Free The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey Page A

Skittles.
    “Cassie!”
    Now he was running. I didn’t feel like running, so I let him catch up to me.
    That was one thing that hadn’t changed: The one sure way of not being alone was wanting
     to be alone.
    “Whatcha doing?” Crisco asked. He was pulling hard for air. Bright red cheeks. Shiny
     temples, maybe from all the hair grease.
    “Isn’t it obvious?” I shot back. “I’m building a nuclear device to take out the mothership.”
    “Nukes won’t do it,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “We should build Fermi’s steam
     cannon.”
    “Fermi?”
    “The guy who invented the bomb.”
    “I thought that was Oppenheimer.”
    He seemed impressed I knew something about history.
    “Well, maybe he didn’t invent it, but he was the godfather.”
    “Crisco, you’re a freak,” I said. That sounded harsh, so I added, “But I didn’t know
     you before the invasion.”
    “You dig this big hole. Put a warhead at the bottom. Fill the hole with water and
     cap it off with a few hundred tons of steel. The explosion turns the water instantly
     into steam, which shoots the steel into space at six times the speed of sound.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Somebody should definitely do that. Is that why you’re stalking me?
     You want me to help you build a nuclear steam cannon?”
    “Can I ask you something?”
    “No.”
    “I’m serious.”
    “So am I.”
    “If you had twenty minutes to live, what would you do?”
    “I don’t know,” I answered. “But it wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”
    “How come?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He probably figured it wasn’t something
     he wanted to hear. “What if I was the last person on Earth?”
    “If you were the last person on Earth, I wouldn’t be here to do anything with you.”
    “Okay. What if we were the last
two
people on Earth?”
    “Then you’d still end up being the last, because I’d kill myself.”
    “You don’t like me.”
    “Really, Crisco? What was your first clue?”
    “Say we saw them, right here, right now, coming down to finish us off. What would
     you do?”
    “I don’t know. Ask them to kill you first. What’s the point, Crisco?”
    “Are you a virgin?” he asked suddenly.
    I stared at him. He was totally serious. But most thirteen-year-old boys are when
     it comes to hormonal issues.
    “Screw you,” I said, and brushed past him, heading back toward the camp.
    Bad choice of words. He trotted after me and not one strand of plastered-down hair
     moved as he ran. It was like a shiny black helmet.
    “I’m serious, Cassie,” he puffed. “These are the times when any night could be your
     last night.”
    “Dork, it was that way before they came, too.”
    He grabbed my wrist. Tugged me around. Pushed his wide, greasy face close to mine.
     I had an inch on him, but he had twenty pounds on me.
    “Do you really want to die without knowing what it’s like?”
    “How do you know I don’t?” I said, yanking free. “Don’t ever touch me again.” Changing
     the subject.
    “Nobody’s gonna know,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone.”
    He tried to grab me again. I slapped his hand away with my left and popped him hard
     in the nose with the open palm of my right. It opened up a faucet of bright red blood.
     It ran into his mouth, and he gagged.
    “Bitch,” he gasped. “At least you’ve got someone. At least everybody you ever frigging
     knew in your life isn’t dead.”
    He busted out in tears. Fell onto the path and gave in to it, the bigness of it, the
     big Buick that’s parked over you, the horrible feeling that, as bad as it’s been,
     it’s going to get worse.
    Ah, crap.
    I sat on the path next to him. Told him to lean his head back. He complained that
     made the blood run down his throat.
    “Don’t tell anybody,” he begged. “I’ll lose my cred.”
    I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
    “Where’d you learn to do that?” he asked.
    “Girl Scouts.”
    “There’s badges for that?”
    “There’s