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"Don’t be a duo out there without an escort"

"Sure," Dad said "Right You’re right, of course"

He leaned over and gaveSqueeze Release Anything ood-bye

Good-bye, Cassie

Branch turned to his commander and said, "First priority, sir?"

And Vosch nodded "First priority"

We stepped into the bright sunshine, the ht ahead a couple of soldiers were leaning against a Humvee I hadn’t seen thehtened at the sight of us Corporal Branch gave theer First priority

"How far is it?" he asked me

"Not far," I answered My voice sounded very s me back to childhood

He followed me down the trail that snaked into the dense woods behind the coround crunched in protest under his brown boots

The day arm, but it was cooler under the trees, their leaves a rich, late-sureen We passed the tree where I’d stashed the M16 I didn’t look back at it I kept walking toward the clearing

And there he was, the little shit, up to his ankles in bones and dust, clawing through the broken remains for that last, useless, priceless trinket, one ot to where the road ended he’d be the Man

His head ca with sweat and the crap he slopped in his hair Streaks of black soot stained his cheeks He looked like some sorry-ass excuse of a football player When he saw us, his hand whipped behind his back So silver flashed in the sun

"Hey! Cassie? Hey, there you are I ca for you because you weren’t in the barracks, and then I saw…there was this--"

"Is he the one?" the soldier askedthe rifle over his shoulder and took a step toward the pit

It was me, the soldier in the middle, and Crisco in the pit of ash and bone

"Yeah," I said "That’s Crisco"

"That’s not my name," he squeaked "My real name is--"

I’ll never know Crisco’s real naun or hear the report of the soldier’s sidearm I didn’t see the soldier draw it fro at the soldier, I was looking at Crisco His head snapped back, like soreasy locks, and he sort of folded up as he went down, clutching the treasures of the dead in his hand

20

MY TURN

The girl wearing the backpack and carrying the ridiculous teddy bear, standing just a couple of yards behind him

The soldier pivoted, arm extended My memory’s a little fuzzy about this next part I don’t reun froer

The next clear

And the soldier falling to his knees in front ofhis eyes

His three eyes

Well, of course I realized later he didn’t really have three eyes The one in the middle was the blackened entry wound of the bullet

It un pointed at his face It ? A second? Less than a second? But in that iant anaconda If you’ve ever been through a trau does a car crash last? Ten seconds? Five? It doesn’t feel that short if you’re in it It feels like a lifetime

He pitched over face-first into the dirt There was no question I’d wasted him My bullet had blasted a pie plate–sized hole in the back of his head

But I didn’t lower the gun I kept it pointed at his half head as I backed toward the trail

Then I turned and ran like hell

In the wrong direction

Toward the co at that point I’m only sixteen, and this was the first person I’d shot point-blank in the face I was having trouble dealing

I just wanted to get back to Dad

Dad would fix this

Because that’s what dads do They fix things

My ister the sounds at first The woods echoed with the staccato bursts of auto, like Crisco’s head snapping back and the way he flopped into the gray dust like every bone in his body had suddenly turned into Jell-O, the way his killer had swung around in a perfectly executed pirouette with the barrel of the gun flashing in the sunlight

The world was ripping apart And pieces of the wreckage were raining all aroundof the 4th Wave

I skittered to a stop before reaching the co out of the barrack s There was a person crawling toward the storage shed

It was my father

His back was arched His face was covered in dirt and blood The ground behind my father was pockmarked with my father’s blood

He looked over as I came out of the trees

No, Cassie, he ave out He toppled over, lay still

A soldier eed frorace, shoulders relaxed, arms loose at his sides

I backed into the trees I raised the gun But I was over a hundred feet away If I missed…

It was Vosch He see over the cru I think he was playing dead

It didn’t matter

Vosch shot hi any noise when he pulled the trigger But Ito set off Vosch’s Spidey sense The blackoff the visor He held up his index finger toward two soldiers co out of the barracks, then jabbed his thumb in my direction