{"quotes":[{"text":"Zombie!” Sammy calls. “I knew it was you.”Zombie?“Where are you taking him?” Ben says to me in a deep voice. I don’t remember it being that deep. Is my memory bad or is he lowering it on purpose, to sound older?“Zombie, that’s Cassie,” Sam chides him. “You know—Cassie.”“Cassie?” Like he’s never heard the name before.“Zombie?” I say, because I really haven’t heard that name before.I pull off the cap, thinking it might help him recognize me, then immediately regret it. I know what my hair must look like.“We go to the same high school,” I say, drawing my fingers hastily through my chopped-off locks. “I sit in front of you in Honors Chemistry.”Ben shakes his head like he’s clearing out the cobwebs.Sammy goes, “I told you she was coming.”“Quiet, Sam,” I scold him.“Sam?” Ben asks.“My name is Nugget now, Cassie,” Sam informs me.“Well, sure it is.” I turn to Ben. “You know my brother.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["ben-parish","cassie-sullivan","names","nugget","recognize","remember","sam-sullivan","zombie"],"id":8007,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"His body is pressed against my back, his arm is wrapped protectively around my waist, his breath a delicious tickle against my neck. The room is very cold; it would be nice to climb under the covers, but I don’t want to move. I don’t want him to move. I run my fingers along his bare forearm, remembering the warmth of his lips, the silkiness of his hair between my fingers. The boy who never sleeps, sleeping. Coming to rest upon the Cassiopeian shore, an island in the middle of a sea of blood. You have your promise, and I have you.I can’t trust him. I have to trust him.I can’t stay with him. I can’t leave him behind.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["cassie-sullivan","contradict","evan-walker","hold","intimate","sleeping","stay","trust"],"id":31036,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"He lays me on the bed. I say, right before he kisses me again, “If you kiss me again, I’m going to knee you in the balls.”His hands are incredibly soft, like a cloud touching me.“I won’t let you just…” He searches for the right word. “…fly away from me, Cassie Sullivan.”He blows out the candle beside the bed.I feel his kiss more intensely now, in the darkness of the room where his sister died. In the quiet of the house where his family died. In the stillness of the world where the life we knew before the Arrival died. He tastes my tears before I can feel them. Where there would be tears, his kiss.“I didn’t save you,” he whispers, lips tickling my eyelashes. “You saved me.”He repeats it over and over, until we fall asleep pressed against each other, his voice in my ear, my tears in his mouth.“You saved me.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["cassie-sullivan","evan-walker","kiss","saved","touch"],"id":73477,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"Let’s establish a code for when you want to go all creeper on me. One knock means you’d like to come in. Two means you’re just stopping by to spy on me while I sleep.” His eyes travel from my face to my shirt (which happens to be his shirt) to my bare legs, lingering a breath too long before returning to my face. His gaze is warm. My legs are cold.Then he knocks once on the jamb. But it’s the smile that gets him in.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["cassie-sullivan","code","evan-walker","knock","shirt","smile"],"id":79659,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"They made a major mistake,' he blurted out, 'the dumb bastards, when they didn't start by killing you first.'Benjamin Thomas Parish, that was the sweetest and most bizarre compliment anyone's ever given me.'I kissed him on the cheek. He kissed me on the mouth.'You know,' I whispered, 'a year ago, I would have sold my soul for that.'He shook his head. 'Not worth it.' And, for one-ten thousandth of a second, all of it fell away, the despair and grief and anger and pain and hunger, and the old Ben Parish rose from the dead. The eyes that impaled. The smile that slayed. In another moment, he would fade, slide back into the new Ben, the one called Zombie, and I understood something I hadn't before: He was dead, the object of my schoolgirl desires, just as the schoolgirl who desired him was dead.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["ben-parish","cassie-sullivan","past","school","smile","zombie"],"id":98450,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"If you leave without me, I’ll just follow you. You can’t stop me, Cassie. How are you going to stop me?”I shrug helplessly, fighting back tears. “Shoot you, I guess.”“Like you shot the Crucifix Soldier?”The words hit me like a bullet between the shoulder blades. I whirl around and fling open the door. He flinches, but stands his ground.“How do you know about him?” Of course, there’s only one way he could know. “You read my diary.”“I didn’t think you were going to live.”“Sorry to disappoint you.”“I guess I wanted to know what happened—”“You’re lucky I left the gun downstairs or I would shoot you right now. Do you know how creepy that makes me feel, knowing you read that? How much did you read?”He lowers his eyes. A warm red blush spreads across his cheeks.“You read all of it, didn’t you?” I’m totally embarrassed. I feel violated and ashamed. It’s ten times worse than when I first woke up in Val’s bed and realized he had seen me naked. That was just my body. This was my soul.I punch him in the stomach. There’s no give at all; it’s like I hit a slab of concrete.“I can’t believe you,” I shout. “You sat there—just sat there—while I lied about Ben Parish. You knew the truth and you just sat there and let me lie!","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["ben-parish","cassie-sullivan","diary","embarrassed","evan-walker","follow","leave","lied","read","shoot","stop"],"id":140371,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"His other hand finds my cheek, and he wipes away my tears with his thumb. The chocolate scent overwhelms me as he bends over and whispers in my ear, “No, Cassie. No, no, no.”I throw my arm around his neck and press his dry cheek against my wet one. I’m shaking like an epileptic, and for the first time I can feel the weight of the quilts on the top of my toes because the blinding dark sharpens your other senses.I’m a bubbling stew of random thoughts and feelings. I’m worried my hair might smell. I want some chocolate. This guy holding me—well, it’s more like I was holding him—has seen me in all my naked glory. What did he think about my body? What did I think about my body? Does God really care about promises? Do I really care about God? Are miracles something like the Red Sea parting or more like Evan Walker finding me locked in a block of ice in a wilderness of white?“Cassie, it’s going to be okay,” he whispers into my ear, chocolate breath.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["body","cassie-sullivan","chocolate","comfort","cry","evan-walker","god","hold","okay","tears"],"id":169401,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"Everything's going to be okay', because that's what I wanted him to say and it's what he wanted to say and that's what you do when the curtain is falling — you give the line that the audience wants to hear.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["aliens","apocalypse","badassery","cassie-sullivan","hopelessness","humanity","the-5th-wave"],"id":188845,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"Aren’t you coming with us?”I feel his hand on my cheek. I know what this means and I slap his hand away.“You’re coming with us, Evan,” I say.“There’s something I have to do.”“That’s right.” My hand flails for his in the dark. I find it and pull hard. “You have to come with us.”“I’ll find you, Cassie. Don’t I always find you? I—”“Don’t, Evan. You don’t know you’ll be able to find me.”“Cassie.” I don’t like the way he says my name. His voice is too soft, too sad, too much like a good-bye voice. “I was wrong when I said I was both and neither. I can’t be; I know that now. I have to choose.”“Wait a minute,” Ben says. “Cassie, this guy is one of them?”“It’s complicated,” I answer. “We’ll go over it later.” I grab Evan’s hand in both of mine and press it against my chest. “Don’t leave me aga.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["alien","cassie-sullivan","choose","coming","evan-walker","farewell","find","intimate","kiss","leave","other","touch"],"id":211915,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"I should have asked, I guess,” he says. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”“What?”He rotates around on his butt to face me. Me on the sofa, him on the floor, looking up. “That I was going with you.”“What? We weren’t even talking about that! And why would you want to go with me, Evan? Since you think he’s dead?”“I just don’t want you to be dead, Cassie.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["asked","cassie-sullivan","coming","dead","evan-walker","go"],"id":227669,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":20,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}