- •Stephenie Meyer The Host
- •I was surprised at his accusation, at his tone. This discussion was almost like… an argument. Something my host was familiar with but that I’d never experienced.
- •I did not open my eyes. I didn’t want to be distracted. My mind gave me the words I needed, and the tone that would convey what I couldn’t say without using many words.
- •I decided to open my eyes. I felt the need to double-check the Healer’s promises and make sure the rest of me worked.
- •It took me a moment before I could speak. Even then, my voice was just a breath. “What happened to them?”
- •I nodded in understanding. We’d had a name for it on my other worlds. On no world was it smiled upon. So I quit quizzing the Seeker and gave her what I could.
- •I tried.
- •I stared down at my hands and said nothing.
- •I thought her question through carefully. “I don’t think so. Not so I’ve noticed.”
- •I coughed twice and shook my head. I was sure it was over; my stomach was empty.
- •I took a deep breath and resisted the urge to shake her again. She was a full head shorter than I was. It was a fight I would win.
- •I faced the Seeker now, curious to judge the impact of my words. She was impassive, staring at the white nothingness of the bare wall across the room.
- •I jerked away from her, my face flushing.
- •I shrug, and my stomach flutters. “It’s beautiful here.”
- •I let the engine idle as I tried to think of options besides sleeping in the car, surrounded by the black emptiness of the desert night. Melanie waited patiently, knowing I would find none.
- •I was able to contain my anxiety as I walked hesitantly to the vacant door frame; we must be just as alone here as we had been all day and all yesterday.
- •I cringed, shoving the paper away from me, back into the dark cupboard.
- •I pulled the stiff door back and found the mother lode.
- •I’d turned my back on the east to get the sun off my face for a moment.
- •I laughed at her now. The sound was sucked away by the scorching wind.
- •I don’t know, I’ve never died before.
- •I tasted blood inside my cheek.
- •I shivered in the oven-hot air.
- •I looked for only one thing-where Jared was, so that I could put myself between him and his attackers.
- •I’m not ready to die right this second.
- •I was surprised that the strangely fluid babble did not respond in any way to our entrance. Perhaps they couldn’t see us yet, either.
- •I stood where he’d left me, trying to keep my eyes off Jamie’s face and failing.
- •In spite of myself, I smiled at his unwilling interest. “Far away. Another planet.”
- •Ian and the doctor both raised their hands above their heads.
- •I closed my eyes.
- •I folded my arms across my body.
- •It was quiet for a moment, just the sounds of our footsteps echoing, low and muffled, from the tunnel walls.
- •I thought about the word misfit for a moment. It might have been the truest description of me I’d ever heard. Where had I ever fit in?
- •I could feel my cheeks getting warm.
- •I was in about my fourth week as an informal teacher when life in the caves changed again.
- •I glanced at him wildly, searching for that same guilt on his face. I didn’t find it, only a defensive tightening around his vivid eyes as he stared at the newcomers.
- •I peeked through narrowed eyes as Jared whirled to assess the truth of Jeb’s claim.
- •I realized now that Jamie was just as sad as everyone else here.
- •I appraised his fierce expression-the fire in his brilliant eyes.
- •I noticed how he said when, not if. No matter what promises he’d made, he didn’t see me lasting in the long term.
- •I hated this room. In the darkness, with the odd shadows thrown by the weak glow, it seemed only more forbidding. There was a new smell-the room reeked of slow decay and stinging alcohol and bile.
- •I don’t know. This is all my fault!
- •It was a horrible day. The worst of my life on this planet, even including my first day in the caves and the last hot, dry day in the desert, hours from death.
- •It was over, and I knew it.
- •I didn’t answer. I was afraid of giving him something to use against Kyle.
- •I let him have the gun willingly. He laughed again at my expression.
- •I took a deep breath.
- •I shrugged. “a million or so.”
- •I closed my eyes, wishing my mouth had stayed closed. I felt dizzy. Was I just tired or was it my head wound?
- •I was so tired. I didn’t care that Kyle was three feet from me. I didn’t care that two of the men in the room would side with Kyle if he came around. I didn’t care about anything but sleep.
- •Ian started to stand beside me.
- •Ian stared at his brother for a moment, then sat on the ground beside me again.
- •Ian started to rise again.
- •Ian didn’t give him a chance to answer. He yanked the door out of his way-roughly but very quietly-and then slid into his room and put the door back in its place.
- •I didn’t know what I thought. About any of it.
- •I nodded. “Yes. More than strange. Impossible.”
- •I nodded at that, but he kept going, ignoring me.
- •It made a squishing sound and a thud-that was the first thing I noticed-and then the shock of the blow wore off, and I felt it, too.
- •I pulled myself up. “Perfect.” It was true. I hadn’t felt so healthy in a long time. The sharp shift from pain to ease made the sensation more powerful.
- •I laughed. “It’s amazing. If you stab yourself, I could show you… That’s a joke.”
- •I don’t think it’s the No Pain. Not for either of us.
- •I tuned them out. Once Ian and Kyle got started, they usually went on for a while. I consulted the map.
- •I tried to smile remorsefully. I could tell I sounded stiff, like the too-careful actors on the television.
- •I jumped, startled, and the little pill slipped from my fingers. It dropped to the metal floor with a faintly audible clink. I felt the blood drain from my face as though a plug had been pulled.
- •I looked back at the truck, too, a forced smile on my face. I couldn’t see who was driving. My eyes reflected the headlights, shot out faint beams of their own.
- •I shuddered.
- •I hadn’t decided if I wanted to talk to her. At least, that was what I’d told Jeb.
- •I slowed myself to a walk before I interrupted him. I didn’t want to scare him, to make him think there was an emergency.
- •I heard the double meaning in his words.
- •I considered this as we ran through the desert in the growing light of dawn-ran because, with the Seekers looking, we shouldn’t be out in the daylight.
- •It was a story I’d never told them before, for obvious reasons. It was one of my best. Lots of action. Jamie would have loved it. I sighed and began in a low voice.
- •I paused to shudder.
- •I paused to laugh quietly to myself.
- •I nodded, not convinced. “I won’t show you unless I believe that.”
- •I shook my head. “I think he sees where this is going. He must guess my plan.”
- •In answer to my earlier question to myself, no, the face was not less repugnant with a different awareness behind it. Because the awareness was not so very different, in the end.
- •Ironically enough, Ian was the one who took my side and helped hurry the raid along. He still didn’t see where this would lead.
- •I stroked her soft cheek, but there was no response, so I took her limp hand in mine again. I gazed at the blue sky through the holes in the high ceiling. My mind wandered.
- •It just wasn’t as shocking as it used to be.
- •I saw Jeb’s eyes brighten with his unquenchable curiosity.
- •I took a deep breath and walked slowly into Doc’s place. I announced my presence in a low, even voice. “Hello.”
- •I winced-I had a more recent memory.
- •I could hear Trudy talking to the Healer’s host, but I tuned out the words. Let the humans take care of their own for the moment.
- •I stared at him for a few seconds, and then my eyes grew wide. “Sunny’s gone? Already?”
- •Ian lurched to his feet.
- •I turn to look at her, and I don’t know the face, either. She’s pretty.
- •Ian was happy. This insight made my worry suddenly much lighter, easier to bear.
- •Ian squeezed my hand and leaned in to whisper through all the hair. His voice was so low that I was the only one who could hear. “I held you in my hand, Wanderer. And you were so beautiful.”
In answer to my earlier question to myself, no, the face was not less repugnant with a different awareness behind it. Because the awareness was not so very different, in the end.
“That’s why we don’t like you,” she told me that first night, making no change from the present tense or the plural pronoun. “When she realized that you were hearing Melanie just the way she was hearing me, it made her frightened. She thought you might guess. I was her deep, dark secret.” A grating laugh. “She couldn’t make me shut up. That’s why she became a Seeker, because she was hoping to figure out some way to better deal with resistant hosts. And then she requested being assigned to you, so she could watch how you did it. She was jealous of you; isn’t that pathetic? She wanted to be strong like you. It gave us a real kick when we thought Melanie had won. I guess that didn’t happen, though. I guess you did. So why did you come here? Why are you helping the rebels?”
I explained, unwillingly, that Melanie and I were friends. She didn’t like that.
“Why?” she demanded.
“She’s a good person.”
“But why does she like you?”
Same reason.
“She says, for the same reason.”
Lacey snorted. “Got her brainwashed, huh?”
Wow, she’s worse than the first one.
Yes, I agreed. I can see why the Seeker was so obnoxious. Can you imagine having that in your head all the time?
I wasn’t the only thing Lacey objected to.
“Do you have anywhere better to live than these caves? It’s so dirty here. Isn’t there a house somewhere, maybe? What do you mean we have to share rooms? Chore schedule? I don’t understand. I have to work? I don’t think you understand…”
Jeb had given her the usual tour the next day, trying to explain, through clenched teeth, the way we all lived here. When they’d passed me-eating in the kitchen with Ian and Jamie-he threw me a look that clearly asked why I hadn’t let Aaron shoot her while that was still an option.
The tour was more crowded than mine. Everyone wanted to see the miracle for themselves. It didn’t even seem to matter to most of them that she was… difficult. She was welcome. More than welcome. Again, I felt a little of that bitter jealousy. But that was silly. She was human. She represented hope. She belonged here. She would be here long after I was gone.
Lucky you, Mel whispered sarcastically.
Talking to Ian and Jamie about what had happened was not as difficult and painful as I’d imagined.
This was because they were, for different reasons, entirely clueless. Neither grasped that this new knowledge meant I would be leaving.
With Jamie, I understood why. More than anyone else, he had accepted me and Mel as the package deal we were. He was able, with his young, open mind, to grasp the reality of our dual personalities. He treated us like two people rather than one. Mel was so real, so present to him. The same way she was to me. He didn’t miss her, because he had her. He didn’t see the necessity of our separation.
I wasn’t sure why Ian didn’t understand. Was he too caught up in the potential? The changes this would mean for the human society here? They were all boggled by the idea that getting caught-the end-was no longer a finality. There was a way to come back. It seemed natural to him that I had acted to save the Seeker; it was consistent with his idea of my personality. Maybe that was as far as he’d considered it.
Or maybe Ian just didn’t have a chance to think it all through, to see the glaring eventuality, before he was distracted. Distracted and enraged.
“I should have killed him years ago,” Ian ranted as we packed what we needed for our raid. My final raid; I tried not to dwell on that. “No, our mother should have drowned him at birth!”
“He’s your brother.”
“I don’t know why you keep saying that. Are you trying to make me feel worse?”
Everyone was furious with Kyle. Jared’s lips were welded into a tight line of rage, and Jeb stroked his gun more than usual.
Jeb had been excited, planning to join us on this landmark raid, his first since I’d come to live here. He was particularly keen to see the shuttle field up close. But now, with Kyle putting us all in danger, he felt he had to stay behind just in case. Not getting his way put Jeb in a foul mood.
“Stuck behind with that creature,” he muttered to himself, rubbing the rifle barrel again-he wasn’t getting any happier about the new member of his community. “Missin’ all the fun.” He spit on the floor.
We all knew where Kyle was. As soon as he’d grasped how the Seeker-worm had magically transformed into the Lacey-human in the night, he’d slipped out the back. I’d been expecting him to lead the party demanding the Seeker’s death (I kept the cryotank always cradled in my arms; I slept lightly, my hand touching its smooth surface), but he was nowhere to be found, and Jeb had quashed the resistance easily in his absence.
Jared was the one to realize the jeep was gone. And Ian had been the one to link the two absences.
“He’s gone after Jodi,” Ian had groaned. “What else?”
Hope and despair. I had given them one, Kyle the other. Would he betray them all before they could even make use of the hope?
Jared and Jeb wanted to put off the raid until we knew if Kyle was successful-it would take him three days under the best circumstances, if his Jodi still lived in Oregon. If he could find her there.
There was another place, another cave we could evacuate to. A much smaller place, with no water, so we couldn’t hide there long. They’d debated whether they should move everyone now or wait.
But I was in a hurry. I’d seen the way the others eyed the silver tank in my arms. I’d heard the whispers. The longer I kept the Seeker here, the better chance that someone would kill her. Having met Lacey, I’d begun to pity the Seeker. She deserved a mild, pleasant new life with the Flowers.