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

"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 in side 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.

57 Chapter 15

Very good. You figured it out," said the silent voice in my head, mocking me.

"NO! NO! NO!"

"Jake, are you all right?" Cassie asked. For a moment I thought she had heard me cry out. But no, she was just concerned.

Tobias landed on a branch overhead. "Is he okay?"

"I can't tell. He's alive. He's breathing. But it's like he's zoned out or something. We may have to take him to a doctor."

I wanted to tell them both. To scream "They have me! They are inside me!" But I couldn't make my mouth move. It was like there was a roadblock. Like I could form the thoughts, give the order to my lips and tongue to speak, but the order never got there.

"Struggle all you like, human. Fight me!" the Yeerk gloated. "Go ahead. It won't matter, in the end. I am in your head. I am wrapped around your brain like a living blanket."

"NO!"

"I can read your thoughts. I control your body. I am tapped into your memory. I can read it like a book."

"Get out of my head! No! No!"

"Oh, I don't think I want to do that, Jake. Why would I abandon such an interesting host? So you are the one who has driven Visser Three half-mad with rage. A kid. The midget."

"Midget? How do - "

"You're surprised I know what Tom calls you? Ha ha ha. Oh, the irony really is sweet. Don't you get it, clever Jake? Don't you see what's happened, my little Animorph." Cassie had become human again. She knelt down beside me and looked down into my eyes.

"He's alert. His eyes are tracking. Jake? Jake, can you talk to me?"

It was a nightmare. That's what it was. Another nightmare. I would wake up soon. I would wake up and laugh and laugh.

"I am Temrash one-one-four," the Yeerk said proudly. "Formerly Temrash two-five-two, of the Sulp Niar pool. I have been promoted. No doubt you are happy for me."

"You filthy slug! Get out of my head!"

"Do you know what my last host was? Who it was?" the Yeerk taunted.

58 "Shut up! Shut up! Stop talking to me! Go away." It wasn't real. It couldn't be real!

"It was Tom, of course. Your brother. I am the Yeerk who controlled your brother." That cut through my growing hysteria. "What?"

"Ah, I thought that might interest you. Yes, Tom was my host."

"Then . . . he's . . ."

"Free? Ha ha ha." The Yeerk laughed in my head. "You're even stupider than your brother. No, your brother's body has been given to a new Yeerk. Someone with a lower rank. I am too important now to be wasted on Tom. I am to take on a new and important project. A very special host."

"The governor!"

"Jake," Tobias tried thought-speaking to me. "lf you can hear me, move your hand."

"Well, well. Not a complete idiot, are you?" the Yeerk said. "Yes. I was to be given the most important post on this planet. But this is better still. Visser Three is very determined to catch you and your friends. He will be surprised to learn that you are human."

"I'll never tell you who the - "

"The others? You mean, Cassie, Marco, Rachel? Tobias, who's sitting in the tree over our heads?

And of course the one remaining Andalite, Aximili Esgarrouth Isthill?"

"We have to get him to a doctor," Cassie told Tobias.

Just then, Marco arrived. He was fully human again. He was dressed in his morph clothes and walking gingerly without shoes. "Doctor? He needs a doctor? What's the matter with him?"

"Nothing is the matter with me," I said, quite suddenly. "I'm fine."

Only I didn't say it. My mouth spoke the words. But I didn't say it.

The Yeerk had spoken through my mouth.

"No way," Cassie said. "We're taking you to a doctor. You didn't answer me for like five min utes. Maybe you have a concussion."

My body sat up. "Sorry I scared you, Cassie. But I'm fine. And where are you going to take me?

Back to that hospital? What if some doctor does a blood test and he sees something that shows him I'm an Animorph?"

"Like what?" Marco asked, sounding skeptical.59 "How do I know? Maybe some leftover roach DNA. Look, I'm fine, okay?"

"I'm going back up," Tobias said. "Make sure no one is after us, and see if Rachel and Ax are okay." He flapped his wings and flew away through the trees.

"As soon as we know Rachel and Ax are safe, we need to break up and go our separate ways,"

my mouth said.

The Yeerk was considering his next move. I could not "hear" his thoughts. But I could feel him using my brain. He was digging through my memory. Trying to learn quickly about the others.

He was using my brain. Using me.

I had to do something quick. Something to warn Cassie and Marco. Surely they would guess what was happening. They were the two people in the whole world who were closest to me.

Surely they would realize that I was no longer myself.

Wouldn't they?

"I don't think there's all that much the Yeerks can do right now," Marco said to Cassie. "We're deep in the national forest. It would take a while for them to organize a search. They'd need helicopters and lots of human-Controllers. And they don't even know what they're looking for."

He laughed. "After all, they still think we're Andalites."

"Yeah, but it means we're going to have to be very careful with Ax," my mouth said. "We'll need to hide him. I think we may have parboiled quite a few Yeerks in that whirlpool. They're going to be very upset."

It was incredible. It was shocking to listen to. The Yeerk was using my voice. My inflection. He was saying the words I would have said.

Marco and Cassie would never guess. As far as they could see or hear, the Yeerk in my brain was me.

"Yes, little human," the Yeerk sneered silently. "Your body is my home now. Mine. Body and mind, under my control. Forget resistance. It is futile. No host has ever overpowered a Yeerk. It is impossible."

I felt a dark wave of terror wash over me. He was telling the truth. I knew he was. No host had ever defeated a Yeerk.

Resistance was futile.

Futile.

60 I would never be free. Just like Tom. If this Yeerk moved on, they would give me to another. I was a slave.