Rick Yancey - The 5th Wave

But no matter how much I lecture myself, I can’t calm down. I’m missing something. Something important. I pace back and forth in front of the fireplace, shivering despite the roaring flames. It’s like having an itch you can’t scratch. But what could it be? I know in my gut I’m not going to find anything incriminating, even if I tear through every inch of the house.

But you haven’t searched everywhere, Cassie. You haven’t looked in the one place he wouldn’t expect you to look.

I limp into the kitchen. Not much time now. Grab a heavy jacket from the hook by the door and a flashlight from the cupboard, tuck the Luger into my waistband, and step outside into the bitter cold. Clear sky, the yard bathed in starlight. I try not to think about the mothership a few hundred miles over my head as I shuffle toward the barn. I don’t click on the light until I step inside.

The smell of old manure and mildewed hay. The scampering of rats’ feet on the rotting boards over my head. I swing the light around, over the empty stalls and across the dirt floor, into the hayloft. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, but I keep looking. In every creepy movie ever made, the barn is the prime nesting ground for the things you don’t know you’re looking for and always regret finding.

I find what I’m not looking for under a pile of ratty blankets heaped against the back wall. Something long and dark glinting in the circle of light. I don’t touch it. I reveal it, tossing aside three blankets to reach its resting place.

It’s my M16.

I know it’s mine. I can see my initials in the stock: C.S. , scratched there one afternoon while I hid in the little tent in the woods. C.S. for Completely Stupid .

I’d lost it on the median when the Silencer struck from the woods. Left it there in my panic. Decided I couldn’t go back for it. Now here it is, in Evan Walker’s barn. My bestie had found its way back to me.

Do you know how to tell who the enemy is in wartime, Cassie?

I back away from it. Back away from the message it sends. Back all the way to the door while I keep the light shining on its glossy black barrel.

Then I turn and run smack into his rock-hard chest.

“CASSIE?” HE SAYS, grabbing my arms to keep me from falling straight back onto my butt. “What are you doing out here?” He glances over my shoulder into the barn.

“I thought I heard a noise.” Dumb! Now he might decide to investigate. But it’s the first thing that pops into my head. Blurting out first thoughts is something I really should work on—if I live past the next five minutes. My heart is pounding so hard, I can feel my ears ringing.

“You thought you…? Cassie, you shouldn’t come out here at night.”

I nod and force myself to look into his eyes. Evan Walker is a noticer. “I know, it was stupid. But you’d been gone a long time.”

“I was stalking some deer.” He’s a big, Evan-shaped shadow in front of me, a shadow with a high-powered rifle against the backdrop of a million suns.

I bet you were. “Let’s go inside, okay? I’m freezing to death.”

He doesn’t move. He’s looking into the barn.

“I checked it out,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Rats.”

“Rats?”

“Yeah. Rats.”

“You heard rats? In the barn? From inside the house?”

“No. How could I hear rats from there?” An exasperated roll of the eyes would be good right about now. Not the nervous laugh that escapes instead. “I came out on the porch for some fresh air.”

“And you heard them from the porch?”

“They were very big rats.” Flirty smile! I whip out what I hope passes for one of those, then I hook my arm through his and pull him toward the house. It’s like trying to move a concrete pole. If he goes inside the barn and sees the exposed rifle, it’s over. Why the hell didn’t I cover up the rifle?

“Evan, it’s nothing. I got spooked, that’s all.”

“Okay.”

He shoves the barn door closed, and we head back to the farmhouse, his arm draped protectively over my shoulders. He lets the arm fall when we reach the door.

Now, Cassie. Quick side step to the right, Luger from your waistband, proper two-handed grip, knees slightly bent, squeeze, don’t pull. Now.

We step inside the warm kitchen. The opportunity passes.

“So I take it you didn’t bag any deer,” I say casually.

“No.” He leans the rifle against the wall, shrugs out of his coat. His cheeks are bright red from the cold.

“Maybe you shot at something else,” I say. “Maybe that’s what I heard.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t shoot at anything.” He blows on his hands. I follow him into the great room, where he bends in front of the fireplace to warm his hands. I’m standing behind the sofa a few feet away.

My second chance to take him down. Hitting him from this close would not be a challenge. Or it wouldn’t be if his head resembled an empty can of creamed corn, the only kind of target I was used to.

I pull the gun from my waistband.

Finding my rifle in his barn didn’t leave me with many options. It was like being under that car on the highway: hide or face. Doing nothing about it, pretending everything was fine between us, accomplished nothing. Shooting him in the back of the head would accomplish something—it would kill him—but after the Crucifix Soldier, it had become one of my priorities never to kill another innocent person. Better to show my hand now while that hand holds a gun.

“There’s something I should tell you,” I say. My voice is shaking. “I lied about the rats.”

“You found the rifle.” Not a question.

He turns. With his back to the fire, his face is in shadow; I can’t read his expression, but his tone is casual. “I found it a couple of days ago off the highway—remembered you said you dropped one when you ran—then I saw those initials and I figured it had to be yours.”

For a minute I don’t say anything. His explanation makes perfect sense. I just didn’t expect him to jump right into it like that.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I finally ask.

He shrugs. “I was going to. Guess I forgot. What are you doing with that gun, Cassie?”

Oh, I was thinking about blowing your head off, that’s all. Thought you might be a Silencer or maybe a traitor to your species or something along those lines. Ha-ha!

I follow his eyes to the weapon in my hand, and suddenly I feel like bursting into tears.

“We have to trust each other,” I whisper. “Don’t we?”

“Yes,” he says, moving toward me now. “We do.”

“But how…how do you make yourself trust someone?” I say. He’s beside me now. He doesn’t reach for the gun. He’s reaching for me with his eyes. And I want him to catch me before I fall too far away from the Evan-I-thought-I-knew, who saved me to save himself from falling. He’s all I’ve got now. He’s my itty-bitty bush growing out of the cliff that I cling to. Help me, Evan. Don’t let me fall. Don’t let me lose the part of me that makes me human.

“You can’t make yourself believe anything,” he answers softly. “But you can let yourself believe. You can allow yourself to trust.”

I nod, looking up into his eyes. So chocolaty warm. So melty and sad. Damn it, why does he have to be so damn beautiful? And why do I have to be so damn aware of it? And how is my trusting him any different from Sammy’s taking the soldier’s hand before climbing onto that bus? The weird thing is his eyes remind me of Sammy’s—filled with a longing to know if everything will be all right. The Others answered that question with an unequivocal no. So what does that make me if I give Evan the same answer? “I want to. Really, really bad.”