GHOST

"Bo, that piece doesn't go there."

"You didn't even try, Ghost — Oh."

I purse my lips, plucking the puzzle piece out of his fingers and sliding it to the left, linking it with the correct pieces. "See? It correlates with the picture."

Dumbo sighs heavily, turning to Megan who sits there staring at the two of us with a small smile. She doesn't talk much, due to the fact that Cassie nicked something in her throat while getting the bomb out, and when she does she sounds like a croaking frog. Eventually she just decided that she'd only speak up when she was spoken to and never any time else. "She's too good at this, right, Megan?"

Megan nods. I snort and push myself into a standing position, raising my hands in defeat. "Alright, I get it. I'll leave you two alone."

When I step into the hallway to the left, Cassie and Zombie are standing there. The front of Cassie's t-shirt sticks to her thin body, soaking wet, but Zombie is the only one that is embarrassed. Cheeks tinged slightly pink, covered by that Ben Parish smile Cassie told me made every girl back home swoon - not that that was surprising. Pretty boys always get the girls.

"Sam still hates you?" I ask, pointing a finger towards the bathroom, where Sam was getting his routinely bath. Her cheeks flush at the question Whether it's out of anger or embarrassment, I'm not sure.

Out of the corner of my eye, Zombie runs a hand down his face, slack with disbelief. For the month that we've resided here, he's been trying to show me that the blunt things I say have never helped any situation ever. It hasn't stuck.

"Want me to talk to him?" Zombie asks, steering the conversation in a different direction.

"I don't care what you do," she replies, shaking her head, "I have more important things to do, like killing Evan Walker."

She shoves past me. I don't bother turning around to see where she goes - Evan is keeping watch on the porch, and she's planning to kill him. Cassie storms past me and across the living room floor. Zombie disappears into the bathroom. I don't glance inside because of privacy, but it's not hard to hear Sam shouting, "I don't care, Zombie. I don't care, I don't care. I hate her."

"You don't hate her," Zombie says gently. "You hate them, and you hate what they did to your dad and that she didn't — couldn't stop them. But you don't hate her, Sam. You don't."

"I do!" Sam shouts defiantly. The sound of water sloshing over the side of the tub isn't a surprise. Tommy used to do the same thing when he was mad. "I hate her! I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!"

"That's enough of that talk, private."

Zombie was tired. He didn't have the energy to keep up the fight with the 5-year-old, even though his infection was basically gone. It came down to the many sleepless nights he had, the many nightmares that kept him up at night, that kept him exhausted. Not to mention that he spent most of the night camped out on the porch or checking each individual room to make sure everyone was still accounted for. No one else is slipping out under my watch, he told me. Not again.

Sam runs across the hall with a towel around his waist. Zombie comes out after him, shoving his hands through his hair and heaving a sigh. He catches my eye and forces a smile. "Hey, baby. You feeling okay?"

"I feel fine," I reply. I squint at him. "What's wrong with you?"

"That's a loaded question." He grins. I don't. He shakes his head, sighing. "I'm going to tell Cassie when she comes in."

"Tell her what?"

He glances behind him at the door Sam disappeared behind. He doesn't want the kid to know. "Tell her that me, you, and Dumbo are going to the caverns to look for Ringer and Teacup."

I raise a brow in surprise. "Oh. When?"

He sucks in his bottom lip, biting it softly. "Tomorrow, hopefully."

I try not to show the surprise I'm feeling. He's been throwing around the idea for a while, especially when it's really late and neither of us can sleep. Zombie sees past my facade.

"We've delayed it too long already," he says quietly. "We should have gone weeks ago."

"Well we didn't," I say plainly. "There's no point in dwelling on it." He purses his lips and I wince at my blunt tone. "Sorry."

"It's fine." He brushes it off, hooks a finger in my belt loop and pulls me toward him. I chuckle and reach up to brush his hair from his eyes. He kisses me then, slow and sweet.

"Cooties!" Dumbo shouts from the living room, covering Megan's eyes. She giggles quietly, the first time I think I've seen her smile in a long time, and pulls his hands away.

Zombie and I break apart, me smirking and him smiling and both of us hoping they don't say anything about the stupid-happy looks on our faces. He swats my butt and side-steps away from me to go to the fireplace. He's going to wait for Cassie there, and pounce the second she comes in.

I lean against the wall behind the chair. I flick my wrist, point at the hall, nod at Dumbo. "Out."

Dumbo takes Megan's hand and they both leave. When I turn to Zombie his head is cocked to the side. "Did you have to be so mean?"

"No."

He nods. The front door opens and Cassie stalks in, soaking wet and shivering. Evan must have forced her to take his jacket because the odd bowling championship covered item is wrapped around her, drowning her in fabric. I advert my eyes and watch as Zombie immediately jumps to grab her attention. 

"Everything okay?" He asks. I almost laugh but stop myself when he sends me a glare. Oops.

Cassie scrubs her tear-stained cheeks and laughs at the question. "The more he explains, the less I understand."

"I told you something's not right with that dude," Zombie replies.

"You mean besides the whole alien thing?" I but in, raising a sarcastic brow.

Cassie ignores me. "What would you do if you didn't have a body for ten thousand years and then all of a sudden you did?"

Zombie cocks his head and suppresses a smile. "Probably go to the bathroom."

I shake my head in amusement. "You're an idiot."

He smiles at me. Cassie looks at him for a long moment, then lets out a short breath of air. "How's Sam?"

Zombie nodded to the rooms down the hall. "Hanging with Megan and Dumbo. He's okay."

Cassie purses her lips, crooked nose sticking out like a sore thumb. "He hates my guts."

"He doesn't hate your guts," Zombie offers weakly.

"He told me he hates my guts," Cassie replies.

I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying something mean. I wonder if Zombie is impressed that I managed to do so or if he's so busy trying to figure out how to break the bad news to Cassie that he doesn't even notice.

"Kids say things they don't mean," Zombie tells her, head bobbing up and down.

"Not just kids."

He nods in agreement, looking behind her at the front door. He pauses, glances at me, then back at her. "Ringer was right, Cassie. This doesn't make a lot of sense. He kidnaps a human body so he can murder all the unkidnapped human bodies. Then one day he decides he'd rather murder his own kind so he can save all the unkidnapped human bodies. And not just murder one or two of his kind here or there. All of them. He wants to destroy his entire civilization, and for what? For a girl. A girl!"

That wasn't the best choice of words right now, and I was tempted to say just that but Cassie beat me to it.

"You know, Parish, it may be a little more complicated than that. There is a human part of him, too."

I scoffed. "We're not worried about the stupid human part, Sullivan. I know you didn't like her, but Ringer's pretty damn smart. She made a good point: If they don't need bodies, they don't need a planet. And if they don't need a planet, why did they come for ours?"

"I don't know," Cassie snapped, feeling a little ganged up on. "Why don't you ask Ringer, since she's so damn smart?"

Zombie sucked in a breath. "We're going to." It took her a couple of seconds, and then she had to sit down. Zombie continued uneasily. "I've thought a lot about this." He paused, thinking over his next few words very carefully. "And I think I know what you're going to say, but before you say it, you need to hear me out. Just hear me out, okay? If Walker's telling the truth, we've got four days until the pod arrives and he leaves to do his thing. That's more than enough time for us to get there and back."

She glances between us. "To get where and back, Ben?"

"We won't go alone," he continued, like Cassie needed to know we wouldn't make a pit stop to have sex in the middle of the road or something. "We'll bring Dumbo with us."

"Okaaaay. With you where?" Her eyes lit up in surprise. She finally got it. "The caverns."

Zombie nodded quickly, relieved that she understood. "It's killing me, Cassie. I can't stop thinking about them. Maybe Cup caught up with Ringer and — well, maybe she didn't." He glanced at me for my response, but I couldn't manage to get a word out. He continued. "She might be dead. Ringer might be dead. Oh, hell, they probably are dead — or maybe they're not. Maybe they made it to the caverns and Ringer came back to the hotel to get us, only there was no us there to get because there was no there to come back to. Anyway, alive or dead, they're out there. And if they're alive, they have no clue what's coming. They'll die unless someone goes back for them."

I looked at Cassie, sort of waiting for her response but mostly doing so so that I didn't have to look at Zombie. There was something in his eyes every time he mentioned Ringer and Teacup — something lost. They were probably dead, but he couldn't believe it. Not yet. He would need to see it for himself.

"Go back for them," Cassie whispered. "Like you went back for Sam. Like you didn't go back for—"

"Yes. No. Oh, shit." Zombie's face flushed at the mention of Sissy. The urge to reach out and comfort him was something I wasn't used to -- or maybe I was and I just didn't want to admit it. "This has nothing to do with my sister . . ."

"You ran away and you've been trying to go back ever since."

He took a step toward her and I watched the interaction with squinted eyes. His words were soaked with venom. "You don't know a damn thing. I know that really bothers you, because Cassie Sullivan knows everything, right?"

"What do you want from me, Ben? I'm not your mother or commanding officer or whatever. Do what you want." She stands up, then she sits back down. There was nowhere she could escape the conversation. She looks at me, then she looks at Zombie. "I'm having a bad day."

"We all have shitty days," I offered weakly, but it just sounded like I was shutting down her feelings. Zombie nodded in acknowledgement to me and then nodded at Cassie, almost as if he was telling her that I was trying my best. It was kind of sweet.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone off like that." Zombie took a seat next to Cassie on the couch. He glanced at me and pat the cushion next to him like Come sit, Ghost, we'll have a grand ol' chat and then be on our merry way to find our dead friends!

I turned to face the fireplace and kept my gaze there. Cassie continued.

"I get it," she said. "But why do you have to go now? Why can't you wait? If Evan can pull this off..."

Zombie shakes his head. "Whether or not he pulls it off won't make a difference. The danger isn't the aliens up there. The danger is the humans down here. I need to find Ringer and Cup before the 5th Wave does."

Zombie took her hand in his. She frowned. "You're going to die."

"You bet I am," he said, and he smiled. "And it's gonna happen the way it should. Not their way. My way."

The front door opened and I looked toward Evan, who leaned against the doorway and said: "She's right, Ben. You guys should wait."

"Nobody asked you," Zombie replied.

My temper flared at the sight of Evan and my hands clenched into fists. "Listen, Walker, we've heard enough from you about your 'Save the puny humans' plan, alright? Blow up the ship and yada, yada, yada. But that's days away. We need to do something now."

"We can end this by blowing it up," Evan said, showing he definitely didn't listen to a word I just said.

"I don't care what you blow up," Zombie growled, turning away from Evan to look at me. We were in agreeance on this. "I don't even give a shit about ending this. Maybe it's hard for somebody with a savior complex to understand, but I don't want to save the world. Just two people."

He stood up, stepped over Cassie's outstretched legs, and started walking toward the hallway. Evan straightened up, calling out to him. "The spring equinox is in four days. If I don't get to that ship and blow it up, every city on Earth will be destroyed."

Oh.

I pushed off the wall, shook my head in disbelief and mild-shock, then snapped my jaw shut and turned away from the others to process. Logically the only way to win the war was to finally defeat the humans, and what better way to do that than blow them all to Dubuque?

Cassie had to be sure. "When you say 'destroyed'...?"

"Blown up," Evan answered. "It's the last step before the launch of the 5th Wave."

"Why?" Zombie was angry, confused, horrified, absolutely disgusted.

"To make things easier to finish the cleansing. And to wipe out anything human that remains."

"And they think that'll work?" I ask, raising a brow.

Cassie looks at me. "You don't?"

"Are you kidding? Humanity is just one little population of fucking cockroaches — one of us will always find a way to escape the boot coming down."