A.N: Hope you're all enjoying this! Love the support.

Disclaimer: No, I do not own The 5th Wave.

Chapter Song: Two Of Us On The Run by Lucius.

LINCOLN

Head, hands, feet, neck, back, eyes, jaw, stomach, arms, legs, chest - everything aches. I clamber onto the bus, weary boned with my eyelids drooping. The second I perch myself on the backseat, pulling my hood low over my face, I'm out like a light.

Three months ago my biggest concerns were if I was going to pass AP Biology, and wondering if I could find a summer job that was going to pay enough for me to afford to go Cancun for spring break. Leading up to the first wave, the mothership took up some of my thoughts, but mainly I just worried that our team weren't going to make it through the play-offs. Then the power went out, and I couldn't share those funny YouTube videos poking fun at the aliens, or the foreign news reports where the newscaster would talk to 'experts' about what they believe is going on. I wasn't sitting behind a screen any more, watching from afar. It was real, and it was happening to me. They took my power.

Now, I'm alone and exhausted, and I just want to go somewhere clean, where I'm not looking behind my back every other second.

It feels like I'm asleep for just under a minute when my eyes flutter open, though it's light out when I wake, and it was pitch black when I first boarded the bus. Next to me I hear the sobs and the whimpers of a little girl, an oversized parka coat hanging off her shoulders, tears rolling down her rosy cheeks. She's banging on the back window with as much strength as she can muster, calling out to somebody through the glass. Curious, I swivel around and peer out the window, where I spot a figure through the heavy dust cloud, struggling to catch up.

I turn to the little girl, who is sobbing quite drastically now, and immediately I know what's happening. I reach out and tentatively grab ahold of the little girl's hand, and give her a small smile.

"Is that your mommy out there?" I ask her, softly. She shakes her head.

"Its my big sister," she corrects me.

I then lead her to the front of the bus, where one of the men in uniform sit behind the wheel. I tap him on the shoulder, the little girl still clutching onto my hand with her tiny fist.

"Sir, you have to stop the bus," I explain, with a sombre tone. "This little girl's sister is outside, and she - "

"How old is she?" the man asks, not for a second tearing his eyes of the road, or lifting his foot off the gas pedal.

Struggling for an answer, I turn to the girl, who's bottom lip is trembling. "Seventeen," she sniffs.

The man sighs. Not a good sign. "Listen kid, she can take the next bus, alright? We haven't got time to stop."

I try and argue, but there's no use. The man is persistent we persevere, and no amount of crying or protesting is going to change his mind. With a heavy heart I sit back down with the girl next to me, not letting go of her hand. I look down at her, and feel a pang of recognition. Why do I feel I know her? Do I know her? I can't though, she looks as if she's about five. I don't remember ever being friends with any five year olds, beside my sister Hannah . . .

That's when it hits me. This girl, this tiny, little girl, had been her best friend, Lola. The pair did everything together, and I recall the countless times Hannah and Lola wold build princess castles in the living room and make a mess in the kitchen and insist Frozen be blasted through every speaker throughout the house.

I remember her, and I remember thinking she was always really sweet, and polite, and that besides my sister of course, she was the cutest little girl in the neighbourhood. I also remember her sister. I remember her reputation as a legendary hacker. I remember her asshole of a boyfriend. I remember that she had this adorable smile.

"Lola, do you know who I am?" I say, with a slight grin. She looks up at me, focusing her attention. Clearly it's been a long time since she last saw me, and faces were beginning to blur. However, I watched as the veil was peeled back in her eyes, and they widened with realisation.

"Lincoln!" she cried, as she jumped up and wrapped her arms around me. The gesture was so foreign to me after so long of being alone, that at first I didn't know how to react. Should I hug her back, or should I gently peel her off me?

I know what I want to do. I keep her on, and snake my arms around her tiny frame. It reminds me of embracing my own little sister, before she slipped away from me. It's comforting, in a way. It's nice.

Lola tears herself away from me, but perches closer beside me on the seat. I know what's on the tip of her tongue, as I can see her itching to ask me the dreaded question.

"She didn't make it," was all I could say.

I thought that speaking about it would make me upset, but in fact it resonated with Lola too, as another tear fell down her cheek. I stretched out and held her hand in my now, grazing my thumb across her knuckles.

"But your sister, she's tough," I added, completely assertive in how I came across. I truly thought that she was going to be okay, that in a few hours the two sisters could be reunited again. What I would want for my own family. "She's going to find her way back to you in no time."

Lola nodded, and smiled, modestly. "Daisy promised."

Her name is Daisy? Huh. It's prettier than Daley, and it suits her much better. I actually really like it. How come she never corrected me?

There were two of us on the run now. I'm not alone any more. Me and Lola. The wheels were going so fast that every doubt we had was coming undone, and the other had to stitch it back up. Falling behind with everything we left, we held on far too long. But there are so many people on the road with us. Now we're together, I feel like we can make something of ourselves. Keep our favourite parts, the ornamental parts, of love and memories. Everything else has room to grow.

We reach Wright Patterson Air Force Base in just under four hours, and I instruct Lola not to leave my side. Her chunky backpack - ladybird patterned, of course - is swung over my shoulder, as well as my own duffel bag, and her hand is tightly in mine. We're loaded off in the hangars, where hundreds of other kids disembark their yellow buses. We get handed these counters that have numbers engraved on. Lola's number is forty-nine, and mine is fifty; we're told to wait for them to be called out.

Patiently, we stand in the middle of the hangar, encircled my soldiers and medical staff, who are tending to the children who seem to have picked up nasty scrapes and bumps as they wandered the wilderness. There aren't any adults, and I appear to be the oldest in here. I can feel Lola fidget next to me, and I know she's looking around for her sister. I let her go for a few seconds, asking that she remain there, whilst I slip away and talk to one of the soldiers.

"Excuse me, I was wondering when the next buses were going to get here?" I ask one of them, inquisitively. They simply turn their head to face me, and shrug. Scoffing, I walk back to Lola, who starts to tug at my hoodie.

"They called out my number," she said, with such an innocent gleam in her eyes. "Should I go?"

Anxiously, I glance between Lola, and the nurse waiting for her, a beam spreading across her face, and a hand outstretched. I ruffle Lola's blonde locks, and tell her it's alright, handing her back her bag.

"I'll see you later, okay?" I call after her, waving. She waves back, smiling brightly, nodding.

"Was that your sister?" asks the other nurse, as my number is read. She's older than the other one, crow's feet peeking out from behind her greying bangs, though she seems just as nice.

I shake my head. "She was a girl in my neighbourhood. my little sister's best friend, actually."

The woman understands immediately, and places a comforting hand on my forearm, as we stop outside a door. "I'm sorry to hear that."

I wave it off, or else fear the tears that were bound to come. She leads me into the room, were a hospital bed and a computer screen awaits us. A long mirror covers one entire wall. The whole room smells of bleach, and the white of the walls was blinding. It felt surreal, to be surrounded by something so modern as an office space like this, that it's striking.

"Do you mind just taking a seat, and answering a few questions for me?" she asks nicely, gesturing to the hospital bed. I nod, and flop backwards.

The questions themselves are relatively simple - what's your full name? Lincoln James Campbell. How old am I? Just turned eighteen in September. Where are you from? Roseland, Chicago. What happened to your family? All dead. The plague. Have you previously been infected? No. Where did I go after I left home? Found a refugee camp on the outskirts of Ohio. Do I know where any other survivors are? Not really.

When it's over, she pats me on my knee and tells me I'm safe now. I don't have to be scared. My fingers find the chain around my neck, on which hangs a little silver locket that once belonged to Hannah. I nod.

A physical follows. She tells me with a positive tone that with everything that's happened, I've managed to keep myself healthy and strong. Then a minuscule pellet the size of a grain of rice, in implanted into my neck. Highly classified, been used by the military for years. Apparently. The idea is to implant all remaining personnel. Each pellet transmits it's own unique so signal so that keeping tabs on us is easier. To keep track of us, she tells me. To keep us safe. I know it's all with good intentions, but I still feel extremely uncomfortable with the idea of somebody knowing exactly where I am throughout the day.

Then, as she begins to type up all of the information, I lean forward. My head is swimming after all the questions, and the painful recollection of my family, but I still remember my promise.

"Do you know what happened to the rest of the survivors up at Camp Ashpit?" I inquire. "When they're going to get here?"

The doctor shakes her head, apologetically. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure. Just wait for the yellow buses, okay?"

Then, just when I thought that it was all over, and I could go and find Lola, she sits down next to me, with a heavy sort of sigh. "Do you know what's going on outside these walls, Lincoln?"

Of course I do.

"They're inside us. They're infesting us all, slowly. We don't know how to stop them from doing so, but we can detect them."

Keeping the shock from creeping onto my face was difficult. The Others are infesting us? How? Why? Who? And how can nobody know how to prevent them from crawling inside our brains and taking control of us?

"Would you like to see one?"

I thought that after the whole 'they're inside us' line, I couldn't possibly be unprepared for what they had to say next. I was oh-so-horribly wrong.

She flicks a switch, and the mirror fades, so that I'm no longer looking at my own reflection, but the face of a young boy, about twelve or so, behind the glass. He was sat in a chair, with wires protruding off of his head. His eyes were somehow staring deep into my own, though the doctor assured me that he couldn't see us.

"He can't be infested," I say, shaking my head with disbelief. "He was on the bus with me. I saw him. He looks so normal."

As I say this, the doctor slides a monitor in front of my eyes, and I jump backwards immediately. Just looking through the glass, the boy is a boy, and just that. Looking through the monitor, his entire skull lights up green, his brain encased in translucent bone.

"That's the key word, Lincoln," she explains, sombrely. "'Looks normal'. Appearances are everything to the aliens. They need our bodies so that we are more susceptible to trusting them. To not killing them. But we've evolved since the Arrival. We know what they are, and what they're doing. They didn't expect that. We can detect them, thus meaning we can kill them before they can kill us. See that green thing? That's an Other, gripping on to it's last chance at survival. We're smarter than they thought. We're willing to stay alive by any means necessary. Can you say the same, Lincoln? Can you kill to stay alive?"

The words are penetrating my brain like tiny missiles. Aliens. Bodies. Kill. Alive. Words that before the Arrival meant nothing more than taglines from video games. Would I want to stay alive if it meant killing another? Could I live knowing that I've ended somebody else? I don't think I would want to.

"Is he alive? The boy I mean."

The doctor doesn't say anything for a while. "He might as well be." If I kill this boy, I kill the Other. But if I don't kill him, and the alien stays alive, then would that be worse for the boy, or better for the alien? And how would I feel afterwards? Guilty, or relief?

"Is there another way? Drugs, radiation, electroshock, surgery? There has to be away to keep the boy alive."

"Sadly, no. We've tried everything, and nothing works."

I gulp. The fate of this boy now lies in the kill-switch the doctor hands me. If I press this button, the boy will die. The twelve year old innocent boy who like me has probably lost his parents, his siblings, and everyone he's ever cared about. Now, he's lost his control. That alien clinging to his brain owns him, and there's no way of getting him back.

"Think about Hannah. Think about your parents. They would still be alive today if it wasn't for the mothership. They took that from you. They took your family, your home, your friends, your life. Do you want to take the world back before they can? Do you want revenge, Lincoln? For all the pain and the suffering they have caused, do you want them to feel how you have? How millions and billions of countless others have?"

My fingers subconsciously find the locket again. The cold metal is just a reminder of Hannah's cold body. A body I wouldn't have had to bury if it wasn't for the Others. I'm not killing the boy, I'm killing the thing responsible for all of the attacks.

I bring my finger down as hard as I can.