Read Online The Predator by K. A. Applegate - Free Book Online Page B

sometimes, Marco, always joking the way you do. But keep it up, okay? We need a sense of humor.”
    “Humor? You thought I was kidding? You mean, you and Jessica aren’t both insanely in love with me?”
    “Dream on, Marco,” she said.

CHAPTER 16
    A x finished building his distress beacon. He had it ready the next day, now that he had the Z-Space transponder.
    Now we just had to figure out where to lay our trap. It couldn’t be any place that would ever be connected with us. Not Cassie’s farm, or the nearby woods. Not even anywhere in town, if we could help it.
    A couple days after the ant episode, we met up again in the fields of Cassie’s farm, up against the trees of the forest. This was one area we definitely had to keep safe. It was the only place we had to keep Ax if this mission to help him escape failed.
    It was Tobias who came up with the answer.
    
    “If we’re flying somewhere we’ll have to get Ax a bird morph of some type,” Jake said. He looked at Cassie.
    “We have a few choices in the barn,” she said. She bit her lip, thinking. “We have a northern harrier that was poisoned. About your size, Tobias.”
    “Ax? Do you mind picking up a bird morph?” Jake asked.
    
    “No offense taken,” I said. “But you’re wrong about humans having no natural weapons. You marinate human feet in a pair of old tennis shoes for a few hours on a hot day and you’ll see a deadly weapon. The dreaded stink-foot.”
    “Okay. That’s settled,” Jake said. “Now, let’s get down to details. If we’re going to call down a Bug fighter we need to have a plan ready. Saturday should be the day, I think.”
    “As long as it doesn’t involve ants,” I said. I meant it as a joke. But no one laughed.
    “No ants,” Jake agreed quietly.
    I shook my head in amusement. “You know, we’re talking about taking on Hork-Bajir and Taxxons. I used to think they were the scariest things in the world. But it’s the little ant that scares me worst now.”
    When the meeting broke up I hung around till Jake was done saying good-bye to Cassie.
    Jake and I walked home together. For a while we talked about the normal kinds of things we used to talk about before. Before our lives changed.
    We talked about basketball and disagreed over which was the best NBA team. We talked about music. Neither of us had bought a new album recently. We even talked about whether Spider-Man could kick Batman’s butt or vice versa.
    You know, stupid, normal, everyday stuff.
    I was stalling because I didn’t want to have to tell him what I had decided.
    But Jake’s been my friend forever. He knows me.
    “Marco? What’s the problem?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, you haven’t said a single mean-yet-funny thing the whole way. That’s not you.”
    I laughed. Then, I just blurted it out. “This is my last time,” I said.
    “What do you mean?”
    He knew exactly what I meant, of course. “I’m in for this time, but that’s it. No more after that. And I’m serious. No one is going to guilt me into it. I’ve done enough.”
    He thought about that for a while as we walked. “You’re right. You have done enough. You’ve done a million times more than ‘enough.’”
    “It’s just been too many close calls.”
    “Yeah.”
    “One of these days we aren’t going to pull it off, you know? Ten more seconds and those ants would have had us. And before that it was a pot of boiling water. And before that I was practically killed by sharks. I mean, come on. Enough is enough.”
    “You’re right,” Jake said.
    “Yeah.”
    I was surprised that he took it so well.