I dive into Nugget’s chest, hurling him to the ground. The round slams into the rockfall behind us. A second later I hear the report of the sharpshooter’s rifle. The shot came from the right, in the direction of the copse of trees by the main road.
Nugget starts to get up. I grab his ankle and yank him back down.
“Low crawl,” I whisper in his ear. “Like they taught us in camp, remember?”
He starts to rotate a one-eighty—back toward the hole and the false security of the cave with its provisions and weapons. I don’t blame him; it’s my first instinct, too. Going back, though, only puts off the inevitable. If smoking us out and picking us off fails, they’ll just call in the bunker-busters.
“Follow me, Nugget.” I scuttle toward the welcome center. The roof is a perfect vantage point for a sharpshooter, but our best option is to head away from the shooter we know about.
“Megan . . . ,” he gasps. “What about Megan?”
What about Megan?
“She won’t come out,” I whisper. Please don’t come out, kid. “She’ll wait.”
“Wait for what?”
For history to repeat itself. For the circle to come round.
Only one place I can think of that’s reasonably safe. I’m not happy about it and I know he sure as hell won’t be. But this kid is anything but soft; he’ll deal. “Past the building, then straight on about twenty yards,” I tell him as we scoot along on our bellies. “Big hole. Full of bodies.”
“Bodies?”
I imagine a red dot shimmering between my shoulder blades or on the back of Nugget’s head. I’ve got eyes on him now, and if I see that red dot, I’m going Dumbo on it again. The ground rises slightly as we near the pit, and then we can smell it, and the stench makes Nugget retch. I lock down on his arm and tug him to the edge. He doesn’t want to look, but he looks.
“It’s just dead people,” I choke out. “Come on, I’ll lower you down.”
He pulls against my grip. “I won’t be able to get back out.”
“It’s safe, Nugget. Perfectly safe.” Unfortunate choice of words. “They’d have taken the shot by now if they knew where we were.”
He nods. Makes sense to him. “But Megan . . .”
“I’m going back for her.”
He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. I take his wrists and lower him feetfirst into the hole. “You hear anything, you play dead,” I remind Nugget.
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Breathe through your mouth.”
His lips part. I see the tiny pellet glistening inside his mouth. I give him a thumbs-up. He raises his right hand very slowly and puts it against his forehead in salute.
78
CRAWLING AWAY from the death pit, I know what’s going to happen. I know I’m going to die.
My time’s been borrowed and you can’t cheat death forever. Sooner or later you have to pay up, with interest, only please don’t let Nugget and Megan be the price for my abandoning my sister. So I say to God, You took Dumbo for the debt, Poundcake and Teacup, that’s enough, let that be enough. Take me but let them live.
The ground explodes in front of me. Clods of dirt and stone fly into my face. Well, shit, crawling’s pointless now. I heave myself up, but the bad leg buckles, and down I go. The next shot rips into my sleeve, nicking my biceps before exiting the opposite side; I hardly feel it. Instinctively I curl into a ball and wait for the finishing round. I know what’s happening. These are soldiers of the 5th Wave. Their hearts have been filled with hate, their minds conditioned for cruelty. They’re playing with me. Gonna make it last, you infested sonofabitch. Gonna make it fun!
And my sister’s face before me, then Bo’s and Cake’s and Cup’s, then more faces than I can count, faces I recognize and faces I don’t, there’s Nugget and Megan, Cassie and Ringer, there’s the recruits in camp and the bodies in the processing hangar laid end to end, hundreds of faces, thousands, tens of thousands, living and dead but mostly dead. In the pit behind me, one living face among hundreds that aren’t, and Vosch’s rule applies to him, too.
Hand raised in salute. Mouth open and the tiny pellet that glistens inside.
Holy shit, Parish, the tracker. That’s what you forgot.
I jam my hand into the pocket, pull out the pellet, and stuff it into my mouth. In the cluster of trees across the road, on the rooftop of the welcome center, and from wherever the hell else they might be, the shooters hold their fire when the green inferno that surrounds my head winks out.