The 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave #1)(80)

“Aren’t they smart?” Ringer mutters, like she’s read my mind. “Put on a human face so no human face can be trusted. The only answer: Kill everyone or risk being killed by anyone.”

“He thinks we’re one of them?”

“Or decided it doesn’t matter. Only way to be safe.”

“But he fired on us—not on the three right below him. Why would he ignore the easy shots to take the impossible one?”

Like me, she doesn’t have an answer to that question. Unlike me, it’s not high on her list of problems to be resolved. “Only way to be safe,” she repeats pointedly. I look over at Poundcake, who’s looking back at me. Waiting for my decision, but there really isn’t a decision to make.

“Can you take him from here?” I ask Ringer.

She shakes her head. “Too far away. I’d just give away our position.”

I scoot over to Poundcake. “Stay here. In ten minutes, open up on him to cover our crossing.” Staring up at me all doe-eyed and trusting. “You know, Private, it’s customary to acknowledge an order from your commanding officer.” Poundcake nods. I try again: “With a ‘yes, sir.’” He nods again. “Like, out loud. With words.” Another nod.

Okay, at least I tried.

When Ringer and I join the others, Oompa’s body is gone. They stashed him in one of the cars. Flint’s idea. Very similar to his idea for the rest of us.

“We’ve got good cover in here. I say we hunker down in the cars until pickup.”

“Only one person’s vote counts in this unit, Flint,” I tell him.

“Yeah, and how’s that working out for us?” he says, thrusting his chin toward me, mouth curled into a sneer. “Oh, I know. Let’s ask Oompa!”

“Flintstone,” Ringer says. “At ease. Zombie’s right.”

“Until you two walk into an ambush, and then I guess he’s wrong.”

“At which point you’re the C.O., and you can make the call,” I snap. “Dumbo, you’ve got Teacup duty.” If we can pry her off Ringer. She’s pasted herself back onto Ringer’s leg. “If we’re not back in thirty minutes, we’re not coming back.”

And then Ringer says, because she’s Ringer, “We’re coming back.”

59

THE TANKER’S BURNED down to its tires. Crouching in the pedestrian entrance to the garage, I point at the building across the street glowing orange in the firelight.

“That’s our entry point. Third window from the left-hand corner, completely busted out, see it?”

Ringer nods absently. Something’s on her mind. She keeps fiddling with the eyepiece, pulling it away from her eye, pushing it back again. The certainty she showed in front of the squad is gone.

“The impossible shot…,” she whispers. Then she turns to me. “How do you know when you’re going Dorothy?”

I shake my head. Where’s this coming from? “You’re not going Dorothy,” I tell her, and punctuate it with a pat on the arm.

“How can you be sure?” Eyes darting back and forth, restless, looking for somewhere to light. The way Tank’s eyes danced before he popped. “Crazy people—they never think they’re crazy. Their craziness makes perfect sense to them.”

There’s a desperate, very un-Ringerlike look in her eyes.

“You’re not crazy. Trust me.”

Wrong thing to say.

“Why should I?” she shoots back. It’s the first time I’ve heard any emotion out of her. “Why should I trust you, and why should you trust me? How do you know I’m not one of them, Zombie?”

Finally, an easy question. “Because we’ve been screened. And we don’t light up in each other’s eyepieces.”

She looks at me for a very long moment, then she murmurs, “God, I wish you played chess.”

Our ten minutes are up. Above us, Poundcake opens up on the rooftop across the street; the sniper immediately returns fire; and we go. We’re barely off the curb when the asphalt explodes in front of us. We split up, Ringer zipping off to the right, me to the left, and I hear the whine of the bullet, a high-pitched sandpapery sound, about a month before it tears open the sleeve of my jacket. The instinct burned into me from months of drilling to return fire is very hard to resist. I leap onto the curb and in two strides I’m pressed hard against the comforting cold concrete of the building. That’s when I see Ringer slip on a patch of ice and fall face-first toward the curb. She waves me back. “No!” A round bites off a piece of the curbing that rakes across her neck. Screw her no. I bound over to her, grab her arm, and sling her toward the building. Another round whizzes past my head as I backpedal to safety.

She’s bleeding. The wound shimmers black in the firelight. She waves me on, Go, go. We trot along the side of the building to the broken window and dive inside.

Took less than a minute to cross. Felt like two hours.

We’re inside what used to be an upscale boutique. Looted several times over, full of empty racks and broken hangers, creepy headless mannequins and posters of overly serious fashion models on the walls. A sign on the service counter reads, GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE.

Ringer’s scrunched into a corner of the room with good angles on the windows and the door coming in from the lobby. A hand on her neck, and that hand is gloved in blood. I have to look. She doesn’t want me to look. I’m like, “Don’t be stupid, I have to look.” So she lets me look. It’s superficial, between a cut and a gouge. I find a scarf lying on a display table and she wads it up and presses it against her neck. Nods at my torn sleeve.