The Host (The Host, #1)

by Stephenie Meyer

Again, as I described the unity, I felt the dragging sense of panic and disorientation. Who was I?

Open a bottle and smell it, she instructed, ignoring my commentary. That’s how my dad used to store water in the garage. The bleach residue kept the water from growing anything. In a minute. I finished one sleeve of crumbs and started on the next. They were very stale, but compared to the taste in my mouth, they were ambrosia.

Midmorning — the sun was still in the east, in my eyes — I’d stopped to rest. I’d felt so weak that it frightened me. Every muscle in my body had begun to ache, but it was not from all the walking. I could feel the ache of exertion and also the ache from sleeping on the ground, and these were different from the new ache. My body was drying out, and this ache was my muscles protesting the torture of it. I knew that I couldn’t keep going much longer.

While we were still lucid, we hummed ourselves a lullaby in our head. It was the one we’d used to comfort Jamie when the ground was too hard, or the air was too cold, or the fear was too great to sleep.

Our hands kept clutching the air, looking for the water. We definitely heard a sigh this time.

Uncle Jeb, squatting next to us, rocked back on his heels when we said his name. “Well, now,” he said, and his gruff voice brought back a hundred memories. “Well, now, here’s a pickle.”

Uncle Jeb was real, and he’d left us a canteen. We sat up carefully, surprised when we didn’t break in two like a withered stick. Actually, we felt better. The water must have had time to work its way through some of our body. The pain was dull, and for the first time in a long while, we felt hungry again.

They might have been human — as she thought of the word — once, but at this moment they were something else. They were barbarians, monsters. They hung over us, slavering for blood. There was a death sentence in every pair of eyes.

Sharing for so long in the desert had made her stronger, or me weaker. Or maybe it was just that I was concentrating on which direction the deathblow was going to fall from. I was bracing for our murder, and she was having a family reunion.

“You won’t fool us, you parasite. We know how you work. We know how well you can mimic us.” I tasted blood inside my cheek. Don’t do that again, I scolded Melanie. I told you what they’d think. Melanie was too shocked to answer.

I wonder how he knows what you look like, Melanie wondered absently. My memories of a soul’s true appearance had been new to her in the beginning.

“After all I’ve seen, if I hadn’t learned compassion, I wouldn’t be worth much. But no, it was not about sympathy. If I had enough sympathy for this poor creature, I would have let her die.”

A crowd. There was no other word for it — there was a crowd of humans standing stock-still and silent, all staring at me with the same burning, hate-filled expressions I’d seen at dawn. Melanie was too stunned to do anything more than count. Ten, fifteen, twenty . . . twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven . . .

My eyes, adjusting to the dazzling light, made out the sun-gilded tint of his skin and then recognized it. Choking on the sudden hope that dizzied me, I lifted my eyes to the man’s face.

I wasn’t able to stop her fast enough. She lurched forward, raising my arms to reach out for him. I screamed a warning at her in my head, but she wasn’t listening to me. She was barely aware that I was even there. No one tried to stop her as she staggered toward him. No one but me. She was within inches of touching him, and still she didn’t see what I saw.

She didn’t see, or maybe she didn’t care. His reach was longer than mine. Before Melanie could make my fingers touch him, his arm shot out and the back of his hand smashed into the side of my face. The blow was so hard that my feet left the ground before my head slammed into the rock floor.

Jared’s here, Jared’s alive, Jared’s here. She was incoherent, chanting the words like they were lyrics to a song. I tried to focus my eyes, but the strange ceiling was blinding. I twisted my head away from the light and then swallowed a sob as the motion sent daggers of agony through the side of my face. I could barely handle the pain of this one spontaneous blow.

Jared watched all this with a teeth-baring grimace. Like an idiot, Melanie struggled to move toward him again. But I was over the shock of seeing him here and less stupid than she was now.

Jared frowned, but I was surprised that some of the anger had drained from his expression. His eyebrows pulled together. It made him look confused. The tall man dropped his hands and stepped away from me. His lips were pursed, his eyes alight with some challenge.

You’re like . . . a mother. Mothers are irrational here. Too many emotions involved. Motherhood is always emotional — even for you souls. I didn’t answer that. What do you think is going to happen now?

This place was truly the highest and the lowest of all worlds — the most beautiful senses, the most exquisite emotions . . . the most malevolent desires, the darkest deeds. Perhaps it was meant to be so. Perhaps without the lows, the highs could not be reached.

It was a different speaker, a more reasonable voice. Probably the younger brother, Ian. The brothers’ voices were very similar — or they would have been, if Kyle weren’t always half shouting, his tone always twisted with anger. “We’ve all lost somebody — hell, we’ve all lost everybody. But this is ridiculous.”

“No more discussion on this. No more votes. No more execution attempts. You three spread the word — this is how it works from now on. New rule.” “Another one?” Ian muttered under his breath.

“If, unlikely as it may be, somehow this ever happens again, whoever the body belongs to makes the call.”

Yikes

“I know I was. I did a little research. These are lava tubes — can you beat that? This used to be a volcano. Well, still is a volcano, I expect. Not quite dead, as you’ll see in a bit. All these caves and holes are bubbles of air that got caught in the cooling lava. I’ve put quite a bit of work into it over the last few decades. Some of it was easy — connecting the tubes just took a little elbow grease. Other parts took more imagination. Did you see the ceiling in the big room? That took me years to get right.”

His laugh cleared a section of mist, and I saw the room for the first time. Two rivers flowed through the dank, high-domed space. This was the chatter that filled my ears — the water gushing over and under the purple volcanic rock. Jeb spoke as if we were alone because we were.

The stream was closest; a shallow braided ribbon of silver in the light from above, coursing between low stone banks that it seemed constantly in danger of overrunning. A feminine, high-pitched murmur purred from its gentle ripples. The male, bass gurgle came from the river, as did the thick clouds of vapor that rose from the gaping holes in the ground by the far wall.

Is it weird to assign a gender to bodies of water aka shut up mormon yes it is

“Well, Kyle gets real . . . motivated. But I suppose it’s all for the best. Might as well get used to how things are going to be. Maybe we can find something more hospitable for you. I’ll think on it. . . . While I’m with you, at least, you don’t really have to cram yourself into that little hole. You can sit in the hall with me if you prefer. Though with Jared . . .” He trailed off. I listened to his apologetic words in wonder; this was so much more kindness than I’d hoped for, more compassion than I’d thought this species was capable of giving their enemies.

“Maybe when they get over being cheesed off at me, they’ll realize they appreciate all the excitement I’m providing.” Our path through the dark twisted in a serpentine fashion.

He was Jamie, he was beautiful, and my arms — mine, not Melanie’s — longed to hold him. Tears filled my eyes and trickled down my face. I could only hope they were invisible in the dim light. “Jeb,” Jamie said — a gruff greeting. His eyes passed swiftly over me and away. His voice was so deep! Could he really be so old? I realized with a double pang of guilt that I’d just missed his fourteenth birthday.

Even though I could look directly at the light now, I still didn’t understand it.

Jeb raised a thick eyebrow. “It’s not one of us, Jeb. You left this on me — so butt out.” “She’s not an animal, either, kid. And you wouldn’t treat a dog this way.”

“How’s your brother these days?” he asked. Jared seemed to enjoy the question. It relaxed him to tease his visitor. He sat down and slouched against the wall halfway in front of my prison, at ease, but with the gun still ready.

“He’s still fuming about his nose,” Ian said. “Oh, well — it’s not the first time it’s been broken. I’ll tell him you said you were sorry.” “I’m not.” “I know. No one is ever sorry for hitting Kyle.” They laughed quietly together; there was a sense of camaraderie in their amusement that seemed wildly out of place while Jared held a gun loosely pointed in Ian’s direction.

Ian sat down on the mat next to Jared. I could see his profile in silhouette, a black shape against the blue light. I noticed that his nose was perfect — straight, aquiline, the kind of nose that I’d seen in pictures of famous sculptures. Did that mean that others found him more bearable than the brother whose nose was often broken? Or that he was better at ducking?

Ian spit and groaned. “That’s twice,” he growled, and I understood that the punch meant for me had been diverted by Ian’s interference.

“Just because she isn’t human, do you think that means she doesn’t feel pain?” Ian asked as his voice faded into the distance. “That she doesn’t feel just like a girl who’s been beaten — beaten by us?” “Get a hold of yourself,” Jared hissed after him. “See you around, Jared.”

Melanie and I nodded to ourselves; this didn’t surprise either of us. Jared is magic. Jamie and I were perfectly safe while Jared’s instincts guided us; we never came close to getting caught. If it had been Jared in Chicago, I’m sure he would have made it out fine.

Because Melanie’s heart broke, too, and it was a separate sensation, as if we’d grown another organ to compensate for our twin awarenesses. A double heart for a double mind. Twice the pain.

“Does me good to see that,” Jeb muttered. “It’s like an itch you can’t scratch, knowing someone is suffering under your own roof.” He eased himself to the floor a few yards away and started humming quietly. I was asleep before he’d finished the first bar.

tugged Jeb’s sleeve and squinted up at the dazzling light. “How?” Jeb smiled, seeming thrilled with my curiosity. “Same way the magicians do it — with mirrors, kid. Hundreds of ’em. Took me long enough to get them all up there. It’s nice to have extra hands around here when they need cleaning. See, there’s only four small vents in the ceiling here, and that wasn’t enough light for what I had in mind. What do you think of it?” He pulled his shoulders back, proud again. “Brilliant,” I whispered. “Astonishing.”

“No point in ignoring the truth. Doesn’t make it worse to have it said out loud.”

It was so nice to have someone talk to me again. Jeb was, if nothing else, interesting company.

The presence of the owner was strong despite the simple belongings. No matter who he was, he would not be happy to have me here. He would hate it. Jeb seemed to read my mind — or maybe the expression on my face was clear enough that he didn’t have to. “Now, now,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. This is my house, and this is just one of my many guest rooms. I say who is and isn’t my guest. Right now, you are my guest, and I am offering you this room.”

but the doctor eyed me with a frank and almost friendly curiosity that made me feel cold deep inside my bones.

Oh, Jamie, Melanie thought. She hated the sad, adult expression on his face, and I probably hated it even more. She didn’t feel as guilty as I did for putting it there. If only we could take it away. She sighed. It’s too late. What could we do to make it better now? I didn’t mean the question more than rhetorically, but I found myself searching for an answer, and Melanie searched, too.

Ian and the doctor both raised their hands above their heads. “We can mind our manners, too,” the doctor said. It was hard to believe that this soft-spoken man with the friendly expression was the resident torturer; he was all the more terrifying to me because his exterior was so benign. A person would be on her guard on a dark and ominous night, a person would be ready. But on a clear, sunny day? How would she know to flee when she couldn’t see any place for danger to hide?

or the wide but low-ceilinged cavern he called the “rec room.” That one was pitch-black and deep underground, but he told me they brought in lights when they wanted to play. The word play didn’t make sense to me, not here in this group of tense, angry survivors, but I didn’t ask him to explain. There was more water here, a tiny, noxiously sulfurous spring that Jeb said they sometimes used as a second latrine because it was no good for drinking.

The moment Jeb announced where we were, my body froze and my joints locked; I skidded to a halt, my feet planted against the rock floor. My eyes, wide with terror, flickered between Jeb’s face and the face of the doctor. Had this all been a ruse, then? Wait for stubborn Jared to be out of the picture and then lure me back here? I couldn’t believe I’d walked to this place under my own power. How stupid I was! Melanie was just as aghast. We might as well have gift-wrapped ourselves for them!

Like anyone inside these emotional bodies, I was a sucker for flattery. “Everyone here thinks you hunted us out to turn us over to the Seekers.” The word sent a shock jolting through me. My jaw stiffened and my teeth cut my tongue. I tasted blood.