The 5th Wave (56 page)

SISSY PULLS AWAY, and I’m alone again.

When the moment comes to stop running from your past, to turn around and face the
thing you thought you could not face—the moment when your life teeters between giving
up and getting up—when that moment comes, and it always comes, if you can’t get up
and you can’t give up, either, here’s what you do:

Crawl.

Sliding forward on my stomach, I reach the intersection of the main corridor that
runs the length of the complex. Have to rest. Two minutes, no more. The emergency
lights flicker on. I know where I am now. Left to the air shaft, right to the central
command hub and the safe room.

Tick-tock. My two-minute break is over. I push myself to my feet using the wall for
support, and I nearly black out from the pain. Even if I grab Nugget without getting
grabbed myself, how will I get him out of here in this condition?

Plus I sincerely doubt there are any buses left. Or any Camp Haven, for that matter.
Once I grab him—
if
I grab him—where the hell are we going to go?

I shuffle down the corridor, keeping one hand on the wall to steady myself. Ahead,
I can hear someone shouting at the kids in the safe room, telling them to stay calm
and stay seated, everything was going to be okay and they were perfectly safe.

Tick-tock. Right before the final turn, I glance to my left and see something crumpled
against the wall: a human body.

A dead human body.

Still warm. Wearing a lieutenant’s uniform. Half its face blasted away by a high-caliber
bullet fired at close range.

Not a recruit. One of them. Has someone else figured out the truth here? Maybe.

Or maybe the dead guy was shot by a trigger-happy, jacked-up recruit, mistaking him
for a Ted.

No more wishful thinking, Parish.

I pull the sidearm from the dead man’s holster and slip it into the pocket of the
lab coat. Then I pull the surgical mask over my face.

Dr. Zombie, you’re wanted in the safe room, stat!

And there it is, straight ahead. A few more yards and I’m there.

I made it, Nugget. I’m here. Now you be here.

And it’s like he heard me, because there he is walking toward me, carrying—believe
it or not—a teddy bear.

Only he isn’t alone. There’s someone with him, a recruit around Dumbo’s age in a baggy
uniform and a cap pulled down low, the brim resting just above his eyes, carrying
an M16 with some kind of metal pipe attached to its barrel.

No time to think it through. Because faking my way through this one will take too
much time and rely too much on luck, and it isn’t about luck anymore. It’s about being
hardcore.

Because this is the last war, and only the hardcore will survive it.

Because of the step in the plan I skipped over. Because of Kistner.

I drop my hand into the coat pocket. I close the gap. Not yet, not yet. My wound throws
off my stride. I have to take him down with the first shot.

Yes, he’s a kid.

Yes, he’s innocent.

And, yes, he’s toast.

83

I WANT TO DRINK IN his sweet Sammy smell forever, but I can’t. The place is crawling
with armed soldiers, some of them Silencers—or anyway, not teens, so I have to assume
they’re Silencers. I lead Sammy over to a wall, putting a group of kids between us
and the nearest guard. I scrunch down as low as possible and whisper, “Are you okay?”

He nods. “I knew you’d come, Cassie.”

“I promised, right?”

He’s wearing a heart-shaped locket around his neck. What the heck? I touch it, and
he pulls back a little.

“Why are you dressed like that?” he asks.

“I’ll explain later.”

“You’re a soldier now, aren’t you? What squad are you in?”

Squad? “No squad,” I tell him. “I’m my own squad.”

He frowns. “You can’t be your own squad, Cassie.”

This isn’t really the time to get into the whole ridiculous squad thing. I glance
around the room. “Sam, we’re getting out of here.”

“I know. Major Bob says we’re going on a big plane.” He nods toward Major Bob, starts
to wave at him. I push his hand down.

“A big plane? When?”

He shrugs. “Soon.” He’s picked up Bear. Now he examines him, turning him over in his
hands. “His ear’s ripped,” he points out accusingly, like I’ve shirked my duty.

“Tonight?” I ask. “Sam, this is important. You’re flying out tonight?”

“That’s what Major Bob said. He said they’re vaculating all nonessentials.”

“Vaculating? Oh. Okay, so they’re evacuating the kids.” My mind is racing, trying
to work through it. Is that the way out? Just stroll on board with the others and
take our chances when we land—wherever we land? God, why did I ditch the white jumpsuit?
But even if I kept it and was able to sneak onto the plane, that wasn’t the plan.

There’s going to be escape pods somewhere on the base—probably near the command center
or Vosch’s quarters. Basically they’re one-man rockets, preprogrammed to land you
safely at some spot far from the base. Don’t ask me where. But the pods are your best
bet—not human technology, but I’ll explain how you operate one. If you can find one,
and if both of you can fit in one, and if you live long enough to find one to fit
in.

That’s a lot of
if
s. Maybe I should beat up a kid my size and take her jumpsuit.

“How long have you been here, Cassie?” Sam asks. I think he suspects I’ve been avoiding
him, maybe because I let Bear’s ear get torn.

“Longer than I wanted to be,” I mutter, and that decides it: We’re not staying here
a minute longer than we have to, and we’re not taking some one-way flight to Camp
Haven II. I’m not trading one death camp for another.

He’s playing with Bear’s torn ear. Not his first injury by a long shot. I’ve lost
count of how many times Mom had to patch him up. He has more stitches in him than
Frankenstein. I lean over to get Sammy’s attention, and that’s when he looks right
at me and asks, “Where’s Daddy?”

My mouth moves, but no sound comes out. I hadn’t even thought about telling him—or
how to tell him.

“Dad? Oh, he’s…”
No, Cassie. Don’t get complicated.
I don’t want him having a meltdown right as we’re preparing to make our getaway.
I decide to let Dad live a little longer.

“He’s waiting for us back at Camp Ashpit.”

His lower lip starts to quiver. “Daddy isn’t here?”

“Daddy is busy,” I say, hoping to shut him down, and I feel like crap doing it. “That’s
why he sent me. To get you. And that’s what I’m doing, right now, getting you.”

I pull him to his feet. He goes, “But what about the plane?”

“You’ve been bumped.” He gives me a puzzled look:
Bumped?
“Let’s go.”

I grab his hand and head for the tunnel, keeping my shoulders back and my head up,
because skulking toward the nearest exit like Shaggy and Scooby tinkle-toeing is sure
to draw attention. I even bark at some kids to get out of the way. If someone tries
to stop us, I won’t shoot them. I’ll explain that the kid is sick and I’m getting
him to a doctor before he pukes all over himself and everybody else. If they don’t
buy my story, then I shoot them.

And then we’re in the tunnel and, incredibly, there is a doctor walking straight at
us, half his face hidden behind a surgical mask. His eyes widen when he sees us, and
there goes my clever cover story, which means if he stops us I’ll have to shoot him.
As we draw closer, I see him casually drop his hand into the pocket of his white coat,
and the alarm sounds inside my head, the same alarm that went off in the convenience
store behind the beer coolers right before I pumped an entire clip into a crucifix-holding
soldier.

I have one half of one half second to decide.

This is the first rule of the last war: Trust no one.

I level the silencer at his chest as his hand emerges from the pocket.

The hand that holds a gun.

But my hand holds an M16 assault rifle.

How long is one half of one half second?

Long enough for a little boy who doesn’t know the first rule to leap between the gun
and the rifle.

“Sammy!” I yell, pulling up the shot. My little brother hops onto his toes; his fingers
tear at the doctor’s mask and yank it down.

I’d hate to see the look on my face when that mask came down and I saw the face behind
it. Thinner than I remember. Paler. The eyes sunk deep into their sockets, kind of
glazed over, like he’s sick or hurt, but I recognize it, I know whose face was hidden
behind that mask. I just can’t process it.

Here, in this place. A thousand years later and a million miles from the halls of
George Barnard High School. Here, in the belly of the beast at the bottom of the world,
standing right in front of me.

Benjamin Thomas Parish.

And Cassiopeia Marie Sullivan, having a full-bore out-of-body experience, seeing herself
seeing him. The last time she saw him was in their high school gymnasium after the
lights went out, and then only the back of his head, and the only times that she’s
seen him since happened in her mind, the rational part of which always knew Ben Parish
was dead like everyone else.

“Zombie!” Sammy calls. “I knew it was you.”

Zombie?

“Where are you taking him?” Ben says to me in a deep voice. I don’t remember it being
that deep. Is my memory bad or is he lowering it on purpose, to sound older?

“Zombie, that’s Cassie,” Sam chides him. “You know—Cassie.”

“Cassie?” Like he’s never heard the name before.

“Zombie?” I say, because I really haven’t heard that name before.

I pull off the cap, thinking it might help him recognize me, then immediately regret
it. I know what my hair must look like.

“We go to the same high school,” I say, drawing my fingers hastily through my chopped-off
locks. “I sit in front of you in Honors Chemistry.”

Ben shakes his head like he’s clearing out the cobwebs.

Sammy goes, “I told you she was coming.”

“Quiet, Sam,” I scold him.

“Sam?” Ben asks.

“My name is Nugget now, Cassie,” Sam informs me.

“Well, sure it is.” I turn to Ben. “You know my brother.”

Ben nods carefully. I still don’t get his attitude. Not that I expect him to throw
his arms around me or even remember me from chemistry class, but his voice is tight,
and he’s still holding the gun by his side.

“Why are you dressed like a doctor?” Sammy asks.

Ben like a doctor. Me like a soldier. Like two kids playing dress-up. A fake doctor
and a fake soldier debating with themselves whether to blow the other one’s brains
out.

Those first few moments between me and Ben Parish were very strange.

“I came to get you out of here,” Ben says to Sam, still looking at me.

Sam glances over at me. Isn’t that why I came? Now he’s really confused.

“You’re not taking my brother anywhere,” I say.

“It’s a lie,” Ben blurts out at me. “Vosch is one of them. They’re using us to kill
off the survivors, to kill each other…”

“I know that,” I snap. “How do
you
know that, and what does that have to do with taking Sam?”