The 5th Wave (58 page)

“Won’t downloading me tell you that?” I ask. While I’m thinking,
Evan is alive!
And then I think,
No, maybe he isn’t.
He could have been killed in the bombing, vaporized like everything else on the surface.
It could be that Vosch, like me, doesn’t know whether Evan’s alive or dead.

“Because someone helped you,” Vosch says, ignoring my question. “And I suspect that
someone is not someone like Mr. Parish here. He—or they—would be someone more like…well,
me. Someone who would know how to defeat the Wonderland program by hiding your true
memories, the same method we have used for centuries to hide ourselves from you.”

I’m shaking my head. I have no idea what he’s talking about. True memories?

“Birds are the most common,” Vosch says. He’s absently running his finger over the
button marked
EXECUTE
. “Owls. During
the initial phase, when we were inserting ourselves into you, we often used the screen
memory of an owl to hide the fact from the expectant mother.”

“I hate birds,” I whisper.

Vosch smiles. “The most useful of this planet’s indigenous fauna. Diverse. Considered
benign, for the most part. So ubiquitous they’re practically invisible. Did you know
they’re descended from the dinosaurs? There’s a very satisfying irony in that. The
dinosaurs made way for you, and now, with the help of their descendants, you will
make way for us.”

“No one helped me!” I screech, cutting off the lecture. “I did it all myself!”

“Really? Then how is it, at the precise moment you were killing Dr. Pam in Hangar
One, two of our sentries were shot, another eviscerated, and a fourth hurled a hundred
feet down from his post on the south watchtower?”

“I don’t know anything about that. I just came to find my brother.”

His face darkens. “There really is no hope, you know. All your daydreams and childish
fantasies about defeating us—useless.”

I open my mouth and the words come out. They just come out.

“Fuck you.”

And his finger comes down hard on the button, like he hates it, like the button has
a face and its face is a human face, the face of the sentient cockroach, and his finger
the boot, stomping down.

86

I DON’T KNOW what I did first. I think I screamed. I know I also ripped free from
the Silencer’s grip and lunged at Vosch with the intention of tearing his eyeballs
out. But I don’t remember which came first, the scream or the lunge. Ben throwing
his arms around me to hold me back, I know that came after the scream and the lunge.
He threw his arms around me and pulled me back because I was focused on Vosch, on
my hate. I didn’t even look through the mirror at my brother, but Ben had been looking
at the monitor and the word that popped up when Vosch hit the execute button:

OOPS.

I whip around to the mirror. Sammy is still alive—crying buckets, but alive. Beside
me, Vosch stands up so fast, the chair flies across the room and smacks against the
wall.

“He’s hacked into the mainframe and overwritten the program,” he snarls at the Silencer.
“He’ll cut the power next. Hold them here.” He yells at the man standing beside Sammy.
“Secure that door! No one leaves until I get back.”

He slams out of the room. The lock clicks. No way out now. Or there is a way, the
way I took the first time I was trapped in this room. I glance up at the grating.
Forget it, Cassie. It’s you and Ben against two Silencers, and Ben’s hurt. Don’t even
think about it.

No. It’s me and Ben and
Evan
against the Silencers. Evan is alive. And if Evan’s alive, we haven’t reached the
end—the bottom of the human cup. The boot hasn’t crushed the roach. Not yet.

And that’s when I see it drop between the slats and tumble
onto the floor, the body of a real cockroach, freshly squashed. I watch it fall in
slow motion, so slow I can see the tiny bounce when it hits the floor.

You want to compare yourself to an insect, Cassie?

My eyes fly back to the grate, where a shadow flickers, like the flurry of a mayfly’s
wings.

And I whisper to Ben Parish, “The one with Sammy—he’s mine.”

Startled, Ben whispers back to me, “What?”

I drive my shoulder into our Silencer’s gut, catching him off guard, and he stumbles
backward beneath the grate, his arms flailing for balance, and Evan’s bullet tears
into his fully human brain, killing him instantly. I have his gun before he hits the
floor, and I have one chance, one shot through the hole I had made earlier. If I miss,
Sammy is dead—his Silencer is turning on him even as I turn on him.

But I had an excellent instructor. One of the best marksmen in the world—even when
there were seven billion people in it.

It isn’t exactly like shooting a can from a fence post.

It’s actually a lot easier: His head is closer and a heck of a lot bigger.

Sammy is halfway to me before the guy’s body hits the floor. I pull him through the
hole. Ben is looking at us, at the dead Silencer, at the other dead Silencer, at the
gun in my hand. He doesn’t know what to look at. I’m looking up at the grate.

“We’re clear!” I call up to him.

He knocks once against the side. I don’t get it at first, and then I laugh.

Let’s establish a code for when you want to go all creeper on me. One knock means
you’d like to come in.

“Yes, Evan.” I’m laughing so hard, it’s starting to hurt. “You
can come in.” I’m about to pee myself with relief that we’re all alive, but mostly
because he is.

He drops into the room, landing on the balls of his feet like a cat. I’m in his arms
in the time it takes to say “I love you,” which he does, stroking my hair, whispering
my name and the words, “My mayfly.”

“How did you find us?” I ask him. He’s so completely with me, so there, it’s like
I’m seeing his yummy chocolate eyes for the first time, feeling his strong arms and
his soft lips for the first time.

“Easy. Somebody was up there ahead of me and left a blood trail.”

“Cassie?”

It’s Sammy, holding on to Ben, because he’s feeling the Ben thing a little more than
he is the Cassie one at the moment.
Who’s this guy falling from the ductwork, and what’s he doing with my sister?

“This must be Sammy,” Evan says.

“This is Sammy,” I say. “Oh! And this is—”

“Ben Parish,” Ben says.

“Ben Parish?” Evan looks at me.
That Ben Parish?

“Ben,” I say, my face on fire. I want to laugh and crawl under the counter at the
same time. “This is Evan Walker.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” Sammy asks.

I don’t know what to say. Ben looks totally lost, Evan completely amused, and Sammy
just damned curious. It’s my first truly awkward moment in the alien lair, and I’d
been through my share of moments.

“He’s a friend from high school,” I mutter.

And Evan corrects me, since it’s clear I’ve lost my mind. “Actually, Sam, Ben is Cassie’s
friend from high school.”

“She’s not my friend,” Ben says. “I mean, I guess I kind of
remember her…” Then Evan’s words sink in. “How do you know who I am?”

“He doesn’t!” I fairly shout.

“Cassie told me about you,” Evan says. I elbow him in the ribs, and he gives me a
look like
What?

“Maybe we can chat about how everybody knows one another later,” I plead with Evan.
“Right now don’t you think it would be a good idea for us to leave?”

“Right.” Evan nods. “Let’s go.” He looks at Ben. “You’re injured.”

Ben shrugs. “A couple of torn stitches. I’m okay.”

I slip the Silencer’s gun into my empty holster, realize Ben will need a weapon, and
pop through the hole in the mirror to fetch it. They’re all still just standing around
when I get back, Ben and Evan smiling at each other—knowingly, in my opinion.

“What are we standing around for?” I ask, my voice harsher than I’d intended. I scoot
the chair beside the Silencer’s body and motion toward the grate. “Evan, you should
take point.”

“We’re not going that way,” Evan says back. He takes a key card from the Silencer’s
pouch and swipes it through the door lock. The light flashes green.

“We’re walking out?” I ask. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Evan answers.

He checks out the corridor first, then motions for us to follow, and we step out of
the execution room. The door locks behind us. The hallway is eerily quiet, feels deserted.

“He said you were going to cut the power,” I whisper, pulling the gun from my holster.

Evan holds up a silver object that looks like a flip phone.

“I am. Right now.”

He hits a button, and the corridor plunges into darkness. I can’t see anything. My
free hand shoots into the dark, searching for Sammy’s. I find Ben’s instead. He grips
my hand hard before letting it go. Little fingers tug at my pant leg and I pull them
up, hook one through my belt loop.

“Ben, hold on to me,” Evan says softly. “Cassie, hold on to Ben. It isn’t far.”

I expect a slow shuffle of this rumba line through the pitch dark, but we take off
fast, nearly tripping over one another’s heels. He must be able to see in the dark,
another catlike quality. We don’t go very far before we’re clustered around a door.
At least I think it’s a door. It’s smooth, not like the textured cinder-block walls.
Someone—it has to be Evan—pushes against the smooth surface and there’s a puff of
fresh, cold air.

“Stairs?” I whisper. I’m completely blind and disoriented, but I think these might
be the same stairs I came down when I first got here.

“Halfway up you’re going to hit some debris,” Evan says. “But you should be able to
squeeze through. Be careful; it might be a little unstable. When you get to the top,
head due north. Do you know which way is north?”

Ben says, “I do. Or at least I know how to figure it out.”

“What do you mean, when we get to the top?” I demand. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

I feel his hand on my cheek. I know what this means and I slap his hand away.

“You’re coming with us, Evan,” I say.

“There’s something I have to do.”

“That’s right.” My hand flails for his in the dark. I find it and pull hard. “You
have to come with us.”

“I’ll find you, Cassie. Don’t I always find you? I—”

“Don’t, Evan. You don’t know you’ll be able to find me.”

“Cassie.” I don’t like the way he says my name. His voice is too soft, too sad, too
much like a good-bye voice. “I was wrong when I said I was both and neither. I can’t
be; I know that now. I have to choose.”

“Wait a minute,” Ben says. “Cassie, this guy is one of them?”

“It’s complicated,” I answer. “We’ll go over it later.” I grab Evan’s hand in both
of mine and press it against my chest. “Don’t leave me again.”

“You left
me
, remember?” He spreads his fingers over my heart, like he’s holding it, like it belongs
to him, the hard-fought-for territory he’s won fair and square.

I give in. What am I going to do, put a gun to his head?
He’s gotten this far,
I tell myself.
He’ll get the rest of the way.

“What’s due north?” I ask, pushing against his fingers.

“I don’t know. But it’s the shortest path to the farthest spot.”

“The farthest spot from what?”

“From here. Wait for the plane. When the plane takes off, run. Ben, do you think you
can run?”

“I think so.”

“Run fast?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t sound too confident about it, though.

“Wait for the plane,” Evan whispers. “Don’t forget.”

He kisses me hard on the mouth, and then the stairwell goes all Evanless. I can feel
Ben’s breath on my neck, hot in the cool air.

“I don’t understand what’s happening here,” Ben says. “Who is that guy? He’s a…What
is he? Where’d he come from? And where’s he going now?”

“I’m not sure, but I think he’s found the armory.”

Somebody was up there ahead of me and left a blood trail.

Oh God, Evan. No wonder you didn’t tell me.