The Host(237)

“You’re not a parasite,” Melanie said firmly, touching my hair, pulling up a strand and letting the gold slide between her fingers. “This body didn’t belong to Pet, but there’s nobody else to claim it. We waited to make sure, Wanda. We tried to wake her up almost as long as we tried with Jodi.”

“Jodi? What happened to Jodi?” I chirped, my little voice going higher, like a bird’s, with anxiety. I struggled to get up, and Ian pulled me—it took no effort, no strength to move my tiny new body—into a sitting position with his arm supporting me. I could see all the faces then.

Doc, no more tears in his eyes. Jeb, peeking around Doc, his expression satisfied and burning with curiosity at the same time. Next, a woman I didn’t recognize for a second because her face was more animated than I’d ever seen it, and I hadn’t seen it much anyway—Mandy, the former Healer. Closer to me, Jamie, with his bright, excited smile, Melanie beside him, and Jared behind her, his hands around her waist. I knew that his hands would never feel right unless they were touching her body—my body!—now. That he would keep her as close as he could forever, hating any inch that came between them. This caused me a fierce, aching pain. The delicate heart in my thin chest shuddered. It had never been broken before, and it didn’t understand this memory.

It made me sorry to realize that I still loved Jared. I wasn’t free of that, wasn’t free of jealousy for the body he loved. My glance flickered back to Mel. I saw the rueful twist of the mouth that used to be mine, and knew she understood.

I continued quickly around the cluster of faces circling my bed, while Doc, after a pause, answered my question.

Trudy and Geoffrey, Heath, Paige and Andy. Brandt, even…

“Jodi didn’t respond. We kept trying as long as we could.”

Was Jodi gone, then? I wondered, my inexperienced heart throbbing. I was giving the poor frail thing such a rough awakening.

Heidi and Lily, Lily smiling a pained little smile—none the less sincere for the pain…

“We were able to keep her hydrated, but we had no way to feed her. We were worried about atrophy—her muscles, her brain…”

While my new heart ached harder than it had ever ached—ached for a woman I’d never known—my eyes continued around the circle and then froze.

Jodi, clinging to Kyle’s side, stared back at me.

She smiled tentatively, and suddenly I recognized her.

“Sunny!”

“I got to stay,” she said, not quite smug but almost. “Just like you.” She glanced at Kyle’s face—which was more stoic than I was used to seeing it—and her voice turned sad. “I’m trying, though. I am looking for her. I will keep looking.”

“Kyle had us put Sunny back when it looked like we would lose Jodi,” Doc continued quietly.

I stared at Sunny and Kyle for a moment, stunned, and then finished the circle.

Ian was watching me with a strange combination of joy and nervousness. His face was higher than it should have been, bigger than it used to be. But his eyes were still the blue I remembered. The anchor that held me to this planet.

“You okay in there?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know,” I admitted. “This feels very… weird. Every bit as weird as switching species. So much weirder than I would have thought. I… I don’t know.”

My heart fluttered again, looking into those eyes, and this was no memory of another lifetime’s love. My mouth felt dry, and my stomach quivered. The place where his arm touched my back felt more alive than the rest of my body.

“You don’t mind staying here too much, do you, Wanda? Do you think that maybe you could tolerate it?” he murmured.

Jamie squeezed my hand. Melanie put hers on top of his, then smiled when Jared added his to the pile. Trudy patted my foot. Geoffrey, Heath, Heidi, Andy, Paige, Brandt, and even Lily were beaming at me. Kyle had shuffled closer, a grin spreading across his face. Sunny’s smile was the smile of a coconspirator.

How much No Pain had Doc given me? Everything was glowing.

Ian brushed the cloud of golden hair back from my face and laid his hand on my cheek. His hand was so big just the palm covered from my jaw to my forehead; the contact sent a jolt of electricity through my silvery skin. It tingled after that first jolt, and the pit of my stomach tingled along with it.

I could feel a warm flush pinking my cheeks. My heart had never been broken before, but it had also never flown. It made me shy; I had a hard time finding my voice.

“I suppose I could do that,” I whispered. “If it makes you happy.”

“That’s not good enough, actually,” Ian disagreed. “It has to make you happy, too.”