The 5th Wave (55 page)

Back to the ductwork, and I’m debating whether to attempt it, weighed down as I am
with twenty or so extra pounds, or take my chances in the corridors. What good is
a disguise if you’re going
all stealthy with it? I turn around and head toward the door, and that’s when the
siren cuts off and silence slams down.

I don’t take that as a good sign.

It also occurs to me that being in an armory full of green bombs—one of which can
level a square mile—while a dozen or so of their closest friends are being set off
upstairs might not be such a good idea.

I haul ass for the door, but I don’t make it before the first Eye goes. The entire
room jiggles. Only a few feet left, and the next Eye blinks its last blink, and this
one must be closer, because dust rains down from the ceiling, and the duct at the
other end snaps free of its supports and comes crashing down.

Um, Voschy, that was kind of close, don’t you think?

I push through the door. No time to scout the territory. The more distance I can put
between me and the remaining Eyes, the better. I sprint under the swirling red lights,
turning down hallways at random, trying not to think anything through, just going
on instinct and luck.

Another explosion. The walls tremble. The dust falls. From above the sound of the
buildings being ripped and shredded down to their last nails. And here below, the
screaming of terrified children.

I follow the screams.

Sometimes I make a wrong turn and the cries grow fainter. I backtrack, then try the
next corridor. This place is like a maze, and me the lab rat.

The booming from above has stopped, at least for the moment, and I slow to a trot,
gripping the rifle hard with both hands, trying one passage, backtracking when the
crying fades, moving on again.

I hear Major Bob’s voice on a bullhorn bouncing along the walls, coming from everywhere
and nowhere.

“Okay, I want you all to stay seated with your group leader! Everybody quiet down
and listen to me! Stay with your group leaders!”

I turn a corner and see a squad of soldiers running right at me. Teenagers, mostly.
I throw myself against the wall, and they rush past me without even glancing in my
direction. Why would they notice me? I’m just another recruit on her way to battle
the alien horde.

They turn a corner, and I’m moving again. I can hear the kids jabbering and whimpering,
despite Major Bob’s scolding, around the next bend.

Almost there, Sam. Now you be there.

“Halt!”

Shouted from behind me. Not a kid’s voice. I stop. Square my shoulders. Stay still.

“Where’s your duty station, soldier? Soldier, I’m talking to you!”

“Ordered to guard the children, sir!” I say in the deepest voice I can muster.

“Turn around! Look at me when you address me, soldier.”

I sigh. Turn. He’s in his midtwenties, not bad looking, an all-American-boy type.
I don’t know military insignia, but I think he might be an officer.

To be absolutely safe, anyone over eighteen is suspect. There may be some human adults
in positions of authority, but knowing Vosch, I doubt it. So if it’s an adult, and
especially if it’s an officer, I think you can assume they are not human.

“What’s your number?” he barks.

My number? I blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. “Tee-sixty-two, sir!”

He gives me a puzzled look. “Tee-sixty-two? Are you sure?”

“Yes sir, sir!”
Sir, sir? Oh God, Cassie.

“Why aren’t you with your unit?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, and good thing, because nothing is really coming to
mind. He steps forward and looks me up and down, and clearly I’m not in regulation.
Officer Alien does not like what he sees.

“Where’s your name tag, soldier? And what are you doing with a suppressor on your
weapon? And what is this?”

He pulls on the bulging leather satchel holding Bear.

I pull back. The satchel pops open and I’m busted. “It’s a teddy bear, sir.”

“A what?”

He stares down at my upturned face and something crosses over his as the lightbulb
comes on and he realizes who he’s looking at. His right hand flies toward his sidearm,
but that’s a really dumb move when all he had to do was lay his fist upside my teddy-bear-toting
head. I swing the silencer in a slicing arc, stopping it an inch from his boyish good
looks, and pull the trigger.

Now you’ve done it, Cassie. Blown the one chance you had, and you were so close.

I can’t just leave Officer Alien where he fell. They might miss all the blood in the
hurly-burly of battle, and it’s nearly invisible anyway in the spinning red light,
but not the body. What am I going to do with the body?

I’m close, so close, and I’m not going to let some dead guy keep me from Sammy. I
grab him by the ankles and drag him back down the corridor, into another passageway,
around another corner, and then drop him. He’s heavier than he looks. I take a moment
to stretch out the kink in my lower back before hurrying away. Now if someone stops
me before I can reach the safe room,
my plan is to say whatever is necessary to avoid killing again. Unless I’m given no
choice. And then I will kill again.

Evan was right: It does get a little easier each time.

The room is packed with kids. Hundreds of kids. Dressed in identical white jumpsuits.
Sitting in big groups spread over an area about the size of a high school gymnasium.
They’ve quieted down some. Maybe I should just shout out Sam’s name or borrow Major
Bob’s bullhorn. I pick my way through the room, lifting my boots high to avoid stepping
on any little fingers or toes.

So many faces. They begin to blur together. The room expands, explodes past the walls,
extending to infinity, filled with billions of little upturned faces, and oh those
bastards, those bastards, what have they done? In my tent I cried for myself and the
silly, stupid life that had been taken from me. Now I beg forgiveness from the infinite
sea of upturned faces.

I’m still stumbling around like a zombie when I hear a little voice calling my name.
Coming from a group I had just passed, and it’s funny he recognized me and not the
other way around. I go still. I do not turn. I close my eyes, but can’t bring myself
to turn around.

“Cassie?”

I lower my head. There is a lump the size of Texas caught in my throat. And then I
turn and he’s staring at me with something like fear, like this might be the last
straw, seeing a dead ringer for his sister tiptoeing around dressed up like a soldier.
Like he’s reached the outer limits of the Others’ cruelty.

I kneel in front of my brother. He doesn’t rush into my arms. He stares at my tear-streaked
face and brings his fingers to my wet cheek. Across my nose, forehead, chin, over
my fluttering eyelids.

“Cassie?”

Is it okay now? Can he believe? If the world breaks a million and one promises, can
you trust the million and second?

“Hey, Sams.”

He cocks his head slightly. I must sound funny to him with the bloated tongue. I fumble
with the clasp of the leather satchel.

“I, um, I thought you might want this back.”

I pull out the battered old teddy bear and hold it toward him. He frowns and shakes
his head and doesn’t reach for it, and I feel like he’s punched me in the gut.

Then my baby brother slaps that damned bear out of my hand and crushes his face against
my chest, and beneath the odors of sweat and strong soap I can smell it, his smell,
Sammy’s, my brother’s.

81

THE GREEN EYE looked at me and I looked back at it, and I don’t remember what snatched
me back from the edge between the blinking eye and what came next.

My first clear memory? Running.

Lobby. Stairwell. Basement level. First landing. Second landing.

When I hit the third landing, the concussion of the blast slams into my back like
a wrecking ball, hurling me down the stairs and into the door that opens to the bomb
shelter.

Above me, the hospital screams as it’s torn apart. That’s what it sounds like: a living
thing screaming as it’s being ripped to pieces. The thunderous crack of mortar and
stone shattering. The screech of nails snapping and the shriek of two hundred windows
exploding. The floor buckles, splits open. I dive headfirst into the hallway of reinforced
concrete as the building above me disintegrates.

The lights flicker once, and then the corridor plunges into darkness. I’ve never been
to this part of the complex, but I don’t need the luminescent arrows on the walls
to show me the way to the safe room. All I have to do is follow the terrified screams
of the children.

But first it would be helpful to stand.

The fall has completely torn open the sutures; I’m bleeding heavily now, from both
wounds: where Ringer’s bullet went in
and where it came out. I try to stand up. I give it my best shot, but my legs won’t
hold me up. I get halfway up and then down again I go, head spinning, gasping for
air.

A second explosion knocks me flat out on the floor. I manage to crawl a few inches
before a third blast knocks me down again. Damn it, what are you doing up there, Vosch?

If it is too late, we’ll have no choice but to execute the option of last resort.

Well, guess that particular mystery is solved. Vosch is blowing up his own base. Destroying
the village in order to save it. But save it from what? Unless it isn’t Vosch. Maybe
Ringer and I are totally wrong. Maybe I’m risking my life and Nugget’s for nothing.
Camp Haven is what Vosch says it is and that means Ringer walked into a camp of infesteds
with her guard down. Ringer is dead. Ringer and Dumbo and Poundcake and little Teacup.
Christ, have I done it again? Run when I should have stayed? Turned my back when I
should have fought?

The next explosion is the worst. It hits directly overhead. I cover my head with both
arms as chunks of concrete as big as my fist rain down. The concussions from the bombs,
the drug lingering in my system, the loss of blood, the darkness…all of it conspires
to pin me down. From a distance, I can hear someone screaming—and then I realize that
it’s me.

You have to get up. You have to get up. You have to keep your promise to Sissy…

No. Not Sissy. Sissy’s dead. You left her behind, you stinking bag of regurgitated
puke.

Damn, it hurts. The pain of the wounds that bleed and the pain of the old wound that
will not heal.

Sissy, with me in the dark.

I can see her hand reaching for me in the dark.

I’m here, Sissy. Take my hand.

Reaching for her in the dark.

82