the bars had rusted, but looking at them carefully I didn't find anything.
"What did he say?" I asked as I looked out the other side of my cell, the side away from Rachel and Tobias.
"He didn't say much. He said that he couldn't. He just said he can't help us."
She was furious. The kind of furious where you expect the person to explode at any moment, and are grateful there's two sets of bars between you otherwise she might just lurch at you with her hands around your neck, just to kill something, anything. Rachel didn't get like that very often, but it didn't surprise me much. She definitely had the spunk to get like this. She was pacing again, too fast and stomping her feet too hard.
"He's just being modest," I replied. "He knows how to let us out. And I'd consider that quite helpful."
I tried to morph the wolf spider, but I should have known better. The second I started to change, the electric shock was back.
"And we can't morph," she added, turning and looking at me. I sighed.
"Thanks."
"I've been trying to figure out what to do," she said, still pacing restlessly. "Jake will know we're gone, but he won't know where. I know they'll be looking for us, but unless they get within thoughtspeak range for Tobias to broadcast, there's no way they'll find us. Even if we can hear each other, by some miracle, none of us know where we are, so it's not like we could give them directions."
"And they might have already passed this way while Tobias was out," I added. She nodded.
"Exactly. So in a nutshell, we're screwed."
"Unless Raúl has no reason to keep us here," I continued. "It just doesn't make sense. Why would he turn on us like that?"
"His name's Sam, and he's scum. He doesn't need a reason."
"A guy like him would have a reason," I insisted. Raúl – Sam – was smart. He was a linear thinker. Do action A, action B, accomplish goal C. I knew because I was the same way.
Rachel, on the other hand, never needed direction. She just ran around and killed stuff, which worked for her, but not guys like Sam and me.
"What do you think, he doesn't trust us?"
"I think he doesn't like us," I answered. "There was no other reason for him to keep us contained."
"Unless he's afraid of us," she replied. "He knows we're more powerful than he is."
"You're overanalyzing." The voice. The somehow familiar, yet somehow unplaceable voice. I wondered when I would get used to it. Not Raúl's voice, but Sam's.
He came in through heavy steel doors. He was wearing baggy jeans and I got the feeling he had something in them, but I didn't see any hints of what it might be. Still, with his hands in his pockets he looked suspicious. Then again, he would always look suspicious to me now.
"Maybe I just don't share vissers very well," he told us. Rachel's hands shot off of her hips and onto the bars of her cell closest to Sam, gripping them tightly, hatred in her eyes.
"How dare you show your face," she spat. "You're dead meat once we get out of here. You can't keep us here forever."
Sam looked to the ground as though remorseful, and slowly shook his head. "No, I can't. But that's not part of the plan, anyways." He looked up and smiled at her, a smile neither of us had seen before. "Rachel, what kind of person do you think I am?"
"I think you're exactly what Jake pegged you as. A psychopath."
Sam laughed too loudly, too joyously. It made me want to puke. "Is that what he said?" he asked. "Not the friendliest guy, is he?"
"A million times the leader you'll ever be."
"Of course. You have to defend him, because he's your cousin."
I can't describe the look that came over her face. Twisted in confusion, but more in disgust. And was that – yes – a little bit of hurt. Her hands dropped from the bars, hanging limp at her sides. Her face twisted, her voice soft. "How... do you know that?"
Instead of answering, he turned his gaze straight at me. I wondered if he knew about my mom. Wondered if he was going to tell me how he tortured her in that room after we left, tell me about her death – if she was dead by now. Feared that he would put the same expression on my face.
But by some grace of God, he didn't.
"Not exactly an earth-shattering secret, right?" he asked me. "It's not like the two of them work to keep it under wraps. But you have a secret, don't you?"
I didn't say anything. The two middle fingers I had did, though.
Sam laughed, but not as much as before. "Does that mean yes?"
"You know what that means, gringo," I snapped.
He raised a hand and pointed at me with absolute firmness. "I will break you," he vowed. Then he turned to Rachel. "Nobody will be safe. You are all going to regret every decision you ever made that led you here."
"Well let's get started, then," she answered through gritted teeth. "Bring it on."
"Always over eager to suffer a pathetic fate," Sam said with mock sadness. "It's just how you live, isn't it, Rachel?"
I'd never seen it happen in real life... only in movies. But it was that moment Rachel chose to spit in Sam's face. He looked disgusted as he quickly wiped it away from his eyes, but he wasn't enraged like I hoped he would be. At least it wiped that dumb smile from his face. Now he was glaring at her.
"You know you're not helping yourself," he said grimly. Then he looked to Tobias, still out cold, and added, "and you certainly aren't helping anyone else."
Heroes never care about what happens to themselves, but they care deeply about what happens to their loved ones. Rachel's face showed her terror at what he said and the way he said it, his glare at Tobias. But she didn't say anything else. Neither did I.
"You will learn," Sam promised both of us. "You will break."
