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I was back in the woods.
It was familiar, yet foreign at the same time. I walked around, trying to get a sense of where I was. And then it hit me.
This was where Tom and I had had our confrontation all those years ago, at the tail end of the war. He had gotten his hands on the morphing cube, and I was in tiger morph on his heels. Stalking him. Preparing to do whatever it took to get the cube back.
Until Cassie stopped me.
She’d done the right thing, of course. Turned the tide in an unexpected way. Kept me from killing my own brother. Up until I went and did it anyway, using my own cousin as the sword.
Under bright sunlight, the woods looked so peaceful, so unassuming. I’d probably seen them that way once upon a time, before I’d gotten involved in the war. Before all I could see were escape routes, potential morphs, hiding places, points of attack.
But the war was over now. Had been for years. Forcing myself to relax, I kept walking.
Then I saw him. Tom.
He was standing in the clearing where we’d faced each other that night, his back to me. His hands in the pockets of his jeans, his posture relaxed. He was looking up at the sky.
I began to morph. Black and orange fur sprouted from my face, and my arms started to thicken.
He turned around, and I stopped the morph. Stared.
Because it was Tom. Not a Yeerk in the body of my brother. Tom. The brother I’d always known. The brother I’d grown up with. The brother I’d vowed to save.
He smiled at me—an easy, familiar smile. I demorphed.
“Tom.” My voice cracked.
“Jake.” His voice was smooth, suffused with warmth. My eyes filled with tears.
I stepped forward to meet him, and I was sixteen again.
He patted my back reassuringly as we hugged like we hadn’t been able to since he was infested.
“Haven’t seen you cry like this since you were a baby,” he teased. He was trying for a joking tone, but I could tell he was crying too, as thick as his voice was.
Finally, I found it in myself to let go of him. We began walking. I didn’t know where we were going, but it didn’t matter to me.
“How are you here?” I asked.
He just smiled, and didn’t answer the question. “Look at you,” he said instead. “My brother, the hero of Earth. Jake the Yeerk-Killer.”
The name I’d picked up during the war had been said many times in many ways. With contempt. With adoration. Tom said it with the kind of pride mothers had when they bragged about their children. And as he did, I was filled with shame.
I hadn’t saved him. And not only could I not save Rachel, I had been instrumental in what she had become at the end.
Death. That was the only thing I’d been the hero of.
Tom frowned. “You don’t look too happy.”
“I’m the hero of nothing,” I bit out savagely.
He stepped back, and he looked sorrowful. “Why do you think that?”
I gestured wildly at him. “You were the one person I wanted to save. And look what happened to you.” The lump in my throat grew, and I struggled to choke it back. “I’m sorry, Tom. I’m so sorry.”
“Well, I’ll admit, having Rachel kill me was a little…intense,” he acknowledged. “But you were doing what you had to. You sent the one who could get the job done.”
I laughed harshly. “I didn’t have the guts to do what I should have done. It shouldn’t have gotten to that point. I should have saved you from the start.”
“You did,” Tom pointed out. “Your first attack on the Yeerk pool, remember? I didn’t know it was you then, but I do now.” He shook his head. “Maybe if I had made different choices that night…we would have been fighting side by side. That is, if you would have let me.”
I stared at him. “Of course I would have. We should have been fighting together the whole time.”
“But we were,” he said. “Every time you saw my face and it drove you to fight, I was fighting with you. Things happen for a reason, Jake. And I think the reason why I had to stay infested was so that you would see the war through to the end.”
He looked up at the sky again. “You know when I realized that?” Numbly, I shook my head.
“When you morphed right in front of us that day, after Mom and Dad were taken.”
Tom turned back to me, and his eyes were fierce. “The Yeerk told you how furious Visser One was, how he was almost starved to death as punishment. Well, here’s something he would never have wanted you to know—that he never hated me as much as he did in that moment.” He stopped, took a deep breath to gather himself as his voice rose with emotion. “Because I was so proud of you. I was so proud to see that it was you all along. And he couldn’t stand it.”
I didn’t deserve Tom’s pride. I had failed him. I told him as much.
He looked at me with fond exasperation. “You never failed me, Jake. Everything you did in that war, you did for me.” He swallowed, and a fresh wave of tears rolled down his cheeks. “I inspired the leader of the Animorphs. I couldn’t have asked for a bigger role in the fight than that.”
He grasped my shoulders. “The only one you’ve been failing is yourself, Jake. I’m gone, but there are still people you care about around you. Mom and Dad. Your comrades. Cassie. Don’t fail them.”
I looked up at him. “We won. It’s over. I’ve already done what I’m supposed to,” I said dully.
He shook his head. “It’s never over, Jake. You have to keep fighting, for my sake. For Rachel’s sake.”
Something struck me. “Have you and Rachel…seen each other?”
He smiled, and didn’t answer.
“I gotta go,” he said instead. “Take care—and I mean really take care of yourself, Jake. Don’t let me down now.”
I bolted upright in my bed, eighteen again, the tear tracks still fresh on my cheeks. Outside my window, the sky was just turning light.
I got dressed and headed out quietly.
The woods looked so different in this light. But it was still peaceful. I made my way to the clearing and sat down where Tom and I would have been talking. Sat there until the sunlight filtered through the trees.
I could have sat there all day, but I made myself stand up.
Keep fighting.