“Congratulations, Ben,” he says, which totally throws me off. I had no idea he even knew my name. He gives me a wink and continues down the line.
There’re a couple of short speeches by officers I’ve never seen before. Then the supreme commander is introduced and the troops go crazy, waving our hats, pumping our fists. Our cheers echo off the buildings encircling the yard, making the roar twice as loud and us seem twice as many. Commander Vosch raises his hand very slowly and deliberately to his forehead, and it’s as if he hit a switch: The noise cuts off as we raise our own hands in salute. I can hear quiet snuffling all around me. It’s too much. After what brought us here and what we went through here, after all the blood and death and fire, after being shown the ugly mirror of the past through Wonderland and facing the uglier truth of the future in the execution room, after months of brutal training that pushed some of us past the point of no return, we have arrived. We have survived the death of our childhood. We are soldiers now, maybe the last soldiers who will ever fight, the Earth’s final and only hope, united as one in the spirit of vengeance.
I don’t hear a word of Vosch’s speech. I watch the sun rising over his shoulder, framed between the twin towers of the power plant, its light glinting off the mothership in orbit, the sole imperfection in the otherwise perfect sky. So small, so insignificant. I feel like I can reach up and pluck it from the sky, throw it to the ground, grind it to dust beneath my heel. The fire in my chest grows white-hot, spreads over every inch of my body. It melts my bones; it incinerates my skin; I am the sun gone supernova.
I was wrong about Ben Parish dying on the day he left the convalescent ward. I’ve been carrying his stinking corpse inside me all through basic. Now the last of him is burned away as I stare up at the solitary figure who lit that fire. The man who showed me the true battlefield. Who emptied me so I might be filled. Who killed me so I might live. And I swear I can see him staring back at me with those icy blue eyes that see down to the bottom of my soul, and I know—I know—what he’s thinking.
We are one, you and I. Brothers in hate, brothers in cunning, brothers in the spirit of vengeance.
53
YOU SAVED ME.
Lying in his arms that night with those words in my ears, and I’m thinking, Idiot, idiot, idiot. You can’t do this. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.
The first rule: Trust no one. Which leads to the second rule: The only way to stay alive as long as possible is to stay alone as long as possible.
Now I’ve broken both.
Oh, they’re so clever. The harder survival becomes, the more you want to pull together. And the more you want to pull together, the harder survival becomes.
The point is I had my chance and I didn’t do so well on my own. In fact, I sucked. I would have died if Evan hadn’t found me.
His body is pressed against my back, his arm is wrapped protectively around my waist, his breath a delicious tickle against my neck. The room is very cold; it would be nice to climb under the covers, but I don’t want to move. I don’t want him to move. I run my fingers along his bare forearm, remembering the warmth of his lips, the silkiness of his hair between my fingers. The boy who never sleeps, sleeping. Coming to rest upon the Cassiopeian shore, an island in the middle of a sea of blood. You have your promise, and I have you.
I can’t trust him. I have to trust him.
I can’t stay with him. I can’t leave him behind.
You can’t trust luck anymore. The Others have taught me that.
But can you still trust love?
Not that I love him. I don’t even know what love feels like. I know how Ben Parish made me feel, which can’t be put into words, or at least any words I know.
Evan stirs behind me. “It’s late,” he murmurs. “You’d better get some sleep.”
How did he know I’m awake? “What about you?”
He rolls off the bed and pads toward the door. I sit up, my heart racing, not sure exactly why. “Where are you going?”
“Going to look around a little. I won’t be long.”
After he leaves, I strip off my clothes and slip on one of his plaid lumberjack shirts. Val had been into the frilly sleepwear. Not my style.
I climb back into bed and pull the covers up to my chin. Dang, it’s cold. I listen to the quiet. Of the Evanless house, that is. Outside are the sounds of nature unleashed. The distant barking of wild dogs. The howl of a wolf. The screech of owls. It’s winter, the time of year when nature whispers. I expect a symphony of wild things once spring arrives.
I wait for him to come back. An hour goes by. Then two.
I hear the telltale creak again and hold my breath. I usually hear him come in at night. The kitchen door slamming. The heavy tread of his boots coming up the stairs. Now I hear nothing but the creaking on the other side of the door.
I reach over and pick up the Luger from the bedside table. I always keep it near me.
He’s dead was my first thought. It isn’t Evan outside that door; it’s a Silencer.
I slide out of bed and tiptoe to the door. Press my ear against the wood. Close my eyes to focus. Holding the gun in the proper two-handed grip, the way he taught me. Rehearsing every step in my head, like he taught me.
Left hand on knob. Turn, pull, two steps back, gun up. Turn, pull, two steps back, gun up…
Creeaaaaaak.
Okay, that’s it.
I fling open the door, take just one step back—so much for rehearsal—and bring up the gun. Evan jumps back and smacks against the wall, his hands flying up reflexively when he sees the muzzle glinting in front of his face.
“Hey!” he shouts. Eyes wide, hands up, like he’s been jumped by a mugger.
“What the hell are you doing?” I’m shaking with anger.
“I was coming back to—to check on you. Can you put the gun down, please?”
“You know I didn’t have to open it,” I snarl at him, lowering the gun. “I could have shot you through the door.”
“Next time I’ll definitely knock.” He gives me his trademark lopsided smile.
“Let’s establish a code for when you want to go all creeper on me. One knock means you’d like to come in. Two means you’re just stopping by to spy on me while I sleep.” His eyes travel from my face to my shirt (which happens to be his shirt) to my bare legs, lingering a breath too long before returning to my face. His gaze is warm. My legs are cold.
Then he knocks once on the jamb. But it’s the smile that gets him in.
We sit on the bed. I try to ignore the fact that I’m wearing his shirt and that shirt smells like him and he’s sitting about a foot away also smelling like him and also that there’s a hard little knot in the pit of my stomach like a smoldering lump of coal.
I want him to touch me again. I want to feel his hands, as soft as clouds. But I’m afraid if he touches me, all seven billion billion billion atoms that make up my body will blow apart and scatter across the universe.
“Is he alive?” he whispers. That sad, desperate look is back. What happened out there? Why is he thinking about Sams?
I shrug. How can I know the answer to that?
“I knew when Lauren was. I mean, I knew when she wasn’t.” Picking at the quilt, running his fingers over the stitching, tracing the borders of the patches like he’s tracing the path on a treasure map. “I felt it. It was just me and Val then. Val was pretty sick, and I knew she didn’t have much time. I knew the timing, almost down to the hour: I’d been through it six times.”
It takes him a minute to go on. Something’s really spooked him. His eyes won’t stay still. They dart about the room, as if trying to find something to distract him—or maybe the opposite, something to ground him in the moment. This moment with me. Not the moment he can’t stop thinking about.
“One day I was outside,” he says, “hanging up some sheets to dry on the clothesline, and this weird feeling came over me. Like something had popped me in the chest. I mean, it was totally physical, not mental, not a little voice inside my head telling me…telling me that Lauren was gone. It felt like someone had punched me hard. And I knew. So I dropped the sheet and hauled ass to her house…”
He shakes his head. I touch his knee, then pull my hand back quickly. After the first touch, touching becomes too easy.
“How’d she do it?” I ask. I don’t want to make him go someplace he’s not ready to go. So far he’s been an emotional iceberg, two-thirds hidden beneath the surface, listening more than he talks, asking more than he answers.
“Hung herself,” he says. “I took her down.” He looks away. Here with me, there with her. “Then I buried her.”
I don’t know what to say. So I don’t say anything. Too many people say something when they really have nothing to say.
“I think that’s the way it is,” he says after a minute. “When you love someone. Something happens to them, and it’s a punch in the heart. Not like a punch in the heart; a real punch in the heart.” He shrugs and laughs softly to himself. “Anyway, that’s what I felt.”
“And you think since I haven’t felt it, Sammy must be alive?”
“I know.” He shrugs and gives an embarrassed laugh. “It’s stupid. I’m sorry I brought it up.”