Rachel fell to her knees and came face to face with Tobias. She didn't care about the thud, or about the volume of her voice anymore. She rose her voice, but didn't yell, "No. You get this straight Tobias. You are not a hawk, you are human. You may have a hawk's body, and you may feel the instinct of a hawk, but you are not a hawk. You have emotions, you have guilt, joy. You can appreciate the morning sunrise, you can lose yourself in the sounds of a symphony. You friends that...care... about you, that... need you. Hawks don't have those things, you do.
"You can't find yourself by isolating yourself, Tobias. You can only lose yourself that way. You need to be around those that," she swallows her next word and finds a replacement, "care about you. It's your friends that define who you are. It's the shared experiences that keep you who you are. Leaving us behind will only cause you to forget that. Isolating yourself will only make you forget what it is to be human. You are a human, there's nothing you can do to change that."
Jake heard the thud of Rachel's fall and his head snapped up to the ceiling. He went into the living room next to Ax and said to Cassie, "We should check on Rachel."
