My entire body shakes with anger and exhaustion and blood loss. I can barely stand up but I also can't sit down. Getting shot in the back was the most inconvenient thing in the entire world.

      "Lay down on your stomach?" Dumbo offered, and his hands are shaking too, but mostly from fear. Evan was passed out on the bed closest to the door, and Zombie was on the one next to it. Two too many lives in his hands.

      Apparently Cassie knocked Evan's ass to the ground with a shot to the knee. He was in pretty bad shape before she did that, thanks to the fight Zombie (I'm assuming he was the cause of the stab wound in Evan's other leg) and I put up. Dumbo thinks the broken bones and burns happened before he got here, which makes me wonder what the hell happened to the alien while he was gone. The burns were obviously from being inside of the base as it burned from the inside, but the bones didn't make sense. Not with our stories, at least.

      I don't care. Evan hurt Zombie and nobody hurts Zombie.

      Except me, who's going to kick his fucking ass for splitting up with Cassie in the first place.

      Zombie moans and I push off of the wall I was leaning against to look at him closely. Please wake up. Please wake up, please, please, please—

      He doesn't move.

      I can't take it anymore. "I'm going on watch." I grab the gun from the holster on Zombie's thigh and leave the room. I hear Dumbo talking just before I get to the window.

      "She's worried about him."

      "Oh, yeah? You can tell?" Cassie asks, almost sarcastically. "She's got the best damn poker face I've ever seen-- minus Ringer."

      "You get used to it," Dumbo replies sheepishly.

      I tune out of the conversation.

      When I was nine, my dad got into a car accident. He was tired and the roads were icy, so every odd was against him, and he drove into a tree. He had a mild head injury and a broken leg, but what really got me was the piece of scraphnel that hit his abdomen. Back then, when I walked into his hospital room and I saw him all wrapped up with gauze, I didn't know there was a possibility that he was going to die. I mean, Mom told me that Dad might leave but I didn't know what it meant.

      When Dad woke up, he told me the angels were watching over him. When I told him that angels didn't exist, he said it was a miracle. A miracle. And I believed him.

      Now Dad really is dead, and no amount of miracles could save him or anyone else on Earth. Not Dad or Mom or Thomas or Sissy or Zombie--

      Zombie's going to die just like everyone else, and all because of the Others. And for what? A little bit of land on this ruined planet? There's gotta be a different reason. Something else-- something better to die for.

     "Ghost," Cassie poking her head out of the room down the hall, "He's awake."

      My feet are rooted to the floor. "Which one?"

      "Ben."

      I shake my head and turn my cement-filled bones to face the window. "Call me when the Silencer wakes up."

      Cassie doesn't move for a long minute, and then I hear the door close. She doesn't go in. She chooses to stay out.

      "What do you want?" Voice clipped, not looking at her. It hurts too much. He's awake now, but how long until he's gone for good?

      "He wants to see you."

      "Tell him I don't care."

      "Just come in. . . before he comes out."

      I grit my teeth. "Go away, Sullivan"

      "You gonna shoot me?"

      I glance at her. "Maybe."

      She tsks. "Okay, I'll go. But hurry up, before he loses it again."

      I turn to her fully then. "What?"

      She crosses her arms. "He may or may not have freaked out a tiny bit when Dumbo told him what happened to you."

      There's a crash, a yelp, and then Dumbo shouting: "Sarge, sit down!"

      I purse my lips. "I should come now?"

      Cassie nods. "You should come now."