The Exposed Read online

  For Michael and Jake

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  SNEAK PEEK

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  My name is Rachel.

  I’m tall. I’m blond. And I’m standing on a balance beam, trying to get up the nerve to do a forward roll.

  Trying to be normal.

  Although when you think about it, what’s normal about a human somersaulting along on a slippery, narrow, wooden tightrope?

  Nothing, that’s what. Forget the forward roll.

  Hey, reckless in battle keeps me alive. Reckless in the gym just breaks bones.

  And to keep fighting, I need to stay in one piece. Survival always comes first. So you know I won’t tell you my last name or where I live. That information would get me and my friends killed.

  Not that we’d go down without a fight, of course, but still …

  We’re five kids and an Andalite who, as I see it, have to hold on to the three major things we’ve got going for us.

  The ability to morph by acquiring animal DNA.

  Anonymity. Nobody knows who we are.

  The home team advantage.

  So far, it’s been enough to keep us alive and to seriously aggravate the Yeerks, a parasitic species here to enslave Earth.

  If the Yeerks had a “Most Wanted” list, we would top it. They want us bad. Maybe they’d kill us. Maybe they’d do what they’ve done to so many humans: crawl into our heads and take over our brains. Make us Controllers.

  A Controller is someone enslaved by a Yeerk, and they’re everywhere. They’re people you know. People you trust.

  Our vice principal, Mr. Chapman.

  My cousin, Tom.

  Teachers, TV anchorwomen, cops, FedEx drivers, waiters, students, construction workers. All walking around like they’re perfectly normal. Persuading their friends and families to join The Sharing, the Yeerks’ cover organization.

  And once you’re in, there’s usually only one way out.

  You become a Controller.

  You walk and talk the same. You have the same memories. You still chew gum in class and toss brussels sprouts back into the serving bowl when you think your mother isn’t looking.

  Only it isn’t you doing any of it. The real you is caged up inside your head, helpless, screaming silently at the Yeerk slug holding you hostage.

  Become a Controller, and you have no will of your own.

  I will never surrender my free will.

  This is why we fight. And to be honest, I like a good fight. The adrenaline spike of battle. The rush. The challenge.

  And now that I’ve admitted that, I’ll admit something else: Lately, it’s been scaring me that I like it. That I look forward to it so much.

  My father thinks I’m as tough as any boy. My cousin Jake says my specialty is kicking butt. Marco calls me Xena, Warrior Princess, and jokes that I’m always the first to want to fight.

  He’s right. I’m front and center. Head of the line. “Let’s do it,” I’ve said, more times than I can count.

  And I’m afraid that if I keep giving in to the urge, sooner or later I’ll forget how to do anything else. Forget how to do the things I used to like to do.

  I used to love gymnastics. Not the balance beam, exactly. I’m talking about the powerful feeling I got working the parallel bars. And vaulting was as close as I’d ever come to flying.

  Not anymore, of course. Not since I became an Animorph. The thrill of vaulting doesn’t even come close to the thrill of soaring as a bald eagle. Or zipping around as a fly. And human muscles are pathetic after experiencing a cat’s liquid grace. Or becoming a grizzly bear. Now we’re talking power.

  I can’t help myself. It’s like I’m addicted or something. Addicted to danger. Addicted to defeating the Yeerk invaders.

  And addicted in my dreams, at least, to smearing Visser Three across the pavement like the overgrown slug that he is.

  See? I told you I was starting to scare me.

  Visser Three is evil. Merciless. Ruthless. Cruel. He’s the only Yeerk with the power to morph, the only Andalite-Controller. He’s in charge of the invasion of Earth and he takes his job very seriously.

  So do I.

  “Hey, Rachel!”

  My head jerked up, shattering my concentration. The gymnastics studio zapped back into focus.

  Kids talking. Laughing. Doing back bends and walkovers. Working out on the parallel bars and rings.

  A guy named T. T. was smiling and coming toward me across the mats. Not an ugly guy. Not at all.

  I didn’t smile back. Until he’d yelled, I’d been doing fine. But now my body was swaying and my balance was broken. My arms began to windmill and my bare feet, one placed before the other on the narrow beam, were wobbling.

  I was going to fall.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, jogging up. “I’ll catch you.”

  Oh, great. Just what I didn’t need. I swiveled, trying to push off and jump.

  Bad move.

  The motion sent me reeling. I pitched sideways.

  I knocked T. T.’s outstretched arms aside and hit the mat.

  Whumpf!

  Ouch.

  My palms stung. So did my hip.

  “You okay?” he asked, putting out his hand.

  “Yeah.” I ignored it. Got up.

  My face was hot. I don’t like to look stupid. And now I did, and it was all his fault.

  I looked at him, annoyed. Ready to tell him off.

  And stopped.

  He was definitely not uncute.

  He was taller than me. Blue eyes, like me. Dimples, not like me.

  “So, I guess this means you’re falling for me, huh?” he asked, grinning. “Want to go to a movie or something?”

  “Say what?” I snapped.

  He leaned against the balance beam, cocky and relaxed. “I wondered if you wanted to go to the movies or something.”

  I looked at him. That wasn’t all he’d said. And the rest of it, the part about me falling for him, made me uneasy.

  He was cute.

  Better still, he was human.

  See, if T. T. and I went to a ninety-minute movie, we could go for pizza afterward. Or to McDonald’s. Or whatever.

  He wouldn’t have to demorph back into a red-tailed hawk before the two-hour deadline.

  Going out with T. T. would be normal. Maybe even fun. No tension. No fear.

  “Well?” he said.

  “In your dreams,” I said abruptly, wheeling and heading across the mats to the locker room. He didn’t try to stop me.

  I shoved open the door.

  BOOM!

  It bounced off the cement wall.

  The locker room was empty. Echoey.

  Good. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with people right now. I didn’t like the way I was feeling. I didn’t like that I had reacted. I didn’t like the moment of hesitation, the moment when I considered the fact that I was the only girl in school whose … I guess “boyfriend” was … ho
w should I put it … a bird.

  I felt anger bubbling up inside me. Mad at T. T., mad at Tobias. Mad at myself. Why had I hesitated?

  “Gee, I don’t know, Rachel,” I muttered under my breath. “Maybe because T. T. doesn’t have a beak. Maybe that’s it.”

  I yanked on jeans and zipped my jacket up over my bodysuit. Jammed my feet into socks and running shoes.

  Why hadn’t I said yes?

  That was easy. Because I’m all kinds of things, some of them not too great, but I’m not disloyal. I don’t betray people. Especially not Tobias.

  And yet the images in my mind would not go away. Especially images of eyes that would look into mine and not glare with the furious intensity of a predator.

  I was going … if you can even use that word … with a guy who spent most of his time riding the thermals, talking in thought-speak, and eating small mammals.

  A guy with feathers. Talons. A fierce, curved beak.

  And sometimes, for almost two hours at a shot, unruly dirty-blond hair and hurt, tender, hopeful eyes.

  He’s my friend. My fellow warrior.

  We fly together. Fight Yeerks together.

  We are not normal kids.

  I laughed suddenly and some girl stared at me. Yeah, not normal would be the understatement of all time.

  I headed outside and looked up at the sky, the way I always do. Looking for the familiar silhouette against a blue sky. Looking for the faint tinge of red in tail feathers.

  But Tobias wasn’t there, and I was disappointed. Oh well, he was probably off eating a baby rabbit or something. Normal red-tailed hawk behavior.

  Maybe there was more than one kind of normal.

  And maybe I’d just better find a way to live with it. Find a way to really enjoy something besides fighting.

  Gymnastics hadn’t done it for me. Not today.

  But shopping might.

  I headed for the mall.

  There are few emotional problems that can’t be made better by shopping Old Navy and Express.

  I jogged most of the way and felt the famil- iar flood of relief mixed with anticipation as I slipped into the air-conditioning.

  Ahhh.

  Colored lights. Music. People talking. Laughing. All united in a common goal.

  Shopping.

  I targeted The Limited. Went straight into the store and checked their sale racks. Nothing good, but no problem. Next.

  I swung out of The Limited and nearly rammed into Cassie. “Cassie! What’re you doing here?” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going shopping?”

  “Which question do you want me to answer first?” Cassie asked, laughing and tucking her bag under her arm.

  “Either. Both,” I said, pouncing on the bag and tugging it free. “Ooh, The Body Shop. Cool. What’d you get?”

  “Bath oil for my mother’s birthday,” she said. “Uh, Rachel?”

  “What?” I said. Her eyes were wide. I followed the direction of her gaze.

  Erek the Chee was standing in front of The Gap.

  “So Erek’s shopping,” I said, shrugging. “So what? Question is, what’s he think he’s gonna find at Nine West? A nice pair of sandals?”

  “Look,” she whispered. “It’s happening again!”

  Erek flickered. His human-hologram blurred. Faded.

  Revealing, for an instant, the real Erek the Chee.

  The android.

  “Whoa! That can’t be good,” I said.

  “What’re we gonna do?” Cassie said, as Erek’s hologram shimmered again. “We can’t let —”

  “Ears all around us,” I warned. She fell silent.

  Erek is an android. Part of an android species created to be a nonviolent companion to the Pemalites, a peaceful race that was wiped out by the Howlers.

  Erek is an anti-Yeerk spy. Also a friend.

  “Rachel, we have to do something,” Cassie whispered.

  “Yeah. Let’s move.”

  Erek’s hologram — the illusion of a normal boy — dimmed, exposing his interlocking steel and ivory plates.

  “We have to look cool. Natural,” Cassie cautioned.

  Right.

  We wove through the crowd and moved close to block Erek from view.

  “Hi, Erek,” I said. “What’s up? Aside from the fact that you look like TV during a lightning storm.”

  He looked at me.

  And he looked scared.

  “Erek, you have to get out of here. Something’s wrong with your hologram.”

  “I know,” he muttered, hunching his shoulders like he was trying to disappear down into them. “I kind of noticed. Can’t seem to fix it. I have tried running every —”

  “Yeah, tell me all about it later. Come on, we have to get you out of here,” I interrupted, seizing his arm. His human hologram had just gone sheer, like a movie projected onto a screen. The force field was gone altogether. My fingers closed on steel, not projected human flesh.

  “Where are we going?” Cassie demanded.

  “How can you hide me?” He was dragging, barely able to keep his legs moving. Like some big, overgrown baby working on his first steps.

  “In here,” I said, steamrolling into the only store around where an android wouldn’t seem out of place if his hologram totally croaked.

  Spencer’s Gifts.

  Home of the wacky, wild, weird, and wonderful. Masks. X-Files memorabilia. Aliens in snow globes. Aliens everywhere.

  Erek shimmered. Shivered.

  “Quick, into the corner,” I said, nodding toward the back of the store, far away from the teenage guy running the register. “By the strobe lights. If anyone sees him, they’ll just think his hologram’s an optical illusion or something.”

  “Good idea,” Cassie said, tugging at Erek’s arm. “I wouldn’t have thought of Spencer’s.”

  “Mall knowledge,” I said. “It’s going to be my major in college.”

  Erek had stopped walking. He didn’t move. Frowned. Steel and ivory plates flashed.

  “Sorry,” he apologized.

  It was bizarre. Watching him was like wearing X-ray glasses and being able to see his bones right through his skin.

  “Come on,” I ground out.

  He moved his leg. Sloooowly.

  “Erek, please,” Cassie whispered. “You have to hurry!”

  “Oh, really?” he said, taking another slow-motion step. “You know, the seriousness of the situation had totally escaped me.”

  “You can’t walk, but you can be sarcastic?” Cassie demanded.

  Then Erek froze stiff.

  Cassie and I looked at each other. She took one arm. I took the other.

  Somehow we hauled him down the aisle to the back of the store without anybody noticing us, but it was not easy. Erek was a hundred pounds or more of concrete. We propped him up in the corner between a stack of Star Wars posters and a life-sized replica of the alien from the movie Alien.

  We stepped back.

  The strobe light flashed.

  Erek.

  Android.

  Erek.

  Android.

  Android.

  Android.

  “Oh, man,” I muttered, glancing at Cassie.

  “Now what?” she said.

  I had no idea.

  “Whoa, cool.” It was some kid wearing a Hanson shirt. He slouched up and gazed at Erek’s android form. “I wonder how much it is?” He moved in closer, searching for a price tag.

  “Uhhh …” Cassie said helpfully.

  “I’ll find out,” I said. “I mean, we want to know, too. Androids. They’re cool.” I backed away, motioning for Cassie to stay and keep an eye on poor Erek.

  I had to do something to ward off shoppers, and fast. Fortunately, I knew how. I plucked the sales tag off a windup cockroach and slipped back into the aisle with the rubber-earthworm pens.

  The cockroach had been five dollars. I crossed out the price, flipped the tag over, and scribbled “$5,000.00.”

  Ha
nson shirt said, “Five grand for a lousy hunk of metal that doesn’t even walk or talk! What are they, nuts?” He took off. But someone else was sure to come along. And eventually the clerk, a nerdy college-age kid talking on the phone, was sure to notice.

  When the kid was gone, Erek said, “Actually, my approximate value in current U.S. dollars would be well into the billions.”

  “Listen, stay here and guard him, okay?” I whispered to Cassie. “I’ll be right back. And Erek? Don’t worry, my friend, we’ll get you out of here.”

  “Guard him?” Cassie said. “What do you mean, guard him? Wait!” She grabbed my arm. “You’re gonna call Jake, right?”

  “Think I should?” I said, a little giddy from having pulled it off so far. “I was thinking of calling for a pizza, but I guess I could call Jake instead.”

  Cassie gave me a sour look. “Thanks. Very funny. Here’s a comic question for you: What do I do if some Controller sees Erek and realizes what he is?”

  That wiped away some of my giddiness.

  “Protect yourself,” I said. I met Erek’s frozen gaze. “You’re number one, Cassie. Push comes to shove, give up Erek.”

  I found a pay phone that wasn’t being used. I punched in Jake’s number and waited while it rang.

  Be home, I thought, chewing on my bottom lip.

  Four. Five. Six.

  “Hello?”

  “Jake?” I blurted, clutching the receiver.

  “No, this is Tom.”

  I froze.

  Tom, Jake’s older brother. My cousin.

  A Controller.

  And the last person I wanted to talk to. I had to be careful. Very careful.

  “Hi, Tom,” I said casually. “It’s Rachel. Is Jake around?”

  “Yeah. Hold on.” The receiver clunked down.

  Hurry, I thought, glancing back at Spencer’s. A group of three girls was heading in.

  “Hello?”

  “Jake!” I shouted into the phone. “Where the … where are you?”

  “Huh?” he said, sounding confused.

  Okay, Rachel, careful now. Just in case anyone is listening.

  “I can’t believe you forgot,” I said, lowering my voice but trying to sound annoyed. “You were supposed to meet me and Cassie at the mall a half hour ago. We’ve been waiting in front of Spencer’s for you.”

  A heartbeat of silence.

  “Oh, man, sorry,” Jake said, like he knew what I was talking about. “I was shooting hoops with Marco —”