(Well, I can safely say that that was a bit more excitement than I like to have before the start of a mission,) Shara said. (Are you all right, Rachel? That spider nearly killed you.)

(I'm fine, thanks for asking,) she said, knowing that Marco wouldn't have bothered; not many of the Animorphs would have, she knew.

They all counted on her to be the strong one; not that she resented them for it or anything stupid like that, but she knew that it was true all the same. It was nice to have someone looking out for her, though. Someone on her side.

(Stick close to the base of the wall,) Jake directed. (I don't want any of us getting stomped. A got swatted in fly morph, and that was more than enough for me. That goes double for you, Shara; stay alert.)

(Thanks, Jake.)

There was a definite consensus on that issue, and as the three of them continued along the rubber baseboard of the kitchen they were all in, Rachel wondered how Shara might be feeling. She'd been almost killed just the same way that Jake had, even if only half her body had been crushed rather than the whole thing; that couldn't have been easy to deal with. But then, recalling the talks that she'd had with the other girl in Cassie's barn, where Shara had talked about the things the Radam had done to her, Slade, and the rest of their family, she wondered for a moment if the threat of dying just didn't mean as much to someone who'd admitted that they sometimes felt as if the world as a whole would have been better off without them.

Before she could ask the question that was on her mind, though, Cassie's thought-speak voice piped up: (I've found the guy you're looking for.)

(What are you doing, Cassie?) she asked.

(Ax and I went into our bird morphs. We've been looking in all the windows, trying to pick out Mr. Edelman. I have him: he's on the second floor, above the kitchen, then maybe about twenty feet along the building itself. He's in a room with three other patients; they're all wearing hospital gowns and slippers. They're watching TV at the moment.)

(They are watching the show called Gilligan's Island,) Ax pointed out, as if that was some kind of useful information.

(How in the world would he know about Gilligan's Island?) Shara asked, then she continued, answering her own question. (Well, I suppose Cassie could have told him about it, or he could have come in during the title sequence.)

(Okay, straight up,) Jake said.

Rachel thought she heard Shara snickering softly, but since she was already beginning to focus her mind on the climb ahead of her, she didn't pay much attention to that. It probably wasn't anything she would have been interested in, anyway. Probably a private joke or something.

(You know, of all the things I thought I'd be doing with my time, vertical spelunking inside the walls of a building never even entered into it,) Shara said, as they all climbed up the side of a wooden beam that would take them that much closer to their intended destination. (It's just too surreal to think much about, you know?)

Shara didn't seem to be expecting an answer, like she was just talking to fill the silence or something, but it was something to do while they were all stuck inside this wall, so Rachel decided to answer. (Yeah, this life can get pretty surreal, sometimes. Some of the things we end up having to deal with are just weird.)

(I don't know what could be that much weirder than climbing the inside of a wall as a cockroach – or a fly, for that matter – looking to speak to a mental patient whose life you saved by catching him in the middle of an attempted suicide in bird morphs, but then you've been at this longer than I have,) Shara said, laughing softly as two of the three of them made their way up over the edge of the post they had been climbing on and hauled their cockroach bodies up onto the cross beam just above it. (I suppose I'll just have to take your word for it.)

They all now stood just in front of a nearly pitch-black, squared-off space. Rachel, for her part, was just the slightest bit nervous about going inside. She'd been attacked by the world's most venomous spider in a place just like this, and who knew what could be hiding in the darkness in front of them. She didn't like it, but she'd go in all the same; it was what was expected of her, after all.

(That light must be from some kind of crack,) Jake said. (I guess we go that way. Unless anyone else has an idea?)

(No; none here,) Shara said, sounding like she'd been thinking a bit.

(All right, then,) Rachel said, drawing the attention of both her fellow Animorphs. (Let's do it.)

(That really is your battlecry, isn't it?) Shara laughed, cheerfully ribbing.

(You know it, sister,) Rachel said, ribbing the other girl right back; really, it was almost like having Cassie with them, only without the sometimes-awkward discussions they got into lately.