The Host 20 page

Melanie refused to answer or believe me; it was a struggle to keep her silent.

Jared watched the sweat bead on my forehead, the strange shiver that shook down my spine, and his eyes narrowed. He held on to my chin, refusing to let me hide my face.

Jared, I love you, she tried to scream. I’m right here.

My lips didn’t quiver, but I was surprised that he couldn’t read the words spelled out plainly in my eyes.

Time passed slowly while he waited for my answer. It was agonizing, having to stare into his eyes, having to see the revulsion there. As if that weren’t enough, Melanie’s anger continued to slice at me from the inside. Her jealousy swelled into a bitter flood that washed through my body and left it polluted.

More time passed, and the tears welled up until they couldn’t be contained in my eyes anymore. They spilled over onto my cheeks and rolled silently into Jared’s palm. His expression didn’t change.

Finally, I’d had enough. I closed my eyes and jerked my head down. Rather than hurt me, he dropped his hand.

He sighed, frustrated.

I expected he would leave. I stared at my hands again, waiting for that. My heartbeat marked the passing minutes. He didn’t move. I didn’t move. He seemed carved out of stone beside me. It fit him, this stonelike stillness. It fit his new, hard expression, the flint in his eyes.

Melanie pondered this Jared, comparing him with the man he used to be. She remembered an unremarkable day on the run…

“Argh!” Jared and Jamie groan together.

Jared lounges on the leather sofa and Jamie sprawls on the carpet in front of him. They’re watching a basketball game on the big‑screen TV. The para‑sites who live in this house are at work, and we’ve already filled the jeep with all it can hold. We have hours to rest before we need to disappear again.

On the TV, two players are disagreeing politely on the sideline. The cameraman is close; we can hear what they’re saying.

“I believe I was the last one to touch it‑it’s your ball.”

“I’m not sure about that. I wouldn’t want to take any unfair advantage. We’d better have the refs review the tape.”

The players shake hands, pat each other’s shoulders.

“This is ridiculous,” Jared grumbles.

“I can’t stand it,” Jamie agrees, mirroring Jared’s tone perfectly; he sounds more like Jared every day‑one of the many forms his hero worship has taken. “Is there anything else on?”

Jared flips through a few channels until he finds a track and field meet. The parasites are holding the Olympics in Haiti right now. From what we can see, the aliens are all hugely excited about it. Lots of them have Olympic flags outside their houses. It’s not the same, though. Everyone who participates gets a medal now. Pathetic.

But they can’t really screw up the hundred‑meter dash. Individual parasite sports are much more entertaining than when they try to compete against each other directly. They perform better in separate lanes.

“Mel, come relax,” Jared calls.

I stand by the back door out of habit, not because I’m tensed to run. Not because I’m frightened. Empty habit, nothing more.

I go to Jared. He pulls me onto his lap and tucks my head under his chin.

“Comfortable?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, because I really, truly am entirely comfortable. Here, in an alien’s house.

Dad used to say lots of funny things‑like he was speaking his own language sometimes. Twenty‑three skidoo, salad days, nosy parker, bandbox fresh, the catbird seat, chocolate teapot, and something about Grandma sucking eggs. One of his favorites was safe as houses.

Teaching me to ride a bike, my mother worrying in the doorway: “Calm down, Linda, this street is safe as houses.” Convincing Jamie to sleep without his nightlight: “It’s safe as houses in here, son, not a monster for miles.”

Then overnight the world turned into a hideous nightmare, and the phrase became a black joke to Jamie and me. Houses were the most dangerous places we knew.

Hiding in a patch of scrubby pines, watching a car pull out from the garage of a secluded home, deciding whether to make a food run, whether it was too dicey. “Do you think the parasites’ll be gone for long?” “No way‑that place is safe as houses. Let’s get out of here.”

And now I can sit here and watch TV like it is five years ago and Mom and Dad are in the other room and I’ve never spent a night hiding in a drainpipe with Jamie and a bunch of rats while body snatchers with spotlights search for the thieves who made off with a bag of dried beans and a bowl of cold spaghetti.

I know that if Jamie and I survived alone for twenty years we would never find this feeling on our own. The feeling of safety. More than safety, even‑happiness. Safe and happy, two things I thought I’d never feel again.

Jared makes us feel that way without trying, just by being Jared.

I breathe in the scent of his skin and feel the warmth of his body under mine.

Jared makes everything safe, everything happy. Even houses.

He still makes me feel safe, Melanie realized, feeling the warmth where his arm was just half an inch from mine. Though he doesn’t even know I’m here.

I didn’t feel safe. Loving Jared made me feel less safe than anything else I could think of.

I wondered if Melanie and I would have loved Jared if he’d always been who he was now, rather than the smiling Jared in our memories, the one who had come to Melanie with his hands full of hope and miracles. Would she have followed him if he’d always been so hard and cynical? If the loss of his laughing father and wild big brothers had iced him over the way nothing but Melanie’s loss had?

Of course. Mel was certain. I would love Jared in any form. Even like this, he belongs with me.

I wondered if the same held true for me. Would I love him now if he were like this in her memory?

Then I was interrupted. Without any cue that I perceived, suddenly Jared was talking, speaking as if we were in the middle of a conversation.

“And so, because of you, Jeb and Jamie are convinced that it’s possible to continue some kind of awareness after… being caught. They’re both sure Mel’s still kicking in there.”

He rapped his fist lightly against my head. I flinched away from him, and he folded his arms.

“Jamie thinks she’s talking to him.” He rolled his eyes. “Not really fair to play the kid like that‑but that’s assuming a sense of ethics that clearly does not apply.”

I wrapped my arms around myself.

“Jeb does have a point, though‑that’s what’s killing me! What are you after? The Seekers’ search wasn’t well directed or even… suspicious. They only seemed to be looking for you‑not for us. So maybe they didn’t know what you were up to. Maybe you’re freelancing? Some kind of undercover thing. Or…”

It was easier to ignore him when he was speculating so foolishly. I focused on my knees. They were dirty, as usual, purple and black.

“Maybe they’re right‑about the killing‑you part, anyway.”

Unexpectedly, his fingers brushed lightly once across the goose bumps his words had raised on my arm. His voice was softer when he spoke again. “Nobody’s going to hurt you now. As long as you aren’t causing any trouble…” He shrugged. “I can sort of see their point, and maybe, in a sick way, it would be wrong, like they say. Maybe there is no justifiable reason to… Except that Jamie…”

My head flipped up‑his eyes were sharp, scrutinizing my reaction. I regretted showing interest and watched my knees again.

“It scares me how attached he’s getting,” Jared muttered. “Shouldn’t have left him behind. I never imagined… And I don’t know what to do about it now. He thinks Mel’s alive in there. What will it do to him when…?”

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’m surprised you got to Jeb,” he reflected, changing the subject. “He’s a canny old guy. He sees through deceptions so easily. Till now.”

He thought about that for a minute.

“Not much for conversation, are you?”

There was another long silence.

His words came in a sudden gush. “The part that keeps bugging me is what if they’re right? How the hell would I know? I hate the way their logic makes sense to me. There’s got to be another explanation.”

Melanie struggled again to speak, not as viciously as before, this time without hope of breaking through. I kept my arms and lips locked.

Jared moved, shifting away from the wall so that his body was turned toward me. I watched the movement from the corner of my eye.

“Why are you here?” he whispered.

I peeked up at his face. It was gentle, kind, almost the way Melanie remembered it. I felt my control slipping; my lips trembled. Keeping my arms locked took all my strength. I wanted to touch his face. I wanted it. Melanie did not like this.

If you won’t let me talk, then at least keep your hands to yourself, she hissed.

I’m trying. I’m sorry. I was sorry. This was hurting her. We were both hurting, different hurts. It was hard to know who had it worse at the moment.

Jared watched me curiously while my eyes filled again.

“Why?” he asked softly. “You know, Jeb has this crazy idea that you’re here for me and Jamie. Isn’t that nuts?”

My mouth half‑opened; I quickly bit down on my lip.

Jared leaned forward slowly and took my face between both his hands. My eyes closed.

“Won’t you tell me?”

My head shook once, fast. I wasn’t sure who did it. Was it me saying won’t or Melanie saying can’t?

His hands tightened under my jaw. I opened my eyes, and his face was inches away from mine. My heart fluttered, my stomach dropped‑I tried to breathe, but my lungs did not obey.

I recognized the intention in his eyes; I knew how he would move, exactly how his lips would feel. And yet it was so new to me, a first more shocking than any other, as his mouth pressed against mine.

I think he meant just to touch his lips to mine, to be soft, but things changed when our skin met. His mouth was abruptly hard and rough, his hands trapped my face to his while his lips moved mine in urgent, unfamiliar patterns. It was so different from remembering, so much stronger. My head swam incoherently.

The body revolted. I was no longer in control of it‑it was in control of me. It was not Melanie‑the body was stronger than either of us now. Our breathing echoed loudly: mine wild and gasping, his fierce, almost a snarl.

My arms broke free from my control. My left hand reached for his face, his hair, to wind my fingers in it.

My right hand was faster. Was not mine.

Melanie’s fist punched his jaw, knocked his face away from mine with a blunt, low sound. Flesh against flesh, hard and angry.

The force of it was not enough to move him far, but he scrambled away from me the instant our lips were no longer connected, gaping with horrorstruck eyes at my horrorstruck expression.

I stared down at the still‑clenched fist, as repulsed as if I’d found a scorpion growing on the end of my arm. A gasp of revulsion choked its way out of my throat. I grabbed the right wrist with my left hand, desperate to keep Melanie from using my body for violence again.

I glanced up at Jared. He was staring at the fist I restrained, too, the horror fading, surprise taking its place. In that second, his expression was entirely defenseless. I could easily read his thoughts as they moved across his unlocked face.

This was not what he had expected. And he’d had expectations; that was plain to see. This had been a test. A test he’d thought he was prepared to evaluate. A test with results he’d anticipated with confidence. But he’d been surprised.

Did that mean pass or fail?

The pain in my chest was not a surprise. I already knew that a breaking heart was more than an exaggeration.

In a fight‑or‑flight situation, I never had a choice; it would always be flight for me. Because Jared was between me and the darkness of the tunnel exit, I wheeled and threw myself into the box‑packed hole.

The boxes crunched, crackled, and cracked as my weight shoved them into the wall, into the floor. I wriggled my way into the impossible space, twisting around the heavier squares and crushing the others. I felt his fingers scrape across my foot as he made a grab for my ankle, and I kicked one of the more solid boxes between us. He grunted, and despair wrapped choking hands around my throat. I hadn’t meant to hurt him again; I hadn’t meant to strike. I was only trying to escape.

I didn’t hear my own sobbing, loud as it was, until I could go no farther into the crowded hole and the sound of my thrashing stopped. When I did hear myself, heard the ragged, tearing gasps of agony, I was mortified.

So mortified, so humiliated. I was horrified at myself, at the violence I’d allowed to flow through my body, whether consciously or not, but that was not why I was sobbing. I was sobbing because it had been a test, and, stupid, stupid, stupid, emotional creature that I was, I wanted it to be real.

Melanie was writhing in agony inside me, and it was hard to make sense of the double pain. I felt as though I was dying because it was not real; she felt as though she was dying because, to her, it had felt real enough. In all that she’d lost since the end of her world, so long ago, she’d never before felt betrayed. When her father had brought the Seekers after his children, she’d known it was not him. There was no betrayal, only grief. Her father was dead. But Jared was alive and himself.

No one’s betrayed you, stupid, I railed at her. I wanted her pain to stop. It was too much, the extra burden of her agony. Mine was enough.

How could he? How? she ranted, ignoring me.

We sobbed, beyond control.

One word snapped us back from the edge of hysteria.

From the mouth of the hole, Jared’s low, rough voice‑broken and strangely childlike‑asked, “Mel?”

CHAPTER 30. Abbreviated

M el?” he asked again, the hope he didn’t want to feel coloring his tone.

My breath caught in another sob, an aftershock.

“You know that was for you, Mel. You know that. Not for h‑it. You know I wasn’t kissing it.”

My next sob was louder, a moan. Why couldn’t I shut up? I tried holding my breath.

“If you’re in there, Mel…” He paused.

Melanie hated the “if.” A sob burst up through my lungs, and I gasped for air.

“I love you,” Jared said. “Even if you’re not there, if you can’t hear me. I love you.”

I held my breath again, biting my lip until it bled. The physical pain didn’t distract me as much as I wished it would.

It was silent outside the hole, and then silent inside, too, as I turned blue. I listened intently, concentrating only on what I could hear. I wouldn’t think. There was no sound.

I was twisted into the most impossible position. My head was the lowest point, the right side of my face pressed against the rough rock floor. My shoulders were slanted around a crumpled box edge, the right higher than the left. My hips angled the opposite way, with my left calf pressed to the ceiling. Fighting with the boxes had left bruises‑I could feel them forming. I knew I would have to find some way to explain to Ian and Jamie that I had done this to myself, but how? What should I say? How could I tell them that Jared had kissed me as a test, like giving a lab rat a jolt of electricity to observe its reaction?

And how long was I supposed to hold this position? I didn’t want to make any noise, but it felt like my spine was going to snap in a minute. The pain got more difficult to bear every second. I wouldn’t be able to bear it in silence for long. Already, a whimper was rising in my throat.

Melanie had nothing to say to me. She was quietly working through her own relief and fury. Jared had spoken to her, finally recognized her existence. He had told her he loved her. But he had kissed me. She was trying to convince herself that there was no reason to be wounded by this, trying to believe all the solid reasons why this wasn’t what it felt like. Trying, but not yet succeeding. I could hear all this, but it was directed internally. She wasn’t speaking to me‑in the juvenile, petty sense of the phrase. I was getting the cold shoulder.

I felt an unfamiliar anger toward her. Not like the beginning, when I feared her and wished for her eradication from my mind. No, I felt my own sense of betrayal now. How could she be angry with me for what had happened? How did that make sense? How was it my fault that I’d fallen in love because of the memories she forced on me and then been overthrown by this unruly body? I cared that she was suffering, yet my pain meant nothing to her. She enjoyed it. Vicious human.

Tears, much weaker than the others, flowed down my cheeks in silence. Her hostility toward me simmered in my mind.

Abruptly, the pain in my bruised, twisted back was too much. The straw on the camel.

“Ung,” I grunted, pushing against stone and cardboard as I shoved myself backward.

I didn’t care about the noise anymore, I just wanted out. I swore to myself that I would never cross the threshold of this wretched pit again‑death first. Literally.

It was harder to worm out than it had been to dive in. I wiggled and squirmed around until I felt like I was making things worse, bending myself into the shape of a lopsided pretzel. I started to cry again, like a child, afraid that I would never get free.

Melanie sighed. Hook your foot around the edge of the mouth and pull yourself out, she suggested.

I ignored her, struggling to work my torso around a particularly pointy corner. It jabbed me just under the ribs.

Don’t be petty, she grumbled.

That’s rich, coming from you.

I know. She hesitated, then caved. Okay, sorry. I am. Look, I’m human. It’s hard to be fair sometimes. We don’t always feel the right thing, do the right thing. The resentment was still there, but she was trying to forgive and forget that I’d just made out with her true love‑that’s the way she thought of it, at least.

I hooked my foot around the edge and yanked. My knee hit the floor, and I used that leverage to lift my ribs off the point. It was easier then to get my other foot out and yank again. Finally, my hands found the floor and I shoved my way through, a breech birth, falling onto the dark green mat. I lay there for a moment, facedown, breathing. I was sure at this point that Jared was long gone, but I didn’t make certain of that right away. I just breathed in and out until I felt prepared to lift my head.

I was alone. I tried to hold on to the relief and forget the sorrow this fact engendered. It was better to be alone. Less humiliating.

I curled up on the mat, pressing my face against the musty fabric. I wasn’t sleepy, but I was tired. The crushing weight of Jared’s rejection was so heavy it exhausted me. I closed my eyes and tried to think about things that wouldn’t make my stinging eyes tear again. Anything but the appalled look on Jared’s face when he’d broken away from me…

What was Jamie doing now? Did he know I was here, or was he looking for me? Ian would be asleep for a long time, he’d looked so exhausted. Would Kyle wake soon? Would he come in search? Where was Jeb? I hadn’t seen him all day. Was Doc really drinking himself unconscious? That seemed so unlike him…

I woke slowly, roused by my growling stomach. I lay quietly for a few minutes, trying to orient myself. Was it day or night? How long had I slept here alone?

My stomach wouldn’t be ignored for long, though, and I rolled up onto my knees. I must have slept for a while to be this hungry‑missed a meal or two.

I considered eating something from the supply pile in the hole‑after all, I’d already damaged pretty much everything, maybe destroyed some. But that only made me feel guiltier about the idea of taking more. I’d go scavenge some rolls from the kitchen.

I was feeling a little hurt, on top of all the big hurt, that I’d been down here so long without anyone coming to look for me‑what a vain attitude; why should anyone care what happened to me?‑so I was relieved and appeased to find Jamie sitting in the doorway to the big garden, his back turned on the human world behind him, unmistakably waiting for me.

My eyes brightened, and so did his. He scrambled to his feet, relief washing over his features.

“You’re okay,” he said; I wished he were right. He began to ramble. “I mean, I didn’t think Jared was lying, but he said he thought you wanted to be alone, and Jeb said I couldn’t go check on you and that I had to stay right here where he could see that I wasn’t sneaking back there, but even though I didn’t think you were hurt or anything, it was hard to not know for sure, you know?”

“I’m fine,” I told him. But I held my arms out, seeking comfort. He threw his arms around my waist, and I was shocked to find that his head could rest on my shoulder while we stood.

“Your eyes are red,” he whispered. “Was he mean to you?”

“No.” After all, people weren’t intentionally cruel to lab rats‑they were just trying to get information.

“Whatever you said to him, I think he believes us now. About Mel, I mean. How does she feel?”

“She’s glad about that.”

He nodded, pleased. “How about you?”

I hesitated, looking for a factual response. “Telling the truth is easier for me than trying to hide it.”

My evasion seemed to answer the question enough to satisfy him.

Behind him, the light in the garden was red and fading. The sun had already set on the desert.

“I’m hungry,” I told him, and I pulled away from our hug.

“I knew you would be. I saved you something good.”

I sighed. “Bread’s fine.”

“Let it go, Wanda. Ian says you’re too self‑sacrificing for your own good.”

I made a face.

“I think he’s got a point,” Jamie muttered. “Even if we all want you here, you don’t belong until you decide you do.”

“I can’t ever belong. And nobody really wants me here, Jamie.”

“I do.”

I didn’t fight with him, but he was wrong. Not lying, because he believed what he was saying. But what he really wanted was Melanie. He didn’t separate us the way he should.

Trudy and Heidi were baking rolls in the kitchen and sharing a bright green, juicy apple. They took turns taking bites.

“It’s good to see you, Wanda,” Trudy said sincerely, covering her mouth while she spoke because she was still chewing her last bite. Heidi nodded in greeting, her teeth sunk in the apple. Jamie nudged me, trying to be inconspicuous about it‑pointing out that people wanted me. He wasn’t making allowances for common courtesy.

“Did you save her dinner?” he asked eagerly.

“Yep,” Trudy said. She bent down beside the oven and came back with a metal tray in her hand. “Kept it warm. It’s probably nasty and tough now, but it’s better than the usual.”

On the tray was a rather large piece of red meat. My mouth started to water, even as I rejected the portion I’d been allotted.

“It’s too much.”

“We have to eat all the perishables the first day,” Jamie encouraged me. “Everyone eats themselves sick‑it’s a tradition.”

“You need the protein,” Trudy added. “We were on cave rations too long. I’m surprised no one’s in worse shape.”

I ate my protein while Jamie watched with hawk‑like attention as each bite traveled from the tray to my mouth. I ate it all to please him, though it made my stomach ache to eat so much.

The kitchen started to fill up again as I was finishing. A few had apples in their hands‑all sharing with someone else. Curious eyes examined the sore side of my face.

“Why’s everyone coming here now?” I muttered to Jamie. It was black outside, the dinner hour long over.

Jamie looked at me blankly for a second. “To hear you teach.” His tone added the words of course.

“Are you kidding me?”

“I told you nothing’s changed.”

I stared around the narrow room. It wasn’t a full house. No Doc tonight, and none of the returned raiders, which meant no Paige, either. No Jeb, no Ian, no Walter. A few others missing: Travis, Carol, Ruth Ann. But more than I would have thought, if I’d thought anyone would consider following the normal routine after such an abnormal day.

“Can we go back to the Dolphins, where we left off?” Wes asked, interrupting my evaluation of the room. I could see that he’d taken it upon himself to start the ball rolling, rather than that he was vitally interested in the kinship circles of an alien planet.

Everyone looked at me expectantly. Apparently, life was not changing as much as I’d thought.

I took a tray of rolls from Heidi’s hands and turned to shove it into the stone oven. I started talking with my back still turned.

“So… um… hmm… the, uh, third set of grandparents… They traditionally serve the community, as they see it. On Earth, they would be the breadwinners, the ones who leave the home and bring back sustenance. They are farmers, for the most part. They cultivate a plant‑like growth that they milk for its sap…”

And life went on.

Jamie tried to talk me out of sleeping in the supply corridor, but his attempt was halfhearted. There just wasn’t another place for me. Stubborn as usual, he insisted on sharing my quarters. I imagined Jared didn’t like that, but as I didn’t see him that night or the next day, I couldn’t verify my theory.

It was awkward again, going about my usual chores, with the six raiders home‑just like when Jeb had first forced me to join the community. Hostile stares, angry silences. It was harder for them than it was for me, though‑ I was used to it. They, on the other hand, were entirely unaccustomed to the way everyone else treated me. When I was helping with the corn harvest, for example, and Lily thanked me for a fresh basket with a smile, Andy’s eyes bulged in their sockets at the exchange. Or when I was waiting for the bathing pool with Trudy and Heidi, and Heidi began playing with my hair. It was growing, always swinging in my eyes these days, and I was planning to shear it off again. Heidi was trying to find a style for me, flipping the strands this way and that. Brandt and Aaron‑Aaron was the oldest man who’d gone on the long raid, someone I couldn’t remember having seen before at all‑came out and found us there, Trudy laughing at some silly atrocity Heidi was attempting to create atop my head, and both men turned a little green and stalked silently past us.

Of course, little things like that were nothing. Kyle roamed the caves now, and though he was obviously under orders to leave me in peace, his expression made it clear that this restriction was repugnant to him. I was always with others when I crossed his path, and I wondered if that was the only reason he did nothing more than glower at me and unconsciously curl his thick fingers into claws. This brought back all the panic from my first weeks here, and I might have succumbed to it‑begun hiding again, avoiding the common areas‑but something more important than Kyle’s murderous glares came to my attention that second night.

The kitchen filled up again‑I’m not sure how much was interest in my stories and how much was interest in the chocolate bars Jeb handed out. I declined mine, explaining to a disgruntled Jamie that I couldn’t talk and chew at the same time; I suspected that he would save one for me, obstinate as ever. Ian was back in his usual hot seat by the fire, and Andy was there‑eyes wary‑beside Paige. None of the other raiders, including Jared, of course, was in attendance. Doc was not there, and I wondered if he was still drunk or perhaps hung‑over. And again, Walter was absent.

Geoffrey, Trudy’s husband, questioned me for the first time tonight. I was pleased, though I tried not to show it, that he seemed to have joined the ranks of the humans who tolerated me. But I couldn’t answer his questions well, which was too bad. His questions were like Doc’s.

“I don’t really know anything about Healing,” I admitted. “I never went to a Healer after… after I first got here. I haven’t been sick. All I know is that we wouldn’t choose a planet unless we were able to maintain the host bodies perfectly. There’s nothing that can’t be healed, from a simple cut, a broken bone, to a disease. Old age is the only cause of death now. Even healthy human bodies were only designed to last for so long. And there are accidents, too, I guess, though those don’t happen as often with the souls. We’re cautious.”

“Armed humans aren’t just an accident,” someone muttered. I was moving hot rolls; I didn’t see who spoke, and I didn’t recognize the voice.