I buzzed around, annoyed, trying to find my way back to Taylor's classroom as a remorphed fly. After much futile searching, I found her, just as a guy was moving away from her desk with a grin on his face. Making a quick decision, I zipped into the tiny space between the spirals and pages of her notebook. I froze there, hoping she hadn't seen me.

She hadn't. I relaxed.

I couldn't believe the plan I was considering. Sadly, what I could not believe was that no one was around to stop me. Live with Taylor. Observe her. Learn her personality, her mannerisms, how to pass as her, and then...

It's a cold world, you know. We Animorphs had tried to stay decent in a war that had no room for decency in it. And they were Controllers, and Tobias was probably dead, and if I alone survived I was going to survive for a while.

I was tough. What I was going to do would tear me apart for a while, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was that I lived, lived to fight the Yeerks who had already destroyed everything.

I was under no illusions. I wasn't going to stop them. I was just going to take down as many as I could with me.

And I resented Taylor. I resented her because, for some unnamed reason, for the first time in my life, appearance mattered to me. Was I as beautiful as that future prom queen? Did I draw those same stares? I recoiled from my own shallow thoughts, but I know that there were enough similarities in us to make me competitive. I tried not to think about it, but the resentment was still there, festering.

So maybe that just made it easier to do what I had to do anyway.

I dreaded the moment when I had to kill her. I wanted to do it in her sleep... I did have a conscience, after all, just not a very active one.

I watched her all day, except for the breaks I took to demorph. And I learned something about this girl: she knew how shallow beauty was. She knew why her boyfriend smiled at her. She knew why her friends enjoyed her company. She knew that her name was next to synonymous with popularity and that everyone around her basked in the light that came with that name.

She knew. And she didn't care.

What if you weren't beautiful? I asked the tall, pretty senior below me. What if you weren't... me?

I followed her relentlessly, filing away the way she twisted her hair, the way she laughed, the way she got the attention of whoever she spoke to with a soft touch on the arm and a coy smile. I learned her like I would a textbook. I learned to imitate her the way a Yeerk learns to imitate its host. And all the while, I felt my resolve whittling itself away. My victim already had a name, and now, by careful observation, I had given her a personality.

Then I thought of Cassie. My best friend had had a personality too. Because of the Yeerks, she was now nothing more than a body to make use of.

I was going to avenge that -- no matter what. But to do that, I needed a way to stay alive, a --

Body to make use of? I hesitated at the thought. Not for long, though. I'd been tailing her longer than I'd thought. It was 3:30. My last demorph had been at 2:00. A half hour. Taylor was heading out to her sleek car, ready to go home.

I'd timed it before. The drive was a ten minute one. That left twenty minutes... which was cutting it close, but there was no time to remorph again. I felt the mother of all jolts as Taylor tossed her backpack, currently my hiding place, onto the passenger seat of her car. I felt uneasy as I carefully avoided being crushed by the books. There was no way out if the time limit passed while I was in there. I wouldn't fit if I tried to demorph. And even if I half-morphed, how could I work a zipper from the inside?

In a flash, I realized my mistake. No kid goes home and immediately opens a backpack!

I screamed in agony within the isolation of my own mind. Fly! Fly! No, not fly -- grizzly, elephant, something, no! Something that could hurt the Yeerks! Something that could see without the fragmented vision of compound eyes! Something... not fly!

Tick. Tick. I could almost feel the seconds brushing my body as they passed, beating me, ironing my exoskeleton on, a skin I could never remove. Like an outfit I could never remove. Haha, Rachel, you're never going to try on another shirt. Another pair of jeans. A demented giggle. Had it been out loud? Had Taylor heard? What if she had, did it matter? Giggle. She could crush me. She will crush me. No one likes flies.

The time passed. She had heard nothing. Tick, tick. Had it been ten minutes yet? Who cares? What difference does time make now?

What a way to die... what a way to live... I giggled again, silently. Tick, tick. This is who I am. This is who I always will be. Listen to it, Rachel...

Tick, tick.