Early the next morning, just before sunrise, I landed on the windowsill outside Jake's bedroom and knocked on the window. Actually, Rachel was the person I really wanted to talk to, but I didn't even know where she lived. And Lee was my other best friend out of the other Animorphs, but I wasn't in a hurry to tell him that I'd seen his dad with the voluntary Controllers. So that meant going to see Jake. He opened the window, and I fluttered over to the backrest of the chair at his desk. His eyes were bloodshot, with dark circles under them. I don't think he'd slept at all.

"Tobias?"

(Yes.)

Jake let out a deep breath, and sat down on his bed, head slumped forward.

"Oh, thank God. We were so worried..."

('We'? Did anyone else get out? Rachel? Lee?)

"Yeah, they made it out. And Cassie and Marco. But most of the people we got out of those cages didn't. I think only two or three of them made it out with us."

(Tom?)

Jake slowly shook his head.

"He was so close. But he got grabbed by one of those security guys, and I couldn't get back to him. I tried, but... I had to leave him. He came back home late last night as if nothing was out of the ordinary. He's still got that damned THING in his head."

His arms and hands started twitching. He took two deep breaths, the twitching stopped, and he sat up straight and looked at me.

"Did anybody make it out with you?"

(One of the Hork-Bajir got out. I led it to the woods behind Cassie's farm. It was the safest place I could think of.)

Jake tried to smile, but didn't quite pull it off.

"At least somebody made it out. And we're still alive. That's all that matters, right?"

(Yeah. That's all that matters. No matter what else went wrong, we're still alive.)

Jake stood up.

"I should start getting ready for school," he said, "It's going to be a rotten day because I haven't slept all night, but I'm actually kind of looking forward to doing something mundane."

(Yeah, about school...) I said, (I'm not going today. Or ever.)

Jake's expression went blank.

(One of those fireballs exploded next to me, sent bits of rock flying around. I couldn't dodge all of it. Something hit the back of my head and knocked me out, and when I tried to demorph after I woke up... it was like trying to walk through a brick wall.)

"Oh no..."

(Yeah.) I flared my wings open. (I guess this is me from now on)

But what was "me" at this point? I was trapped in morph. Maybe the Andalites could reverse it, if they ever showed up, but there was no telling how long it might take them to return. No guarantee that they even could restore my ability to morph. So, for the foreseeable future, my human body was gone - replaced with wings and feathers, sharp talons and hooked beak, and fierce yellow eyes. This was it. My life as a teenage boy was over. No more math class. No more chemistry homework. No more book reports. No more bullies shoving my head down a toilet. And best of all, no more getting punched when Uncle Carl was drunk. On the other hand... no more sleeping in a nice, warm bed. No more teasing Dude with a toy mouse. No more afternoons hanging out in the library and just reading until closing time. And I'd never be able to hold Rachel's hand. That last thought actually made me want to cry. But I couldn't do that, either.

(Hey, do you have anything to eat? I haven't had anything since noon yesterday, and I'm so hungry...)

Jake quietly snuck out into the kitchen, and returned a few minutes later with a couple of cold slices of turkey. Not much, but it would at least keep me from starving to death.

"That's the best I can do for now. Sorry. I'll get you something else after school."

(Thank you.)

After I ate the turkey, I flew back across town. Back to the woods behind Cassie's farm. Back to the thicket where I'd led the escaped Hork-Bajir to. It had climbed up one of the bigger trees and sat about thirty feet off the ground, idly using one of its wrist blades to carve an intricate pattern into the bark. I landed on another branch, so that we were at the same eye level.

(I'm back.)

The Hork-Bajir smiled at me. At least, I think it was a smile.

"What your name, hruthin?"

Answering that question was probably a really dumb idea. But at that point, I was so shaken up, exhausted, scared, and relieved from just coming out of that battle alive that I just couldn't help it.

(Tobias,) I said, (My name is Tobias.)

"Tow-bee-uz," the Hork-Bajir repeated, apparently taking pleasure in sounding my name out. "Thank you, friend Tobias. Thank you."