we meet again ¹ - the 5th wave

XXVI

i don't remember which came first, the scream or the lunge. zombie throwing his arms around cassie to hold her back, i know that came after the scream and the lunge. he threw his arms around cassie and pulled her back because she was focused on vosch, on her hate. she didn't even look through the mirror at her brother, but zombie had been looking at the monitor and the word that popped up when vosch hit the execute button:

oops.

she whips around to the mirror. sammy and amélie is still alive—crying buckets, but alive. beside her, vosch stands up so fast, the chair flies across the room and smacks against the wall.

"he's hacked into the mainframe and overwritten the program," he snarls at the silencer. "he'll cut the power next. hold them here." he yells at the man standing beside sammy and amélie. "secure that door! no one leaves until i get back."

he slams out of the room. the lock clicks. no way out now. or there is a way.

my eyes fly to the grate, where a shadow flickers.

and i whisper to zombie, "the one with sammy and amélie—he's mine."

startled, zombie whispers back to me, "what?"

i drive my shoulder into our silencers gut, catching him off guard, and he stumbles backward beneath the grate, his arms flailing for balance, and someone's bullet tears into his fully human brain, killing him instantly. i have his gun before he hits the floor, and i have one chance, one shot through the hole i had made earlier. if i miss, sammy and anélie is dead—his silencer is turning on him even as i turn on him.

sammy and amélie is halfway to me before the guy's body hits the floor. i pull him through the hole. zombie is looking at us, at the dead silencer, at the other dead silencer, at the gun in my hand. he doesn't know what to look at. I'm looking up at the grate.

"we're clear!" cassie calls up. someone knocks once. she laughs. "yes, evan." shes laughing so hard. "you can come in."

he drops into the room, landing on the balls of his feet like a cat. she's in his arms in the time it takes to say "i love you," which he does, stroking her hair, whispering her name and the words, "my mayfly."

"how did you find us?" she asks him.

i look over at zombie confused, he grabs my hand in a stay by my side if you move i'll shoot someone. i smile softly at him my hand wrapped around amélie my hand on her chest as she stood infront of me.

"easy. somebody was up there ahead of me and left a blood trail."

"cassie?"

it's sammy, holding on to zombie, because he's feeling the zombie thing a little more than he is the cassie one at the moment. who's this guy falling from the ductwork, and what's he doing with my sister?

"this must be sammy," evan says.

"this is sammy," she says. "oh! and this is—"

"ben parish," zombie says.