The Next Passage by K.A. Applegate

Author:K.A. Applegate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2018-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Do you promise? If you do, go to chapter 14. If you refuse, go to chapter 16.

“Fine,” you say. “I promise not to take any more chances.”

Rachel finally backs off. Retreats to a corner with her grief. Marco and Ax go after her. You can hear the three of them whispering but you can’t hear what they’re saying.

You sit with your back against a wall and wait for Tobias and Jake to return. Erek sits silently a few yards off. You almost have the sense he is protecting you.

You’re numb. Horrified by Cassie’s death. Racked with guilt. But unsure what you could have done to prevent it. Maybe if you had just ignored that box. Never picked it up.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Hours creep by. Then —

Flap, flap, flap.

You jump to your feet as one — no, two! — birds fly into the factory. Relief rushes over you as the others come running.

<Prince Jake!>

“Jake!”

“Oh, Jake … Cassie … Cassie is …”

Jake lands next to where Cassie’s small form is laid out. He begins to grow out of his falcon form, to reemerge as human. As his human mouth forms, he lets out a scream filled with rage and grief that turns your stomach.

Hours pass as Jake sits next to Cassie. The sun is going down when he calls you together. “I have a plan,” Jake announces.

You put it in motion the next morning.

Guide leads you to an empty store at the end of a long, narrow street. Ax leaves. Goes out for a stroll on the crowded streets, hoping to lure the Howlers to you.

Tobias, floating high above the narrow streets, reports the scene by thought-speak.

<The Howlers are sticking together. Not as cocky as they were, though. They should spot him any second now. Any second now.>

“Do it now,” Rachel says to you.

You nod slowly, wishing you had never agreed to stay out of the way. Now that the plan is underway, now that the others are facing danger, you feel like a coward.

“DO IT,” Rachel orders.

“All right!” You start to morph.

Down, down, down you shrink. You feel a loose liquid sensation inside as your human organs slide and fuse. Coarse hairs grow on your arms, your legs.

Two extra legs explode out of your chest.

<What are they, blind?> Tobias wonders. <Ax is getting awfully close. The crowd is blocking their view of him. Too many Iskoort in the way. Oh, man! He’s too … they see him! Ax-man, run! Run!>

Your mouth and nose elongate into a powerful sucking straw.

The fly’s compound vision blinks in. You can see Rachel again. See her face from a thousand slightly different angles. Only now her angry, accusing human face has turned into the fierce face of a grizzly.

<Climb aboard,> Rachel says.

You power the crazy fly wings, zooming up and up and coming to rest behind the bear’s upside-down U of an ear.

“It’s time,” Jake says. “I have to do this. Rachel, you know what to do. If I get out of control, can’t control the morph. If I start that howl … you’ll have to do it.

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