Cassie let loose a growl and was racing toward Fenestre before I could say a word. He raised his Dracon beam. I leaped through the air.
I landed, paws outstretched but claws retracted, on Cassie. I knocked her wolf body sprawling across the floor.
"What are you doing?!" she yelled.
"We aren't here to annihilate this guy," I said. "l told him we wouldn't."
"Do you know what he's doing? Do you under-stand?" Cassie cried.
"l know. I know. I KNOW!" I screamed in frustration. "But I told him he was safe. I promised. Besides . . ."
"No! Don't say it, Jake. If you say that I won't
be able to deal with you anymore. So don't say it." I felt like she'd punched me. In my own, real face. What had I been about to say? Was I really going to say it was okay for this creature to go on doing what he did, as long as he got the Yeerks?
Was I going to say that? Me?
"l wasn't going to say what you think," I said lamely.
Cassie didn't answer. She's good at spotting lies. Too good.
"!...! don't think . . ." I stammered.
"That kid, Gump. That kid who was worried about his dad," Cassie said.
"That lonely little kid. That's who this monster goes after. Jake. Not some abstract person with no face and no name. He'll wait until Gump does something stupid. Till he confesses his fears to his Controller father, and his father makes him a Controller, too. Then Fenestre will go after them."
"What do you expect me to do?" I asked her. "You want to get rid of this man because he's evil? Do you want to do it yourself, Cassie?"
"You . . . your morph would do It better," she said.
"You want me to get rid of him for you?" I asked. "That's what you want?" Fenestre just stood there, waiting, as a wolf and a tiger bristled, face-to-face. He was trying
to figure something out. But I could see from his eyes that the truth had not come to him, yet.
I backed away from Cassie. I turned back to Fenestre. "My friend has lost friends in battle against your people. She is emotional." He nodded, unimpressed. "We've all lost friends in this unpleasantness."
"Release my two friends," I said. "We'll let you live. We'll walk away.
As long as you are in this house, we won't harm you. But I'll tell you so you'll know: If we ever catch up with you in the outside world, that protection will not exist."
It was a stupid little threat. I said it to make myself feel better.
Ax and Rachel were released. The instant Fenestre turned off the bio-stasis fields, Ax continued to morph back into his normal Andalite shape.
I stared hard at Rachel. Was she breathing? Yes!
Was there still time to get her back into her own body?
"Rachel! Can you hear me?"
"Huh? What? Oh, man! What am I doing here?"
"Rachel, listen to me. Start demorphing. Right now."
"There's some guy! Who's that guy?" she asked, glaring at Fenestre with eagle's eyes.
"Rachel, for once, don't argue. Forget the guy, we're getting out of here. Demorph! Do it! Marco. Get Rachel. Carry her out of here."
"l'm not letting him carry me!"
But she was too weak to do much, so Marco went over and lifted her gently in his massive gorilla hands.
"Perhaps we'll meet again," Fenestre said cockily as we backed away.
I said nothing. What was there to say? I was letting a monster live. I was letting a killer go free.
By the time we hit the stairs Rachel was de-morphing. Ax was almost fully Andalite. He still had two bird-shot pellets in his body, but they weren't enough to harm him.
Tobias flew, as well as he could, overhead. We stumbled and trotted down the stairs, through the wreckage of the house and outside into the fenced, defended yard.
By the time we reached the trees, Rachel was Rachel again. We all demorphed, and soon we were five tired, wary kids and one Andalite hidden in the deep shadows of the trees.
We could still see the house. Fenestre's billionaire mansion.
"What happened in there?" Rachel demanded. "Someone ripped that place.
Was there
some big fight and I missed it? Oh, man! I can't believe I missed a big fight. So what happened?"
"Someone will tell you later," I said shortly.
"Was the guy a Controller or not?" Rachel demanded. "Was he a good guy or a bad guy?"
I laughed a little. My eyes locked with Cassie's and then we both looked away, unwilling to make contact. "Rachel, I don't even know which /am anymore."
J. guess someone eventually told Rachel and Ax what had happened. It wasn't me.
I got home and went up to my room and just stared at nothing for a long time. My mom called me to dinner and I mumbled my way through.
And then I went out in the backyard and sat on my rusted-out old swing set from when I was four and I stared at the sky as it turned dark. The stars came out and man, I hated them. They weren't beautiful, they were deadly. It was from the stars that all my problems had come.
My mom came out after a while. She pretended like she was checking to see if the grass needed watering. But of course she was checking on me.
"Whatcha doing out here? Thinking great thoughts?"
"Nah. Just hanging."
She locked her arms over her chest and looked up at the sky like I was doing. "It's a beautiful night. Look at the stars."
"Yeah."
"Is anything bothering you, Jake?"
"Nope."
"Well, if anything was bothering you, you could probably tell me without my embarrassing you too much."
"I know, Mom. It's nothing."
She sighed. "Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later. You've turned into a real teenager. Mom's too out of it to talk to."