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Why didn’t he finish her?

Why couldn’t he finish her?

He told himself it was unwise She couldn’t stay in these woods indefinitely He could use her to lead him to others of her kind Humans are social animals They cluster like bees The attacks relied on this critical adaptation The evolutionary iroups was the opportunity to kill theth in numbers

And then he found the notebooks and discovered there was no plan, no real goal except to survive to the next day She had nowhere to go and no one left to go to She was alone Or thought she was

He didn’t return to her ca day, not telling hi himself think about her silent, desperate cry: Soht be the last human on Earth

Now, as the last huhway, the tension in his shoulders began to fade She wasn’t going anywhere He lowered the rifle and squatted at the base of the tree, rolling his head from side to side to ease the stiffness in his neck He was tired Hadn’t been sleeping well lately Or eating He’d dropped some pounds since the 4th Wave rolled out He wasn’t too concerned They’d anticipated so of the 4th Wave The first kill would be the hardest, but the next would be easier, and the one after that easier still, because it’s true: Even the et used to even the

Cruelty isn’t a personality trait Cruelty is a habit

He pushed that thought away To call what he was doing cruel i between your kind and another species wasn’t cruel It was necessary Not easy, especially when you’ve lived the last four years of your life pretending to be no different fro question: Why didn’t he finish her that first day? When he heard the shots inside the convenience store and followed her back to the ca in the dark?

He could explain away the three ue, lack of sleep, the shock of seeing her again He had assumed she would head north, if she ever left her camp at all, not head back south He had felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, as if he’d turned a street corner and run into a long-lost friend That must have been what threw off that first shot The second and third he could chalk up to luck--her luck, not his

But what about all those days that he followed her, sneaking into her ca hi the diary in which she had written, Soht, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky? What about those predawn h the woods to where she slept, determined to finish it this time, to do what he had prepared all his life to do? She wasn’t his first kill She wouldn’t be his last

It should have been easy

He rubbed his slick palhs It was cool in the trees, but he was dripping with sweat He scrubbed his sleeve across his eyes The wind on the highway: a lonely sound A squirrel scampered down the tree next to hihway disappeared over the horizon in both directions, and nothingin the lonely wind The buzzards had found the three bodies lying in the median; three fat birds waddled in for a closer look while the rest of the flock circled in the updrafts high overhead The buzzards and other scavengers were enjoying a population explosion Buzzards, crows, feral cats, packs of hungry dogs He’d stumbled upon more than one desiccated corpse that had clearly been someone’s dinner

Buzzards Crows Aunt Millie’s tabby Uncle Herman’s Chihuahua Blowflies and other insects Worms Time and the elements clean up the rest If she didn’t come out, Cassie would die beneath the car Within minutes of her last breath, the first fly would arrive to lay eggs in her

He pushed the distasteful iht It had been only four years since his Awakening, and he still fought against seeing the world through hu, when he saw the face of his human mother for the first ti so beautiful--or so ugly

It had been a painful integration for his he’d heard of He supposed his had been more difficult than others because the childhood of his host body had been a happy one A well-adjusted, healthy human psyche was the hardest to absorb It had been--still was--a daily struggle His host body wasn’t so apart fro It was him The eyes he used to see the world, they were his eyes This brain he used to interpret, analyze, sense, and remember the world, it was his brain, wired by thousands of years of evolution Human evolution He wasn’t trapped inside it and didn’t ride about in it, guiding it like a jockey on a horse He was this hu should happen to it--if, for example, it died--he would perish with it

It was the price of survival The cost of his people’s last, desperate gamble:

To rid his new ho human, he had to overcome his humanity

He stood up He didn’t knohat he aiting for Cassie for Cassiopeia was doo corpse She was badly injured Run or stay, there was no hope She had no way to treat her wound and no one for miles who could help her She had a small tube of antibiotic creaes In a few days, the wound would becorene would set in, and she would die, assu in the interi ti the squirrel It rocketed up the tree with an angry hiss He swung his rifle to his shoulder and brought the Buick into the sight, swinging the red crosshairs back and forth and up and down its body What if he blew out the tires? The car would collapse onto its ri her beneath its two-thousand-pound fra then

The Silencer lowered his rifle and turned his back on the highway

The buzzards feeding in the median heaved their cumbersome bodies into the air

The lonely wind died

And then his hunter’s instinct whispered, Turn around

A bloody hand e

He swung his rifle into position Sighted her in the crosshairs Holding his breath, sweat coursing down his face, stinging his eyes She was going to do it She was going to run He was relieved and anxious at the same time

He couldn’t s wide and squared his shoulders and waited for her to make her move The direction wouldn’t matter Once she was out in the open, there was nowhere to hide Still, part of him hoped she would run in the opposite direction, so he wouldn’t have to place the bullet in her face

Cassie hauled herself upright, collapsed for aprecariously on her wounded leg, clutching the handgun He placed the red cross in the er

Now, Cassie Run