The 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave #1)(107)

Step two: the bathroom.

Force yourself to go slow. Take small steps. Shuffle. I can feel the back of the gown flapping open; I’m mooning the entire ward.

The bathroom is maybe twenty feet away. It feels like twenty miles. If it’s locked or if someone’s in there, I’m screwed.

It’s neither. I lock the door behind me. Sink and toilet and a small shower stall. The curtain rod is screwed into the wall. I lift the lid of the commode. A short metal arm that lifts the flapper, dull on both ends. Toilet paper holder is plastic. So much for finding a weapon in here. But I’m still on track. Come on, Kistner, I’m wide open.

Two sharp raps on the door, and then his voice on the other side.

“Hey, you in there?”

“I told you I had to go!” I yell.

“And I told you I was bringing a bedpan!”

“Couldn’t hold it anymore!”

The door handle jiggles.

“Unlock this door!”

“Privacy, please!” I holler.

“I’m going to call security!”

“All right, all right! Like I’m freaking going anywhere!”

Count to ten, flip the lock, shuffle to the toilet, sit. The door opens a crack, and I can see a sliver of Kistner’s thin face.

“Satisfied?” I grunt. “Now can you please close the door?”

Kistner stares at me for a long moment, plucking at his shirt. “I’ll be right out here,” he promises.

“Good,” I say.

The door eases shut. Now six slow ten-counts. A good minute.

“Hey, Kistner!”

“What?”

“I’m gonna need your help.”

“Define ‘help.’”

“Getting up! I can’t get off the damned can! I think I might have torn a suture…”

The door flies open. Kistner’s face is flushed with anger.

“I told you.”

He steps in front of me. Holds out both hands.

“Here, grab my wrists.”

“First can you close that door? This is embarrassing.”

Kistner closes the door. I wrap my fingers around Kistner’s wrists.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Step three: wet willy.

As Kistner pulls back, I drive forward with my legs, slamming my shoulder into his narrow chest, knocking him backward into the concrete wall. Then I yank him forward, pivot behind him, and pull his arm up high behind his back. That forces him to his knees in front of the toilet. I grab a handful of his hair, shove his face into the water. Kistner is stronger than he looks, or I’m a lot weaker than I thought. It seems to take forever for him to pass out.

I let go and stand back. Kistner does a slow roll and flops onto the floor. Shoes, pants. Pulling him upright to yank off the shirt. The shirt’s going to be too small, the pants too long, the shoes too tight. I rip off my gown, toss it into the shower stall, pull on Kistner’s scrubs. The shoes take the longest. Way too small. A sharp pain shoots through my side as I struggle to put them on. Looking down, I see blood seeping through the bandaging. What if I bleed through the shirt?

A thousand ways. Focus on the one way.

Drag Kistner into the stall. Fling the curtain closed. How long will he be out? Doesn’t matter. Keep moving. Don’t think ahead.

Step four: the tracker.

I hesitate at the door. What if someone saw Kistner come in and now sees me, dressed as Kistner, coming out?

Then you’re done. He’s going to kill you anyway. Okay, don’t just die, then. Die trying.

The operating room doors are the length of a football field away, past rows of beds and through what seems like a mob of orderlies and nurses and lab-coated doctors. I walk as quickly as I can toward the doors, favoring my injured side, which throws off my stride but it can’t be helped; for all I know, Vosch has been tracking me and he’s wondering why I’m not going back to my bunk.

Through the swinging doors, now in the scrub room, where a weary-looking doctor is soaped up to his elbows, preparing for surgery. He jumps when I come in.

“What are you doing in here?” he demands.

“I was looking for some gloves. We’ve run out up front.”

The surgeon jerks his head toward a row of cabinets on the opposite wall.

“You’re limping,” he says. “Are you hurt?”

“I pulled a muscle getting a fat guy to the john.”

The doctor rinses the green soap from his forearms. “You should have used a bedpan.”

Boxes of latex gloves, surgical masks, antiseptic pads, rolls of tape. Where the hell is it?

I can feel his breath against the back of my neck.

“There’s the box right in front of you,” he says. The guy’s giving me a funny look.

“Sorry,” I say. “Haven’t had much sleep.”

“Tell me about it!” The surgeon laughs and elbows me square in the gunshot wound. The room spins. Hard. I grit my teeth to keep from screaming.

He hurries through the inner doors to the operating theater. I move down the row of cabinets, throwing open doors, rummaging through the supplies, but I can’t find what I’m looking for. Light-headed, out of breath, my side throbbing like hell. How long will Kistner stay out? How long before someone ducks in for a piss and finds him?