Chapter 17

It turned out we didn't have to wait until after school to meet. The whole town was in a frenzy, and school had been cancelled indefinitely. Everybody with a badge was on duty, stopping traffic at roadblocks and going door to door, looking for anybody who knew anything at all. It looked like, as far as distracting the cops went, the Yeerks had pulled it off in spades.

Jake, Rachel, and Cassie's parents all had to work, but they had also sworn to ground every single one of them until they were in college if they found out they'd left their houses. So anyway, an hour or so after the 'rents had gone to work, we met in the field on Cassie's land. Marco's dad was trying to catch up on his sleep, so he was able to sneak out and join us, too.

Marco put his plan out there, but he'd amended it since the previous night. "In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that my first idea was to kill this serial killer once we caught him. I thought about it all night, and I realized that really isn't necessary." Cassie looked deeply troubled, the way she did when one of her friends suggested something she hadn't thought they were previously capable of. Rachel looked eager. Jake just looked tired.

"In all likelihood, the actual person isn't Michael Myers. It's gotta be the Yeerk," Marco said.

"How horrible," Cassie muttered. "To be a controller is one thing. But to be a controller and to have to watch as the Yeerk committed these horrible crimes…my God. How terrible."

"Yeah, it's awful," Marco said, trying not to sound demeaning. "But here's the up-side – we can do something about it. We know who he targets and we know where he works. After all of the freaking out going on, I think he's going to have a harder time finding victims. Well, we can give him an easy one." Rachel cackled as she realized what he had in mind.

"Oh yeah. Another helpless little blond…wait, that was a little girl, right? Where'd she go, and why is there an extremely mad grizzly in her place?" she imitated how the plan might go, and even Cassie had to laugh a little at her enthusiasm. Or maybe it was the image of an evil predator getting the tables turned on them.

Jake looked done in. "Say we do go through with this, even though we've got something much bigger going on. Say we risk that for this. You still haven't said what we do with the guy, Marco."

He shrugged. "It's easy, actually. It's not like we've never starved a Yeerk out of a host before. We can even use the same shed in the woods that we used for Jake. He can't morph, so all we have to do is tie him up good and leave him there. Ax comes back after the diamond thing and cuts him loose. We don't have to explain anything to him – the guy will be so grateful to be free he won't ask questions, anyway. And if he ever gets retaken, the Yeerks will think it was just us Andalites screwing up their distraction." He looked pretty proud of himself as he finished.

Nobody said anything for a minute, and I knew they were all doing the same thing I was doing – playing the scenario out in their minds, trying to find a problem with Marco's plan. The funny thing is, it was actually a habit we'd all picked up from Marco himself. Finally, Jake nodded.

"That could work. It's conditional, though, and we vote on it before we start planning it out. The big condition is this – Rachel, are you willing to take the risk?" She opened her mouth to say yes immediately, but Jake cut her off before she could. "I want you to keep in mind that this is a lot more dangerous than you might think. Say the guy doesn't kidnap his victims first. What if he just walks up behind them and starts knifing them before they even know what happened? He doesn't have to necessarily give you the chance to morph to something dangerous."

Before Rachel could answer, I spoke up. (We don't really have to worry about that. Normal victims don't have an eye in the sky looking out for them.) Rachel smiled up at me and tipped me a wink.

Marco looked less than confident for the first time. "That could be a problem. I'm counting on the fact that the killer will want to get her someplace quiet before getting all stabby." Cassie looked sick again, but Marco either didn't notice or didn't consider it important. He looked directly at me. "Are you going to be able to stand by and let somebody try to snatch Rachel? He may actually be able to get his hands on her before we can take him down. We have to keep in mind that the guy is probably innocent – we don't want a hawk blinding the poor guy if we can help it."

I thought about it; the thought of anybody, Yeerk or otherwise, grabbing Rachel with the intention to kill her… (I don't know,) I said honestly. (I don't like it.) I decided if I was going to be honest, I'd better be all the way honest. (Actually, I hate it.) Despite Rachel's enthusiasm, I didn't think I could stand by and watch the plan unfold. (I'm just going to go ahead and vote "no." It's too dangerous.)

Rachel gave me a look – it was both grateful and exasperated at the same time. "So Tobias goes Hork-bajir or something to grab the guy when he makes his move. Somebody else can watch from the air. I vote yeah. I vote hell yeah."

"It's my plan – I guess you guys know what my vote is," Marco said simply with a shrug.

"No. No way," Cassie said. She still had that look of sick fear, the one she didn't get anymore when we were fighting the Yeerks. For whatever reason, Marco's plan had deeply disturbed her. Or maybe it was just the idea of a serial killer; yeah, I thought that would be enough in and of itself to make Cassie queasy. Cassie could handle violence, but she still wasn't very good with senseless violence. We all had our demons when it came to fighting the Yeerks, but this was something we hadn't come across yet.

Jake sighed. "God help me…but I think your idea is solid, Marco. As long as Rachel's willing to be the bait, I think we've got to go for it. Marco was right, last night – we can't know about this and do nothing. It's not right." He sighed, and I got the feeling he was trying to talk himself into it more than anyone else. "Besides, we don't have anything to do before Thursday, anyway."

"Nothing to do but a lot of praying and updating our wills," Marco said, but he was smiling easily. He felt better, now that we'd decided to do something about it. Even though I'd voted no, I felt better, too. What kind of people would we be if we let this go on?

"When?" Rachel asked.

Jake sighed again. "From everything we know, the guy doesn't much care what time of day it is. He's killed both early morning and late night. I say we do it now, while the parents are at work. We might not get another shot until tomorrow." He didn't say it, but now that a decision had been reached, there was no way we could let the guy do his thing for another twenty-four hours.

(Now?) Ax asked nervously. It was the first time he'd said anything, and I assumed he was just going to follow Jake, as usual. I realized now that the whole thing was freaking him out – I guess Andalites don't have serial killers. It's too illogical, and Andalites are an uber-logical race. It made him uncomfortable the way Z-space made us humans nervous.

Jake looked around and took everybody's emotional temperature. I guess he liked what he saw, because he nodded confidently. "Yeah, now. Let's get to work."

A/N – Thanks again for all the reviews, friends! Especially Sweetbriar, wredan, jurjid, and Theanimorpherz, most recently. Chlorinehamster – I've just got too much going on in this one to stretch everything out into a long mystery. It'll end up around 30k words, like all the others. Ax's fic is just on hold until I finish this one – scope out my profile for a full explanation. Thanks for the input!