Chapter 30

The next day was a mess.

I slept in, as you could probably guess. That wasn't really out of character for me. I mean, I work nights at the cinema and my parents wouldn't think anything of me being up late. My parents believed in natural consequences. If I wanted to be up till four watching Hulu or Netflix, then it was on me if I was tired the next day. So when I woke up at eleven, I wasn't in any trouble.

That was not true for Cassie. I had a text letting me know she was grounded for the next two days. When Cassie is grounded, her parents let her send out texts to her friends, and she loses her phone. So that was the first problem.

The second issue was that it was Tom's graduation day, and that meant I had any number of family obligations, so catching up to my friends was going to be difficult.

I got a shower. I needed it. The morphing process being what it was, we didn't bring any of the smell with us from being in the meat chute, but I needed the shower anyway. I let it run cold. The water was nearly Arctic against my skin, and I felt my teeth chattering before I was finished. But I just wanted to be numb for a little bit. It didn't work though. All it did was wake me up.

I got coffee in the kitchen. We were having a family lunch in about an hour. Uncle Dan was coming back from a trip to Seattle later that day, so he was going to miss lunch, but Aunt Nicole and my cousins were all going to be there. That's when another problem presented itself.

"So," my mom said, as I poured myself a cup. "I hear you and Rachel put a lot of thought into Tom's graduation present."

Oh, shit. We'd used that as an excuse to get out and do stuff relevant to our Elfangor missions, but I had never actually followed through on it. I had a debit card, though, and I thought I could pull something out of my ass. At any rate, after the mayhem the night before, lying straightfaced to my mother was nothing at all. That should have bothered me. It was the kind of thing that normally would've bothered me. But it didn't. Not even a little.

"I'm just hoping he likes it," I said.

Mom gave me a hug. There were tears in her eyes. "You two grew up way too quick," she said.

Oh, if she only knew.

"Where is Tom, anyway?" I asked.

"Out with your father. We'll meet them at the restaurant. I have to make a few work calls. I want you ready to leave at noon."

She left me in the kitchen, and I found the solitude uncomfortable. I texted Marco after I finished stirring my coffee. I got an odd response.

This is an automated reply.

The individual you are trying to reach is taking a surf day.

If you don't like it, eat a dick.

Marco was surfing. So far as I knew, it was the first time he'd done that since his mom died. Despite everything, I found myself smiling. I imagined Marco in the water, the way he used to be. It was hard to think about that and not smile.

The only other person I could call was Tobias. Thankfully, he answered. I told him what was going on with Marco and the girls, but after that, I wasn't sure what to say.

"So what are you going to do?" Tobias asked.

I sighed. "What are any of us gonna do?" I rebuked, more sarcastically than I'd meant.

But Tobias had that weird Zen that he always seemed to have. I don't know how he did it. Maybe it was something borne out of years of abuse, neglect, and more hard knocks than any kid should have. Maybe it was just the weird poetry he saw in the world. Fuck if I know. But I will remember what Tobias said forever.

"We pick up the pieces, Jake. Not much else you can do."

I felt the too-familiar tightness in my throat. Tears stood scalding in my eyes. I didn't want to cry again. It wasn't a macho thing. I don't think I'm that kind of guy. I was just tired of needing to. I was sick of being so hurt, so overloaded, that tears were all I had. He hadn't been gone but half a day, and I was already tired of missing him.

A day ago, I couldn't imagine this. I had spent days making peace with the idea that I might not come back. And all I could think then was how fucking childishly naïve that had been. I had no idea what real loss felt like. How selfish it had been. What I felt in that moment, feeling the aftermath of losing Elfangor… If I had died in the Yeerk pool, my parents would be feeling what I felt. My brother, Cassie, all of them. I was not just a casualty to inevitability. And I knew then that I couldn't afford to be that cavalier with my own life, with my friends' lives.

How did Marco do this for two years? God, how does anyone do this? How do you wake up knowing that that person - who means so much to you - isn't going to be there?

Pick up the pieces…

"It's my fault…" I said.

"No, it's not," Tobias said. He said it calmly. Not patronizing, not placating. Just a fact.

I laughed on the line, certain he could hear me sniffling. "Oh, please. You had to steal a car last night because I thought we were going as owls. If I had thought about the Taxxon feeding pen earlier-"

He cut me off. "Jake, listen to yourself. Look, if we had brought up the transportation issue, the only thing that would've changed is that you'd have been involved in stealing the car."

"Yeah, I guess."

"You were only mad because you didn't know about it. It was never just your job to plan shit out. You paid for the camera because you felt weird about stealing it, but if you didn't have the money, we were still going to get that camera, right?"

It was hard to argue against that point. "But the elevator," I said. "I should've seen-"

He laughed at me. "Jake, why the hell do you think you should have seen something? We all saw your memories. We all knew about the meat chute. It didn't click as a way out for anyone else. And the only one of us that should have been able to predict Yeerk security was Elfangor."

I felt the flash of anger. For a second, it felt like he was blaming Elfangor for his own death, but that wasn't it.

Tobias continued. "He was a soldier, Jake. He didn't come here for the beach. He came here to fight the enemy. He knew every step of the way that this was going to happen."

"What?" I choked.

"Think about it, man. His first plan was the bomb. He never had anything to contribute when we talked about Aximili. He knew from the time you went into the pool that Visser Three was his buddy Alloran. He wanted to go down swinging."

Down, down, in an earlier round…

I wiped the tears from my face. "So how do we pick up the pieces?" I asked.

"Step one, quit blaming yourself. We all miss him, Jake, but you know it wasn't your fault."

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen overnight. "And step two?"

"Oh, step two is easier. You stop crying, clean yourself up, and go to lunch. Marco is surfing, right? Let him do what he needs to do. Cassie's grounded, but she's half a mile away and who's going to notice Cassie taking care of a bird?"

"Yeah, you're right. Thanks, T-Rex," I said. It was an old joke. Before he moved with his bitch of an aunt, before his mom had disappeared, back when we were just silly third-graders, Tobias had been obsessed with dinosaurs. I hadn't called him that in eight years. I was about to ask him about coming over for the weekend, seeing that album like I'd asked my mom, but that wasn't what came out. "Wait, half a mile? You're still there?"

"Well, yeah, where else would I be?"

"You never went home?"

"I stole a car from a chop shop, Jake. I didn't want to be at the apartment when my uncle found out it was missing."

Well, I couldn't blame him for that one. "What have you been doing?"

"Trying to get Aximili back on the line. He doesn't want to answer and I guess we just have to give him time. I've been… going through stuff. He, uh, he left a lot of things behind. I got some of his files open, but I can't read any of it. Andalitese or Andalish or whatever you want to call it."

I nodded, even knowing he couldn't see me. I knew instantly that we needed to be there with him. Whatever Elfangor had left in his little scoop, we were going to need it to save Aximili. "Yeah, yeah. I'll try to catch up with you later." A thought intruded. I remembered what Cassie had said last night. "Say hi to Cassie for me. I think she might like the company, actually."

"Yeah, I think I'll do that," he said.

We said our goodbyes and I got ready for the family lunch. I realized I'd been on the phone with Tobias longer than I had thought. I was driving my mom to the restaurant only a few minutes later.

Family functions vary by family, but having all of us together at a table was interesting. Tom had chosen a Chinese buffet restaurant, which was fine for all of us. They put two tables together for the eight of us.

Lunch went well, actually. Mom and dad told anecdotes about Tom from when we were younger. Aunt Nicole told us a rather colorful story about what mom did after her own graduation. I smiled to myself. I couldn't help it; I found it amusing. Mom and Dad chose to celebrate Tom's adulthood by treating him like a child. I guess because it was one of the last times they could.

We made a toast to Tom. It was… fun.

And that was weird. Rachel and I exchanged looks throughout the meal. For everything I was feeling, and everything she had to be feeling, we had to hide it. I can't really explain what Elfangor meant to me in those six days. But I hadn't even gotten to mourning yet. I had barely begun to process that he was gone, and here I was putting on a hollow smile and going through the motions about something else entirely. As though a single crack in the façade would send the Controllers rushing in.

I remembered to breathe. To not have a panic attack at the table.

We got to graduation gifts and I almost died. I had texted Rachel about the thing, but she had been uncharacteristically coy and dismissive about it. "I've got that covered," she'd said. And when I pressed her, all the more I got had been, "you'll see."

I shouldn't have doubted her. Rachel saved my ass. Tom opened the gift "Rachel and I" had picked out for him. You can't imagine my surprise when I saw the same leather briefcase that had carried my friends in their squirrel morphs. Or rather, one exactly like it. The other one had definitely been left behind.

Aunt Nicole squealed. "Is that a Pratt Leather briefcase?" she asked. Of course my lawyer aunt would be a briefcase aficionado. I would learn later that the briefcase in question was more than two hundred dollars.

Tom seemed tactfully pleased, but otherwise unsure how to take the gift. "Um, thanks."

Rachel beamed at him. "We wanted you to look like a real college student," she said. "But there's more. Open it up."

Sure enough, stuffed inside the briefcase was a brand new Stephen Curry jersey. Tom looked at me and smiled. "You're a good brother, Jake. And Rachel, come here." He gave Rachel a massive hug.

"Hey, what about us?" Jordan asked.

"You want hugs, too? Well, get over here."

Food was great, and I managed to text "thank you" to Rachel. To this day, I don't know where she got the money to pull that off. To be fair, I never asked. I mean, I have a really good hunch, but I don't actually know where she got the money and it's going to stay that way. Some questions are better left unanswered.

After the family lunch, we started to split up. Tom was going off to meet Zoe, who was of course having her own graduation stuff with her family. I gave my brother a hug and he thanked me again for the jersey.

In two weeks, he was moving out, and things would change. I smiled at him as he got in the car and drove off with our dad. Mom and I had come in my SUV, but she was leaving with Aunt Nicole, leaving Rachel and I to have the afternoon with her sisters. In a few hours, we would be at the high school, watching Tom get his diploma, but till then, we were cut loose.

I texted Tobias off and on. He was, for lack of anything better to do, basically just baby-sitting Elfangor's communications array. He was making periodic hops to Cassie's, checking in and stuff. Marco's phone kept redirecting to his surf day message, and I was starting to get worried.

We took Jordan and Sara to the Boardwalk again. Rachel and I were not in the mood for rides, but we couldn't get to Cassie or Tobias without losing my other cousins, which wasn't going to happen. And I couldn't think of any other way to try to get in touch with Marco other than to go to the beach. And the only beach I could take Jordan and Sara to was the Boardwalk. I just prayed that's where Marco was surfing. We didn't get far into our search for Marco, though. If he was there, we didn't see him. I felt like a wreck without my best friend, but if he needed space, I couldn't rush it. And we only had so long till we had to be at the high school, so we just let Jordan and Sara hit the rides till it was time to go back and get changed.

Tom's graduation went to plan. I had to dress up, which I hate doing, but it was what it was. Rachel and her sisters were dressed as triplets, something Aunt Nicole thought was adorable and something Rachel took as hard torture. Usually. I don't know if it was because it was Tom or because after everything else, wearing an identical dress didn't matter, but she wasn't complaining.

It took forever. The graduation process is one of those things I guess you're supposed to look forward to, but the speeches, the handshaking, the diplomas, all that talk about being an adult… They called it commencement. A beginning. Like the eighteen years it took to get there was just, what, insignificant? But I guess for what it was, it wasn't bad. I probably wouldn't have judged it that harshly if it hadn't been that day.

After the ceremony, there were pictures, my mom couldn't stop crying and my dad and Uncle Dan kept giving Tom pats on the back.

Tom was spending the night with one of his basketball buddies. Ronnie was one of his friends that was going in on their apartment. I had to wonder if Zoe wasn't one of the other names on the lease. I wondered how that would go over with Mom and Dad if they found out Tom was moving in with his girlfriend right out of high school. I could hear my dad's tacit acceptance already. "No grandkids, no drugs." That was pretty much it with my parents. Don't make big, stupid mistakes. Anything else was live and learn. Anyway, with Tom out of the house, my parents had decided that they were doing some kind of grown-up night. That usually meant margaritas at Rachel's house. So Rachel and I were going to babysit her sisters at my place that night.

I swung by their place first so they could grab their overnight bags. As soon as we were at my place, everyone went to change out of their dress clothes. I ordered pizzas. My female cousins all ended up in their jammies, and all of us piled into the queen-sized bed in the guest room and watched Netflix movies.

A few hours later, we were tucking Jordan and Sara in. They'd passed out before midnight.

I'd waited all day to see the others, but I was tired. Marco had never texted me back all day. Tobias had no news about Aximili. And Cassie was cut off. I debated whether or not I should go to raven and see her, but I couldn't conjure the will or the energy to do it.

The day after the worst day of my life, I had very little contact with the others, and that was just the way it went. I sent out a group message that we needed to meet tomorrow and I went to bed.

This time, I fell into the black like I was sinking in ink.

And dreamt of being swallowed by tentacles.

The next day, I dropped off Jordan and Sara. I think Aunt Nicole had a bit of a hangover, but she thanked me for taking care of the girls last night.

My first stop was to pick up Marco. He was waiting outside his apartment when Rachel and I rolled past. He knew we were coming, but he was clearly not ready to deal with people. He hesitated for a long minute, but he got in the SUV. Usually so sarcastically vocal, Marco was uncharacteristically quiet in the back.

Cassie wouldn't be ungrounded till Sunday, but I didn't want to wait that long to do this. So that meant we had to meet at Elfangor's. That stung everyone, I think. I parked by the same access road Rachel and Tobias had picked us up from the other night, and that didn't help either. We walked to Elfangor's scoop. No one wanted to morph again. Maybe that was for the best. It was the single greatest gift he could give us, but without him, what could we do with it? The idea of sneaking into football games and concerts seemed so crass now. And we had learned the other night that we weren't soldiers.

Tobias was still there when we reached the steep little valley. I wasn't sure how long that could go on, or would go on. Cassie was there too. Grounded as she was, I don't think her parents realized how much time she spent at the WRC alone. And her parents were unlikely to ever ground her from nature walks. That being said, I didn't want to keep her there any longer than she needed to be.

"Hey, Cassie," I said.

"Hey," she said. She gave me a sad smile. She had something of a distance to her. Like she was on autopilot.

I wasn't sure what else to say. "I'm… I'm sorry you got grounded," I said, stupidly.

She smiled a little bit brighter. "It's fine," she said. "I knew I was going to get grounded when I left that night. I think I needed a bit of teen rebellion."

"So," I said, "I guess we should get this over with."

"Get what over with, exactly?" It was the first thing Marco had really said since we'd got there. And he was clearly pissed.

"I wanted to try to figure out what we're going to do next," I said.

"Next? Next?!" he exploded. "Are you fucking kidding me, Jake? There is no next! We did what we said we'd do. We helped him set off bombs. Bombs, Jake! He died down there! We got shot at, Jake. I had my fucking arm cut off by a walking Cuisinart! I'm done. This is the end of the line for me. I can't…" He faltered then. I could feel the emotion in his voice, the tears he didn't want to spill. His voice clenched. "I can't lose anyone else."

There was a silence then that felt heavy. I saw the tears staining Cassie's face. Rachel refused to make eye contact with anyone. I didn't disagree with anything Marco said. He had told us from the start, minutes after Elfangor had collapsed in the dirt, that helping him would ruin our lives. And it really had. It was hard to say it hadn't. Rachel had almost died down there. Marco had been seriously injured. Tobias had stolen a car. And all of us had killed that night. All of that mattered. It paled in comparison to what happened to Elfangor, but all of us carried baggage from that night. And none of us had a clue how that baggage would come out in the future.

But while it mattered, it didn't change anything either. "We have to get Aximili," I said.

Marco didn't have anything to say to that.

There was no way we could get Aximili from the ocean floor without morphing. So, I knew then that we weren't done. Not yet. I wasn't sure what was going to happen after that. Elfangor had been a fighter pilot, a military commander, and yet he ultimately seemed to have no idea how to fight on the ground. Aximili was only a cadet. He had even less training than his brother, no orders, and he, too, was stuck here.

Maybe that was our mission now. Save Aximili, keep him safe, teach him what we could. Elfangor said the Andalites would be here in a year or two, hadn't he? Could we hide an alien in the woods for that long?

Rachel was the first to find her voice. "Elfangor didn't have any clue how to reach him," she said. "How are we supposed to do it?"

"We can't just let him die," Tobias said. "We owe that much to Elfangor."

"Elfangor seemed like he was stalling," I said. "He didn't have a way to reach the Dome ship, but he was working on it. Tobias, we'll try Aximili again in a few days. I think he could use some space."

"What do you propose we do till then?" Cassie said.

"I'm not sure," I said. "Maybe try going back to normal for a bit?"

"You mean forget this ever happened?" Rachel asked, hotly.

"No, not like that. I mean…" What did I mean? "We had Tom's graduation. We have school on Monday. You have your sisters. I think… I think we need a little normal."

Cassie nodded, that same sad smile on her lips. "Normal is good."

"Depends on your normal," Tobias said. "I'm going to hang out in the tent for awhile. See if Aximili calls back, maybe try my luck on those Andalite files."

"Not a bad idea," Rachel said. "I need to check on Melissa, actually."

"Melissa?" I asked. "Why?"

"You're an idiot, Jake," she said. "You morphed her father and showed up with his security card. You think the Yeerks aren't going to check up on Chapman?"

I felt like a heel. I'd forgotten entirely about how we had implicated Chapman.

"God, I'm sorry. Yes, check on Melissa."

"Is that everything?" Marco asked impatiently. He didn't want to be there. Oddly, I think Tobias was the only one of us that seemed comforted by being there.

Did we have anything else to do? Was there anything else we could do?

"Marco made some good points," I said. "I'm not sure we can ever get back to normal. But I think we need some time. Last day of school is Thursday, right? Let's meet up on Friday, see where we are then."

Six days, we would come back to this. Tobias would check on the comm array here and there. Hell, maybe I would too. Six days doesn't sound like a lot.

But a lot can change in six days.