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No He’s too s to assume I’m armed He wouldn’t risk it Not that Silencers care whether they live or die…or do they care? Do Silencers know fear? They don’t love life--I’ve seen enough to prove that But do they love their own livessoer than a season What’s taking hi?

It’s an either/or world now Either he’s co to finish it or he isn’t But he has to finish it, doesn’t he? Isn’t that the reason he’s here? Isn’t that the whole friggin’ point?

Either/or: Either I run--or hop or crawl or roll--or I stay under this car and bleed to death If I risk escape, it’s a turkey shoot I won’t make it two feet If I stay, same result, only more painful, more fearful, and much, much slower

Black stars blossoh air into s

I reach up with my left hand and yank the cloth from my face

The cloth

Cassie, you’re an idiot

I set the gun down beside un

I liftbeneath it I can’t liftI stare past the black, blossouts of the Buick as I pull the two ends together, cinch theht as I can, and fumble with the knot I reach down and explore the wound with , but a trickle co off the tourniquet

I pick up the gun Better My eyesight clears a little, and I don’t feel quite so cold I shift a couple of inches to the left; I don’t like lying in my own blood

Where is he? He’s had plenty of time to finish this…

Unless he is finished

That brings et to breathe

He’s not co because he doesn’t need to come He knows you won’t dare come out, and if you don’t come out and run, you won’t make it He knows you’ll starve or bleed to death or die of dehydration

He knohat you know: Run = die Stay = die

Time for him to move on to the next one

If there is a next one

If I’m not the last one

Come on, Cassie! From seven billion to just one in five months? You’re not the last, and even if you are the last hu on Earth--especially if you are--you can’t let it end this way Trapped under a goddaone--is this how huood-bye?

Hell no

10

THE 1ST WAVE took out half a million people

The 2nd Wave put that number to shame

In case you don’t knoe live on a restless planet The continents sit on slabs of rock, called tectonic plates, and those plates float on a sea ofand pushing against one another, creating enormous pressure Over time the pressure builds and builds, until the plates slip, releasing huge ay in the for one of the fault lines that ring every continent, the shock wave produces a superwave called a tsunami

Over 40 percent of the world’s population lives within sixty miles of a coastline That’s three billion people

All the Others had to do was make it rain

Take aand three times as heavy Position it over one of these fault lines Drop it frouidance systeravity, by the ti twelvebullet

It hits the surface with a force one billion tireater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Bye-bye, New York Bye, Sydney Good-bye, California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, British Colu, London, Rome, Rio

Nice to know you Hope you enjoyed your stay!

The 1st Wave was over in seconds

The 2nd Wave lasted a little longer About a day

The 3rd Wave? That took a little longer--twelve weeks Twelve weeks to kill…well, Dad figured 97 percent of those of us unlucky enough to have survived the first taves