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ONE
My desperate hope for an aerial attack went unanswered the entire flight back to civilization.
Atran had remorphed twice before nightfall. Both times I fervently wished for my friends to find me, see the shifting mass of flesh or feathers and attack. I hoped, prayed that Rachel or Tobias was nearby. Begged them silently to notice and injure the owl enough for capture.
But I was far from Tobias's territory, and none of the others would have any idea what birds nested where. Twice I had seen one of my teammates fly by close enough to touch, unaware or dismissive of a native owl sleeping the day away.
What Yeerk would waste precious hours towards starvation when she could be trying to escape as a wolf, or a skunk, or a squirrel? As the day wore on, I stopped seeing or hearing the raptors as they fanned out, likely turning towards town.
I didn't speak to Aftran. I turned inward, curled up in a tiny pocket of my brain. I ignored her as she accessed my memory hundreds of times. Ignored her as she went over past planning and battles and studied how the group interacted. I shoved the recollections away, tired of seeing the comparisons of carefree kids we'd been with the warriors we'd turned ourselves into.
I said nothing as she remorphed a final time and took off as the owl, carefully scanning the horizon for birds of prey. With each searching arc the Yeerk made farther away from the forest, I begged and prayed for one of my friends to notice and take me out.
It wasn't until I was silently gliding over a subdivision of upper-middle class houses that I admitted it to myself: help wasn't coming. A Yeerk had taken an Animorph for a host and gotten away with it.
I'd doomed my entire team. The entire planet.
«Stop being dramatic.» Aftran commanded, swooping low. If I'd had any control, I'd have jumped. «This is exactly why I didn't want another female human child for a host. The histrionics are exhausting.»
She'd gotten the word "histrionics" from me. Pulled it straight out of my brain. It made me overwhelmingly resentful, this small upset I could cling to amid the ongoing horror that was the last several hours.
She landed on the grass in a backyard I recognized— but couldn't place. I found myself erupting, past my breaking point.
«You have stolen my body and misused my goodwill.» I growled, utterly furious and sick with stress. «I know you are fully aware of how terrified I am. You're fully cognizant of what today has been like for me, what you have put me through. None of what I am feeling is histrionics.»
I began to shed feathers into my skin. A tiny human-shaped Cassie with an owl's face and human lips emerged. I watched myself make almost every other change before finally shooting up to normal height. I felt afraid. Resigned. And even more afraid, in a never-ending loop, because of the resignation.
«This is a conversation for later.» Aftran said after a moment, distracted. «Be silent.»
«Don't—»
«Be silent,» she snapped. I felt myself pushed down on, squeezed. Compressed into a shrinking space, into a room too small for me to really fit. Everything from Aftran felt further away, like I was observing it through a wall of thick pillow stuffing.
I tried to feel her distant relief, her unease, a strange feeling of anticipation for when she couldn't keep this up anymore and I became more present again. It was like trying to listen to a radio station in the car right at the edge of the signal range. The pressure increased, and I retreated.
She stood there a moment in my body, just breathing. She closed my eyes, opened them again. Deliberately took big, deep breaths and let them out. She'd also gotten this from me. Using what I knew about my own body to calm me down.
For a moment, we both took in the quiet, cool night.
From a great distance, I heard the sound of a sliding door opening. A familiar voice. "Cassie?"
"Hey, Erek." My voice said. My face smiled, crinkling the corners of my eyes. "Sorry to just drop by. I need to talk about some stuff with you."
"...Of course." Erek said, sounding exactly like a normal confused-but-polite teen boy. He stood back from the door, hand on the handle. "Come on inside and I'll see if I can help."
My body moved forward. I watched, transfixed. Disbelieving. Was it really this easy? Erek had to notice this wasn't me. He had to. He had to!
«What are you doing?» I demanded. She didn't answer.
She stepped my body inside the house. Erek shut the door after her.