B22C6 - Hit Harrier

<Marco, it's me, Rachel. I'm outside. Are you alone in your room?> He didn't smile or leer. He just nodded. Yes, he was alone.

<Okay, let's go,> I said.

Ax was ahead of me. He swooped down toward the window. Marco stood watching, smiling almost. His hands were behind his back.

Swoooosh! Ax swooped through the window and -

Marco pulled his hands out from behind his back. The Louisville Slugger swung in a short, sharp arc.

WHAM!

The bat hit Ax square in the face. I saw a piece of shattered beak go flying, twirling away like shrapnel from an explosion.

Ax fell to the grass outside. Marco laughed quietly. I saw his sides shake.

But of course, it was not Marco at all.

David. David had morphed Marco.

Ax lay on the grass, unmoving. Marco/David held up one finger. Then another. Then another. One, two, three.

He was counting how many of us he'd killed. One, two, three: Tobias, Jake, Ax.

But. . . it should have been four! What about Marco?

Of course! Marco was still alive because Marco had been human. David had said it himself: He would never take a human life. He would only kill animals. A hawk, a tiger, a harrier. Not a human.

As I watched, I saw Marco/David begin to blur. The nose and eyes became subtly different. Now he was just David. But he was still morphing when he stepped back out of sight.

I had to think. David was wiping us out, one by one. What was his next move? What was his next morph? Jake would know. Jake was the leader, not me.