Revenge
Disclaimer: They're not mine, m'kay?
Author's Note: Okay, I know I'm gonna get flames about this one, but that's
okay. Seriously, you can't tell me that
Jake would never act this way. Look at
the way Jake acts as of book 50. He's a
nutcase when it comes to his family. Also, there is one other thing that it might be helpful to know for this
story. #1: for this story, assume that the Animorphs are 16 or 17 years
old. I never really bought the 12 or 13
thing. #2: Assume that they've been fighting for a few years now. This story is from Cassie's POV, and it
takes place about a week after the events in Penance. Also, I'm looking for a beta. My friend Scarlett usually is my beta, but she doesn't read Animorphs
and doesn't really know anything about the characters. So, leave your e-mail addy in the review
box, and I'll talk to ya, m'kay?
He's not doing very
well. I want to help him, but I don't
know what I could possibly say or do to make anything about this lousy
situation any better. Marco and I have
talked to each other, trying to figure out how to pull Jake out of this mood —
I know his brother is dead, but to look at him, you'd think Jake was, too. He's lost weight, and they ever-apparent
dark circles under is eyes are way worse than usual.
Lourdes has disappeared
from the street — now she has a new role to play. Every three days, she goes to the Yeerk Pool in the guise of
Tom. Luckily, Tom was the host to a relatively
low-ranking Yeerk. Marco, Tobias and I
spent several hours a day showing Lourdes Tom's old pictures, trophies, and the
journals he'd kept before he was infested. We filled her with knowledge of Tom's friends and family, hobbies and
dislikes, until she could pass as Tom to all but the most careful of
observers. Jake had no role in this…he
didn't even take an interest. All the
while he just sat there, not really focusing on any of the details of the deception
that was taking place around him.
At school, he's a
zombie. He only answers teachers when
spoken to. He spends his lunch periods
outside, as far away from the rest of us as he can possibly get. All of us have the same questions for him —
about Rachel, and what he wants us to tell her parents--but neither he nor
Tobias are talking. I get the
impression that talking to Rachel a few days ago, before she disappeared for
good, really truly wigged him out. He's
spent more time alone in these past few days that he has in all the time he'd
been trapped as a hawk.
The thing that really,
really, really bothers us all is the fact that the Yeerk lived — the
inside Tom, that is. It still freaks me
out to think about what happened during the aftermath of the battle…
Jake had just
screamed for a retreat. I heard Marco
chanting Oh, crap; oh, crap; oh crap… I spun around to see Tom's body on the floor, the throat a bloody
mess. Rachel was standing there in her
grizzly morph, blood on her paws. Jake
seemed numb — he wasn't even looking at the body. Rachel jerked away from him for an instant, then ran out with Ax
and Tobias close behind. Jake looked
back at Marco and I, and walked out, calm and cool as a cucumber. He was in shock, I realized. On autopilot for the moment. I turned to Marco and simply said, Get
the body. Fortunately for us, the Yeerks had suffered heavier losses than
we had, and were by this time gone. I
don't think any of them realized that Tom was gone.
The Yeerk crawled out a few minutes late; I quickly slipped it into a plastic grocery bag I found nearby. That would have to do for the moment. Later, when Lourdes agreed to "become" Tom, she wired up the Yeerk in her head. We no longer needed to worry about the possibility that the Yeerk might be missed — Lourdes now knew everything it knew. Tom…Tom was given a solemn burial near a pasture by the forest. He has no marker. There was no ceremony. Maybe one day, when the war is over, there will be.
I shook myself out of
those thoughts and focused on healing Jake. I was trying to get him to help me think of something to tell
Rachel's family. This past week, we'd
been giving them a little runaround, saying that she was staying with me and
that we'd gone camping for the time being. Thank God it was summer. Still,
yesterday I'd had to come home, and the truth (or some variation of it) would
have to come out.
Just then, the phone
rang. "Hello?"
"Did you read the paper
yet?" It was Marco.
"N-no…why? Is everything okay?"
"Just look…I don't know
how to say this, but — "
But he didn't need to
say anything. I had just looked at the
front page of the local section. I felt
my knees growing weak, and I just heard myself sigh, "Oh, Rachel…"
I came to a short while
later, with my mother patting my cheek and alternately hugging me and yelling
at me. "Did you know it had gotten this
bad, Cassie? I'm sorry I didn't. Oh, poor Naomi…honey, did she give you any
indication this past week that she was going to do this?"
I couldn't speak. Rachel…dead? Suicide? It couldn't
be! Not my strong, fearless
friend. Weakly I grabbed at the
paper. Yes, there it was. "Rachel________ killed herself last
night. She drowned herself in a nearby
lake, leaving no note, no witnesses, and no idea that she was feeling this
angry and depressed." I looked up at my
mom, and mumbled out, "I think…I think I'm gonna…go lie down now."
I didn't go out for the
next two days. It wasn't until two days
later that Jake called me. I had only
been talking to him for a few minutes before I began blubbering. 'Oh, God, Jake, I'm so sorry…first Tom, now
Rachel — "
"She's not dead." That stopped me in mid-tear.
"What do you mean, she's
not dead?"
"I got one of the Chee
to make it look at though she killed herself."
There was a looooong
pause then. I couldn't speak. Finally, I managed to choke out, "Why?"
I heard him take a deep
breath over the phone line. "It's just…I
guess Rachel and I had more in common that I wanted to admit. It was when we buried Tom that I figured it
out. But you came up with that camping
story, and I had to wait."
"WHY?" I was hysterical. I knew it, and he knew it.
"Because…because I
couldn't stand the idea that one day she'd come waltzing back into town. She'd be alive, and he'd be dead, and
everyone would be forgiving because it happened in the heat of battle — and dammit,
it's not fair! I just couldn't take it
anymore! So I decided — "
I hung up the
phone. I couldn't take it
anymore. I wanted to kill Jake. If he had been standing in front of me at
that moment, I would have. Still, there
was this huge, huge part of me that loved him and understood how he must feel
and wanted to forgive him. So, I went
to talk to the only person who could possibly understand what I was going
through right now.
Tobias wasn't in his
meadow. I kinda expected that he'd be
like me, and hole up when feeling bummed, but I guess not. When he came gliding in almost two hours
later, he turned immediately toward me. Marco just came by earlier and told me. She's alive…I knew it. She's too in love with life to ever do something like that. I've been looking for her ever since, but no
luck there.
"So what are we going
to do then? I'm mad at Rachel, but Jake
has it fixed so that even if she's forgiven, she can never really come
home. The Yeerks think she'd gone…if
she comes back, they'll know something's up."
I don't know what
to do now. I really, really wish Jake
wasn't a total nutcase right now.
Author's Note: Okay, I wince in anticipation of flames now. Still, there's lots, lots more to come…this
is only chapter 3 in a set of 16. The
plot will thicken, I swear!