:: #6 The Capture
:: Book Overview

:: Sample Chapter

Face down, unconscious, in the superheating Yeerk pool.

I don't know for how long.

When I woke I had two terrifying, overwhelming feelings. One was suffocation. I had breathed in a lungful of the liquid from the pool.

I came to, gasping and hacking and gagging up water. I was alive, but I could hardly breathe. Each breath was a struggle. I coughed and I think at one point I threw up.

The second feeling was of pain in my head. Pain like nothing I had ever even imagined before. It was like someone was drilling a hole in my ear, drilling straight into my brain.

I wanted to scream, but I was still choking. I was on my knees on the floor of the hospital room, wanting to cry from the pain and gasping for every half-breath of air.

All the while, a battle raged. They were trying to get in the doorway. But it was too narrow for more than one or two human-Controllers at a time to attack. Ax's tail and Cassie's long wolf teeth were enough to hold them off.

BLAM! Another gunshot!

"Stop firing, you fool!" someone shouted. "The pool is in there! Visser Three will eat your guts!"

Even in my condition I could see that Ax and Cassie couldn't last. I needed to morph, to join the battle. But I could not seem to do it. The pain...or maybe the lack of oxygen ... I couldn't concentrate. My brain was fuzzy, drifting . . .

I heard a rumbling, pounding noise from the hallway outside. There were cries and screams of rage. Suddenly, into the room burst a huge black gorilla and a second wolf.

Marco and Rachel.

They had driven the attackers away, but only for a few seconds.

<Jake's hurt> I heard Cassie say. <He fell In the Yeerk pool.>

<Marco, grab Jake,> Rachel ordered. <Get something to cover his face. Ax, Cassie, keep holding the door. I'm going to change morph. We need more firepower.>

I felt myself lifted up off the floor. A white cloth was wrapped around my head. One of the lab coats from an injured Controller, I guessed. I was cradled in the huge arms of a gorilla.

<Rock-a-bye baby,> Marco joked. <Hang in there, man. We're getting you out of here.>

I was still coughing and gasping, but my breathing was at least improving. Not enough to speak, but I could breathe enough to keep from passing out.

At the same time, something had happened to the pain in my head. It was diminishing. And yet, instead of feeling more clearheaded, I felt more confused.

"Get them!" a Controller was yelling outside the door. "Attack. Attack!"

<It doesn't look like I'm gonna fit through this doorway.> It was Rachel. <So I guess I'll have to make the door a little bigger.>

I caught just a glimpse through the fabric that hid my face. A flash of something huge and gray.

Rachel's elephant morph.

<Rachel?> a voice in my head wondered. The voice was surprised. <A human?>

BOOOM! WHUMP! CRRRUUUUNNCH!

<Now the door is plenty big,> Rachel said.

Wild screams! Panic! Cries of pain!

I was bounced and slammed against walls and even dropped at one point. I felt us go down a set of stairs. I felt hands grabbing at me and slipping away.

Finally, fresh air. We were running like mad for the shelter of a stand of trees that fronted the hospital.

<Cassie> Marco said. <You have a horse morph, right? Quick. Before they figure out how to follow us.>

I was tossed onto the dirt.

The gorilla peeled back the coat that was over my face. <You alive? Man! That was intense. That is one hospital that's going to need some re-decorating. We're gonna put you on Cassie. Then we'll try to cover your retreat>

"My . . . head . . ." I said.

<Headache? No surprise, dude.>

"Something . . . wrong . . . I can't . . . think."

<Don't worry. Take a break. We have it under control. More or less.>

<Unbelievable> said a voice in my head. <Can it be? Humans?>

What was that voice? Where was it coming from?

Marco lifted me and slung me over a horse's back.

<Cassie? A human, yes. And Rachel? The cousin? Human as well.>

My hand tried to pull the coat away from my face.

What was happening? There was a voice inside my head.

We were running now, running and running at full gallop, through trees, across lawns, down suburban streets where Cassie's hooves clattered loudly.

We jumped a fence. I flew through the air and landed hard on the dirt.

I felt pain, but it came from far away.

The coat was loose. I looked around. Trees, everywhere. A panting horse standing nearby.

I saw all this, but in a distant way, as if I were watching it all on TV. My eyes moved left, right. They moved all on their own. Like someone else was focusing them.

Cassie. I tried to say her name. Cassie.

But no sound came from my mouth.

<Don't struggle, Jake, a voice in my head said. It's pointless.>

What? Who was saying that? What was... ?

Then, a laugh only I could hear. <Put that primitive human brain to work, Jake. Jake, the Animorph,> it sneered. <Jake, the servant of the Andalite filth!>

Then I knew.

I knew what the voice was.

A Yeerk!

A Yeerk in my own head.

I was a Controller.

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