Chapter six.
Jake.
After the meeting we all went our separate ways, heading to school. On my way out of the barn Cassie tugged on my sleeve and gave me a look. So I hung back as everyone else left.
"See?" she said "I told you. Jake, you're our leader. No one blames you for what you did. No one thinks you're any weaker for it."
She smiled at me and I sighed, not being able to keep the slow smile off of my face. What would I do without this girl? She always knew just what to say.
"Cassie...I couldn't have done that without you, you know. If it weren't for you I would have gone insane long ago."
She laughed and shook her head.
"Jake you know you'd do fine without me. Now come on, I don't have time to argue about it. You can get on the bus at my stop. You don't have time to make it back home."
"Alright Cass, alright."
I got to school about a half hour later and I instantly knew something was wrong. The air was thick with tension. The security guards were jumpy, glancing all around. Whispered conversations between teachers. I frowned slightly, worry eating it way into my mind. Something was wrong.
Had Ax been captured? Killed? If he had been captured than any moment now we would all be grabbed and dragged down to the Yeerk pool for infestation. If he had been captured then it was all over. You have any idea what thinking like that does to you? I walked the halls like a hunted man.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I swear I must have jumped a full two feet in the air. I spun around to find Marco with a very serious expression on his face.
"So you noticed it too eh? Have you seen Chapman?"
I shook my head. Marco jerked his head to the side meaningfully and I glanced over. There at the end of the hall stood Chapman, in his usual place, urging students on to class. But this was not the usual Mr. Chapman. He was whit as a ghost and shaking slightly. His hair was ruffled and one of his arms had a huge bandage wrapped around it. I saw a kid walk up to him and ask about the injury. I had to strain to hear the answer but he mumbled something like "hiking accident". Beside me Marco snorted.
"Yeah, hiking up an andalite tail blade..."
I glared at him
"You mind keeping it down?"I hissed and immediately felt bad. I don't usually snap at people like that but I was on a razors edge.
He nodded.
"Sorry, just a little tense. Jake we need to find out what happened." I nodded.
"Alright...I'll skip, go see if I can find "Phillip."
Phillip was the alias we had used the one time we had brought Ax to school. That hadn't turned out so well. Marco shook his head.
"No, we cant afford to draw any attention to us. Not right now. I don't think they captured him, if they had we'd be toast by now. We have to find some other way."
I snapped my fingers. "I got it, Tobias. He usually flies over the school. We can get him to go look for Ax."
"Alright," said Marco "but we cant have someone running around and red tailed hawks swooping around the school. It'll draw too much attention. Go in the bathroom and morph something. Try him in thoughtspeak first. If that doesn't work we'll have to do it the hard way."
I nodded and slipped into the bathroom just as the first bell rang. A fly buzzed my face as I entered and made my way to the far stall. I started the morphs to fly, I was about a third of the way to fly when suddenly:
Prince Jake? Is that you?
You know, after all the things I've seen, been, and done, you'd think that I'd be able to handle being startled better. I didn't. I screamed. Oh man did I scream. We're talking 10 year old girl-Friday the 13- jump right out of your skin-shrieking. No joke, I felt my heart stop WHILE it was being squished out into Z-space!
It was several moments before I could complete the morph enough to use thoughtspeak.
Jesus Christ Ax! You scarred the...well you scarred me bad. What are you doing here? What's going on?
I'm sorry for scarring you prince Jake. I'm afraid the mission was a failure. I was discovered during my mission. Erek was able to escape unseen but I was forced to fight. I made it to a bathroom and was able to Morph.
Oh ---- Then i said a few things that I shouldn't have said.
Prince Jake, what does that term mean?
Never mind Ax, look, how long have you been in morph?
I must demorph sometime within the next thirty six of your minutes
Alright look, I've got a plan.
I don't know how we managed it but we did. Ax demorphed in the bathroom and remorphed a roach. I carried him around with me the rest of the day. I went to the bathroom every period and had him demorph and remorph. Finally I made it back to Cassies barn and he was able to resume his andalite form.
"Did you even get a glimpse of the documents Ax?"
No prince Jake. I was in the middle of looking through the documents on his desk when he entered the room with several other controllers. When they saw that I was an Andalite they began to draw dracon beams. I did not wish a confrontation there so i retreated, but I could not risk escaping the school.
"Why weren't you in human morph?"
Well prince Jake, if they had seen your cousin "Phillip" there, they may have been suspicious.
I nodded "Alright Ax, I have to get home and tell the others. You head back to the woods and lay low."
I sighed as I sat tiredly on a bale of hay, things were already getting out of hand and we hadn't even started the mission.
Yes prince Jake.
He morphed to human and we both left.
I knew what I had to do. I had to talk to Marco. He was the smart one, he would see what we had to do. That was Marcos talent. He could see the tiny threads that connected everything together. He had such a clear view of how to get from A to Z.
I sighed. How had I gotten to be like this? I'd gotten so good at using my friends. Using them for what I needed them for, regardless of what it did to them. I brushed these thoughts away, I couldn't afford them. It was war, we all had to make sacrifices.
If I had to become the bad guy so that everyone else could live with themselves, then so be it.