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I lunged.
The Dracon beam moved. Her finger tightened.
Too slow. She was too slow. I would hit her a split second before she could fire. I would hit her with all the power I possessed and she would fly backward into emptiness and -
RRRRROOOOOAAAARRR!
A flash of orange and black. It appeared over the lip of the cliff.
...
For a horrible long moment she teetered on the edge, fighting gravity. I leaped up, racing to grab her, pull her back, somehow, save her.
But the tiger wrapped a massive arm around me and held me down.
She fell. Disappeared from sight.
<No! No! No!> I cried.
<Hang on, Marco,> Jake said. <Hang on, man. Hang on, man.>
He held me that way, pinned down. The strength of his tiger morph made my own strength insignificant.
I awoke to pain. Overwhelming, nauseating, full-body agony, like my skin had been meticulously picked off my muscles with a soldering iron. A panicked voice was shouting, “Demorph, Jake! DEMORPH!”
Cassie. I opened my eyes, wanting to see her, but my vision was blurry. What morph was I even in?
I closed my eyes and listened to Cassie’s voice instead. She was begging now: “Demorph! Demorph!” It must be pretty bad, I thought.
I focused on my human body. My face, my hair, my eyes. My hand, holding Cassie’s. Gradually the pain receded, and instead I felt damp dirt against my skin. When I finished demorphing, Cassie buried her face in my shoulder, and I’d lifted my arms to hold her before I even opened my eyes.
“It’s okay,” I told her, although I had no idea if that was true.
She was pretty freaked out, so I held onto her as I looked around. Dirt. Tall trees. Clouded, gray skies. Thin, chill air. We were in the forest. The mountains, maybe. But why? We’d been doing…something. There had been a plan, probably. There was always a plan.
Just past the nearest row of trees, I caught sight of a parking lot, littered with the charred detritus of a recently exploded car.
It came back to me all at once, in a terrifying jumble: Visser Three. A Dracon canon. Fire. My skin, half exoskeleton, boiling away from my deformed bones. Marco, screaming my name like the world had ended.
The rest of the plan came back to me, too.
“Cassie,” I said, gently pushing her off my shoulder. “Cassie, did Marco get away?”
Cassie took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, I think so. I can’t be sure. The blast stunned me. But I think I heard him calling for Rachel.”
I nodded. That was good. When you were an Animorph, probably alive was good odds.
“Does he know we survived?”
Cassie shook her head. “No,” she said. “He left before I recovered, and you weren’t responding. I had to morph skunk and carry you into the woods so the Yeerks wouldn’t find us. Jake, you were almost trapped.”
That meant nearly two hours lost. With me gone that long, Marco would assume I was dead and take over. It was the logical conclusion.
I reviewed the plan, considering what shape it took now, trying to imagine how Marco would plug the me-shaped hole. He would probably put Tobias or Ax in my place. He wouldn't like it, but it made the most sense. We needed Visser One to think we were Andalites, and besides, Marco had said he understood: No going off on his own. He wouldn’t disobey a direct order, not even if he thought I was dead. He'd stick to the plan, or what was left of it. Tobias and Rachel would lead Visser One, and Ax would take my role.
“Okay,” I said. “The plan can still work. Marco will know what to do. But we better get up that mountain before the fireworks start, just in case.”
I could tell Cassie wanted to argue. She thought I needed to rest. She probably also still thought the plan was a bad idea. But she wasn’t going to abandon our friends, so she nodded.
We morphed to birds of prey and took to the sky, circling away from the burning wreckage of the parking lot. There wasn’t a lot of updraft to work with because it was so cold, so Cassie and I had to really pump our wings as we headed toward the mountain peak.
And that was when everything fell apart.
<Prince Jake! Is that you?>
I wheeled around in surprise, then spotted the Northern Harrier soaring toward us.
<Ax?> I banked my wings and made a hard turn, looping around so that I could pace him and stay in thought-speak range. I saw Cassie doing the same, but from a distance so that we wouldn’t look too suspicious. <Where are you going? You should be on the mountain with the others by now!>
<Visser Three has brought Hork-Bajir and Taxxons. Marco suggested that we would need an army if we hoped to defeat them.>
Cassie understood first. <The free Hork-Bajir! You’re going to bring them here!>
<Yes,> Ax said. <Hork-Bajir are very fast in trees. I believe they could arrive in time to be of assistance.>
It was brilliant. We needed firepower; Ax had found us firepower. Rachel and Tobias would lead Visser One up the mountain, and Visser Three would arrive with his Hork-Bajir and Taxxons, and–
I saw the bright line from A to Z.
<Ax,> I said, with sudden urgency, <what exactly was Marco doing when you saw him?>
<He was near the summit, Prince Jake. He was in his human body. He asked if I knew of a private army and said that I should call them, and then he morphed to the fluffy horned creature with the primitive hooves. He also called me a nitwit. I do not know what a nitwit is, but I do not think that it was a compliment.>
The pieces fell into place like a horrible game of tetris. Marco thought I was dead. He had sent Ax for reinforcements, but not on purpose – not because he had a plan. He was scared and desperate. He wasn’t thinking straight. He could see the line, but not where it ended.
<Ax, hurry with those Hork-Bajir. We’re going to need them.>
I took a sharp turn and headed back toward the mountain as fast as I could go, which is pretty fast in a peregrine falcon morph. Still, it wasn’t fast enough. If I didn’t get there in time, I really was going to have a serious Marco-related problem: He was going to be dead.
<Jake! What’s wrong?> Cassie was only a few yards behind me, but falling further behind every second. Ospreys are fast, but not like peregrine falcons.
<It’s Marco,> I said. <He’s going to take my place in the plan.>
I could hear her doing the math. <Do you think he can do it?> she asked, sounding scared.
<Yes, I do,> I said grimly, <but I don’t think he’ll survive it.>
That was when Cassie got mad. <I told you this was a bad idea!> She exploded. <Marco’s been a mess all week! Nobody should plan their own mom’s death. We should have made him sit this one out. Why did you agree to this awful plan?>
Now I was mad, too. Mad and scared. <It was the only way! You don’t know Marco like I do, Cassie. He feels responsible for Visser One. He thinks it’s his job to stop her.>
<Well that’s stupid!> Cassie cried. <Just because Visser One is using his mom–>
<Stupid or not, it’s what Marco believes,> I interrupted. <If I hadn’t agreed to his plan, or if I had tried to leave him behind, he would have done it alone and probably died trying. But Marco isn’t stupid, Cassie. He knows what killing Visser One could do to him, even if he can’t admit it. That’s why his plan put me on top of that mountain.>
Cassie was quiet for a long time. Just when I was slowing down to see if she’d fallen out of thought-speak range, she said, wonderingly, <That's why you agreed to it. You were protecting him.>
<He was asking me to.> My voice broke. <Cassie, I can’t let him down.>
<Okay,> she said. <Okay. Here’s what we’re gonna do.>
<What do you–>
<Shut up and let me help.>
Oh. Okay then. <Yes, ma’am.>
<First, we’re going to fly as close to the top as we can get without being spotted. There, you’re gonna morph.>
<Morph?>
<You know what Marco’s like,> she said with a sigh. <You might have to stop him yourself. That means you need to be big enough to go toe to toe with a mountain goat. They’re stronger than they look.>
I hadn’t thought of that possibility, but she was right.
<So…tiger?>
<Tigers are excellent climbers, so you should have no trouble getting up there, but they’re sprinters – not good for long distance. That’s why we need to get close first.>
<Got it,> I said.
<I’m gonna stay in osprey to keep a lookout. I can monitor how things are going and stop you from running into any of Visser Three’s troops. If you get into a fight on the mountainside, you’ll never reach the top in time.>
I hadn’t thought of that either. It was possible that I, too, was not thinking straight.
<Okay,> I said. <Fly as close to the top as I can, morph tiger, climb the rest, stop Marco.>
<Good. Now go. You’re a faster flier than me. I’ll catch up while you’re morphing.>
I shot out ahead of her, pushing my little falcon body to its top speeds – nowhere near as fast as it could go in a dive, but still pretty fast. It was hard work, flying like that in the chill mountain air, but I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. I had a bright line to follow.
I spotted the Controller Hork-Bajir that Ax had mentioned, swinging through the trees on the western slope of the mountain, with a line of Taxxons skittering along behind them. I found a spot on the opposite side, about 400 feet shy of the summit. I landed and began the torturously slow process of demorphing. I could barely hear the sound of my bones growing and shifting into place over my own racing heartbeat. I kept looking up at the summit, straining my ears to listen, but I was well out of range, even for thought-speak. What's happening up there? Am I already too late?
I was most of the way into tiger morph and already sizing up the cliff face, plotting a route to the top, when Cassie arrived.
<Bug fighters,> she said, grimly. <I spotted the edge of one disappearing into a cloud. There are probably more.>
Fully tiger now, I began to climb.
<What’s happening at the top?> I asked.
Cassie circled away from me, careful to stay below the lip of the summit so she wouldn’t be spotted. <They’re all up there,> she reported. <Visser One, two Hork-Bajir– > Rachel and Tobias , my mind supplied <Marco in mountain goat morph, and – well, whatever that is, I assume it’s Visser Three. I think he might be some kind of giant crab? It’s hard to make out details – he keeps…changing.>
I shuddered and decided not to picture it until I absolutely had to. Instead I focused on my paws as I steadily picked my way up the rock face, pulling myself higher and higher with the tiger’s incredible strength.
<Is the hologram up?>
<Yes,> Cassie replied, <and it’s a big one. Erek must be really draining his–>
The skies opened above us, peeling back to reveal the largest ship I had ever seen. It was shaped like a cylinder, with four massive engines spitting blue fire out one end, plus eight pods arranged around the central body that I assumed were weapons of some kind.
I turned to look for Cassie, to see if she had dropped safely out of sight, and instead I saw something much more familiar than the behemoth above me: Visser Three’s Blade ship, slicing blackly through the clouds, flanked on all sides by more bug fighters than I had ever seen in Earth’s atmosphere.
<Cassie,> I called, <get clear. Something’s about to go down.>
As if they had been waiting for my cue, the ships opened fire, and suddenly the serene mountain air was filled with Dracon blasts. It was mayhem! A full-on dogfight! The noise and the light and the smell of burning metal was overwhelming. The tiger wanted to run, but I clamped down on it and kept climbing, pushing my powerful legs to propel me toward the chaos above.
<Jake!> Cassie yelled, a note of panic in her voice, and I knew what she was going to say. The tetris pieces had shown it to me. <Marco attacked Visser Three! Visser One has a Dracon beam – she shot him – Marco’s down!>
My mind flashed through all the times I had seen Marco fall in battle. I almost didn’t want to ask: <Is he alive?>
Cassie paused for a devastating second, then said, <Yes. He’s badly injured, but he’s moving.>
That meant there was still time. I was 50 yards from the top. I was going to make it!
CRRRRRRR-ACK!
The mountain split in two! A massive fissure zig-zagged down the rock face at lightning speed, heading straight for me. The rock separated beneath my paws and I lost my grip, plunging down the cliff face.
<JAKE!> Cassie wailed.
I flailed, twisting in the air, lashing out with my paws. My front feet caught on something – a root! I sank my claws as deep as they would go into the dirty wood and held on tight as the rest of my body swung around and slammed into the rock, pulling my shoulders out of socket and knocking the wind out of me. I was dazed and bruised, but I was alive.
<Jake! Are you okay?> Cassie was in a dive, freefalling toward me.
<I’m fine!> I snarled, fighting to get my bearings back. <We have to keep moving!>
She pulled up, whipping herself back into the air.
<You fell a long way,> she reported. <You’re about 150 feet below the summit.>
Challenge accepted , I thought, and broke into a sprint.
Tigers are natural born sprinters. They’re incredibly agile, able to dodge trees and run along branches with perfect sure-footedness. They’re strong, too, able to leap more than a storey straight into the air from a dead standstill. You better hope you never meet a tiger on its home turf. You’d be dead meat before you even knew it was there.
But they aren’t endurance runners. They tire over long distances, their strength draining quickly, leaving them lethargic and desperately in need of a long nap after only a few minutes.
Not like us humans. Humans are persistence predators: We evolved to follow our prey for hours or even days, never stopping, never resting. We keep going long after any other animal would have quit. We keep going until the job is done.
As I leapt up the rock face, fifteen feet at a time, barely waiting to land before taking off again, I could feel the tiger flagging. It was worn out. It wanted to rest.
But I wasn’t a tiger. I was a human, and I had a very, very important job to do.
<Cassie!> I shouted, bracing my paws for another leap. <Talk to me!>
<The rock split separated them,> she reported. <Rachel, Tobias, and Visser Three are on the far side, with all his controllers. Oh god, Jake, they’re so outnumbered.> Silently, I sent out a prayer to Ax to hurry his furry blue butt .
<Where’s Marco?>
<On this side, with Visser One.>
<Still down?>
<Yes.>
<Can I get to him?>
<Yes, but Visser One is between you. You need to veer left.>
I veered left, following her instructions to correct my course, still driving ever upward.
My bruised sides ached, but I kept going.
My muscles burned, but I kept going.
My lungs began to scream, my paws bloody and raw as I dragged them across sharp rock, my tendons straining to the breaking point with each new leap, but I. Kept. Going.
<Jake, Marco is getting up. Oh god, what is he doing? Jake, I think–>
I tuned Cassie out. I didn't care what Marco was doing; all I cared about was getting up there in time to stop him.
Somewhere above, high up in the sky, the battle between bug fighters and Blade ships still raged, raining sparks and space debris all around me, but that didn’t matter. The lip of the cliff was a mere thirty feet above me now, and all that mattered was reaching it.
I drove my back legs into the rock and flew, front paws outstretched, claws out so I could dig them into the ground for traction. As soon as I landed I was launching again, my whole spine reverberating with the impact.
Just as my paws hit the bottom edge of the lip, I heard Marco, his thought-speak voice barely a whisper, saying <I love you.>
I knew immediately that it hadn’t been directed at me, but I also knew why I heard it. He thought I was dead. He was giving up, saying goodbye. It was too late. I wasn’t going to–
No!
I threw myself over the lip, roaring with terror, out of control. It was sheer luck – or maybe Cassie’s aim – that sent me barreling paws-first into 300 pounds of mountain goat, barely retracting my claws in time. I tumbled end over end, my muscles screaming with overexertion, but I’d knocked him off his feet, too. He staggered, hooves scrabbling at the ground, trying to regain his balance. His wool was matted with blood and there was a horrible Dracon burn all down his flank, revealing the gruesome white of his ribs.
I heard Visser One scream and glanced over just in time to see Cassie swooping away, her talons dripping with the Visser’s blood and skin. Eva’s skin. The Visser staggered back, clutching her bloodied face, and her heels hit the edge of the cliff.
<Mom!> Marco cried, leaping to his feet with the shocking speed of desperation, but even exhausted I was still faster. I snatched him around the middle and dragged him against my chest, pinning him for all I was worth.
I didn’t see Visser One fall. I didn’t care what happened to her. Marco was all I cared about. He was fighting me, his sharp hooves slicing through my fur, horns swinging dangerously close to my face. He was screaming, too, every syllable an agony ringing in my head: <No! No! No!>
He could fight me all he wanted. I wasn’t going to let him go.
<Hang on, Marco,> I said, trying to sound strong even though it felt like begging. <Hang on, man. Hang on, man.>
The sky was burning with Dracon fire, but I ignored it.
There was a fight happening on the other side of the fissure – somewhere in the back of my mind, I was watching Ax arrive with the free Hork-Bajir, watching Rachel barrel through a phalanx of Taxxons, watching the tide of battle turn in our favor – but I ignored that, too, trusting my team to win without me.
My fight was with Marco: holding him like gravity, inescapable no matter how he struggled, pressing him into the Earth with the weight of my body. I buried my face in his bloodied wool and listened to him scream and told myself that all it meant was that he was alive. We had been here before. We could do it again. All I had to do was keep holding on.
<Hang on, Marco,> I was saying. <Hang on, man. Hold on.>
I kept saying it, repeating it over and over inside his head, even after he collapsed and lay still, his heart beating wild and precious under my paws.
The controllers fled, overwhelmed by the fury of the free Hork-Bajir, who'd even managed to salvage a few unconscious hostages for their troubles. Rachel told me later that the bug fighters had been scared off by, of all things, an approaching traffic helicopter. I guess there were limits to even Visser Three's recklessness. He'd gotten what he wanted, anyway – the valley of the free Hork-Bajir and Visser One both destroyed – so he was probably counting this as a win.
Marco was still breathing, so I was counting it as a win, too.
"How are you holding up?" I asked Erek.
"I can probably cover you for another hour or so before I need to recharge," he said. "But it will be dark soon, and the Yeerks may come looking for bodies."
I glanced over to where Cassie was kneeling next to Marco, her hand on his flank, whispering into his ear. He hadn't made a sound since the screaming stopped, which was…well, not all that surprising if I was being honest, but Rachel looked worried.
"Ax," I said, "how long has he been in morph?"
<For one hour and thirty-seven of your minutes, Prince Jake,> Ax said.
"Okay," I said. "Help the Hork-Bajir get their new recruits home."
<Yes, Prince Jake.>
I sent Rachel and Tobias to help too, then knelt next to Cassie. She turned to look at me, her eyes full to bursting with unshed tears, and said, "He won't talk to me. I don't think he can even hear me. It's like he's not even there."
I took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
"Leave it to me," I told her. "Go home and get some rest."
"But–"
"Please, Cassie. Trust me on this."
She looked doubtful, but she nodded. "I'll call you later," she said.
It took a surprising amount of willpower not to snap at her. "No, don't," I said. "I might not be home tonight. Just– I'll talk to you soon, alright?"
"Okay," she said, running her hand gently along Marco's gorey wool one more time. "Okay."
And then it was just me and Marco. Well, and Erek, but he was a ways away, inspecting his casing and studiously pretending not to know we were there.
After a minute's consideration I lay on the ground alongside Marco, face to face with his furry snout. His mountain goat form wasn't as long as my human body, but he had twice the bulk, even with a chunk of his torso missing. We must have looked pretty weird. I grabbed one of his hooves, just in case.
"Hey, man," I said. "You've got about fifteen minutes before that Dracon wound is permanent, and I know you don't want to live the rest of your life with goat breath."
I watched his eyes, hoping for any kind of spark, but there was nothing. Only labored breathing and that horrible, vacant stare.
"Marco," I tried, more forcefully this time. "Demorph. Now. That's an order."
Nothing. I could feel something like frustration building in my gut.
"Don't do this to me, asshole," I said. "You do not get to do this to me, do you understand? It's not an option."
Was that a flicker? I couldn't be sure, and we were running out of time. I propped myself up on one elbow, surveying the area, casting about for ideas. I had to get his attention somehow. My eyes landed on Erek, remembering how he'd once saved Marco's life with an electric shock. Maybe…? But would that count as harm on a living person? Would Erek's programming allow it?
I looked back at Marco. Specifically, at the gaping wound in his side, burned into him by the monster that wore his mother's face.
"Sorry, man," I muttered, and then I slammed my fist into his ribs.
<Fuck!> he shouted, his eyes sparked to life by the shocking pain.
"Demorph," I demanded. "Now, Marco. Demorph right now."
The dying mountain goat that was my best friend made a horrible grunting noise and closed his eyes.
"Oh no you don't," I snapped, seizing a fistful of wool and giving it a tug. "Don't you dare ignore me. Not now. Demorph."
The eyes came open again with a pathetic bleating noise.
<Trying,> Marco said, sounding disjointed, like there were pieces of him missing. <Trying– can't– >
I lay back down, scooting close so that we were eye-to-eye, and took his hooves into my hands.
"Yes you can," I told him. "Focus. Human."
I cast my mind back, trying to remember the words Cassie used when she talked somebody through a hard morph. Then I threw that thought away, because this was Marco, and I didn't need Cassie's help when it came to Marco.
His eyes were slipping shut again, so I tightened my grip on his hooves, stealing back his attention. "Look at me, Marco," I demanded, and he did, his sideways pupils locking on mine. "You know who I am?"
<Jake,> he said, automatic.
My heart stuttered with relief. "Good. Then you know you don't have a choice here. So quit messing around and demorph already, asshole."
He didn't say anything in response, but he kept his eyes open, and I watched them shift – slowly, slowly – from amber orange to his familiar soft brown, his hooves turning to hands in mine, his bloody wool replaced with bike shorts and a too-thin T-shirt that left him shivering.
"You ever scare me like that again, I will murder you," I whispered, and I thought I caught the barest edge of a smile across his lips. Then he was slipping again, disappearing back into whatever cocoon his mind had built. But that was fine. I could take it from here.
"Erek," I called, pushing myself upright, "can you carry him? He's in no shape to fly, and I don't think any of my morphs can get him down this cliff."
"Certainly," Erek said, ambling over to us. I felt a strange reluctance to step aside but I did it anyway, watching Erek lift Marco with no apparent effort.
"Wait for me," I said, and morphed to falcon as fast as I could, taking to the sky to track their progress through the woods.
When Erek was a few minutes away from our neighborhood I flew ahead, checking to see if Marco's dad was home. He wasn't, so I demorphed and pulled their spare key out of the bird feeder on the porch, opening the door just in time to let Erek straight in.
After Erek left, I spent a long time talking Marco through washing the dirt and blood off his hands and face and changing into clean clothes, sometimes just taking over and doing it myself. Once I was satisfied that he looked more or less like a normal teenager – albeit a teenager with some serious burnout – I pushed him into bed and he went without a sound. It was the longest I'd ever seen him go without offering an opinion.
I sat on the floor next to his bed, flipped on his TV at a low volume, then completely ignored it in favor of watching his face as he tipped over into sleep. The only difference was his eyes falling shut. Nothing else in his expression changed.
I thought about leaving. About going home, eating dinner, calling Cassie. About crawling into my own bed and letting this week finally be over.
I stayed until Peter came home, hours later, tipsy from some work event. I told him Marco had the flu, then left out the front door and circled around to the back, staring up at Marco's bedroom window.
I wanted to stay. I wanted to morph and climb through his window and spend the whole night awake on his floor, watching, just in case. I wanted to be there if the spark came back.
When. When the spark came back.
I went home.