B20C16/17 - Pushed from a Window

Rachel bellowed, lowered her head, landed on all fours and ran straight at David. Like a train. Like a Mack truck she ran. Straight at him.

Hork-Bajir slashed at her. I shot a glance and saw what she was doing. There was a small bathroom window. She was going to try to shove him through it. Not exactly fun for David, getting rammed through glass and dropped from the second story, but David's alternatives weren't too good.

Rachel ran.

David cowered.

And the Visser fired two massive pile-driver cone hands straight for David.

WHUM-WHUMPH! WHAM! CRUNCH!

The cone hands missed and blew a hole in the outer wall of David's bathroom. In a flash he was swept up by a mountain of bear, shoved through the shattered plaster and glass, and propelled out into the late afternoon air.

I knew Visser Three could not afford to go racing around a subdivision in his alien morph, followed by a dozen Hork-Bajir warriors. But I also knew he was going to take it out on someone. And the someones were me, Ax, and Jake.

(...)

Police rushed to the scene. We heard their sirens as we were escaping and demorphing. But by the time they got there, my friends were gone. So were the Yeerks.

David's house was practically a hollowed-out shell.

I demorphed to human, then to osprey, and I flew away just as the police came rushing inside.

I spotted my friends down below. They had all demorphed, except for Ax, of course, who had morphed his human form.

They were manhandling David along between them. He was unconscious. I didn't know if the fall had knocked him out or what.

I swooped down and landed in a Dumpster in an alleyway. I demorphed there, away from prying eyes, and climbed out. The others were just reaching the alley.

"Hey," I said, catching their attention. Jake hustled the still-groggy-but-reviving David into the alley.

Rachel and I helped place David gently against the greasy brick wall.

"They took his dad," I said.

<They took his mom, too,> Tobias said, swooping down silently to land on the lip of the Dumpster. <I stayed over the house till everyone was clear. David's mom pulled up just as the Yeerks were pulling out. A Hork-Bajir snatched her up.>

"She'll be a Controller next time anyone sees her," Rachel said. She looked down at David. "Poor kid."