Chapter 16

Marco's dad was taking his turn working the graveyard shift, so after we woke Jake up, that was where we flew.

Even though he'd woken up, morphed, flew over to Marco's, and demorphed, it seemed like Jake was still half asleep. He was snappy and cranky, the way he always is when he gets jerked out of a deep sleep. Marco either didn't notice or didn't care as he forced Jake to acknowledge everything we'd found out.

"Do you see it?" Marco was asking him. "A human serial killer…that's bad enough. But it's the Yeerks behind this. They're killing kids, Jake; kids our age. They've murdered at least four so far, and I'll bet you my CD collection there's going to be a lot more before Thursday."

Jake rubbed his forehead, like he had a migraine all of a sudden. I felt the same way. Marco wouldn't let up, though. "I know we've got a big, big mission coming up, man. But I don't see how we can ignore this. The Yeerks are killing innocent kids, and they're doing it for a distraction."

As Marco emphasized his point – which, I guess, was a good one – Jake groaned. "I know! I get it, I'm not stupid!" he snapped. I could see him visibly trying to calm himself down, and Marco wasn't helping.

"You can get mad if you want to, but this isn't just some arbitrary thing that doesn't directly involve us. There's another angle we've got to worry about." He took a deep breath. "They're getting these girls from somewhere, man. They don't come from Murder Victims 'R Us. And if they're snatching up blond haired, blue eyed girls, we have to worry about Rachel. She sure as hell won't worry about herself."

"What do you want me to do about it?" Jake asked. "You want me to order Rachel to stay in her house until Thursday? You want to go play detective and catch whatever monster – Yeerk or human – that's doing this? Let me ask you this – did you ever consider what would happen if we could catch the guy? What would we do with him? 'Oh hey, officer. Yeah, it's me, the tiger. I collared your bad guy.'" We all laughed a little at the ridiculousness of the image. "And here's another one – Andalite freedom fighters wouldn't care about this. If we stop it, they're going to know something's up. They might come up with another plan to get their diamonds, one that we can't try to stop."

Marco closed his eyes. "I'm about to say something that I still can't believe." He seemed to wrestle with it for a second, then he came out and said it. "Honestly, I think we can catch the guy. We've even got the bait." I felt my blood start to boil when I realized it was Rachel he was talking about. "And as for what to do with him when we get him?" Another pause. "We kill him."

Jake's head snapped up so fast I could hear the vertebrae in his neck crack. "What?" he asked, astonished.

"I know," Marco agreed. "It's cold. It's probably crazy. But seriously, what's the lesser of two evils, here? We kill one guy, one innocent guy who's probably host to the real killer, the Yeerk. We do that, and we save maybe twenty kids. Maybe forty." Jake was just staring at him, his mouth open in shock. "Look, I'm open to suggestions, man. But this is the most efficient solution."

Jake was trying to settle down. He thought for a minute, and then he stood. "First of all, good work, you two. I'm impressed with everything you were able to find out." He checked the wall clock – 1:12 AM. "That said, I am not even going to consider talking about this…this…plan of yours. Not right now. We'll meet tomorrow after school – if you want to bring this up to everybody, be my guest. We can talk about it and vote on it as a group. But right now, I gotta get home, man. Even though this serial killer seems to favor girls, my parents are still pretty freaked out. It's got them thinking about how maybe they should keep a better eye on me, and that's no good."

Marco wore a pained expression. "I understand, dude. But to wait until after school to talk about it…man, there could be ten more dead girls by then. And whose head would that be on? Mine. Because I knew about it, knew how I could stop it, and did nothing."

I decided it was time to speak my mind. (Marco, that's admirable. That's a good-hearted way to think about it. But we need you back to your regular way of thinking – we cannot risk the big picture for the small scale. We might be able to save a dozen girls. Heck, maybe a hundred. But at what cost? The Yeerks could end up getting their diamonds. They could test them out, decide that they're worth it, and torch the planet. Then who did we help? Those girls' lives we saved will be pointless, because they'll be just as dead as if we let the killer have them.)

Marco looked disgruntled, but he knew what I was saying was true. Hell, he'd probably already thought of it, himself. Maybe he just couldn't stand the thought of the Yeerks playing serial killer for the simple reason of distraction. I know that's what bothered me most about it. I mean, as crazy as it is, you could consider the anomaly of a serial killer – a real one – as a force of nature. Something we don't understand, something that's hard to fight or defend against.

This was different. This was just a game within a game the Yeerks were playing. They were moving their human pawns around the board, sacrificing some of them because it would give them a technical advantage. But it wasn't pawns they were sacrificing, it was human lives. Girls with moms and dads and brothers and sisters. Girls with futures, snatched away because some space slugs needed a distraction.

Jake shook me out of my thoughts. I noticed he was already ninety percent owl. (We talk about it tomorrow after school. We put everything we know on the table, and we decide what to do about everything. As a group,) he emphasized, and Marco nodded his agreement. (All right. See you guys later.) Without a sound, he lifted off of Marco's bean bag chair and was through the window and into the night.

I really didn't feel like talking about it anymore, either. It was too much. (See ya, Marco,) I said before following Jake out into the darkness.