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“What’s what?”
“The little looks. The ‘don’t’ just now.”
“It’s nothing, Cassie.”
“Nothing would be no little looks and no ‘don’ts.’”
He shrugs, then glances up the stairs to the hole that opened to bare sky where the house used to be. “No getting there,” he says. He smiles as if he’s embarrassed for saying something stupid. “No matter how well you know someone, there’s still a part of them you won’t. You can’t. Like, ever. A locked room. I don’t know.” He shakes his head and laughs. The laugh collapses the moment it’s born.
“With Ringer, that’s more like all the rooms in the Louvre,” I point out.
Ben hauls himself to his feet and limps over to me, using his rifle as a crutch. By the time he arrives, his face is a study in exhaustion and pain. There you go. Parish heals up from one Ringer-inflicted wound, so she gives him another. Gotta keep the streak going.
“Have you lost your mind?” he asks.
“What do you think?”
“I think you have.”
“How can you tell?” I’m fully confident he won’t understand my question.
“The Cassie Sullivan I know would never leave her little brother.”
“Maybe I’m not the Cassie Sullivan you know.”
“So you’re just gonna leave him—”
“With you.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but when it comes to protecting people, I suck.”
“It’s not about you, Parish.”
He slides down the wall beside me. Takes a few deep breaths. Then he blurts out, “Let’s get real, okay? She won’t get to Vosch and you won’t get to Evan. That part’s done. Time for the next part.”
“The next part?”
“Them.” He nods toward Sammy and Megan curled beneath the blanket. “It’s always been about them, from day one. The enemy always knew it. The really sad and freaky part is why it’s been so easy for us to forget.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” I tell him. “Why do you think I’m going? This isn’t about Evan Walker. And it isn’t about you or me. If Ringer is right, Evan’s our last hope.” I look at my baby brother’s face, angelic in sleep. “His last hope.”
“Then I’ll go with Ringer. You stay here.”
I shake my head. “You’re broken. I’m not.”
“Bullshit. I can get around . . .”
“I’m not talking about your leg.”
He flinches. His jaw tightens. “That’s not fair, Cassie.”
“I’m not worried about fair. This isn’t about fair. This is about the odds. And risk. This is about my brother living to see next Christmas. It would be great if there were someone I could tag to do it for me, but I’m it, Parish. It’s down to me. Because I’m still there, Ben, under that car on the highway—I never got out and I never got up. I’m still there waiting for the bogeyman to come get me. And if I run now, anywhere or nowhere, he’s going to find me. He’s going to find Sam.” I tug Bear from the blanket and hug him to my chest. “I don’t care about whether Evan Walker is an alien or a human or an alien-human or a freaking turnip. I don’t care about your baggage or Ringer’s baggage, and I especially don’t care about my baggage. The world existed for a very long time before this particular set of seven billion billion atoms came along, and it will go right on after they’re scattered up, down, and sideways.”
Ben reaches out and touches my wet cheek. I push his hand away. “Don’t touch me.” You Has-Ben. You What-Might-Have-Ben.
“Look, Cassie. I’m not your boss and I’m not your daddy. I can’t stop you any more than you could have stopped me from going to the caves.”
I press my face into the top of Bear’s ratty old head. Bear smells like smoke and sweat and dirt and my little brother. “He loves you, Ben. More than me, I think. But that—”
