Zombie goes to grab Dumbo and I follow him, but not to get Dumbo, to say goodbye to the little girl that's managed to weasel her way into my heart.

      She's sitting on the bed with that damned teddy bear clutched in her tiny fingers. She knows something's wrong by the look on my face, but she doesn't let me see her fear. That or she doesn't have any. Once you've survived having a bomb shoved down your throat, you're not really scared of dying anymore.

      I kneel in front of her, beside the grimy bed she sits on. "Zombie, Dumbo and I are going to go somewhere, alright?"

      "Where?" Warm brown eyes staring into mine, worried. I place my hand over hers.

      "Remember those friends I told you about, Megan?" I ask. "Teacup and Ringer?" She nods. She remembers. "Well, Zombie thinks they might still be alive, so we're going to go look for them."

      "You said they were probably dead."

      I nod. My voice hardens. "Remember something for me, okay? If I--" I shake my head. Is it too morbid to tell a kid you're probably going to die? I'd have to ask Zombie later. "Just remember that, no matter what, you take care of your family."

      "My family is dead."

      "Not that one." I click my tongue and glance at the open door. I should probably just leave. I'm terrible at this shit. "We're your new family, Megan. Okay? Not just those who take care of you because we don't want another little kid to die. We take care of you, because we care about you. Understand?"

      "No."

      This is pointless.

      "We're going back for Ringer and Teacup because they're part of our weird little family," I tell her. "And you never give up on family."

      "Even if you think they're dead?"

      I nod, forcing a smile. She's finally getting it. "Especially if you think they're dead."

      I go to Zombie and I's room. He's crouching on the floor digging through his rucksack that he retrieved from the closet shelf, but there's a hint of pain etched into his face from his side.

      There were antibiotics in the massive stash Grace had, which got rid of the infection and managed to get both me and Zombie back on our feet. Didn't really matter -- Dumbo still watched over us like a hawk.

      Zombie digs through one pocket and tenses. A look of panic crosses his face as he starts patting the floor beside him and digging through the few contents of his bag. Dumbo comes up behind me and looks at Zombie in confusion. "Sarge?"

      "It was here. It was right here." He looks at us and the blind panic kind of shocks me. Dumbo flinches. "Somebody must have taken it. Jesus Christ, who the hell would have taken it, Ghost?"

      Before Dumbo can ask what it is, I step toward Zombie and press a hand to his shoulder. "Relax. Check your pocket."

      He rocks back on his heels, pats his pockets, and nods. Relief floods his eyes and one of his hands comes up to cover the one I placed on his shoulder. He smiles. "Okay, we're good."

      I nod, cup his elbow and haul him up to his feet. He kisses me on the lips, lingers, then picks up his bag, and grabs the rifle from our bed. I take my pack out of the closet and run my fingers over the pistol placed in the holster on my thigh -- stolen from Zombie, who didn't seem to mind.

      "We should bring knives," I tell Zombie, who nods. I go to leave when Dumbo starts talking again.

      "I thought we were leaving tomorrow night," he says.

      "If they aren't between here and the hotel, or where the hotel used to be, we'll have to cut through Urbana—twice," Zombie tells him. "And I don't want to be anywhere near Urbana when the bastards go all Dubuque on it."

      "Dubuque?" Dumbo pales. Not that place again!

      I throw my bag over my shoulder. "Walker just told us that they're gonna blow up the cities."

      It takes a moment for him to realize what I said. Then, "Which cities?"

      "All of them."

      His jaw drops to the floor. I let out a humourless chuckle and follow Zombie into the hallway, around the corner, and into the kitchen. Zombie hauls the rations out of the cupboard and separates them for each of us. I slip them into my bag wordlessly.

     "All of them?" Dumbo repeats, the words just now sinking in. "But Ringer said they weren't going to blow up the cities."

      "Well, she was wrong," Zombie says. "Or Walker's lying. Some bullshit about having to wait until the Silencers were extracted. You know what I've decided, Private? I'm not wasting any more time worrying about all the things I don't know."

      Dumbo shakes his head. His jaw is still slacked in shock, eyes a little wide under his heavy rimmed glasses. "Every city on Earth?" He asks, just to be sure.

      "Down to the last shitty one-traffic-light town."

      "How?"

      "Oh, you know," I say, lazily leaning against the counter, "Couple hundred bombs inside the mothership, couple hundred -- maybe -- humans left, and all you gotta do is fly around the planet, dropping them as you go. That's the end of most of us."

      "Unless Walker can blow up the ship before it happens," Zombie adds, "But I don't put a lot of faith in that."

      "Why?" Dumbo asks.

      "Because I don't put a lot of faith in Walker."

      "I still don't get it. Why'd they wait till now to start dropping bombs?"

      Dumbo is shaking, so Zombie grabs his shoulders. "I told you," Zombie says. "They're pulling out the Silencers. Sending down pods for every last infested one of them, except for handlers like Vosch. Once they've been evac'ed and the cities are gone, there's no place for survivors to hide, making it a turkey shoot for the poor bastards they brainwashed into finishing the job: the 5th Wave. Get it?"

      He shakes his head. "It don't matter. I go where you go, Sarge."

      Zombie's eyes flicker past Dumbo's head, towards the tiny boy fresh out of the bath.

      "Zombie?" Sam asks.

      "Okay." Zombie sighs. "Guys, give us a second."

      Dumbo and I leave the kitchen, the boy muttering something about Dubuque. Evan is still standing beside the door when we get to the living room, but Cassie's moved to stand near the fireplace. Her soaking wet clothes must have finally gotten to her.

      "He's saying goodbye," I tell her, answering the question before she can ask it. She  doesn't even have to ask who he's saying goodbye to — she knows.

      "The three of you should stay here," Evan says. I roll my eyes. He wasn't done trying to convince us, but our minds were made up. We would go look for Ringer and Teacup, and then we'd bring them back here. Whether it was to bury them or not was up to them. "There's Silencers--"

      "We know," I snarl. "You've told us a million times, and yet here we are. It doesn't matter what you say, Evan. We're going to look for our friends."

      He shakes his head. Zombie comes in with Sam beside him, and Evan turns to him instead. Maybe Zombie will change his mind (hah, likely).

      "Ben, you haven't thought this through," Evan tells him. Zombie ignores him.

      "They're either at the caverns or they're not," he tells Cassie. "If they are, we'll bring them back. If they aren't, we won't."

      "We've been holed up here for six weeks," Evan points out. "Under any other circumstances, we'd be dead. The only reason we aren't dead is because we neutralized the agent who patrolled this sector."

      "Grace," Cassie translates for us. "To get to the caverns, you'll have to cross through three--"

      "Two," I correct. She rolls her eyes. "Listen, Sullivan, we know the risks. You both have said it thousands of times, and like I just told you, we're not changing our minds about going to look for them. There could be a dozen Silencer's out there, and it wouldn't stop us."

      "You're not listening," she says, like I could stop listening to her blab away if I wanted, which wasn't possible. "That's two territories patrolled by Silencers just like him." She glances at Evan. "Or not just like him. Not good Silencers. Really bad Silencers who are really good at silencing."

      "You might get lucky and slip past one," Evan adds. "Not two."

      "But if you wait, there won't be any Silencers to slip past." Cassie touches Zombie's arm, pleading with him. "All of them will be back on the mothership. Then Evan does his thing and then you can..." She trails off.

      I wait to see what he says. If he decides -- if they can convince him to stay, then there really is no hope for Teacup and Ringer. He won't let me go without him and no one else will leave without his say.

      Not that it matters. He looks at Evan, and there's a fire in his eyes as he says, "You don't know Ringer. If anybody could have made it, she could."

      Evan nods in agreement with the first statement, not the second. "After our awakening, we were enhanced with a technology that makes us nearly indestructible. We turned ourselves into killing machines." He takes a deep breath, and he finally says what he's been thinking all along. "There's no way they could have survived this long, not against us. Your friends are dead."

      Zombie looks at me to see what I think. I lift my chin a little higher and offer him a half-assed salute, watching as Dumbo copies me. We go where you go, Sarge.

      Zombie nods. We go.