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"WHAT are you talking about?" I repeat. 

Teacup's eyes dart around the room, checking the positions of the rest of our squad. "I can't be any clearer than how crystal clear I am being."

"Your crystal is murky," I say.

She grimaces. "Take off my eyepiece and look through it yourself."

Before my hand can even touch the back of her head, Dumbo is speaking up. "We look like Teds right now," he says quickly. "But we have a reason for that. We have a reason for everything – well, most everything." His eyes are nervous, darting between our duo and our guns. "Please, just give us a chance to explain."

My hand rests on top of Teacup's head, smoothing down her wild hair. "What do you think, Croak?" She murmurs. "Can we trust them?"

I press my lips into a hard line. I'm not entirely sure of the answer. Then my eyes fall on Zombie, who looks at me so richly that I find myself nodding. "Of course. This is our squad."

"If this is our squad," she protests, "then why is Flint on the floor?"

Good point, kiddo.

"Yeah." I raise my voice slightly. "Hey, are we just not going to talk about Flint? What happened?"

Poundcake frowns and his eyes turn away. Dumbo shifts uncomfortably. Ringer stares unforgivingly at Flint's body.

"He did it to himself," Zombie says. His voice is clipped and cold. "He didn't listen to us."

"Typical Flint," I say. Teacup slowly nods.

"Okay." Her eyes rake over the ones who supposedly have everything figured out. "Then let's hear it."

___

WE are the fifth wave. The words ring in my ears, loud and demanding over the shrill shriek of the sleet-filled wind.

Our implants were devices that made non-tagged humans appear a different color. Ringer cut Zombie's out. Ringer cut everyone's out, because humans should be united against the aliens, not helping them eradicate the human race.

But we are the fifth wave. This is what we've been trained to do. We've been taken in by the enemy, transformed into soldiers, and sent out into the frozen world to do the alien's dirty work.

Only certain ones have the strength to carry out this disgusting mission, though. So the aliens weeded us out, the weak bodied and free thinkers from the strong and the followers, at a death camp posed as a new start.

This 'mission' was a test for Squad 53, since it was the first squad out in the field. Reznik was the one who fired the first shots. He had a device that displayed the location of our implants, and had a button that could cause these implants to explode.

Ringer neutralized Reznik. She took the device to show to the rest of the squad to explain this (because who in the hell in their right mind would dream something like this up?). Flintstone was secretly a free thinker. He pressed the button and it killed him.

The squad had plans to take out the trackers and move to a secure location, away from the aliens. We might not be able to prevent our deaths forever, but at least it would be for a while.

...but Zombie is so damn attached to Nugget, who is still at the death camp. He concocted this elaborate plan of getting shot and taken back to base, fabricated this long story of how the squad had turned against him and shot him, and dedicated what is possibly the rest of his life to the idea that he's going to grab Nugget and escape Camp Haven with him.

Gasoline | Ben ParishWhere stories live. Discover now