The Host (The Host, #1)

by Stephenie Meyer

“They’re back! Wanda, they’re back!” It took me less than a second to process, and then I was sprinting. Behind me, Ian mumbled something about wasted effort. I nearly knocked Wes down. “Where?” I gasped. “In the plaza.” And I was off again. I flew into the big garden room with my eyes already searching. It wasn’t hard to find them. Jamie was standing at the front of a group of people near the entrance to the southern tunnel.

Blood, Melanie realized with horror. “Jamie! What happened?” “Thanks, Trudy.” “She was going to notice soon enough. C’mon, we’ll talk while you limp.” Trudy put her arm under his and helped him hop forward one slow step at a time, keeping his weight on his left leg. “Jamie, tell me what happened!” I put my arm around him from the other side, trying to carry as much of his weight as I could.

This time her eyes moved toward the southern tunnel very deliberately, and Ian’s expression hardened, turned enraged for half a second. Then Trudy glanced back at me and caught me watching.

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.

“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.

“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 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.

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 . . . The quiet in the room was shattered by my scream.

The bodies were hideously uncovered, strewn in obscene contortions across the glittering table. Mutilated, dismembered, tortured bodies, ripped into grotesque shreds . . . I had clearly seen the vestigial feelers still attached to the truncated anterior section of a child. Just a child! A baby! A baby thrown haphazardly in maimed pieces across the table smeared with its own blood . . .

Unconsciousness didn’t claim me for long. It must have been only seconds later when my head cleared. I was all too lucid; I wished I could stay oblivious longer. I was moving, rocking back and forth, and it was too black to see.

“The wrong bodies, Jared. Oh, I’m sure Wanda would be upset by a human corpse — she’s so gentle; violence and death aren’t a part of her normal world. But think what the things on that table must have meant to her.” It took him another moment. “Oh.” “Yes. If you or I had walked in on a human vivisection, with torn body parts, with blood splattered on everything, it wouldn’t have been as bad for us as it was for her. We’d have seen it all before — even before the invasion, in horror movies, at least. I’d bet she’s never been exposed to anything like that in all her lives.”

It wasn’t what we thought. Doc wasn’t hurting anyone on purpose; he was just trying to save — GET OUT OF MY HEAD! I shrieked. As I thrust her away from me — gagged her so that I wouldn’t have to bear her justifications — I realized how weak she’d grown in all these months of friendliness. How much I’d been allowing. Encouraging. It was almost too easy to silence her. As easy as it should have been from the beginning.

When they received no answer, they brought lights. Not the dim blue lanterns that might never have revealed my hiding place here, buried under all this blackness, but the sharp yellow lances of flashlights. They swept back and forth, pendulums of light. Even with the flashlights, they didn’t find me until the third search of the room. Why couldn’t they leave me alone? When the flashlight’s beam finally disinterred me, there was a gasp of relief. “I found her! Tell the others to get back inside! She’s in here after all!” I knew the voice, but I didn’t put a name to it. Just another monster.

Poor Wanderer

Sorry? Geoffrey’d said it was Jared’s idea. He wanted to cut me out, slice me into little pieces, fling my blood on the wall. He’d slowly mangle a million of me if he could find a way to keep his favorite monster alive with him. Slash us all to slivers.

Ian did not interrupt. I sat in the blackness of the big hole in the ground and grieved for lost souls with a human at my side.

I an sat with me for three days in the darkness. He left for only a few short minutes at a time, to get us food and water. At first, Ian ate, though I did not. Then, as he realized that it wasn’t a loss of appetite that left my tray full, he stopped eating, too.

As my fast lengthened, those needs vanished. I couldn’t keep from sleeping, but I did not make myself comfortable. The first day, I woke to find my head and shoulders cradled on his lap. I recoiled from him, shuddering so violently that he did not repeat the gesture.

For the first time, Jeb spoke to me as if I were a soul and not a human. I had a sense that the distinction had always been clear to him, though. He was just a courteous monster.

Of course they would think violence was the answer. They wouldn’t be able to imagine any other solution. Could I blame them that their genetic programming restricted their problem-solving abilities in this way?

Ha its not as if peoplelearn from their mistakes stephanie

He’s tried everything he can think of, but he can’t save them from getting turned into oatmeal. Your souls don’t respond to injected sedation . . . or poison.” My voice came out rough with new horror. “Of course not. Our chemical makeup is completely different.”

Have to admit, I put myself in that group. I count you as a friend, Wanda. Course, that’s not gonna work well if you hate me.”

No, I had never intentionally caused anyone physical pain, but I had hurt Ian deeply enough just by hurting myself. Human lives were so impossibly tangled. What a mess.

“There’s a little infection,” Ian murmured. “Doc wants him to stay down or he’d have come to get you a long time ago. If Jared wasn’t practically pinning him to the bed, he would have come anyway.” Jeb nodded. “Jared almost came here and carried you out by force, but I told him to let me speak to you first. It wouldn’t do the kid any good to see you catatonic.” My blood felt as though it had changed into ice water. Surely just my imagination.

This wouldn’t have worked with another species. Another mind wouldn’t have been so easily overwhelmed by its body. Other species had their priorities in better order. But Ian was human, and his body responded. I shoved my mouth against his, gripping his neck tighter with my arms when his first reaction was to hold me away.

“Oh, Ian! It was right after I saw . . . in the hospital. And she tried to defend them . . . and I screamed at her . . . and I — I made her go away! And I haven’t heard her since. I can’t find her!” “Shh,” he said again. “Calmly. Okay. Now, what do you really want? I know you don’t want to upset Jamie, but he’s going to be fine regardless. So, consider — would it be better, just for you, if —” “No! I can’t erase Melanie! I can’t. That would be wrong! That would make me a monster, too!”

We had to talk about this; I had to think it through. But I had no time. Jamie was waiting for me, with questions that I couldn’t answer with lies. No, he wasn’t waiting for me; he was waiting for Melanie. How could I have done this? What if she was really gone? Mel, Mel, Mel, come back! Melanie, Jamie needs you. Not me — he needs you. He’s sick, Mel. Mel, can you hear that? Jamie is sick!

Overwhelmed. That’s what he’d meant. Blood burned in my face, hot as Jamie’s fever. What was Ian doing to me? I wanted to run, to hide somewhere better than my last hiding place, somewhere I could never, ever be found, no matter how many flashlights they used. But my legs were shaking, and I couldn’t move.

Ian’s face was expressionless; he had one hand on Jared’s shoulder and was guiding him, almost pushing him forward. Jared was staring at Ian with anger and doubt. “Through here,” Ian encouraged, forcing Jared toward me. I flattened my back against the rock.

He tried to kiss me softly. I could tell that he tried. But his intentions went up in smoke, just like before. There was fire everywhere, because he was everywhere. His hands traced my skin, burning it. His lips tasted every inch of my face. The rock wall slammed into my back, but there was no pain. I couldn’t feel anything besides the burning.

“You will not leave me. Don’t you love me? Prove it! Prove it! Damn it, Mel! Get back here!” His lips attacked mine again. Ahhh, she groaned weakly in my head. I couldn’t think to greet her. I was on fire. The fire burned its way to her, back to the tiny corner where she drooped, nearly lifeless. My hands fisted around the fabric of Jared’s T-shirt, yanking it up.

Jared! Jared! NO! I let her flow through my arms, knowing this was what I wanted, though I could barely pay attention now. The hands on his stomach turned hard, angry. The fingers clawed at his skin and then shoved him as hard as they could. “NO!” she shouted through my lips.

My stomach fluttered. Tell him I’ll throttle him if he touches you like that again. But her threat was a joke, too. “She’s threatening your life right now,” I told him. “But I think she’s being facetious.”

Me, not Melanie. I was the one who wanted to turn his face purple. Melanie felt the same way, but I could tell how much of the violence came directly from me. “We have to save him,” I said, louder now.

So perfect, so absolutely right, so obvious to me, that it took me forever to understand the expressions on their faces. If Kyle’s had not been so explicit, it might have taken me longer. Hatred. Suspicion. Fear. Even Jeb’s poker face was not enough. His eyes were tight with mistrust. Every face said no. Are they insane? Can’t they see how this would help us all? They don’t believe me. They think I’ll hurt them, hurt Jamie! “Please,” I whispered. “It’s the only way to save him.”

I fought the desire to choke him again.

Don't fight it do the thing

My friends mixed in with my enemies, all of them wearing Kyle’s face. He stared at the next row, which I couldn’t see. Then he looked down at Jamie. There was no sound of breathing in the whole room.

Jared didn’t believe us. The lament was both of ours. We thought it at the same time. It was still silent. I didn’t hear anything. Nothing alerted me. Then, suddenly, Doc cried out. The sound was oddly muffled, like he was shouting into a pillow. My eyes couldn’t make sense of the shapes in the darkness at first.

“So careless,” I muttered. “I was hiking. . . . I fell down the rocks. I was . . . cleaning up after dinner. A knife was in my hand. . . .” My hesitations seemed like part of the shock to her. She didn’t look at me with suspicion — or humor, the way Ian sometimes did when I lied. Only concern. “You poor dear! What’s your name?” “Glass Spires,” I told her, using the rather generic name of a herd member from my time with the Bears.

“Turn your face this way, please. Hmm, you must have hit those rocks just exactly wrong. What a mess.” “Yes. It was a bad fall.” “Well, thank goodness you were able to drive yourself here.” She was lightly dripping Heal onto my cheek, smearing it with the tips of her fingers. “Ah, I love to watch it work. Looks much better already. Okay . . . around the edges.” She smiled to herself. “Maybe one more coat. I want this to be erased.” She worked for a minute longer. “Very nice.”

“You didn’t? Then why . . . ? Why did you let me try?” He answered in a soft almost-whisper. “I figured it was better to die trying than to live without the kid.” For a moment, my throat was choked with emotion. Mel was too overcome to speak as well. We were a family in that one instant. All of us. I cleared my throat. No need to feel things that would only come to nothing.

“It’s not pride. You don’t know what these foreign substances will do to him!”

Bleh fuck off

“Doc,” I said. “Look at my face.” Doc wasn’t the only one who responded to my words. Jeb, Ian, and even Maggie looked and then did a double take. Maggie glanced away quickly, angry that she’d betrayed any interest.

“Why does Jared have Sharon in a headlock?” Jamie whispered to Ian. “She’s in a bad mood,” Ian stage-whispered back. “Hold very still, Jamie,” Doc cautioned. “We’re going to . . . clean out your injury. Okay?”

The bleeding stopped wherever the Heal spread. I poured half the container — surely twice as much as was needed — into the wound. “Okay, hold the edges together for me, Doc.” Doc was speechless as this point, though his mouth hung wide. He did as I asked, using two hands to get both cuts. Jamie laughed. “That tickles.” Doc’s eyes bulged. I smeared Seal across the X, watching with deep satisfaction as the edges fused together and faded to pink.

How sad. How frightening. To be filled with so much hate that you could not even rejoice in the healing of a child. . . . How did anyone ever come to that point?

“Fresh injuries?” Ian asked in a flat voice. I stared at him, surprised at the anger in his eyes. “It was necessary. I had to hide my scar. And learn how to heal Jamie.” Jared picked up my left wrist and stroked his finger over the faint pink line a few inches above it. “It was horrible,” he said, all the humor suddenly gone from his sober voice.

Because these humans could hate with so much fury, was the other end of the spectrum that they could love with more heart and zeal and fire? I didn’t know why I had yearned after it so desperately.

My head ended up pillowed on Jared’s stomach; his hand stroked my hair now and then. Jamie’s face was against my chest, and his arms were around my neck. One of my arms wrapped around his shoulders. Ian’s head was cushioned on my stomach, and he held my other hand to his face. I could feel Doc’s long leg stretched beside mine, his shoe by my hip. Doc was asleep — I could hear him snoring. I may have even been touching Kyle somewhere. Jeb was sprawled on the bed. He belched, and Kyle chuckled.

“And I’ll be there to protect the rest of us from her,” Kyle said with a chuckle. Then he grunted and said, “Ow.” I was too tired to lift my head to see who had hit Kyle now. “And I’ll be there to bring you all back alive,” Jared murmured.

Ian had a fondness for mint chocolate chip ice cream. Kyle liked caramel sweets best. Jared ate anything he was offered; it seemed as if he’d given up favorites many years before, embracing a life where wants were unwelcome and even needs were carefully assessed before they were met.