Tobias wheeled in the air. I could see him opening his wings and catching the wind, using it to soar down into the trees. The smell was growing more and more powerful as I raced closer to Cassie's barn. I didn't want to go to Cassie's barn. I wanted to turn and run, run as fast as my wolf legs could carry me. Run and not know what had happened.

But then Tobias' thought-speak filled my head. ((Oh, man, Marco. Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man.)) And that's when I knew what I would find as soon as I cleared the forest. I knew the sight that would greet me. It would be the sight that had always haunted my brain, though instead of my family, it would be Cassie's. I pushed my wolf body for more speed, trying not to breathe. That was hard though, breathing turns out to be pretty important.

Then I cleared the trees and saw the bodies. Three of them, lying at the other side of the clearing. Tobias was on the ground beside them, rapidly morphing to human. I braked and came in for a landing beside him, demorphing before my talons even gripped dirt.

The changes came quickly and, as my stomach became human, I heaved. I always wondered if it was possible to throw up with a beak. It is. Tobias was almost fully human now and he hobbled on giant talons to the first body. By the time he knelt in the grass, he was human. He whipped his head to look at me, three-quarters demorphed.

"She's dead, Marco. Neck slit." Tobias' voice was devoid of emotion. Comes from being a bird. Sometimes he forgets to make emotional connections.

Tears, unbidden, rushed to the corners of my eyes. Don't get me wrong. I don't love Cassie like Jake does. But she was an Animorph, one of us. She'd been a friend for these past few years as we fought. And yeah, she was a crazy tree-hugger, killer with a conscious but she was my friend. And now she was dead. I gave myself a mental smack on the back. Shoulda seen it. I'd seen that Jake might be in trouble. Shoulda figured out Cassie's predicament because she lived farther out. Belatedly, I realized Tobias was talking to me.

"-maybe she morphed? I see a Hork-Bajir over there, maybe there was a fight?" Tobias seemed to realize I wasn't paying any attention to him at all. "Marco! Marco, dude, I asked where you think Cassie went. Are you listening to me?"

It took a second for that to register. "Wait," I asked, "are you saying Cassie's not dead? I thought you said her throat was slit."

"No, that's her Mom. Her parents are lying here dead and a Chee has been destroyed. But Cassie's gone. You think they took her? That's what they've been trying to do to us for a long time – capture and infest us. You think the Yeerks got her?" Now there was some emotion in Tobias' voice, pain, fear, sorrow.

I shook my head. I couldn't let this get to me. Already, I could see the line in my head beginning to waver. I was letting emotion get in the way of seeing the line. It's like I told you before, one day kids will read about me in a US History class. I'll be right in there with Sherman and his 'total war' thing. And some smart-aleck kid will look at me, read about me hearing about my friend's family dying and shunting away all emotion and he'll say, 'That Marco dude? He was cold.' Let me tell you something, kid. I'm not cold. I just want to survive.

After a quick glance at the smaller form lying on the grass, I stood up and walked over to Tobias where he knelt between Cassie's parents. He was morphing back to his bird form – maybe he didn't like the emotions his human body was feeling. One glance told me the guy was right. They were definitely dead. And that led me back to his question – did the Yeerks have Cassie? I didn't think so. Don't ask me why. Maybe I just liked being naïve for the moment.

((Marco, man, what's the problem? Why are you looking like that? What's going on? We need a plan, we need to do something. Make the call, Marco. Do we go straight back to Jake? Look for Cassie? Bury her parents? What?))

I still didn't answer him. I was trying to figure out what to do. He was waiting for me to make a decision, to make the call. But I couldn't. I couldn't see past the fact that I'd screwed up. Yeah, I'm not Jake. I'm not Cassie. I'm not some moralizing 'oh poor me, I made a mistake' kind of guy. But, for just an instant, this was too much. It couldn't be figured out with a joke. My idea, my plan and three people – four if you count the Hork-Bajir – were dead. Maybe five. Where was Cassie? That was the big one. If the Yeerks had her, we were dead.

((Marco! This is not the time to freeze! Come on, dude, what would Jake do? Be the leader!)) Tobias' thought-speak was a scream in my head. He was perched on a tree branch, fluttering his wings nervously. His golden eyes seemed to stare right through me.

What would Jake do? Jake would go ballistic if he were here. He loved Cassie. He'd forget all reason, all thoughts of security, of survival and go after her. If the Yeerks had her, they wouldn't for long. It wouldn't matter to him who got hurt as long as he found her. He was already cracking. No, I couldn't do what Jake would do. I had to be ruthless. I had to be cold. I had to survive.

I started to morph, quickly, back to wolf. Tobias didn't say anything. He thought he knew what I was doing. He was wrong.

Long, jagged wolf teeth filled my human mouth. I fell forward onto all fours as my leg bones twisted and my hands and feet became paws. As soon as I had my wolf senses, I trotted over to the bodies and sniffed. It was hard for me to pick out individual scents at first but, finally, I pushed past the smells of death to the smell of another wolf.

((Tobias! You see wolf prints anywhere? I think Cassie went wolf. Wait…I'm sure she went wolf. You see anything?)) I circled in the dirt, looking for the paw prints I knew would be there. My wolf nose could smell another of its kind. I hoped, from the air, Tobias would be able to see the prints.

He flapped into the air and wheeled in a tight circle. There was a moment of silence. Then, his thought-speak exploded in my head. ((Yes! Marco, man, sometimes you're a genius! I've got wolf prints appearing out of nowhere and heading into the woods over there.))

As soon as his 'Yes' entered my brain, I willed my body to demorph. I prayed for the changes to come faster and faster, more and more rapidly. At the moment I became 90% human, I focused on another of my favorite morphs, the osprey. My fur finished dissolving as feathers imprinted themselves on my arms. My snout turned into a beak. I caught a glimpse of Tobias landing again on the branch. Finally, the morph was complete and I flapped madly to get off the ground. I landed on the branch below Tobias.

((Ok, let's go.)) I said to him. I gotta admit, I was exhausted. It had been a long day and I'd just gone bird to human to wolf to human to bird in the space of five minutes. And morphing tires you out.

Tobias jerked his head. ((Good. The paw prints went that way.)) He lifted off of the branch and flapped his wings. He headed towards the woods. I flapped too, but I turned and headed back the way we'd come.

((No, Tobias. You told me to make a decision and I am. We're not going after her.)) I felt a pang of sadness but pushed it aside. ((We've gotta get back o the Valley and tell Jake. Move ahead with the plan.))

Tobias had gained some altitude but now he spiraled back towards me. ((What?)) His voice was enraged. ((We can't just leave her! She could be hurt or worse! Jake would never do something so heartless. Come on, Marco!))

I kept flapping to get altitude as he spoke but when he said Jake wouldn't do this, I snapped. ((I know Jake wouldn't! Jake would morph tiger and go after Cassie. But we can't do that, Tobias, no matter how much we want to. We have to look at the bigger picture. Cassie morphed wolf. She's not hurt or captured. And eventually, she'll show up. She's a fighter. She won't quit, no matter what. But we cannot go after her.)) I paused. If Tobias refused to follow me, I didn't know what I'd do. Was this how Jake always felt? If it was, I didn't like it. I liked being the Joker. Not so much Batman. I made my thought-speak quiet. ((Are you with me, dude?))

Tobias didn't respond for a long minute. Then, his tone heavy, he said, ((Ok. Ok, let's go.))

Then we both flapped our way back to the Valley. It didn't take as long this time, perhaps we were flying faster, or perhaps the Ellimist realized the gravity of the situation and showed us the valley quicker than usual. Whatever the case, we couldn't have been flying for more than twenty minutes when the Valley appeared below us. I steeled myself for the explaining I was going to have to do to Jake and Rachel and even Ax.

We landed smoothly, Tobias in a tree and me on the ground. I was demorphing even before I had folded my wings against my body. Ax was the only one I saw but, when Jake and Rachel came running out of the trees seconds later, I knew he had told them in thought-speak that we were back. This time, even the demorphing seemed to not take as long. I was human in less than two minutes. Then I stood there, facing two humans, an Andalite and a hawk. Tobias was looking into the sky.

"Well?" Jake asked. "Did you find her? What's going on?"

I took a deep breath. Better to just get it out in a rush and go from there. I was sure there would be questions. "We were too late. Her parents, the Chee that was with her and the Hork-Bajir were dead. Cassie wasn't there. But-"

That was as far as I got. Rachel gasped, Jake blinked rapidly and then took a step towards me. "But where is Cassie? Did you go after her? Find her? See what had happened to her?"

Tobias decided it was time to throw in his two cents. I didn't think he would be on my side but even the Bird-boy surprises me sometimes. ((She had morphed to wolf; we saw paw prints appear out of the blue and head off into the woods. So she wasn't killed and she was probably under her own power.))

Jake's voice was deadly calm, the kind of calm where you know if he doesn't get the answer he wants, he will explode. "So what did you do, Marco? You were in charge, weren't you?" He stared at me, as if he was staring through me. I knew already that he wasn't going to like my answer.

"I decided to leave there and come straight back here, okay, Jake? I know what you would have done, I know you think it's cold but it was the right thing to do. Cassie was on her own, there was no signs she'd been followed and she can take care of herself! The most important thing we have to do now is move on with the plan, don't you understand?" I could see Rachel subtly changing. I hadn't thought of that, of the fact that she, too, would think I had abandoned someone she cared deeply about. I focused on the gorilla, hoping that it wouldn't come to a fight. "There was no other choice! I knew what you would do, now, and made the call!"

Jake didn't like my answer. "You left her?! How could you just turn your back on a fellow Animorph? How could you not try and find her? Nothing is more important than the safety of our team, Marco! You should know that!" He glanced at Rachel, who now resembled a human girl with shaggy brown fur and railroad spikes extending from her fingers. He didn't tell her to stand down. "Marco, man, the war has changed you. You're cold now. You don't care about anything, anyone. How could you leave her?"

I knew I was going to lose it in seconds. If it wasn't for the dang line, I'd be fine. Rachel doesn't see the line, she just sees the war. The next fight. Jake sees the line but, this time, he wasn't ready to make the sacrifices he had to in order to keep the line straight. He was determined no one die this time and that would kill us all. Ax sees the line; he's an Andalite. But he won't make any decisions on his own. Tobias…who knows what Tobias sees anymore?

"You can't fight a defensive war, Jake! You can't fight a war where your one goal is for no one to die. I know you don't like the decisions you made at the end of the war but you can't base your do-over on that fact. Just hours ago, you were done making decisions. You told me to make the call. And now, now that I've made the right decision, but one you don't like, you're all ready to take the reins again? I don't think so. I'm the only one who can see the ends, the means and the justification for both. You would have gone after Cassie, regardless of what impact that would have had. You would have been blinded by your affection for Cassie. She made her choice when she ran off to God knows where."

Rachel was almost fully grizzly now. Her words now reverberated in my head. ((Her parents were killed, you unfeeling creep! What do you think she should have done? Decided the war meant more than her mother and father and came back here, all happy-go-lucky, let's kill some Yeerks?! I'll rip you limb from limb!))

I held up my hands and backed away from the raging grizzly bear. But then, to my surprise, Tobias came to my defense. ((Rachel, chill. Marco made the right call. We can't afford to take the time to comfort Cassie. Marco knows that. He's been forced to make hard decisions regarding his family before. This was the right call to make and you know it, Jake, Rachel. Cassie will show up. Until then, we need to do what we need to do. We don't have time to wallow in blame.))

There was a long moment of absolute silence. I could hear a Hork-Bajir stripping bark a few yards away. Jake and I stared at each other. I was hoping Ax would protect me if Rachel attacked. I wasn't going to look away first. Finally, Jake unclenched his jaw and loosened his fists.

"I still don't like it. I still don't think you shouldn't have at least tried to find her. But I'll admit that, in the situation, it was probably the right call. A harsh call, a ruthless decision, but the right one." Jake grimaced. "So, what do we do next?"

"All I'm saying is, I just want to be the Joker again. I'm done being Batman." I glanced ruefully at Tobias. "And I know what we need to do next. It's insane. In. Sane. But it'll work. It'll hurt the Yeerks. And it'll put us on the right path to getting the Auxiliary Animorphs."

As Rachel demorphed and the group broke up, I went to the cabin where my parents and I were living. I found a book my Dad, a war buff, had brought with him. It was a book about the Civil War. I found the chapter on Sherman and total war. For a long time, I just sat and stared at his picture. He looked like a normal guy. A normal guy, like I hoped I would look like someday. But he had been responsible for so much cold-hearted destruction. I stared into his face.

Did you see the line too? Did you know that sometimes, the ends do justify the means? Did you…

Author's Note: After a brief hiatus, The Line is back. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. I liked it. I know Marco is getting perhaps a bit AU but he's just becoming more sure of his capabilities I think. Not too AU, I hope.

Please, read and review! Let me know if you like it or not!