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Alone in the darkness, awake while everyone else slept, he felt the most at peace. He supposed it was in his nature, passed down from his father and his father’s father, farmers who tended the land and cared for their livestock. Nurturers, guardians, watchmen for the harvest. That was to be Evan Walker’s inheritance. Instead, he became the opposite. The silent hunter in the woods. The deadly assassin stalking human prey. How many did he kill before he found her hiding in the woods that autumn afternoon? He couldn’t remember. He felt no absolution in knowing he’d been used, no redemption in understanding he was as much a victim as the people he killed—from a distance, always from a distance. Forgiveness is not born out of innocence or ignorance. Forgiveness is born of love.
At dawn, he left the porch and went inside to his room. The time had come. He’d lingered here too long already. He was stuffing an extra jacket into the duffel bag—the bowling jacket he’d taken from Grace’s house that Cassie had hated so much—when Ben appeared in the doorway, shirtless, bleary-eyed, scruffy-chinned.
“You’re leaving,” he said.
“I’m leaving.”
“Marika said you would. I didn’t believe her.”
“Why not?”
Ben shrugged. “She isn’t always right. One half of one percent of the time, she’s only half right.” He rubbed his eyes and yawned. “And you’re not coming back,” Ben went on. “Ever. Is she right about that, too?”
Evan nodded. “Yes.”
“Well.” Ben looked away, scratching his shoulder slowly. “Where are you going?”
“To look for lights in the dark.”
“Lights,” Ben echoed. “Like, literal lights, or . . . ?”
“I mean bases. Military compounds. The closest one is about a hundred miles away. I’ll start there.”
“And do what?”
“What I’ve been gifted to do.”
“You’re going to blow up every military base in North America?”
“South America, too, i
f I live that long.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“I don’t think I’ll be working alone.”
Ben took a moment to think. “The Silencers.”
“Where else would they go? They know where their enemies are. They know each base has an arsenal of alien ordnance like Camp Haven’s. They believe there’s no choice now that the mothership’s gone but to blow up the 5th Wave bases. Well, I believe that’s what they believe. It’s what I would believe if I still believed. We’ll see.”
He shouldered the duffel bag and walked to the door. Ben blocked the way. His face was flushed with anger.
“You’re talking about murdering thousands of innocent people.”
“What do you suggest I do, Ben?”
“Stay here. Help us. We—” He took a deep breath. This was hard for him to say. “We need you.”
“For what? You can take the night watch and tend the garden and pick up my slack on the hunts.”
“Goddamn it, Walker, what’s this about, huh?” Ben exploded in fury. “What’s this really about? Is it about ending a war or taking revenge? You can blow up half the world and it won’t make it right, it won’t bring her back.”
Evan remained calm. He’d heard all the arguments, many times. He’d fought these battles for months, alone, in the quiet tumult of his heart. “Two will be saved for each one I kill. That’s the math. What’s the alternative? Stay here until staying here is too dangerous, then move to another place, then another, and another, hiding, running, using the gifts they gave me to keep myself alive—for what? Cassie didn’t die so I could live. She died for something much bigger than that.”
Ben was shaking his head. “Right, so how about I kill you now and save tens of thousands of lives? How’s that math work for you?”
“You have a point.” Evan smiled. “The problem is you’re no killer, Ben. You never were.”
