"You know, it's not that uncommon. A lot of the off-world transfers miscalculate the feeding cycle here since it doesn't exactly match up to three Earth days."

Temrash clenches the trembling fingers of his right hand. The pain under his tight grasp invigorates Tom whose glee laces through every nerve that causes those fingers to vibrate.

"Or to two hours, it's easy to leave the pool just a little too soon, miss out on filling your stores of Kandrona all the way."

Tom switches hands, loosening the grip of the left one until Temrash snatches it with the right and tightens his hold even more.

"And that can just build up, you know, until you're hungry, and weak, and waiting for the school bell to ring annnyy minute now."

Temrash lifts his head from where it was leaning against his forearm. From his spot crouching on the ground in front of Temrash, Arress isn't even looking at him. His gaze is focused on the school building overlooking the cars. The swelling around his eye has worsened, and it won't be that many hours before dark, bruised skin mars his features even more.

Catching motion out of the corner of his eye, Arress swerves his head around. The other controller stares at Temrash's murderous expression and pales rapidly in response.

"I mean weak from hunger, not weak, you're not weak, you're very terrifying." Arress shrinks against the side of the vehicle behind him.

"Come on, come on. Almost there." Tom's manic words pelt against the yeerk as the human tries to twist the left hand out of Temrash's grip. The barely visible jerk of the wrist draws Arress's gaze.

"He's not trying to punch me again, is he?"

"Nope, just going to bash your head against the car. Maybe Will will grow a spine for once and fight back." Tom's impressions of Arress's host solidify into a translucent image of the red-headed human curled on the asphalt and doing absolutely nothing as his yeerk suffers the same slip of control as Temrash had only minutes ago. Disgusted certainty that the best Will would be capable of is staying out of Tom's way radiates through the connections between their minds.

"Go back to your stupor, human." The unnerving half-awareness of before was tolerable. Unnatural, especially for a host smarter than a gedd, but far more preferable than the rebellious twitch that half curls the body's lip in a snarl that Temrash, for once, isn't controlling.

"Fuck off and die." The comeback rushes ahead of the recollection of the car ride here, of the instance amid Arress's rambling where Temrash had winced at the sharp pain of the injury from the nightstand. The memory itself echoes Temrash's past thoughts, unguarded as they filtered into Tom's awareness.

The human was asleep! There had been no need to waste any energy on shielding what Temrash was thinking from a human who shouldn't have been able to absorb anything!

Buoyed by the yeerk's wave of indignation, Tom throws up a reconstruction of that moment when Temrash had first awakened. The boy has no actual memory of that instance, but the imagined crack of his head against the nightstand sends Temrash recoiling as the real pain from the injury flares up as if in response to Tom's construction.

Before Temrash can strike back at the human's daring, old knowledge reemerges. A half-remembered safety lesson during the first days of Tom's junior high basketball practices about concussions and what that means for what happens inside the human skull.

The fantasy of the actual brain squashing the extended, flattened slug against the unforgiving hardness of bone.

Tom's glee burns higher as Temrash's catches onto these thoughts, as his panic overcomes the neglected barrier between the yeerk's emotions and the human's awareness. He isn't hungry, they both know that. Each has their own reasons for keeping track of the feeding cycles down to the minutes. There would never be an error in this regard. Temrash is injured, hopefully dying Tom's hopes sing.

The pain that had been spiking through his temple, only a fraction of it had belong to Tom's body. The rest—The rest had been radiating from the yeerk's own form. He didn't notice it, not with how the pain receptors of the human are entwined into his own palps. The sensations of the host's always become an indistinguishable part of a yeerk's self. There would be almost no point in infestation if the sensory capabilities of the body were distinct and distant.

And that makes it easy, so very easy to lose track of the feelings coming from one's own body stretched out and integrated right into the rich flow of information from the host's nervous system.

From very far away, the school bell rings.

"Okey dokey, we now have ten minutes of sitting on asphalt with murderous yeerk/human before the rest of the stragglers are out of the halls. Okay." Arress mutters. His gaze is once again on the building.

There might not be ten minutes. Temrash's ability to control his host must have weakened considerably if the slip ups are now matching the symptoms of Kandrona starvation. Any second, the most crucial components of his control could snap, and then what? The human wouldn't get very far. Even when—not if—he manages to overpower Arress, the foolish boy would seek out his brother wherever he's hidden away in that school building. Every student controller that spotted the panicked human would know something is off. And even if the brothers made it back home, how many hours would Tom waste trying to find and convince his parents that the aliens were coming for them.

The entire family would be infested before the end of the day. The invasion's secrecy would be maintained even with the human's pathetic attempts to escape. And if the current injury itself isn't fatal to the yeerk, Temrash would be retrieved and returned to the Pool to heal.

Visser Three would be enraged.

Even a lieutenant, especially a lieutenant, could never get away with publicly humiliating the Visser in such a way. To be so weak-willed as to lose control of one's host, regardless of whatever excuse... He might not die. His service to the Visser has been superior to that of the other lieutenants, even those who have lasted longer than Temrash has. The Visser may not kill him if the situation remains contained on Earth and away from the awareness of the Council and his rival vissers.

The Visser has always been very good at making death preferable. With Tom's family infested, Temrash could disappear for a long, long time from human society without drawing notice.

Temrash staggers to his feet.

His body, his real body ripples. The pain spikes along his side, but he resists the urge to contract and instead slowly draws some of himself away from the unnecessary parts of the brain. The neural interface between his awareness and the human's sense of smell dissolves as Temrash ceases to produce the electric signals required for communication between his neurons and that particular batch of the host's. Control of the automatic breathing capabilities falls away next. The human can breathe on his own. If he can't, than he deserves to die while Temrash crawls out of his head and finds a more self-sufficient body.

The yeerk stays inside the human's head, though, as he oozes patches of his body over different folds of the brain to make up of the weakened control of his injured side. The tradeoffs won't stop the uncontrollable jolts of electric impulses coming from the dying cells nor will it prevent the slips of control that follow in the wake of those jolts. But...he should be capable of walking down the school corridors without Tom breaking loose.

He will be capable of walking down to the Pool without any of his brethren noticing his fading control.

"Hey, hey, wait is that you or—" Arress hovers several feet behind Temrash as he walks out of the space between the minivan and the other car and heads towards the school.

Temrash ignores him. Energy will not be wasted on speaking when Tom thrashes through every part of his body. Despite the human's best efforts, Temrash works up to a strong and steady stride that has Arress scrambling to catch up.

"I'm just going to assume it's you. Well, you could mean either of you, I'm assuming Tom would be trying to hit me again. So, Temrash, are we heading in already? There's always stragglers, so it might not be—"

Does this fool ever shut up?

"—the smartest thing to do. Or, you know what, we'll just look a little silly waiting in the hallway for everyone to finish rushing to class. No big deal."

The school door should have been designed to slam shut when Temrash lets go of it, not slowly swing and miss Arress who ducks past.

"No big deal at all—"

Tom howls the closer they get to the entrance of the Pool. Every fiber of the human lashes out, scraping over Temrash's hold and slamming into every limb. The face spasms, but no sound escapes while Temrash marches forward.

Down the last hall, the janitor's closest comes into sight. In minutes, only minutes, he'll be down past the school floor and in sight of safety.

Arress's words drown under the human's obscenity-filled roar that rages through Temrash's head. The pain spikes, the signals that the human tries to force past the yeerk's blocks overworking the already strained neural systems. Temrash staggers as nerves misfire, but his form ripples again as he changes the pattern of connections.

"Oh my, Will and Tom. What are you two boys doing out of class?"

An aging voice, familiar. A teacher, one of theirs, but not Iniss. Not one of the few yeerks that Temrash can allow weakness in front of. Bearing down on the most obvious tremors, he tries to straighten as casually as possible even as Tom tries to ruin him.

A solid hand rests on his shoulder.

"Tom?"

Distance becomes paramount. Temrash staggers several feet away before the half-seen face of the other person clears. A dark-skinned girl watches him with tears forming in her eyes. Her hand still outstretched to where his shoulder had been.

And then she sees him.

Dawning fear drains away those forming tears. Her hand drifts down while she stares right at Temrash and steps back. Her legs, far shorter than his, don't take her far enough away.

"Cassie?" Tom whispers, too dazed to respond when—

Temrash lunges forward. The girl's biceps crushed under his grip before she can even take one more step.

This girl, Cassie, a picture of her on Jake's desk fades in and out of focus. Rachel's little friend, mumbling and hiding behind Rachel as Tom's father enthusiastically hands out the chocolate coins of that Hanukkah. The gelt glitters golden in her open hand as she finally glances up and... The girl watches him, tired and afraid in that place, the place, the—

Temrash drags her forward and himself away from the thoughts that spiral down to nowhere. The girl pulls back, powerful enough to strain away from him as her arm slides inch by inch out of his grip. Until Arress snatches onto her other side and pulls her back to them.

She stares at Temrash without any confusion, only open terror that lacks any hint of pleading to be let go. The only words that escape her are "No, no, no, no," rushed out in a breathless voice. Her gaze tears away from Temrash and rivets itself to the janitorial door.

Temrash might not have been able to snatch the Tobias child and demand answers for why his mind bent to almost breaking in his presence, but this girl, alone, surround by his own, will not be allowed to slip away.

"Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing?! Let her go!" Tom's yells slam silently against the inside of his own head. But he is distracted, gone is the singular focus of fighting Temrash's control. Fear for his brother and cousin's friend drain away his strength. Pure confusion as to why is she here, what's she doing here? permeates Tom's thoughts. The boy is not a yeerk. He lacks the capabilities to divide his attention to so many useless thoughts while fighting for dominance of the body.

Despite the pulses of pain across the yeerk's side, it is easy for Temrash to drag the struggling girl into the closet. His grip stays strong as the girl tries to thrash her way out of the two controllers' hold.

Ms. Hana slips past them. Being the only one with free hands, she twists the faucet and then the second hook to the side of the sink. The wall before them opens.

The screams wash over them. From the cavern far below the flight of stairs, the shrieks of terror, the meaningless begging surge up into an indistinguishable cascade of noise that awaken Cassie's own voice.

The breathless "no's" rise in pitch, her voice grows loud enough to pierce Temrash's eardrums as he leads them all down the steps. In spite of the screaming girl's volume, the slosh of the Pool against its muddy banks float up to them as they descend. So many of his kind swim beneath its surface that he can hear the combined power of their movements even so far from the bottom of the stairs.

Time contracts again, but Temrash remains aware of every steep step down. Of every time the girl tries to yank out of his grip. Of the silent focus of his fellow yeerks as they take the girl across the cavern and to the pier that stretches out over the Pool. Grey-green fluid laps at the pier's supports as they travel over the metal platform and past the line full of controllers who look towards their group.

No protests are raised as Temrash cuts to the front of the line. They know who he is and who he serves.

Upon seeing him, the hork-bajir pause in their duties, and the controller who is next to exit their host backs away to give the group room. Temrash silently hands off the arm of the girl to the nearer guard and then goes over to the communication panel standing off to the side of the pier.

Running a finger across the bright green lights on the touchscreen, Temrash enters in his command code. Underneath the grey-green fluid, a set of sonar pulses emit from the pier. The Pool's surface almost reaches a state of complete stillness as the yeerks swimming beneath pause while they decode the pattern. Then, the ones swimming too close to the deinfestation pier clear out of the way. Throughout the Pool, the few feeding members of Visser Three's personal guard who are off-duty surge forth.

Just beneath the pier's ledge, the closest one's back breaches the surface to signal their presence to Temrash.

He turns, retaking the girl's arm from the hork-bajir and shoving her down to her knees. Her bristly hair prickles the palm of Temrash's hand as he shoves her head beneath the surface.