The Host(160)

As soon as I was in the pitch-black of the corridor, I sped up, jogging along the familiar path.

Some instinct told me this was the same thing—that this was a repeat of the last time Jared and the others had come home from a raid, and everyone was sad, and Doc had gotten drunk, and no one would answer my questions. It was happening again, whatever I wasn’t supposed to know about. What I didn’t want to know about, according to Ian. I felt prickles on the back of my neck. Maybe I didn’t want to know.

Yes, you do. We both do.

I’m frightened.

Me, too.

I ran as quietly as I could down the dark tunnel.





CHAPTER 40

Horrified

I slowed when I heard the sound of voices. I was not close enough to the hospital for it to be Doc. Others were on their way back. I pressed myself against the rock wall and crept forward as quietly as I could. My breathing was ragged from running. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle the sound.

“. . . why we keep doing this,” someone complained.

I wasn’t sure whose voice it was. Someone I didn’t know well. Maybe Violetta? It held that same depressed tone that I recognized from before. It erased any notion that I’d been imagining things.

“Doc didn’t want to. It was Jared’s idea this time.”

I was sure that it was Geoffrey who spoke now, though his voice was a little changed by the subdued revulsion in it. Geoffrey had been with Trudy on the raid, of course. They did everything together.

“I thought he was the biggest opponent to this business.”

That was Travis, I guessed.

“He’s more… motivated now,” Geoffrey answered. His voice was quiet, but I could tell he was angry about something.

They passed just half a foot from where I cringed into the rocks. I froze, holding my breath.

“I think it’s sick,” Violetta muttered. “Disgusting. It’s never going to work.”

They walked slowly, their steps weighted with despair.

No one answered her. No one spoke again in my hearing. I stayed motionless until their footsteps had faded a little, but I couldn’t wait until the sound disappeared completely. Ian might be following me already.

I crept forward as quickly as I could and then started jogging again when I decided it was safe.

I saw the first faint hints of daylight streaming around the curving tunnel ahead, and I shifted into a quieter lope that still kept me moving swiftly. I knew that once I was around the gradual arc, I would be able to see the doorway into Doc’s realm. I followed the bend, and the light grew brighter.

I moved cautiously now, putting each foot down with silent care. It was very quiet. For a moment, I wondered if I was wrong and there was no one here at all. Then, as the uneven entrance came into view, throwing a block of white sunlight against the opposite wall, I could hear the sound of quiet sobbing.

I tiptoed right to the edge of the gap and paused, listening.

The sobbing continued. Another sound, a soft, rhythmic thudding, kept time with it.

“There, there.” It was Jeb’s voice, thick with some emotion. “’S okay. ’S okay, Doc. Don’t take it so hard.”

Hushed footsteps, more than one set, were moving around the room. Fabric rustling. A brushing sound. It reminded me of the sounds of cleaning.

There was a smell that didn’t belong here. Strange… not quite metallic, but not quite anything else, either. The smell was not familiar—I was sure I had never smelled it before—and yet I had an odd feeling that it should be familiar to me.

I was afraid to move around the corner.

What’s the worst they will do to us? Mel pointed out. Make us leave?

You’re right.

Things had definitely changed if that was the worst I could fear from the humans now.

I took a deep breath—noticing again that strange, wrong smell—and eased around the rocky edge into the hospital.

No one noticed me.

Doc was kneeling on the floor, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders heaving. Jeb leaned over him, patting his back.

Jared and Kyle were laying a crude stretcher beside one of the cots in the middle of the room. Jared’s face was hard—the mask had come back while he was away.

The cots were not empty, as they usually were. Something, hidden under dark green blankets, filled the length of both of them. Long and irregular, with familiar curves and angles…

Doc’s homemade table was arranged at the head of these cots, in the brightest spot of sunlight. The table glittered with silver—shiny scalpels and an assortment of antiquated medical tools that I couldn’t put a name to.

Brighter than these were other silver things. Shimmering segments of silver stretched in twisted, tortured pieces across the table… tiny silver strands plucked and naked and scattered… splatters of silver liquid smeared on the table, the blankets, the walls…