“Good enough for me,” Ben announced. He backed into the room. “Change of plans, boys. I’ll handle Poundcake. Dumbo, you take Megan. Sullivan’s got her brother. Drop your trunk and grab your junk, we’re goin’ to a party!”
“Cassie.” Evan scooted beside me. He turned my face toward his, ran his thumb over my bloody cheek. “It’s the only way.”
“I’m not leaving you, Evan. And I’m not letting you leave me. Not again.”
“And Sam? You made a promise to him, too. You can’t keep both. Grace is my problem. She . . . she belongs to me. Not the way that Sam belongs to you; I don’t mean that . . .”
“Really? I’m surprised, Evan. You’re usually so clear about everything.”
I sat up, took a deep breath, and slapped his beautiful face. I could have shot him but decided to let him off easy.
And that’s when we heard it, like the slap was the signal it had been waiting for: the sound of an attack helicopter, coming in fast.
THE SPOTLIGHT HIT NEXT: Brilliant bright light flooded the hall, poured into the room, flung hard-edged shadows against the walls and floor. Ben raced over and yanked me to my feet; I grabbed Evan’s arm and tugged. He pulled free, shaking his head.
“Just leave a gun with me.”
“You got it, pal,” Ben said, handing over his sidearm. “Sullivan, get your brother.”
“What’s the matter with you guys?” I said. I couldn’t believe it. “We can’t run now.”
“What’s your plan?” Ben shouted. He had to shout. The roar of the chopper smashed down anything softer—by the angle of light and the sound, directly over the hotel now.
Evan wrapped his fingers around the splintered doorjamb and heaved himself to his feet—or to his foot; he couldn’t put any weight on the other one. I shouted in his ear, “Just tell me one thing, and for once in your ten-thousand-year-old life be honest. You never intended to rig a bomb and escape with us. You knew Grace was coming and you were planning to blow both of—”
At that moment, Sammy banged out of his room, one hand locked around Megan’s wrist. At some point, the little girl had acquired Bear. Sams probably gave it to her—he was always passing that bear to someone in need. “Cassie!” He barreled into me, hitting me hard in the gut with his head. I hauled him onto my hip, swayed, Jesus, he’s getting heavy, and grabbed Megan’s hand.
A maelstrom of icy wind roared through the broken window, and I heard Dumbo scream, “They’re landing on the roof!”
I heard him because he was practically climbing into my back pocket trying to get into the hall. Ben was right behind him, Poundcake leaning against his side, the big kid’s arm draped around his shoulder.
“Sullivan!” Ben shouted. “Move it!”
Evan locked his fingers around my elbow. “Wait.” He looked up at the ceiling. His lips moved soundlessly, or maybe there was sound and I just couldn’t hear it.
“Wait?” I hollered. The general sense of panic had become quite specific. “Wait for what?”
Eyes still heavenward: “Grace.”
A banshee howl rose over the thrumming of the rotors, increasing in volume and pitch until it became an ear-piercing, unearthly scream. The whole building shook. A crack raced down the ceiling. The horrible hotel prints in their cheap frames toppled from the walls. The spotlight winked out, and a second later, the explosion, and a superheated blast of air rumbled into the room.
“She got the pilot,” Evan said with a nod. He pulled me, Sams, and Megan into the hall and said over his shoulder to Ben, “Now you go.” Then to me: “The house on the map. It’s Grace’s now, but it won’t be after tonight. Don’t leave it. There’s food and water and plenty of supplies to last through the winter.” Speaking very quickly now, almost out of time—the 5th Wave might not be coming, but Grace was. “You’ll be safe there, Cassie. At the equinox . . .”
Ben, Dumbo, and Poundcake had reached the stairs. Ben was frantically waving at us, Come on!
“Cassie! Are you listening? At the equinox, the mothership will send a pod to extract Grace from the safe house . . .”
“Sullivan! Now!” Ben bellowed.
“If you can figure out a way to rig it . . .” He was pressing something into my stomach, but my hands were full. I watched wide-eyed as my little brother snatched the plastic baggie holding the bomb from Evan’s hand.
Then Evan Walker cupped my face in his hands and kissed me hard on the mouth.
“You can end it, Cassie. You. And that’s the way it should be. It should be you. You.”
Kissing me again, and my blood marking his face, his tears marking mine.
“I can’t make any promises this time,” he hurried on. “But you can. Promise me, Cassie. Promise me you’ll end it.”
I nodded. “I’ll end it.” And the promise a sentence handed down, a cell door slamming shut, a stone around my neck to carry me down to the bottom of an infinite sea.
I PAUSED FOR a half second at the stairway door, knowing I might be seeing him for the last time or, more accurately, for the second last time. Then the plunge into pitch dark, not unlike the first last time, and whispering to Megan to watch out for rat guts, and then into the lobby, where the boys who brought me to this party hung by the front doors, their bodies silhouetted in the dusky orange glow of the burning chopper. Fleeing through the main entrance was a brilliantly counterintuitive move, I thought. Grace probably assumed we were barricaded in a room upstairs and would Matrix-hop her way up a wall to the busted-out window on the other side of the building.
“Cassie,” Sam said in my ear. “Your nose is really big.”
“That’s because it’s broken.” Like my heart, kid. It’s a set.
Poundcake was no longer leaning against Ben with his arm around his neck. His whole big body was draped over Ben’s in a fireman’s carry. And Ben did not look like he was enjoying it.
“That isn’t going to work, you know,” I informed him. “You won’t get a hundred yards.”
Ben ignored me. “Bo, you’ve got Megan duty. Sam, you’re gonna have to climb down; your sister’s taking the point. I’ve got the rear.”
“I need a gun!” Sammy said.
Ben ignored him, too. “Stages. Stage One: the overpass. Stage Two: the trees on the other side of the overpass. Stage Three—”
“East,” I said. I set Sammy on the ground and pulled the crumpled map from my pocket. Ben was looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “We’re going here.” Pointing at the tiny square representing Grace’s safe house.
“Noooo, Sullivan. We’re going to the caverns to meet up with Ringer and Teacup.”
“I don’t care where we go, as long as it’s not Dubuque!” Dumbo cried.
Ben shook his head. “You’re killing it, Dumbo. Just killing it. Okay, here we go.”
We went. A light snow was falling, the tiny crystals ignited in the orange light spinning, and you could smell the oily stench of the fuel burning and feel the heat pressing down on your head, and I took the lead as Ben suggested—well, ordered—Sammy hanging on to a belt loop and Dumbo right behind with Megan, who hadn’t spoken a word, and who could blame her? She was in shock, probably. Halfway across the parking lot, nearing the strip of dirt that separated it from the interstate on-ramp, I glanced behind me in time to see Ben go down under the weight of his burden. I slung Sammy toward Dumbo and skidded across the slick pavement to Ben. On the roof of the hotel, I could see the mangled metal remains of the Black Hawk.