The Host(211)

I took the cryotank from Jared, easing it rather than tugging it, turning it with care until it was vertical, and then I hugged it to my chest. The outside of the tank was the same temperature as the warm room. I cradled it to my body, protective as any mother.

I looked back at the stranger on the table. Doc was already dust-ing Smooth over the sealed wound. We made a good team: one attending to the soul, the other to the body. Everyone was taken care of.

Doc looked up at me, his eyes full of exhilaration and wonder. “Amazing,” he murmured. “That was incredible.”

“Good job,” I whispered back.

“When do you think she’ll wake up?” Doc asked.

“That depends on how much chloroform she inhaled.”

“Not much.”

“And if she’s still there. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Before I could ask, Jared lifted the nameless woman tenderly from the cot, rolled her face-up, and laid her on another, cleaner resting place. This tenderness did not move me. This tenderness was for the human, for Melanie.…

Doc went with him, checking her pulse, peeking under her lids. He shone a flashlight into her unconscious eyes and watched the pupils constrict. No light reflected back to blind him. He and Jared exchanged a long glance.

“She really did it,” Jared said, his voice low.

“Yes,” Doc agreed.

I didn’t hear Jeb sidle up next to me.

“Pretty slick, kid,” he murmured.

I shrugged.

“Feeling a smidge conflicted?”

I didn’t answer.

“Yeah. Me, too, hon. Me, too.”

Aaron and Brandt were talking behind me, their voices rising with excitement, answering each other’s thoughts before the questions were spoken.

No conflict there.

“Wait till the others hear!”

“Think of the —”

“We should go get some —”

“Right now, I’m ready —”

“Hold up,” Jeb cut Brandt off. “No soul snatching until that cryotank is safely on its way into outer space. Right, Wanda?”

“Right,” I agreed in a firmer voice, hugging the tank tighter to my chest.

Brandt and Aaron exchanged sour glances.

I was going to need more allies. Jared and Jeb and Doc were only three, though certainly the most influential three here. Still, they would need support.

I knew what this meant.

It meant talking to Ian.

Others, too, of course, but Ian would have to be one of them. My heart seemed to slump lower in my chest, to curl limply in on itself. I’d done many things I had not wanted to do since joining the humans, but I couldn’t remember any this sharply and pointedly painful. Even deciding to trade my life for the Seeker’s—that was a huge, vast hurt, a wide field of ache, but it was almost manageable because it was so tied up in the bigger picture. Telling Ian goodbye was a razor-sharp piercing; it made the greater vision hard to see. I wished there was some way, any way, to save him from the same pain. There wasn’t.

The only thing worse would be telling Jared goodbye. That one would burn and fester. Because he wouldn’t feel pain. His joy would far outweigh any small regret he might feel over me.

As for Jamie, well, I wasn’t planning on facing that goodbye at all.

“Wanda!” Doc’s voice was sharp.

I hurried to the bed Doc was hovering over. Before I got there, I could see the tiny olive hand fisting and unfisting where it hung over the edge of the cot.

“Ah,” the Seeker’s familiar voice moaned from the human body. “Ah.”

The room went utterly silent. Everyone looked at me, as if I were the expert on humans.

I elbowed Doc, my hands still wrapped around the tank. “Talk to her,” I whispered.

“Um… Hello? Can you hear me… miss? You’re safe now. Do you understand me?”

“Ah,” she groaned. Her eyes fluttered open, focused quickly on Doc’s face. There was no discomfort in her expression—the No Pain would be making her feel wonderful, of course. Her eyes were onyx black. They darted around the room until she found me, and recognition was quickly followed by a scowl. She looked away, back to Doc.

“Well, it feels good to have my head back,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “Thanks.”





CHAPTER 53

Condemned

The Seeker’s host body was named Lacey; a dainty, soft, feminine name. Lacey. As inappropriate as the size, in my opinion. Like naming a pit bull Fluffy.

Lacey was just as loud as the Seeker—and still a complainer.

“You’ll have to forgive me for going on and on,” she insisted, allowing us no other options. “I’ve been shouting away in there for years and never getting to speak for myself. I’ve got a lot to say all stored up.”