WARNING: If you haven't been spoiled enough already, this chapter on contains MAJOR SPOILERS.

Chapter 9

When we were deep in the woods, Ax and Tobias gave me the bathing suit and told me to go change. I'll have to say, it didn't look fantastic on me, but that was becoming less of a factor. I came back and tucked my other clothes in one of the shopping bags. Ax demorphed and took the bags. To make it easier on him, Tobias and I hung two of the bags on his tail, which was three or four times stronger than his arms.

((I will bring these to the meeting place,)) he said.

"Good," Tobias said. "See you there."

Ax took off and Tobias demorphed. I morphed the goshawk and we took off.

Flying during the day was AMAZING. It was beyond words. Like, try going on the fastest roller coaster ride of your life, then remove the seats and the sheer terror of being up so high and unable to fly. That's what it was like. What a rush!

I tried diving the second I was up high enough.

((IIIIIEEEEEEE!!)) I screamed as I plummeted toward the ground. I pulled out and caught a thermal back up to where Tobias was. ((That. Is. So. Awesome! You don't even know how awesome that was!)) I yelled.

((I know,)) Tobias said.

I felt a little embarrassed at the idiocy of my comment, but I pretended not to notice. ((That's great! How do you even go back on the ground after something like that?))

((I'm never eager to, I assure you.))

((Wow. And I don't even have to try to stay up. You know, I had a dream once about being an Animorph. I think I morphed some kind of hawk, maybe a red-tail. And I always had to fight to stay in the air. It was tough. Like, if I didn't flap continuously, I would hit the ground. But in my dream I wasn't this high up.))

Tobias glanced at me.

((Were we in this dream?))

I tried to remember. ((No, I don't think so.))

((Do you know what the last mission we did was?))

((No,)) I confessed.

((Well, what happened in the latest book you read?))



I was silent. Tobias seemed to know he had cornered me and I felt a sort of satisfaction in his silence. I thought hard. After what felt like a long time but was probably only fifteen seconds, I answered him.

((David.))

((You're a liar,)) Tobias said.

((Why?)) I asked.

((Because Cassie got the yeerk morph a long time after the whole David thing.))

Again, he had me cornered. I tried to go with it. ((Oh yeah. I'm sorry. I haven't read them in such a long time. I kind of get it mixed up. What was the last mission you went on then? The last really big thing.)) I was proud of myself for such a convincing lie.

But Tobias wasn't convinced. ((I asked you first,)) he muttered.

I didn't say anything.

((Fine. Do you know Taylor?))

I spent a few moments concentrating. ((No not really.))

((She's a controller with a prosthetic arm,)) Tobias said with a strange tone in his voice. What was wrong with him? He seemed insulted by the idea of her.

Suddenly I knew why. ((Oh,)) I said. ((Taylor.))

((Well, she tried to convince us that she was a member of the yeerk peace movement so we could make an attack on the real peace movement. Visser Three put her up to it. She died in the explosion.))

((You dug tunnels,)) I remembered. ((You were a Taxxon.))

((That's right.))

((And Cassie was the only one who refused to do it.))

((Because she didn't trust Taylor. Yeah,)) Tobias wasn't excited to admit this lack of good judgement in the case of Taylor.

I could remember that book. It was number forty-three. I couldn't remember what forty-four was, but forty-five was the one where Marco's dad found out. The series was nearing its end. There was a sharp pain of sadness in me as I realized that Rachel only had months to live now.

((How much more have you read?)) Tobias asked me.

I was worried now, not wanting to give away any more right now.



((More than that,)) I said, sentencing myself.

((How much more?)) he asked.

I wasn't sure how to answer him in a way that wouldn't annoy him. But at this point I had decided to tell them as much as I could manage to say. ((Can I tell everyone at once?)) I asked, trying to hide the hint of panic in my voice.

((Sure,)) Tobias said.

We were quiet for a long time, and I began to wonder what Tobias was thinking. Was he guessing at what I refused to tell him? How would he react to what I was going to tell them? Oh God, he was going to hate me. They were all going to hate me. How was I supposed to say it?

I tried to calm myself. Start at the beginning. Marco's dad was going to help discover Z-space. He was going to be captured. Marco was going to go in and save him. They were going to get away. And Marco was going to move in with Toby Hamee and the rest of the free hork-bajir. But what was before that? Why couldn't I remember?

((We've got a good couple hours before the meeting. Jake should be out of school soon and he said he wants to get you a battle morph right away. We can go meet Ax and get you some clothes and then you can go with Jake to the Gardens.))

((Okay,)) I said. And it was so. Tobias and I met Ax, I got dressed, and we walked to Jake's house.

I had been thinking hard about what morph I wanted. Desperately, I wanted a lioness. It had always been one of my favourite animals, but it was definitely doubtful that it would be an option. But I figured that one of the big cats would definitely be a good idea. So what then? A panther? Maybe a leopard or a cheetah? To tell the truth, I didn't actually know much at all about any of them.

It was funny how I'd already forgotten my promise.

"Alex!" Jake said when he opened the door.

I grinned widely. "Ready to go to the Gardens?" I asked with a cheesy, hands-clasped-behind-my-back-and-arms-straightened-while-on-tiptoe pose. I rocked back onto my heels and then back to my toes again. It was a sort of nervous thing for me that I tried way too hard to act cute.

"Yeah," he said, stepping out the door and closing it behind him. I hadn't expected him to be ready to go, but apparently he was. He began to lead me to the bus stop.

We were waiting alone, and I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. I tried to make small talk, like "how was your day?" and other things of the sort but Jake gave one-word answers. He was obviously preoccupied with some other matter. I was almost relieved when he decided to confront me with it.

"Cassie thinks that you know more than you're telling us," he said bluntly.



By this point, I was done being nervous about it. I'm not sure why, but Jake didn't feel as intimidating as Tobias and Aximili did. "Did you all just decide to try to wear me down today or something?" I asked.

"No," Jake said earnestly, "why, have Tobias and Ax asked yet?"

"Yeah," I said. "And I've already said that I'd tell you guys everything at the meeting."

"Everything," Jake confirmed.

The bus arrived in all of its crowded glory, and I was taken aback when I saw someone wave from the back.

Marco.

"Marco said he wants to come with us," Jake said.

I nodded.

Jake and I headed over and sat down beside Marco. He grinned widely.

"Hey, Alex!" he said. "How was shopping?"

I decided not to say too much about it. "Fun," I admitted.

He grinned even wider. I had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew what I was neglecting to say aloud. "So, how many fans exactly do I have? I must be a total superstar where you come from."

I grinned back, glad to be out of hot water if only for a minute. "Oh, millions. Everybody loves you, Marco. You're the fun in the books. Comic relief and genius at the same time."

He laughed a little shallowly. "Yeah, but what about my stunning good looks?"

I decided to tease him a bit. "Stunning good looks, huh? Hmmmmm..." I put a finger on my lips, pretending to search my memory. "I don't remember any mention of good looks. Perhaps in the dialogue..."

"Whose dialogue?" he asked eagerly.

I pretended to think hard again and he grinned in amusement. "Ah!" I said. "I remember where I heard that now! Your dialogue!"

"Ha ha ha," he said. "What else do you know about me?"

Marco was attractive, I had to say. Plus he was actually kind of charming. I found myself trying to avoid eye contact. It felt too intimate every time I saw his dark amber eyes looking into mine. "Well," I glanced over at Jake, but he seemed to have completely zoned out. There were iPod earphones in his ears and he was staring out the windows. "You're smarter than you act. And you care a lot." An image of a man's head being thrust into the slime, being watched through a glass window flashed through my mind. 

"You're braver than you act too." Then I remembered some more of that particular story and added, "You're a terrible driver."

Marco laughed heartily. "I've gotten better," he said defensively, touching his hand to his chest in mock offense.

It was my turn to laugh. "Not by much."

"How would you know?"

"I just do," I said, feeling like I'd trapped myself again. But Marco didn't pounce like I had expected he would.

"Well," he said as-a-matter-of-factly, "it's clear who my favourite character is. Who's yours?"

I paused for a moment. I wanted to be sure that I answered truthfully. I was surprised to find that things still hadn't changed. "Rachel," I said sheepishly.

"Why?" Marco asked.

I really should have thought about why he was asking. I should have thought about what he wanted to know from me. Instead I just answered. "She's so brave and she works really hard, and she's really pretty. I guess I'm just really jealous of her."

"Meh, of course she's prefect. She's just a character after all."

"All right," I said, getting stealthy. "Aside from Marco, who's your favourite character?"

Marco lowered his voice a little so that nobody overheard. "Same as you probably, but for different reasons."

"Why? Because you liiiiiike her?" I asked, poking his shoulder.

His cheeks turned a little red but he brushed it off. "Nah, because she has so much conflict. I mean, Ax fights for his pride as an andalite. Tobias fights because heck, what else is he going to do? Jake fights for Tom and even Marco fights for his mom. Cassie fights because she cares too much to let the innocent get hurt but Rachel? Rachel fights for the fight."

I looked at him in surprise. He was talking about them like I used to. Just like characters from a book. Like in English class when you have to identify what kind of character it is or find the climax. I found it much easier to talk like this.

"That's true," I said.

"All of us have something to gain by the war being over."

"Really?" I asked. "I mean, Ax gets to be a hero, and Marco gets his mom. And money. Jake gets his family, but what do Cassie and Tobias get?"

"Cassie doesn't have to see any more suffering, and Tobias can come out of hiding," he answered without missing a beat. "But Rachel..." he trailed off.

"Rachel loses," I said.

"Yeah, Rachel loses."

"Wow," I said. "That makes so much sense. How do you figure all that out?"

"It's not hard," he said. "Books are pretty predictable. I mean, they win, of course. If they didn't win, there wouldn't be a series. The thing is, at what cost? There has to be a cost. Someone has to lose something, otherwise the book isn't interesting enough. There has to be a death of an important character before there's a happy ending." He was talking with his hands, and it was almost comical.

"Yeah. I know what you mean. I don't think many people would have liked it as much if—" I forced myself not to speak the last three words.

Marco's eyes went wide. I double-checked, but Jake had not reacted at all. Assumedly he wasn't listening at all.

Marco was sitting in the window seat. I was in the middle and Jake was in the aisle seat. Marco banged his head against the window hard and gritted his teeth. He let his head rest on the window in an awkward, staring-upward position. "Oh god," he said.

I felt sick. What had I done?

Oh God, what had I done?


I know what you're all thinking: FINALLY!

Yes, here comes the real drama. In all it's glory, the sinister information is REVEALED. Bwahahaha!