The Host (The Host #1)(143)

The room spun once more, slowly, and then went black.

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. Mercifully, the horrible smell had faded. The musty, humid air of the caves was like perfume.

The feeling of being carried, being cradled, was familiar. That first week after Kyle had injured me, I’d traveled many places in Ian’s arms.

“. . . thought she’d have guessed what we were up to. Looks like I was wrong,” Jared was murmuring.

“You think that’s what happened?” Ian’s voice cut hard in the quiet tunnel. “That she was scared because Doc was trying to take the other souls out? That she was afraid for herself?”

Jared didn’t answer for a minute. “You don’t?”

Ian made a sound in the back of his throat. “No. I don’t. As disgusted as I am that you would bring back more… victims for Doc, bring them back now!—as much as that turns my stomach, that’s not what upset her. How can you be so blind? Can’t you imagine what that must have looked like to her in there?”

“I know we had the bodies covered before —”

“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.”

I was getting sick again. His words were bringing it back. The sight. The smell.

“Let me go,” I whispered. “Put me down.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.” The last words were fervent, apologizing for more than waking me.

“Let me go.”

“You’re not well. I’ll take you to your room.”

“No. Put me down now.”

“Wanda —”

“Now!” I shouted. I shoved against Ian’s chest, kicking my legs free at the same time. The ferocity of my struggle surprised him. He lost his hold on me, and I half fell into a crouch on the floor.

I sprang up from the crouch running.

“Wanda!”

“Let her go.”

“Don’t touch me! Wanda, come back!”

It sounded like they were wrestling behind me, but I didn’t slow. Of course they were fighting. They were humans. Violence was pleasure to them.

I didn’t pause when I was back in the light. I sprinted through the big cavern without looking at any of the monsters there. I could feel their eyes on me, and I didn’t care.

I didn’t care where I was going, either. Just somewhere I could be alone. I avoided the tunnels that had people near them, running down the first empty one I could find.

It was the eastern tunnel. This was the second time I’d sprinted through this corridor today. Last time in joy, this time in horror. It was hard to remember how I’d felt this afternoon, knowing the raiders were home. Everything was dark and gruesome now, including their return. The very stones seemed evil.

This way was the right choice for me, though. No one had any reason to come here, and it was empty.

I ran to the farthest end of the tunnel, into the deep night of the empty game room. Could I really have played games with them such a short time ago? Believed the smiles on their faces, not seeing the beasts underneath…

I moved forward until I stumbled ankle deep into the oily waters of the dark spring. I backed away, my hand outstretched, searching for a wall. When I found a rough ridge of stone—sharp-edged beneath my fingers—I turned into the depression behind the protrusion and curled myself into a tight ball on the ground there.

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.

It was only me now. Just me, and the pain and the horror that I would never escape. I would never not have that image in my head again. I would never be free of it. It was forever a part of me.

I didn’t know how to mourn here. I could not mourn in human ways for these lost souls whose names I would never know. For the broken child on the table.

I had never had to mourn on the Origin. I didn’t know how it was done there, in the truest home of my kind. So I settled for the way of the Bats. It seemed appropriate, here where it was as black as being blind. The Bats mourned with silence—not singing for weeks on end until the pain of the nothingness left behind by the lack of music was worse than the pain of losing a soul. I’d known loss there. A friend, killed in a freak accident, a falling tree in the night, found too late to save him from the crushed body of his host. Spiraling… Upward… Harmony; those were the words that would have held his name in this language. Not exact, but close enough. There had been no horror in his death, only grief. An accident.