I had some vivid nightmares that night. I dreamt that I never dodged Ax's tail in the food court. I dreamt that he cut me in half as a dog and left me bleeding out on the floor, both parts twitching as Cassie screamed for me to morph out. When I tried, I turned into a rattlesnake, but still cut in half.
I never had nightmares before. I got barely any sleep and woke up the next morning dreading going to school.
I suppose I could have just stayed home. I could have said I was traumatized, or something like that, from the shooting at the mall yesterday (That was only yesterday? Seriously?). But Dad and Jordan were talking about me enough and I didn't want to give them more reason to. So there I was, seven a.m., sitting at the bus stop with Jake and Jordan.
Just a couple weeks ago, it had been Jake, Jordan and Tom. But now...
Nope. We're thinking good thoughts today.
Bus ride. Homeroom. Math. English. World Civ. Lunch.
Lunch was PB&J, chips, and a bottle of water. Like you care.
I was feeling...weird. I dunno. I just knew that I didn't want to sit alone. I saw Jake leaving the lunch line and moved to follow him. But I veered away when I saw him heading towards a table with Marco and two kids from the basketball team. And Cassie usually spent lunch starting or finishing homework, which could make her no fun to talk to. And I wanted someone to talk to.
Aha! There was Tobias, sitting alone at a corner table. He was munching on an apple and reading a book. I plopped down across from him and checked the title. The Fellowship of the Ring.
"Hi!"
"Hi?"
I cocked my head. "Is this seat taken?"
He looked confused. Like he couldn't believe I'd sit with him. "No?"
"Is that a question or an answer?"
He just stared at me. I started unpacking my lunch. "How's it going?" I said conversationally.
"Um." He put Fellowship down. "Good?"
I unwrapped my sandwich and took a bite. "Good."
He kept staring at me. I kept eating.
"How are you?" he asked.
"Okay."
"Good."
I continued attacking my sandwich. Tobias picked his book back up. But, after a moment, he put it back down.
"Okay, real talk."
I snorted and almost choked on the sandwich. "'Real talk?'"
"Yeah," Tobias locked eyes with me. "How are you actually?"
I finished my sandwich. "What do you mean?"
"You, uh," He looked down, hesitating. I waited. "You had kind of a rough time the other day," he finally said.
"So did you," I reminded him.
He leaned forward. "I wasn't shot," he whispered.
I glared at him. He leaned back. I took a sip of water and kept glaring.
"You just don't seem yourself," he continued.
"How so?"
"Well," Tobias answered, "since we've started...being friends, question mark?"
I nodded. "Yes, Tobias, we're friends."
"Cool." Tobias started talking again. "Since we started being friends, I have found you to be…"
He paused. I motioned for him to continue. He looked down at himself. "Peppy, assertive, proud, and at times...domineering."
I opened my bag of chips and ate one. "Uh huh."
"Did I offend you?"
"Facts don't offend me."
"Oh. Good."
I ate another chip. "But?"
Tobias looked around, then locked eyes with me. "But you haven't been that way since we bailed the new kid out of trouble."
More code. Good. Ears were everywhere. "And?"
"And you got hit pretty hard."
And I almost died.
Nope! Happy thoughts. "I'm fine," I told him.
"Are you sure?"
"Yep."
"Because it's okay if - "
I cut him off with another glare. "I'm. Fine."
Tobias shrugged. "Okay. I just thought I'd ask."
I drank some more water. "Can we talk about something else?"
"So you're not fine."
"I said I was."
"If - "
"Stop."
He held his hands up. "Okay. You're fine."
"Thank you." I pointed a chip at Tobias' book. "What's that about?"
"It's, uh, Fellowship of the Ring."
"I know."
Tobias raised an eyebrow. "So you know it?"
I nodded. "I've seen the movie."
He opened his mouth to speak. "If you ask me again if I'm okay," I told him, "I'm getting up."
Tobias closed his mouth. I pointed at Fellowship again. "Tell me about your book."
He did. Turns out Tobias really likes Lord of the Rings. I had zero interest in it, but I listened attentively as he rambled. It helped take my mind off of my anxiety and nightmares. Almost.
I went through the rest of my day feeling like a caged animal. You ever see a big cat at the zoo, pacing its enclosure? Like that. I couldn't sit still. I spent my next classes sitting at my desk with an eye on the clock, watching the hands inch closer to three o'clock.
At two thirty, I couldn't take it anymore. I raised my hand. "Can I be excused?"
My teacher, Mr. Pendleton, looked down his nose at me. "Can it wait, Ms. _? We're in the middle of a lesson."
"Girl stuff."
"Ah." He pointed towards the door. "Make it quick."
As if. I practically ran past the bathrooms and headed for the auditorium. It was the last class of P.E. for the day, and most of the class was out either on the gym floor or the football field. I jetted past the bleachers and walked straight into boys' locker rooms, trying to look like I belonged.
They were deserted, except for the future dropouts smoking in the showers. I walked past the showers and out through the emergency exit, ignoring the ALARM WILL SOUND sign. Marco told us weeks ago that the alarm was busted. Once outside, I stripped and stuffed my clothes into my backpack.
The wind picked up. I shivered and dropped my bag behind a nearby bush. You're being stupid, I told myself.
Just shut up and morph.
I closed my eyes and focused my mind on the last of the three morphs I had acquired. When I opened my eyes again, I was falling.
Well, shrinking. Smaller and smaller, with the ground racing up to my face like I'd jumped off a building. I had done this morph once before, so I was anticipating the size decrease, but it still made my stomach lurch.
My skin turned jet-black. Lines and patterns traced themselves across my blackened skin and rose up to form dark, glossy feathers.
My eyes slid apart and moved to opposite sides of my head. My vision went blurry for a moment, and then I could see in front, behind, and above me all at once.
My legs shriveled into sticks. My toes and heel formed into talons, resembling miniature Tyrannosaurus feet. My arms folded up against my sides, but my fingers extended out into bare, hollow bones.
Ew.
Fortunately, more feathers grew to cover them, transforming the bones into a powerful pair of wings almost a full yard across.
The morph was finished. I spread my wings and took to the air. I was a crow. The reigning asshole of the skies.
I liked my crow morph almost as much as I liked my dog morph. Not as lethal, but loads of fun. Flying is great, and the crow was one conniving little shit. As I flapped over the school and out to the football field, my crow mind made note of every insect in the grass, of the lizard scuttling along the chain link fence, and wondered how best to chase my classmates off so it could eat them.
Gross, but still entertaining. I immersed myself in the crow's arrogant nature, and let it lift me out of my mood.
I landed on the bleachers and cawed at some girl doing her math homework. She gave me a dirty look. I cawed at her again.
"I'm trying to work here," Cassie growled.
Oh, wait. That was Cassie. I was so focused on ditching class, I'd forgotten she had P.E. last period.
She was wearing the same ratty pair of jeans she wore yesterday. I hopped over and pecked at her thigh. She swatted at me.
[Those aren't the pants I bought you.]
I never knew someone could jump so high from a sitting position. Cassie's homework dropped from her legs and down under the bleachers. I cawed again.
"Rachel!"
[Hi! Keep your voice down.]
She looked around for a quick moment (the nearest kids were running down the track, away from us), then knelt down and glared at me. "What are you doing?" she hissed.
[What's it look like?]
"Shouldn't you be in class?"
[Shouldn't you be running laps?]
Cassie stuck her finger in my face. I fought the urge to peck it. "And why are you in morph?"
[Because.]
"Because why?"
I flared my wings at her. [I dunno, I thought it would be a good way to get the drop on the Andalite.]
"Aximili."
[Yeah, him.]
Cassie rolled her eyes. "We're supposed to be making friends with him, not 'getting the drop on' him."
[Speak for yourself,] I told her. [And go get your books and stop talking to me, you look weird as fuck right now.]
Cassie swatted me again. I flew away and circled around under the bleachers, landing on top of her books. Cassie made her way down to me.
"Rachel?"
[Yes?]
"What are you doing?"
I turned my head and looked up at her with one eye. [I thought I was meeting an Andalite to stop a worldwide invasion.]
Cassie sighed. "You know what I mean."
[I do?]
"Are you okay?"
[Why does everyone keep asking me that?]
Cassie crossed her arms. "Because you're acting strange."
[How am I acting strange?!]
"You've never cut class before," Cassie said to me.
[Why is cutting class strange?]
"You know what? Fine. Don't tell me what's going on." Cassie shooed me away from her books and picked them up. "I'm going to go change. Please don't do anything stupid before I get back."
[Like?]
"Like morph again." Cassie gathered up her things. "Where'd you leave your clothes?"
[Why?]
"So I can put them in my locker," Cassie answered patiently.
[In the bushes behind the boys' locker room.]
"Okay. I'll be right back." Cassie walked out from under the bleachers and left.
Stupid. Why was I being bitchy to Cassie? She wasn't doing anything wrong. I'd have to make it up to her later.
I checked my surroundings. The school had put gravel underneath the bleachers, and had the fence built so that it extended partly behind them. Behind the fence was a densely wooded area that housed various critters, and homeless camps belonging to the sort of people that hung around Deathburg at night.
I flew up to the top of a nearby tree and looked out over Deathburg, the half-built mall where we had met Elfangor. All that separated it from the school was an overgrown parking lot and a fence with a hole cut into it. It was through there, that one fateful night, that a bullied Tobias had fled from my cousins and Marco, and I had gone to retrieve him.
Deathburg was also where the Controller who killed Tom had taken Jake and I, and where we killed him.
And now, we might be meeting our second Andalite. Elfangor's brother. Who killed another Controller and tried killing me.
Everyone was trying to kill me.
Does thinking about that make you feel better, Rachel?
It does not, Other Rachel.
I laughed in my head, without humor. Clearly I was binging too much Archer. I spotted Jake, Tobias, Cassie, and Marco walking purposefully towards the football field from the gym. Hopefully a teacher wouldn't see them and think we were back here smoking or something.
I saw movement along the fence. A familiar-looking coyote approached the hole, and cautiously sniffed it before stepping through.
Ax.
The wind picked up again. I dropped down into the lower branches of the tree and waited for them all to reach me.
