The Last 8 by Laura Pohl

Author:Laura Pohl
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-02-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

The next day, I head to the bunker to clean out the plane that I’ve decided to use. It’s got a powerful motor, and I check again and again that everything is working, running all the tests that Abuelo had taught me to do ever since I was a kid.

“You ready?” Adam asks as he comes through the bunker gate. Sputnik barks at him, doing her usual circles around his legs.

“Yes,” I answer, though I’m lying through my teeth. “Does anyone need me over at the lab?”

“You can’t think you’re that essential to building Avani’s machine.”

I turn to him.

“I’m kidding,” he says, putting his hands up. “You know, I never got to thank you.”

I meet his gray-blue eyes. “What for?”

“You stood up for all of us,” he says quietly. “I would’ve stayed here for a long time, not realizing that I was missing something. Not realizing that we could do this.”

He offers me a sincere smile, and it disarms me. He is so much like Noah that it almost hurts to look at him.

But he’s not Noah, I remind myself.

I step away from him.

“So, I kind of owe you a favor,” he says. “What are you doing right now?”

“Besides focusing all of my energy on this plan?”

“I could teach you how to drive.”

I laugh, despite myself. “Do you have some ulterior motives?”

“Maybe.” He laughs, breaking that grin that makes his eyes sparkle. “I mean it, Clover. You can’t keep crashing cars.”

“It’s the end of the world. I can do whatever I want.”

“Yeah. But what if you die in a car crash? What will we put on your tombstone? ‘Clover…’” He waits for an answer.

“Martinez.”

“‘Clover Martinez. One of the Last Teenagers on Earth. Fought aliens. Died in a car crash, though.’”

The way he says it makes me want to laugh—it does sound absolutely ridiculous. “Strangely enough, there’s a bigger chance of getting killed by aliens than of dying in a car accident these days.”

Adam smiles again. “You owe your tombstone to humanity. It should say, ‘Died fighting aliens.’ Or something epic.”

“I’d rather sit through a root canal.”

“Come on, Clover. Be a good sport.”

“I hate sports.”

But somehow, Adam convinces me. He pulls a truck over to where I’m standing, near the entrance gate, and points out that there’s only one way I can go, in a straight line down the runway to the opposite end of the bunker, where there’s an empty space that’s barely visible from here. Five minutes later, I’m sitting in the driver’s seat with Adam riding shotgun, my hands gripping the steering wheel. Sputnik sits in the back, a seat belt over her fur.

“Okay,” I say, when I think I’m ready to go. The truck is military-grade, so it’s a lot bigger than any other car I’ve driven, which feels weird, like I have a bear in my control, instead of a small dog. It also has a manual transmission, and I’m used to automatics. “Are you sure about this?”

“Look at it this way,” Adam says. “You’ve never crashed an army truck, so your record is clean.

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