The Host (The Host #1)(152)

Not good enough, Melanie growled.

I was despairing, but she was filled with fury.

They tried.

Trying solves nothing. Jamie will not die. They have to go back out.

For what purpose? Even if they did find your old antibiotics, what are the chances they would still be any good? They only worked half the time anyway. Inferior. He doesn’t need your medicine. He needs more than that. Something that really works…

My breathing sped up, deepened as I saw it.

He needs mine, I realized.

Mel and I were both awestruck by the obviousness of this idea. The simplicity of it.

My stone lips cracked apart. “Jamie needs real medicines. The ones the souls have. We need to get him those.”

Doc frowned at me. “We don’t even know what those things do, how they work.”

“Does it matter?” Some of Melanie’s anger was seeping into my voice. “They do work. They can save him.”

Jared stared at me. I could feel Ian’s eyes on me, too, and Kyle’s, and all the rest in the room. But I saw only Jared.

“We can’t get ’em, Wanda,” Jeb said, his tone already one of defeat. Giving up. “We can only get into deserted places. There’s always a bunch of your kind in a hospital. Twenty-four hours a day. Too many eyes. We won’t do Jamie any good if we get caught.”

“Sure,” Kyle said in a hard voice. “The centipedes will be only too happy to heal his body when they find us here. And make him one of them. Is that what you’re after?”

I turned to glare at the big, sneering man. My body tensed and leaned forward. Ian put his hand on my shoulder as if he were holding me back. I didn’t think I would have made any aggressive move toward Kyle, but maybe I was wrong. I was so far from my normal self.

When I spoke, my voice was dead even, no inflection. “There has to be a way.”

Jared was nodding. “Maybe someplace small. The gun would make too much noise, but if there were enough of us to overwhelm them, we could use knives.”

“No.” My arms came unfolded, my hands falling open in shock. “No. That’s not what I meant. Not killing —”

No one even listened to me. Jeb was arguing with Jared.

“There’s no way, kid. Somebody’d get a call off to the Seekers. Even if we were in and out, something like that would bring ’em down on us in force. We’d be hard-pressed to make it out at all. And they’d follow.”

“Wait. Can’t you —”

They still weren’t listening to me.

“I don’t want the boy to die, either, but we can’t risk everyone’s lives for one person,” Kyle said. “People die here; it happens. We can’t get crazy to save one boy.”

I wanted to choke him, to cut off his air in order to stop his calm words. 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.

Jeb looked at me. “Hon, we can’t just walk in there and ask.”

Right then, another very simple and obvious truth occurred to me.

“You can’t. But I can.”

The room fell dead silent.

I was caught up in the beauty of the plan forming in my head. The perfection of it. I spoke mostly to myself, and to Melanie. She was impressed. This would work. We could save Jamie.

“They aren’t suspicious. Not at all. Even if I’m a horrible liar, they would never suspect me of anything. They wouldn’t be listening for lies. Of course not. I’m one of them. They would do anything to help me. I’d say I got hurt hiking or something… and then I’d find a way to be alone and I’d take as much as I could hide. Think of it! I could get enough to heal everyone here. To last for years. And Jamie would be fine! Why didn’t I think of this before? Maybe it wouldn’t have been too late even for Walter.”

I looked up then, with shining eyes. It was just so perfect!

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.”

“Patient, isn’t it?” Kyle spit. “Bided its time well, don’t you think?”

I fought the desire to choke him again.

“Doc?” I begged.

He didn’t meet my eyes. “Even if there was any way we could let you outside, Wanda… I just couldn’t trust drugs I don’t understand. Jamie’s a tough kid. His system will fight this off.”

“We’ll go out again, Wanda,” Ian murmured. “We’ll find something. We won’t come back until we do.”

“That’s not good enough.” The tears were pooling in my eyes. I looked to the one person who might possibly be in as much pain as I was. “Jared. You know. You know I would never let anything hurt Jamie. You know I can do this. Please.”