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 ofpulverized 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
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 ofpulverized 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
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