Author's Note: I know I've been posting up a lot of stuff lately, but I figured I shouldn't neglect this one so close to the end. Hopefully you enjoy it, and the story in general now that it's complete. Thanks for reading! Also, some of the dialogue from this chapter is lifted directly from Visser.

VII: November, 1994

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I'd fought her for months. I'd done everything I possibly could to sabotage her campaign. I lied to her even when I knew she could read my thoughts. I struggled against her even when I knew her hold on me was iron-clad. I screamed and taunted her even when I knew she was ignoring me. All of it in vain.

Had I had control of my body, I'd have slumped and cried when the election results came in. But instead, she plastered a self-congratulatory, snake-like smile on my face, nodded and answered coolly to the accolades, arranged to take jobs I knew we wouldn't be around for. She kissed and excitedly hugged Peter, explained to Marco why it was important, and all the while I was screaming and begging for her to spare them what she was about to do.

For several weeks she coordinated her departure from Earth, letting nothing slip in her daily impersonation. She soaked in the attention she got from the winning campaign. In a sick way, I was almost proud. It had been my strategies she'd used, my mind she'd read. Edriss was brilliant and perceptive, but she couldn't have done it without my expertise. And so it was my mind, my knowledge and cunning, the insider experience from the job I'd taken when no Latina immigrants were offered such jobs, my own ambition that was my undoing. Proud, in a sick way, and disgusted with myself.

{Please, Edriss! Take another host and I'll never speak a word about any of this. Your secrets will be safe with me, please! We'll move out of the country, we'll go to Chile! I have family there that can shelter us! Just let me stay with my family! Don't do this!} I didn't care about offering to have someone else take my place, or about offering to keep quiet while the rest of the world was enslaved. I was overtaken by pure instinct: protecting my family from the hardship Edriss had planned. I'd feel sickened with myself later.

For the hundredth time, Edriss dispassionately told me that she couldn't afford that type of security risk while her promotion was still uncertain. I didn't know if it was my struggling, or her anxiety over her new position, or both, but Edriss had ceased our conversations. She did not taunt me, as sensitive and desperate as I was. She did not ask me questions. She simply told me, determinedly but emotionlessly, what she was going to do with me and why my pleas fell on deaf ears.

{You're guilty, Edriss. You're ashamed of what you're about to do. You don't have to, Edriss. Take another host, even give me to someone else, just don't do this. Don't damn yourself to Hell with this. My son needs a mother. My husband needs a wife. You don't want to hurt them. You don't want to hurt me.}

{Eva, I don't feel at all guilty about what I am about to do. You don't understand – I've been striving for this since I was a grub. I've risked my life for this opportunity. I'm not going to change my decision based on a few humans I don't even care about. I only wish you were more co-operative.}

{Ambition,} I spat at her. {Look what ambition got me, Edriss. It got me you. I promise you when this is all over, you'll regret ever coming to my planet. I'll make you eat that ambition.}

But her mind was set. Nothing I said or did could persuade her. I could only watch the last night of my life unfold before me, marching towards a death that was worse than death.

Marco had a cough and fever that had done a number on him. He was asleep now, even at the fairly early hour of 8 o'clock. As much as I hated to see him sick and miserable, a small part of me was grateful that it had forced Edriss to spend the day home. I'd pretended every nurturing motion she made was really my volition, my silent goodbye to him. I took in every detail. Into my memory, I etched his clammy forehead under my hand, the VHS of taped X-Men and Power Rangers episodes flickering in the background, the Legos strewn dangerously on the floor. Sacred. More vibrant to me now, knowing how soon I'd never see or feel any of it again.

Finally, it was time. Edriss took me to the living room, where Peter was watching a game. "Honey?"

When he didn't answer, she asked again, more insistently. Peter looked a bit embarrassed to be so absorbed in the game. "What's up?"

"Marco's fever is down. I think he's basically over this thing. He's asleep. Anyway, I was thinking of getting some fresh air."

Peter turned the sound off on the television. "Good idea. It's tough when they're sick, huh? Kids. He's okay though, huh?"

I prayed for him to say he loved me, so Edriss would be forced to say it back. My last words to him would matter. Why didn't he step into the light? I could barely see his face in the dark. I wanted to see it, wanted to memorize it and carry it with me into space.

"It's just a virus."

"Yeah, well, take some time. You've been carrying the load. And if you're going to the store-"

"Actually, I think I'll go down to the marina," Edriss said brightly.

Peter laughed. "Ever since you bought that boat, I think Marco's has some competition for favorite child in this household. You're not taking it out, are you? Looks kind of gloomy out."

Edriss smiled. "Just want to make sure it's well-secured, check the ropes and all."

I wanted him to protest. I wanted nothing more than for him to forbid me to leave, to see through the ruse or question my sanity to go to the marina this late, but he was already watching the game again. "Uh huh. Okay."

I begged and pleaded with Edriss to spend a little more time here. I needed those few more minutes, one last "I love you", just another moment to memorize everything, to maybe change her mind. She paused by Marco's room, peered in.

{Let me at least say goodbye, let me hold him one last time, let me kiss him, oh my God, no, no, don't do this!} I railed, hysterical. The vice was closing. The hope I'd had that she'd relent was slipping away.

She ran my hand down the doorframe, where pencil marks ticked off Marco's height every six months since he'd been old enough to stand. The most recent one smeared a little with my sweaty hands. 53 in (4'5) 10/8/94.

And then she took me to the marina. I fought with her for the whole drive, trying to push her away for just a second so I could turn around, crash the car, something. She gave me nothing.

She took us out in the boat, raising too much sail. I felt her pride at her perfect plan coming to fruition. For an hour she sailed away from land, out of the sight of prying eyes. I succumbed to exhaustion and lay inside my body, silent and barely alert. She toyed with the thought of having the coming Bug Fighter ram the boat, then decided against it.

A drizzle of rain began. The winds kicked up, slapping the extra sail around and kicking the boat back and forth. Through the starting storm, she moved my eyes up to see a small shape descending through the clouds. From so far below, it looked like a black dot on a muddled gray canvas.

Her filthy underlings coming to transport and congratulate her, no doubt. Right on schedule. As precise as always, behavior you could expect from the efficient and heartless Yeerks. Edriss stood up on the boat, steadying herself with the railing, and grinned up at the Taxxon pilot.

Like a wave of nausea, my hatred for her flooded back in. I pushed against her with all the strength in me, finding a hidden reserve I didn't know I'd had. Enough to take my right arm and shoulder back, for just a second.

A second was all I needed. I pushed with my arm and hoisted my body onto the railing. In fair weather it would have done nothing, but as the sail caught another gust of wind it sent us tumbling over the edge of the boat. I was met with ice-cold saltwater rushing up my nose and an incomprehensible scream of rage from Edriss.

She was already back in control of my body, pawing frantically at the water. A wave crashed down on top of my head, pushing us under and further away from air. {What are you doing?}

{I'm taking you to Hell where you belong!} I yelled back at her, relishing the pain in my lungs and nose and her panic. I nearly laughed at her as my hands became numb, as my back seized with the cold.

{You'll kill us both!}

{I'll still kill you!}

She kicked and thrashed. My head broke the surface, but not long enough for her to drag breath. Desperately, she grabbed for the boat, but it was already several yards away. My lungs ached and spasmed.

I was going to kill her. I would die too, but I would take her with me. I was going to drown the murdering, cruel slug and leave her a bloated, lifeless worm inside the trappings of my skull. She'd die on her conquered land.

It almost happened.

A Hork-Bajir arm pulled me roughly out of the water. The Bug Fighter had lowered a steep ramp when they'd seen me go over the side of the boat. The Hork-Bajir, stronger than a human and with longer limbs, had reached in and grabbed my coat.

Edriss coughed and gagged as the Hork-Bajir helped her up to the Bug Fighter itself. I didn't know if she had the energy to maintain control still, but I didn't have the energy to try and take it back. I could see my little boat capsized twenty yards away. One last memory of Earth.

We entered the dark, technological confines of the Bug Fighter. The Taxxon pilot barely acknowledged our existence beyond a cursory, respectful head-bob. The alien electronics and screens glowed. They would be the context for the rest of my life.

"Visser, we are glad to see you were unharmed by that…incident," The Hork-Bajir said, carefully hiding any trace of mockery in his voice. He couldn't afford to offend the future Visser One. I wondered if he was regretting saving her yet.

"A sudden gust of wind, nothing more," Edriss said hoarsely. She took her seat in the back. It was a new Bug Fighter, one of the few issued with seats that fit humans instead of only Hork-Bajir. "Take us to the Pool Ship."

The Hork-Bajir barked a command at the Taxxon and took his place near the console. Edriss shivered and wrung water out of my hair and clothes.

When she was composed enough, she took me to task. {I'll take them both, Eva. Once we're aboard the Pool Ship I'll contact my fellows and take them. Your husband, your stupid, emotional husband, I'll take him at work. I'll send Hork-Bajir to hold him down. He'll be forced, screaming and begging, to put his head in the pool and take the lowest-assigned Yeerk I can find, so I can kill him later.}

All the while, she projected the image in my mind, like a clip from a movie I couldn't look away from. I saw Peter's head inches above the pool, his glasses falling off his nose, his eyes wide in terror. I saw the brutal hands of the Hork-Bajir shove him under. I saw his body relax as he was taken over.

{And then,} Edriss continued, {I'll take your naïve, whining, pathetic child. I'll make his father take him. He'll be dragged through the entrance at his school when your husband picks him up. He'll be so confused and afraid as his beloved father, his only living parent, asks him to let him put a slug in his head. And when he says no, the Yeerk in your husband will grab him by the neck and shove him into the pool.}

I saw all this, too. She made me watch her fantasy in all its perfectly clear, horrifying detail.

But for the second time today, I felt something reawaken in me. {No. You won't.}

Edriss seemed surprised, then even more furious than when she'd started. {Why won't I?}

I tried to hide my terror and revulsion. {Because you're not Visser One yet.}

She didn't respond.

I continued. {If you take my family, I will fight you every moment of the day. You know you can't control me completely all the time. I'll crack you just enough to let others see. The Hork-Bajir and Taxxon here already saw me push you off the boat. Your reputation as the most sophisticated master of humans will dissolve. You'll look weak. And you'll probably look weak before you actually get to your promotion.}

I could feel Edriss considering this. I could feel her mind changing. And I could feel, very subtly, that admiration she had for humans. It would have made me smile, if my lips were my own.

{And furthermore, if you look like you can't control your host and then send your host body's family to be taken by force, you'll look like you're trying to cover for being discovered. And it'll be an admission that your strategy of voluntary hosts is imperfect. The Yeerks on Earth know that you sometimes take by force, but your brothers and sisters on the Pool Ship don't. }

Edriss smiled, a mirror of what I felt inside. {Very well, Eva. I'll leave your family alone for now. As long as you promise not to struggle with me.}

I was overwhelmed with relief, even as she added that that didn't guarantee their protection. I was still cold and my muscles still hurt from the swimming, but I had that small piece of warmth, knowing that my grief-stricken family wouldn't find themselves in the same hell I was in.

As if to make a point, Edriss pulled up the visual for our flight. She focused our eyes on the vast blackness of space, the tiny dots of stars, the enormity of the moon. I knew that behind the moon, there was a Pool Ship waiting. But for the moment, space looked empty and tranquil.

{Of all the races we've infested, humans are the most appreciative of beauty. And wonder. And greatness.} Edriss pushed strings of wet hair out of our eyes to see better. {And intelligence.}

She pulled up the visual for the space behind us. Earth was nothing more than a small blue, white and green ball shrinking away from us. I could vaguely see North America, but the image was not clear enough for me to see California.

I felt something strange from Edriss. I still felt all the excitement and pride she had in her promotion, and her frustration with me, but I also could sense sadness in her. She looked balefully at the Earth and I wondered if it was just that her little project, the one she'd engineered from the start, would be passed on to someone else. Perhaps it was something more. Perhaps not. I was too tired to think much about it.

I watched as Earth receded from view. I thought of myself as fading out of existence. Finally, the moon eclipsed the Earth, and my home disappeared. The life I'd had, everything I'd worked for, everything I'd loved – the moon swept over it and in a blink, it vanished.

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Fin