CHAPTER THIRTEEN: JAKE

I was a horrible person. The thought kept repeating in my head, over and over, harsher than Visser Three's thought-speak as we swam away. I was a horrible person and a horrible friend.

Guilt and regret twisted in my gut like a living spider trying to kick its way out. How could I do this? How could I do this? How could I sacrifice the lives of my cousin and my best friend? Worse, how could I have been the one to order them to sacrifice themselves? Especially after Marco…after he…

His mom died at sea. She went sailing one night in a storm and she never came back. They never even found her body. Now the same thing was going to happen to Marco, except there wasn't even going to be a boat. No one would ever know what happened to him.

This was going to destroy his dad.

And what about Rachel's family? My aunt was tough and my uncle was good at throwing himself into his job and being objective—they were a lawyer and a reporter, they'd both seen some pretty grim stuff—but still, losing their oldest kid… And Jordan and Sarah, Rachel's little sisters, practically worshiped her. How could I take her away from them? How could I do this to my own family?

My own family. Mom and dad had already lost one son and they didn't know it. And Tom…no one was going to save him from the yeerks now…

Stop it, I told myself. I was in dolphin morph so I couldn't exactly stop and take a few deep breaths to calm myself down, because dolphins only breathed a couple of times a minute at most. But I forced my brain to stop screaming at me, forced myself to focus like I'm lining-up for a shot on the basket.

Like Tom taught me. It had never worked all that well on the court (I didn't make the team) but it worked now, sort of. Lets me get a grip on myself. Lets me remind myself that Cassie and Tobias were still out there, and the Andalite we rescued too. They wouldn't give up on Tom. I know they wouldn't.

I didn't deserve my friends. Especially not Marco.

Was it wrong of me that it was easier to sacrifice Rachel? Why, because she's my cousin? Because she volunteered? Because I didn't promise that I would get her home from the ocean, like I had Marco?

Marco. He's my best friend. How could I do this to him?

He knew what I did, too. He had to. He'd always been the clever one of the two of us. Even when he was being an idiot. Even when he was goofing off in the back of the classroom and I was bent over my paper, scribbling as hard as I could, I still knew he was ten steps ahead of me. Maybe not on the homework, but on what to say when the teacher caleld on him and he doesn't know the answer. Somehow by the end of it he'd have the whole class laughing and the teacher trying not to crack a smile. He's the kid who's always got it all worked out.

Did he work this out? Did he know that I'd looked at the six of us, and chosen who was going to die to give the others a chance to live? Did he know I'd picked Cassie over him?

There wasn't ever a question about sending Tobias and Ax back. Tobias had morphed more times than the rest of us, he was already tired. He was the weak link, would be the first to fall behind. And the whole point of this mission was to rescue Ax, to save the Andalite. Letting him die on the way out would make everything else worthless. But that third person…it could have been Cassie or Marco. (Rachel never would have let me send her back. I knew she and I were going to do this together as soon as Tobias proposed the idea.) So the question of who to save came down to Cassie or Marco, Cassie or Marco…my best friend, or the girl I liked.

Did Marco think I'd picked him to die just because I have a crush on Cassie? I hadn't—I really, really hadn't. Honestly. I like Cassie. I like Cassie, like…a lot. More than I can even… But Marco's been my best friend for my whole life. If it came down to it, I wouldn't pick Cassie over him…would I? Maybe I didn't really know. But I knew that wasn't why I'd decided to save her now. The surviving team was going to need her animal expertise and her parents' farm. They couldn't exactly hide Ax in Marco's apartment. Even his dad wasn't that oblivious. Tobias and Ax were going to need Cassie more than they did Marco. That was the reason—the only reason—why I'd chosen her over him. (I think.)

How was this my decision? I'm only thirteen. I shouldn't have to be choosing which of my friends get to live and which I've decided are going to die. I shouldn't have to do this. None of us should.

But we do, and I did. I made the choice that had to be made. I hadn't framed it that way, hadn't said out loud that the group that came with me was going to die…but I'd known it when I picked them. Visser Three was going to chase us. He'd have to. The others were going back to shore, tired and slowing. We were heading for open sea at top speed. He was going to want to know where we were going, what kind of plan we had brewing. He was going to chase us…and he was going to kill us. I'd known that when I'd picked Marco to come with Rachel and I. Did Marco know, too?

Did he know I was the reason he was about to die?

If we were in our human bodies I'd be able to glance over at him and know. Marco's good at lying, but I can tell what's really going on in his head. There'll be a glint in his eye or a smirk at the corner of his lips or something. He'd been my best friend since we were in diapers. I knew him as well as I knew myself.

And I was thanking him for that friendship by ordering him to his death. In the ocean. His literal worst nightmare.

I really was the worst person in the world.

{Listen,} Marco said, interrupting my spiral of self-loathing. {You hear that?}

{All I hear are the waves that are gonna wash away the blood after we kick Visser Three's butt,} Rachel said. She almost sounded like she believed it. I was jealous. It would be a lot easier to face ordering my friends to die if I could pretend that I thought we had a chance of winning.

{Yeah,} Marco said. {Exactly.}

It took me a few more seconds to work it out.

{Visser Three—he isn't chasing us!}

{What?} Rachel cried. {No, he has to—}

{Well I guess he didn't get the memo,} Marco said.

{But that means—}

{We have to go back,} I cried, already turning, but Marco moved to block me.

{No,} he said.

{But they're going to—}

{I know.} Marco's voice was rough, cold. {And I know that wasn't the plan,} he continued, making me flinch even inside my dolphin skin, {but it's what happened. We can't change it now.}

{We can still catch-up to them,} Rachel insisted, swinging wide around Marco and I and powering her tail back the way we'd come. {We can—}

{What, help them?} Marco's laugh was biting. {Did you forget the whole reason we did this? We can't save them. We can't beat him. If the point was for someone to survive and keep the fight going…well, then we three have just been elected.}

{No way,} Rachel said. {I know you'd turn your back on anything for a chance to save your own sorry hide, Marco, but I'm not going to just sit here and let my friends die.}

{You have to,} Marco said. If Rachel calling him a coward hurt, it didn't show in his thought-speak voice. His words were sharp but flat, as straightforward as a teacher explaining the difference between a sin and a cosin (which I still didn't understand, and knew now that I was never going to figure out). {You have to, or the war ends right here with all of us dead. Is it more important to you to die with your friends, or to fight the yeerks? Because if we go back now, the yeerks win. Everyone dies. The end.}

{You stinking—!}

Rachel launched herself towards Marco but I swam between them.

{Stop,} I said. I felt like crying, but my thought-speak voice just sounded hollow. Empty.

Tired.

{Stop, Rachel. He's right.}

{No,} Rachel whispered. But she stopped trying to attack Marco. She stopped trying to swim back.

For a long time we were silent. It was just us, the waves, and the empty water around us.

Finally I said, {Come on.}

They didn't say anything—even Marco knows when to shut-up sometimes—but they followed me. I knew we'd have to stop and demorph at some point lest we be trapped as dolphins, which would end the war as effectively as us dying would, but for now we just swam.

I don't know about the others, but I kept waiting to hear the sounds of screams.

# # #

{We should—} There was a catch in Marco's voice. {We should probably demorph.}

I wanted to ignore him. Between my guilt over sentencing Marco to die and my anger at him for pointing-out that I'd guessed wrong and doomed the others instead, I didn't want to hear anything Marco said right now.

But he sounded scared. And he was my best friend. And he was right.

{Okay,} I said. My voice sounded as dull as I felt. {Rachel, you go first. Then Marco, then me.}

I couldn't hear Marco's sigh of relief, but I could tell it was there. I didn't know how well this was going to work so it was better that we start with Rachel, who was a strong swimmer. Hopefully that way, by the time it was Marco's turn, we would have figured-out how to do it without endangering him.

{Sure,} said Rachel. She was trying to sound like her usual gung-ho self, but her words came out as hollow as mine had. {Here goes nothing.}

Marco and I swam over to flank her, three dolphins pressed together like we were trying to fit ourselves into a big sardine can. I couldn't really see what was happening, because I didn't want to risk knocking Rachel under the water by trying to turn around. But I could feel the dolphin between Marco and I shrinking, changing. I gave my tail a little kick, trying to press in closer as the body beside me slipped down lower into the choppy water.

{Wow,} I heard her say, her mental voice boisterous in a way that I knew she only got when she was trying to cover how nervous she was. {These waves are a lot bigger than they seemed when—}

{Rachel? Rachel!?}

No answer. She must have demorphed too far to be able to thought-speak. At least, that was what I told myself had happened. The alternative was too awful.

An arm—a gangly, rubbery, but unmistakably human arm—slapped down over my flank. I could feel fingers growing out of the fin-shaped flesh on the end, blunt nails scrabbling at my thick dolphin skin.

I glanced back over my shoulder in time to see a wet blonde head break the surface. Rachel had one arm flung over my back, just behind the fin, and her other hand pressed to Marco's side, bracing herself up out of the water.

"No—problem!" she said, coughing and shaking her head to free her eyes of salty spray and long, tangled strands of soaking hair. She had to shout to be heard over the slap of the waves against our skin. "Easier—than—turning a—cartwheel!"

I didn't believe her. Rachel might have trouble with the balance beam sometimes, but I would have bet my entire stash of arcade quarters that she could have turned a cartwheel across hot coals without scorching herself. I think sometimes she did cartwheels just because she was bored with walking.

{Great,} I said, trying to sound cheerful. {Take a second to catch your breath, then morph back so—}

{What's that?}

I shut-up and listened. At first I couldn't hear whatever Marco had noticed, but a few seconds later it had grown loud enough that I couldn't have missed hearing it if I'd tried: an engine. A boat's motor.

{Oh man,} said Marco. {Controllers?}

{I don't know,} I said tersely. {Don't panic.}

Rachel transferred both arms to me, hanging on like she was a dolphin trainer getting ready for a trick. She shouted something that I couldn't quite hear, but I took a guess.

{It's an engine,} I told her. {A boat. I think it's coming this way.}

"Oh—crap!" she said. At least, I think that's what she said. If we lived long enough for any parents to ask, that was the word I was going to swear she said. "Should—morph?"

{Fast,} I said. {It's definitely getting closer.}

{No,} Marco argued, {wait. If it is coming this way, we'll be able to swim faster with you hanging onto Jake than we will trying to push a half-morphed dolphin along with our noses.}

I could feel Rachel's hands get tighter on my fin. She didn't like the idea of letting an enemy catch her when she was helpless, of having to rely on the rest of us to carry her out of danger. But she didn't argue. Maybe because she knew we could barely hear her, or maybe because she knew Marco was right.

I wasn't going to make her admit it. Instead we waited, trying to figure out which way it was coming from.

{Marco…} I started to say.

{For crying out—I can't believe I forgot—hang on!}

He fired off a burst of echolocation, making me feel equally as stupid for forgetting that was something dolphins could do. I let out my own burst of inquisitive clicks, and a picture came back. It was definitely a boat, but it was too small to be the Coast Guard vessel we'd seen earlier.

{Maybe it's just some joyriders,} I suggested. {If we all morph before they get here, we could tell them our boat capsized and bum a ride back to shore.}

{Unless there are Controllers on board,} Marco said darkly. {Even if they believe us, we're too close to where Ax's ship crashed. The yeerks won't risk letting us go without knowing what we saw. And the best way to make sure we're telling the truth…}

{Is to put a slug in our ears,} I finished. {Right.} I turned around, trying not to kick my tail too hard and knock Rachel's grip loose. {Rachel, hang on,} I said. {We're getting out of here.}

"No—much time? You two—demorph!" she shouted back at me.

She was right. We didn't know how long Marco and I had been in morph. But being trapped as dolphins was preferable to being trapped as Controllers. I gave a careful kick and felt Marco swim into place beside me. He hung back a little, sticking close enough that if Rachel fell off he'd be able to dive down and catch her.

She was still arguing, of course. "Jake—being stupid! We—take them! Not—bajir, just human—morph, fight! Take—boat! Need to—too late! Jake!"

The boat's motor was still getting louder, closer. I kicked a little harder, trusting Rachel to be able to hang on. She did stuff like parallel bars and handstands for fun, she was strong enough to keep from letting the waves knock her loose. I hoped.

Marco twisted around, turning back to aim another burst of echolocation at the approaching boat. {I don't think it's following us,} he said. {Or if it is, I don't think it knows where we are. It's not turning to follow us. It's just kind of…motoring around. Cruising.}

{Good,} I said. {Keep an eye—or a radar, or whatever you call it—on it, let us know if it starts coming our way again.} I kept swimming. Even if the people on the boat weren't looking for us specifically, it would still be bad if they found us. I don't think even Marco would be able to spin a convincing excuse for a kid being out in the middle of the ocean with two extremely tame dolphins, let alone Rachel.

"Jake—idiot!" Rachel shouted at me. "Don't—time!"

{We're just going to get far enough away from the boat to be safe,} I told her. {Then we'll continue the demorphing. I'm sure we've got plenty of time.}

I was lying, of course. I had no idea how long we'd been in morph. But what else could I do?

{Marco, right or left? Which way takes us farther away from the boat?}

Another splash followed by a series of clicks as Marco flipped around to check the boat's position again. {Left,} he said. {But…}

{What?}

{I don't know…I think, maybe…maybe we should go back to the boat.}

{Go back to the boat? Marco, I know you're scared about demorphing in the water, but we can't just go ask some strangers to give us a ride. You're right, there's too much of a chance that they might be Controllers.}

{I'm not—okay, I'm terrified, sure. But that's not what I mean. I think…I think that might be Tobias's mom.}

{What?} I spun around so fast that one of Rachel's hands slipped free. I barely noticed her flailing at my dorsal fin to get her grip back. {It can't be…}

I checked the boat with my echolocation again. Was Marco right? I couldn't tell. I hadn't paid enough attention to the shape of the boat Ms. Mullins had borrowed from her sick friend. Was this the same one? Or did all small power boats look the same to a dolphin?

{I think we should risk it,} Marco said. {Rachel's right, if there are Controllers on board we can morph to something nasty and throw them over the side. Take the boat for ourselves. Animorphs, pirates of the high seas. There's a ring to it, right?}

I knew Marco was kidding around about the pirates thing, but he had a point. And I could feel Rachel shivering against me. To a dolphin, the water was fine. But to a skinny human in a bathing suit…well, I don't know if it was cold enough for Rachel to go into hypothermic shock or whatever, but it wasn't good, either. How long until her fingers went so numb that she couldn't hang on any longer? How long until she slipped off my back and sank under the waves, too cold to kick her way back to the surface?

{Okay,} I said. {Rachel? You still with us?}

"You don't—me that easy!" she shouted back, but her voice sounded weaker. Tired.

{Cool,} I said. {Just hang on. We're gonna go play pirate.} I swam as quickly as I dared, trying to move my tail as little as possible while still powering forward through the waves. One of Rachel's hands slid free, then came back to clutch tight at my fin. {Hey, Rachel, what's that movie you wouldn't shut-up about back in fifth grade, with Geena Davis and the monkey? Cutthroat Sailboat, or something?}

Rachel said something. I couldn't hear it over the slap of the waves and the growl of the engine. Was it getting louder, or was she getting quieter?

{Come on, you quoted it a billion times at me, even though I hadn't seen it. You remember your mom and dad arguing whether you were old enough to see it, and your mom changing her mind when she found out Geena Davis was the pirate captain, not the girlfriend?}

Rachel mumbled something. I decided to take that as a good sign and kept talking.

{Remember how much trouble we got in when Jordan broke her wrist falling out of the 'crow's nest' you talked your dad into putting in the tree?} I was babbling now. If Rachel wasn't currently struggling to keep from sinking into a cold-induced stupor, she probably thought I'd lost my mind. It didn't matter. I was too scared to stop. {Remember all the recesses you got scolded for sword fighting with sticks? Remember when you whacked Albert Cheung so hard you snapped the branch, and the nurse didn't have any Batman bandaids so you gave him some of your Jasmine ones, and he proposed marriage so you punched him, and he brought you a Valentine's punch-out card every day until his parents moved? Remember how—}

{Ohmigodit'sTobias'smom!}

{What?}

{Tobias's mom, dude, the boat—the lady on the boat—it's Tobias's mom!} Marco shouted. At some point he had swam out ahead while I'd been focusing on Rachel. {Ha ha ha ha, oh man! Can you believe it? Hey, hey Rachel, get a load of this! Yo, Mrs. Tobias's mom, stop the boat, it's the Animorphs! Ha ha ha!}

Relief bubbled up like sweet poison and I almost laughed, but nausea held my tongue. How was I going to look Mrs. Mullins in the eye and tell her I'd gotten her son killed?

I swam over to the boat as fast as I dared. I'm not sure I would have been able to if Rachel hadn't been hanging onto my fin. Sure, I was desperate to get out of the water—out of this morph—but the idea of facing Tobias's mom right now made even being trapped as a dolphin forever sound appealing. But Rachel needed me to get her to the boat, so to the boat I went.

It was easy to find, at least; the engine was so loud it made my ears ache. How had Cassie navigated while swimming alongside this thing? (Cassie…none of us were ever going to see her again, and it was all my fault.) We kicked our way over to it, Marco still hanging-back in case Rachel slipped even though I knew he had to be freaking-out with his need to get out of this morph. Tobias's mom cut the engine as we drew close, but the relief of the ensuing silence was short-lived as my head filled instead with bitter recriminations.

"Hi, kids!" Ms. Mullins leaned over the side of the boat and smiled at us and my stomach twisted like a knife inside me. "Let's get you on board!"

I pushed the guilt aside and pushed up against the side of the boat so that Rachel could transfer her grip from my fin to the rim of the boat. She hung-on but didn't climb out of the water yet.

"Demorph!" Rachel shouted at us. She was still shivering, and the bits of her skin that showed above the choppy waves was covered with so much gooseflesh that it looked even more pebbly than our gray dolphin skin. "I'll boost you on board! Come on!"

{Marco, you first,} I said. I tried to sound like I was still in control, still confident, but even to myself I think I just ended up sounding small. {I'll stick close to help brace you until you're on board.}

{Jake, there's no time—}

{Then hurry,} I ordered.

Marco didn't waste any more time arguing. I tried to make myself watch so that I would be ready to help if he needed it, but my mind kept drifting. It wasn't the sight of his bottlenose shrinking into his face or his hair sprouting through his dolphin skin or the fins slurping back into his body and splitting into bones that slowly covered-over with flesh and skin that sent my thoughts skittering away, gross as the sight was. The things my brain kept imagining happening to Cassie, Tobias, and the Andalite were a hundred times worse than the sight of Marco demorphing back to human.

I watched in a daze as Rachel wrapped her free arm around Marco's waist and boosted him up along the side of the boat so that Ms. Mullins could grab his arms and haul him on board. Were the others already dead, or had Visser Three decided to toy with them? Would he eat them whole with his mardrut morph, or tear them apart first? Would—?

"Jake!"

I don't think it was the first time they'd yelled my name.

"Jake, come on! Hurry up!"

I gave myself a mental shake and shoved the pictures my brain was torturing me with off to the side, made myself focus on demorphing instead. It was slow; I don't know if that was because I'd come close to trapping myself in the morph, or just because it was hard to concentrate through the guilt. Maybe it was the knowledge that as miserable as I felt now, as soon as the cheerful dolphin brain was gone I was going to feel so much worse.

I demorphed, and swallowed salt water, and choked and sputtered while Rachel grabbed my hair and yanked my head up out of the water.

"Thanks," I mumbled, but I don't think the word came out very coherent through the waves.

Rachel shoved me at the boat, and wedged her leg against the hull so I could brace myself on her knee, and Marco and Ms. Mullins leaned over to grab my arms and pull me up. I banged my knee pretty hard on the side of the boat, but the pain barely registered. I don't think it was the cold of the water that made me feel so numb.

I shook my head and made myself turn back to help Rachel, but she was already pulling herself up like she was doing the parallel bars in a gymnastics lesson. Marco and Ms. Mullins grabbed her shoulders and got her over the side before I could make myself move over to help. She was shaking when she hit the deck, and I don't think that was all because of the cold either. But maybe we could both pretend.

"You're shivering," Ms. Mullins—Loren, I reminded myself; Tobias's mom liked to be called Loren—said, shaking her head. "Hang on, I packed towels."

She rummaged in one of the compartments under the seats while the three of us stared at each other in numb, dripping silence. How were we going to tell her?

We took the towels with mumbled thanks. I don't think any of us could make ourselves meet her eyes.

"Are we waiting for the others here, or do they need us to go pick them up?" Loren asked. She had her hands on the steering wheel again. I stared at her knuckles where they were wrapped tight around the controls. It was better than looking at her face.

"We…we split up," I made myself say.

Loren nodded. I chanced a glance at her face. She looked calm. I knew that wasn't going to last.

"So where do we go?"

I swallowed. The salt in my throat burned, sharp as glass.

"Back to shore," I whispered.

"Okay," said Loren, and the engine rumbled back to life. The boat splashed off through the waves and I shrank into my towel. I don't think it was the wind making me shiver.

"Ms. Mullins…Loren, I mean…" I said.

"Jake, right?"

"Yes, ma'am," I croaked.

"What's wrong, Jake?"

She sounded so kind. I closed my eyes and told myself it was the salt water making them sting. "The others, we…we split-up because we were all being chased by…by the yeerks. By something too strong to fight." I didn't want to tell her too much, even now. But I had to tell her what had happened. I had to. "We were—Marco and Rachel and I, I mean—we were trying to lure the…the bad guys after us." I swallowed; couldn't stop myself glancing over at Marco. He was looking at the water, not at me, but there was no surprise on his face at the revelation that I'd meant for us to die so that the others could live.

Yeah, he'd known what I was doing the whole time. Somehow, that made me feel worse.

"Oh," Loren said. "Should I be going faster?" The engine revved without my answer and the boat started shooting forward fast enough that the waves slapped the hull and made me stumble. I sat down quickly, and saw Marco grabbing a seat even faster. Rachel remained standing, one hand clenched tight on the windshield in front of the left-hand passenger seat and the other locked tight against her chest in a knot of her towel.

"No," I made myself say. "It doesn't matter. We…we aren't the ones they chased. I was wrong. He…they…the yeerks chased the others. Not us." My voice failed. I cleared my throat and tried again, but I could barely get the words out: "They didn't chase us."

Loren nodded. She was facing forwards, and the baseball cap cast a shadow over her eyes. I couldn't see her expression. I wasn't sure I wanted to.

"Where do we go to meet them?" she asked. I knew she didn't mean the yeerks.

I couldn't answer. I knew I had to say something, but I couldn't. There was no answer I could give.

It was Rachel who finally answered for me. "They'll meet us at the river where we morphed, if they—when they can."

Loren nodded again. "Okay," she said. "I'd better slow down so we don't beat them back by too much time. I'm sure they'll be tired, after swimming so much." She cut the throttle back a little.

My stomach rolled. She still thought everything was okay, still thought that Tobias was going to be okay. I knew I had to explain things to her so that she'd understand, but how? Or—and I somehow managed to dredge-up even more self-loathing as the thought occurred to me—or maybe it was better if I didn't, yet. Maybe it was better if I waited until we were back on shore. Would it be kinder to let her live in ignorance a little longer, or would it be cruel? I wasn't sure. I knew it would be more practical, though, to let her keep fooling herself until we were safe and we didn't need to rely on her any longer; didn't need to worry that if she freaked-out, she might capsize the boat or get us all lost out here or just start yelling at us to leave, leave, leave her alone, hadn't we done enough, get out, go away…

Then I saw her hands. They were still wrapped tight around the wheel, but they were trembling now. I looked up, and I saw the tightness at the edge of her smile; saw how her blue eyes were overbright and damp beneath the shadow of her ballcap in a way that I didn't think had anything to do with the light reflecting off the waves or the spray misting all our faces.

Then I realized that she did understand, and this was her way of being strong.

I forced a smile, forced myself to meet her eyes. "Yeah," I said. "Good idea."

None of us said anything for a while after that. I guess we were all wrapped-up in our own thoughts, our own misery. There were apples in the cooler, Loren said, but none of us could face eating right now.

Rachel climbed up to sit in the prow, leaning low over the nose of the boat. She had her arms out to catch the spray, as though the only way she could make herself sit still was by getting close enough to the motion of the boat cutting through the waves that she could pretend it was her own.

Marco, of course, didn't go anywhere close to the edge. He sat huddled in the chair behind the navigator's seat, his head bowed and his hair dripping over his shoulders. None of us were going to sit in that seat, where Tobias had sat. It stood empty, its white plastic cushion gleaming in the sunlight like an accusation.

I turned away.

I was sitting at the rear of the boat—the stern, I think it's called, although I could have been wrong about that—and stared at the water. I watched the wake we left behind us. The water churned, white and angry, like a swirling scar in the sea. It didn't last, though. Unlike a scar, the wake vanished behind us, swallowed up by the endless expanse of water. Lost, forgotten.

Gone.

After a while, Marco walked over and stood behind me. For a while he watched the water, too.

Then he said, "Hey."

I didn't move. He put his hand on my shoulder. I still didn't say anything.

The water had dried under the sun and the breeze, leaving behind a faint film of salt on my skin. I felt numb beneath it, barely aware of the squeeze of Marco's fingers.

"Hey," he said again.

I managed to make myself grunt. It was the best I could manage under the circumstances.

Marco sighed. "It was the logical choice, Jake," he told me quietly, his hand warm on my shoulder and his words cold in my ear. "You couldn't have known it was going to go this way. You did what made sense." His fingers squeezed harder, trying to comfort. My friend, whom I'd tried and failed to sentence to death, tried to comfort me as I shivered with guilt and regret over the fact that he'd lived. "You made the right call."

I stared out at the empty ocean, and I could not make myself say that I agreed.

# # #

Eventually we reached shore again. I don't really remember much of the ride back, until Marco said, "Seagulls."

Rachel glanced over her shoulder, her salt-stiff hair blowing messily in the wind. "What?" she said. "What about them?"

"We need to morph seagull," Marco said. "Ms—Loren left the marina alone, she needs to come back the same way."

Alone. I shuddered at the word, at the meaning that Marco surely hadn't intended, not given the stricken look on his face after he said it.

I made myself shake-off the inertia of guilt and loss long enough to croak, "Yeah. Good idea. We can morph, fly to…to the river, and…"

And meet the others, I wanted to say. I couldn't bring myself to do it.

"No," Tobias's mom said. Her dreamy voice was suddenly fierce. "I'm going with you."

The three of us exchanged looks, Marco dubious and Rachel grim. I wasn't sure what they saw in my face; wasn't sure that I wanted to know. I wasn't sure that I was going to ever be able to look myself in the mirror again anyway.

"Ma'am," Marco said quietly, "you can't show-up at the docks with three kids that you didn't leave with. It'll look too weird."

"Everything I do looks weird," said Loren.

I swallowed, unable to argue with that; but Marco wasn't wrong, either. "We'll morph seagull," I said firmly, holding up my hand to forestall Loren's protest. "And we'll take-off before we get close enough to be seen, and fly back to the marina that way. Then we'll wait for you there. No one will think anything of three more seagulls there. Then you follow us, and we all go to the river together. Okay?"

"Okay," said Loren.

"Will you be okay?" Rachel asked. "Going back alone?"

Loren managed a smile, I had no idea how. The fierceness was still blazing on her face, making her voice strong as she said, "I can tie the boat up all right by myself, but thank you for the offer, Rachel."

I knew that wasn't what Rachel had been talking about, and I think Loren did too. None of us called her on it.

"Okay," I said. "Seagulls it is."

Marco came back and sat next to me as Loren turned her attention back to the wheel, and Rachel returned to staring out across the water. The rumble of the boat's engine and the slap of its hull hitting the waves felt jarring now that I was paying attention to the world again, too loud and too hard. My head was throbbing, but whether that was from the noise and the jostling or from the tears that I couldn't seem to find I had no idea.

After a while Marco said, "Jake…no one's going to meet us there." His voice was low enough that I don't think anyone but me could hear him over the noise of the engine. "You know no one's going to meet us there."

"You don't know that," I answered automatically. My heart climbed up my throat like it was trying to escape, and I balled my hands into fists to keep from taking a swing at Marco. I looked away from him, glaring out at the water, although I could barely see it. "Maybe they'll make it. Maybe they will."

For a long time Marco just looked at me, and I looked away. Eventually he said, very quietly, "Okay, Jake. Okay."

He didn't say anything else until we were in the air, flapping slowly through the trees while Loren picked her way through the undergrowth with as much confidence as if she ordinarily went traipsing through the woods in shorts and worn canvas sneakers, following a trio of seagulls. She'd left the cooler in the boat, saying breezily that she'd go back and get it later, but she had our damp towels hanging over one shoulder.

"In case they're cold," she'd said when she was packing everything else up in the little waterproof compartments under the seats.

Marco had looked at me, and I'd looked away, and none of us had said anything.

Now we were flying towards the meeting place where we all knew nobody would be coming to meet us, and I was so sick with self-loathing that even my insatiable seagull body couldn't muster any hunger for the litter we'd passed.

{Jake,} Rachel said, the first time she'd spoken in a while, {Jake, do you think…what if they…}

Her thought-speak voice dwindled. I made my wings keep flapping, even though I wanted nothing more than to drop to the ground and just lie there until the world went away. {They'll be there,} I lied. {I'm sure they'll be there.}

{We'd have had to go back to pick up our shoes and clothes anyway,} Marco said, trying to sound cheerful and coming off as something closer to manic. {So it's not like it's a wasted trip, right? Plus, we should probably bring Cassie and Tobias's stuff with us, too. }

I recoiled as sharply as if he'd slapped me. {What?} I said. {We can't take their stuff. What happens if—when they come back and have to walk home barefoot in their bathing suits?}

{What happens when—if—Cassie's parents report her missing?} he retorted. {It'll be a lot better if there isn't evidence like that lying around for the search-teams to find.}

{Shut-up,} Rachel snarled. {They'll be there, they'll make it. So you just—just shut-up.}

Marco flew without speaking for a long time. Finally he said, {Okay. Yeah, okay.}

None of us said anything when we reached the stream, or when we landed, or when we demorphed. None of us said anything when we pulled out our piles of hidden clothes and shoes and pulled them on over our mostly-dry bathing suits. No one said anything for a long time as we looked at the empty water.

Loren sat down on a fallen tree-trunk, holding the towels tightly in her lap. Rachel sat down beside her, but then jumped up again and started pacing up and down the streambed instead. I wanted to join her, but I couldn't seem to make myself move. I felt like my feet had frozen to the dirt, and I was going to spend the rest of my life beside that stream, waiting for Cassie and the others to come home.

Marco came and stood beside me. "How long are we going to wait?" he asked in a low undertone.

"I don't know," I said. "A little while."

"Okay," said Marco. He leaned his shoulder against mine and said again, "Okay."