The 5th Wave

20

MY TURN.

The girl wearing the backpack and carrying the ridiculous teddy bear, standing just a couple of yards behind him.

The soldier pivoted, arm extended. My memory’s a little fuzzy about this next part. I don’t remember dropping the bear or yanking the gun from my back pocket. I don’t even remember pulling the trigger.

The next clear memory I have is of the black visor shattering.

And the soldier falling to his knees in front of me.

And seeing his eyes.

His three eyes.

Well, of course I realized later he didn’t really have three eyes. The one in the middle was the blackened entry wound of the bullet.

It must have shocked him to turn around and see a gun pointed at his face. It made him hesitate. How long? A second? Less than a second? But in that millisecond, eternity coiled on itself like a giant anaconda. If you’ve ever been through a traumatic accident, you know what I’m talking about. How long does a car crash last? Ten seconds? Five? It doesn’t feel that short if you’re in it. It feels like a lifetime.

He pitched over face-first into the dirt. There was no question I’d wasted him. My bullet had blasted a pie plate–sized hole in the back of his head.

But I didn’t lower the gun. I kept it pointed at his half head as I backed toward the trail.

Then I turned and ran like hell.

In the wrong direction.

Toward the compound.

Not smart. But I wasn’t thinking at that point. I’m only sixteen, and this was the first person I’d shot point- blank in the face. I was having trouble dealing.

I just wanted to get back to Dad.

Dad would fix this.

Because that’s what dads do. They fix things.

My mind didn’t register the sounds at first. The woods echoed with the staccato bursts of automatic weapons and people screaming, but it wasn’t computing, like Crisco’s head snapping back and the way he flopped into the gray dust like every bone in his body had suddenly turned into Jell-O, the way his killer had swung around in a perfectly executed pirouette with the barrel of the gun flashing in the sunlight.

The world was ripping apart. And pieces of the wreckage were raining all around me.

It was the beginning of the 4th Wave.

I skittered to a stop before reaching the compound. The hot smell of gunpowder. Wisps of smoke curling out of the barrack windows. There was a person crawling toward the storage shed.

It was my father.

His back was arched. His face was covered in dirt and blood. The ground behind my father was pockmarked with my father’s blood.

He looked over as I came out of the trees.

No, Cassie, he mouthed. Then his arms gave out. He toppled over, lay still.

A soldier emerged from the barracks. He strolled over to my father. Easy, catlike grace, shoulders relaxed, arms loose at his sides.

I backed into the trees. I raised the gun. But I was over a hundred feet away. If I missed…

It was Vosch. He seemed even taller standing over the crumpled form of my father. Dad wasn’t moving. I think he was playing dead.

It didn’t matter.

Vosch shot him anyway.

I don’t remember making any noise when he pulled the trigger. But I must have done something to set off Vosch’s Spidey sense. The black mask whipped around, sunlight flashing off the visor. He held up his index finger toward two soldiers coming out of the barracks, then jabbed his thumb in my direction.

First priority.

21

THEY TOOK OFF toward me like a couple of cheetahs. That’s how fast they seemed to move. I’d never seen anyone run that fast in my life. The only thing that comes close is a scared-shitless girl who’s just seen her father murdered in the dirt.

Leaf, branch, vine, bramble. The rush of air in my ears. The rapid-fire scuffscuffscuff of my shoes on the trail.

Shards of blue sky through the canopy, blades of sunlight impaling the shattered earth. The ripped-apart world careened.

I slowed as I neared the spot where I’d hidden my father’s last present to me. Mistake. The high-caliber rounds smacked into the tree trunk two inches from my ear. The impact sent fragments of pulverized wood into my face. Tiny, hair-thin slivers embedded themselves in my cheek.

Do you know how to tell who the enemy is, Cassie?

I couldn’t outrun them.

I couldn’t outgun them.

Maybe I could outsmart them.

22

THEY ENTERED THE CLEARING, and the first thing they saw was the body of Corporal Branch, or whatever it was that called itself Corporal Branch.

“There’s one over there,” I heard one say.

The crunch of heavy boots in a bowlful of brittle bones.

“Dead.”

The cackle of a static frequency, then: “Colonel, we’ve got Branch and one unidentified civilian. That’s a negative, sir. Branch is KIA, repeat Branch is KIA.” Now he spoke to his buddy, the one standing by Crisco. “Vosch wants us back ASAP.”

Crunch-crunch said the bones as he heaved himself out of the pit.

“She ditched this.”

My backpack. I tried to throw it into the woods, as far away from the pit as I could. But it hit a tree and landed just inside the far edge of the clearing.

“Strange,” the voice said.

“It’s okay,” his buddy said. “The Eye will take care of her.”

The Eye?

Their voices faded. The sound of the woods at peace returned. A whisper of wind. The warble of birds. Somewhere in the brush a squirrel fussed.

Still, I didn’t move. Each time the urge to run started to rise up in me, I squashed it down.

No hurry now, Cassie. They’ve done what they’ve come to do. You have to stay here till dark. Don’t move!

So I didn’t. I lay still inside the bed of dust and bones, covered by the ashes of their victims, the Others’ bitter harvest.

And I tried not to think about it.