Read Online The Encounter by K. A. Applegate - Free Book Online

days were like a long, slow dream. I stayed away from Jake’s house. I did not communicate with my friends. I disappeared.
    I found a place for myself. It was perfect redtail territory—the place where I had made my first kill. A nice meadow surrounded by trees. Not far off there was a marshy area that was good, too. Although there was another redtail who had a territory over there, so I couldn’t hunt there often.
    I spent my days hunting. Sometimes I would ride the high, hot winds and watch the meadow. Sometimes I would sit in a tree and watch till some unwary creature ventured out. Then I would swoopdown on it, snatch it up, kill it. Eat it while the blood was still warm.
    Days were easier than nights. During the day I was hunting almost all the time. It keeps you busy, because most of the time you miss. It can take quite a few tries before you make a kill.
    Nights were worse. I couldn’t hunt at night. The nights belong to other predators, mostly the owls. At night my human mind would surface.
    The human in my head would show me memories. Pictures of human life. Pictures of his friends. The human in my head was sad. Lonely.
    But the human Tobias really just wanted to sleep. He wanted to disappear and let the hawk rule. He wanted to accept that he was no longer human.
    Still, at night, as I sat on my familiar branch and watched the owls do their silent, deadly work, the human memories would play in my head.
    But other memories were there, too. I remembered the female hawk. The one who had been in the cage. I knew where her territory was. Near a clear lake in the mountains.
    So one day I flew there. To the mountain lake.
    I saw her down on a tree branch. She was watching a baby raccoon, preparing to go for a kill. She would have to be very hungry to go for a raccoon,no matter how small. Raccoons are very tough, very violent creatures.
    As I watched, unnoticed by her, she swooped.
    The raccoon spotted her. A quick dodge left, and the hawk sailed harmlessly past. The baby raccoon ran for the edge of the woods. His mother was there.
    No hawk was crazy enough to go after a full-grown raccoon. That was not a fight the hawk was going to win.
    She settled back on her branch.
    I floated overhead, waiting to see if she would spot me. And waiting to see what she would do when she did notice me. I had to be cautious. She was a female, and females are a third bigger, on average, than males.
    Suddenly I saw fast movement in the woods.
    A chase!
    It was always kind of exciting watching a kill, even by another species. It heightened my own hunting edge.
    The prey was running awkwardly on its two legs. Running and threading its way through the underbrush. It stumbled and hit the ground hard. It seemed very slow to get up. It ran again.
    I could hear gasping breath. It was weakening. The prey was squealing. Loud, yelping vocalizations.
    Prey often squeal.
    The predator moved on two legs also. But these legs were built for greater speed. It had blades growing from its arms. It used the blades to slash the bushes and weeds. It cleared its way through them like a lawn mower chopping down tall grass.
    Lawn mower?
    No. Something else. SaladShooter. Yes, that’s what Marco called them.
    Marco? The image came to my mind. Short. Dark hair. Human.
    It hit me like a lightning bolt. Suddenly I realized: This prey was a
human.
    Why should I care? It was prey. That was the way it worked: Predator killed prey.
    NO! It was a human being.
    “Help! Help!” That was the vocalization. It meant something. “Help! Help me!”
    The predator was very close. In a few seconds he would make his kill. The predator was powerful. The predator was swift.
    Hork-Bajir.
    “Help me, someone help!”
    I don’t know how to describe what happened next. It was like my entire world flipped over. Like one minute it was one thing, one way, then, boom, it was something totally different. It was like opening your eyes after a dream.
    The prey was a human being. The predator