The Last Star (The Fifth Wave 3)

“Why wouldn’t you do that?”

She stiffens and then, for some unclear reason, she looks over at Ben. So I look over at Ben, and Ben is looking straight down at the floor like he’s never seen one before. What is this amazing hard surface under my feet?

“How about this.” I won’t stop trying. Why won’t I stop? I try to stop, and then I fail. “Forget me. Forget Evan. Do it for yourself.”

“Myself?” She’s genuinely puzzled. Ha! For once she can’t pretend she knows what I’m thinking.

“He’s finished with you. He’s done. So you have to go to him if you want to end it.”

Ringer recoils like somebody slapped her. She wants to pretend she doesn’t know who I’m talking about. Fat chance.

I saw it in her face when she told the story. I heard it in her voice. Between the frowns and long silences, it was there. When she said his name and when she couldn’t bring herself to say his name, it was there: He’s the reason she hasn’t given up, why she hangs on, her raison d’être.

The thing worth dying for.

“Vosch thinks you’re going to zig—so you zag. He thinks you’re going to run away—so you run toward. You can’t undo what he’s done, but you can undo him.”

“It won’t solve anything,” she whispers.

“Probably not. But he’ll be dead. There’s that.”

I hold out my hand. I’m not sure why. It really isn’t my deal to make because I can’t promise final delivery of the goods. That little, rational, calm, ancient, wise voice in my head chirps, She’s right, it’s suicide, Cassie. Evan’s gone and this time there’ll be no miracles. Let him go.

My place is with Sam; it’s always been with Sam. Sam is my raison d’être. Not some delusional Ohio farm boy crazy all the way down to the bottom of his bones. Jesus, if Ringer is right, even Evan’s love may be part of the crazy. He thinks he’s in love with me like he thinks he’s an Other.

So what’s the difference between thinking it and actually being it? Is there a difference?

There are times I hate my own brain.

“The dead,” Ringer says in a voice that reflects the word: nothing there, gone, empty. “I came here to kill one innocent person. I killed five. If I go back, I’ll kill until I lose count. I’ll kill until counting doesn’t matter.” She isn’t looking at me. She’s looking at Ben. “And it’ll be easy.” She turns to me. “You don’t understand. I am what he made me.”

I wish she’d cry. I want her to shout, scream, shake her fist, punch something, howl until her voice gave out. Anything would be better than the scooped-out, empty way she talked. What she said didn

’t match how she said it, and that’s scary.

“And in the end, we’ll both fail,” she tells me. “Evan will die and Vosch will live.”

She takes my hand anyway.

Even scarier.

49

BY THIS POINT, Ben has reached the end of his endurance—physical and mental. He can’t remain standing any longer or keep up with this very strange, very quick turnabout, from She’s a traitor! to She’s my partner! He hops over to the stairs and lowers himself down, stretching his bad leg out in front of him. He stares at the ceiling, stroking the underside of his chin.

“Ringer, maybe you better get up there again. In case you missed somebody.”

She shakes her head and her shiny black hair swings back and forth, a silky obsidian curtain. “I didn’t miss anybody.”

“Well. In case somebody else comes along.”

“Like who?”

His head turns slowly in her direction. “Bad people.”

She looks at me. Then she nods. She steps around him and stoops halfway up to retrieve her rifle. I hear her whisper, “Don’t,” to him, before disappearing from view.

Don’t? “What is it with you two?” I ask.