The 5th Wave | The Aftermath | ✔️

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Marika

"EVAN'S GONE." SHE said in a dead voice.
Evan was the person she clung to. Now that he was gone, she had a dead part of her.
I knew that feeling. Alex.
"I know," I told her. "He's the one who did this to me."
Her eyes slid from Vosch to me. "Did what?"
"Broke my back. I can't move my legs, Cassie."
She shook her head. Evan. Vosch. Me. Too much to process.
"What happened?" I asked.
She glanced down the hallway. "The electrical room. I knew exactly where it was. And the code to the door, I knew that too." She turned back to me. "I know practically everything about this base."
Her eyes were dry but she looked like she was about to break; I could hear it in her voice, filled with sick wonder. "I killed him, Ringer, I killed Evan Walker."
A short conversation later, she said, "I have to go."
I watch her yank the knife from it's sheath strapped to her thigh, step over to Vosch, flatten his hand against the floor, and with two hard whacks, chop off his right thumb.
Dropping the bloody digit into her pocket, she said, "It wouldn't be right to leave you here, Marika."
She picked me up, to the closest door, punched in the code, and propped me against the far wall facing the door and pressed a gun into my hand.
She'll leave me, find Zombie, and they'll live. I know what to do to make that easier for her. The pill in my breast pocket.
She stood up. Steady on her feet and her mouth firmly set.
"He's not going to understand. He's going to be pissed as hell, and you're going to explain it to him. You're going to tell him what happened and why, and you're going to take care of him, understand?" You're going to keep him safe and make sure he bathes and brushes his teeth and trims his nails and wears clean underwear and learns to read. Teach him to be patient and to be kind and to trust everyone. Even strangers. Especially strangers."
She paused. "There was something else. Oh! Nobody is allowed to call him Nugget ever again for the rest of his life. I mean, really. So stupid . . .
"Promise me, Marika. Promise me."
Those were her last words to me.
Then she left me, sprawled against the wall. Trapped.
I dug my fingers into the jacket pocket.
The empty jacket pocket.
I pat my other pockets. No. Not my pockets. They're Cassie's pockets: I switched clothes with her in the supply shed before we entered the command center.
I didn't have the green capsule. Cassie did.
With the limited energy I had in me, I left the room, crawling. When I found him, I dug through all his pockets. Where is it? Give it up, you son of a bitch.
Breast pocket. Right where he always kept it. The display screen swarms with green dots, a three-squad cluster's worth heading straight toward me. I highlighted all off them—every recruit on the base, over five thousand people, and the green button beneath my thumb flashed, and that was why I didn't want to go back. I knew what would happen. I knew:
I'll kill till I lose count. I'll kill until counting doesn't matter.
I stare at the screen lit up with five thousand tiny pulsing lights, each a helpless victim, each a human being.
Told myself I don't have a choice.
Told myself I'm not his creation. I'm not what he has made me.
The squad pounds into the room, weapons drawn. Fingers tight on triggers.
Too late for them.
Too late for me.
I press the button.