The Host (The Host #1)(18)

I turned around to face her. She was on my small couch, nestled in comfortably as if for a long visit. Her expression was self-satisfied, the bulging eyes amused. I controlled the desire to scowl.

“Why are you here?” I asked again. My voice was a monotone. Restrained. I would not lose control again in front of this woman.

“It’s been a while since I heard anything from you, so I thought I would check in personally. We’ve still made no headway in your case.”

My hands clamped down on the edge of the counter behind me, but I kept the wild relief from my voice.

“That seems… overzealous. Besides, I sent you a message last night.”

Her eyebrows came together in that way she had, a way that made her look angry and annoyed at the same time, as if you, not she, were responsible for her anger. She pulled out her palm computer and touched the screen a few times.

“Oh,” she said stiffly. “I haven’t checked my mail today.”

She was quiet as she scanned through what I had written.

“I sent it very early in the morning,” I said. “I was half asleep at the time. I’m not sure how much of what I wrote was memory or dream, or sleep-typing, maybe.”

I went along with the words—Melanie’s words—as they flowed easily from my mouth; I even added my own lighthearted laugh at the end. It was dishonest of me. Shameful behavior. But I would not let the Seeker know that I was weaker than my host.

For once, Melanie was not smug at having bested me. She was too relieved, too grateful that I had not, for my own petty reasons, given her away.

“Interesting,” the Seeker murmured. “Another one on the loose.” She shook her head. “Peace continues to elude us.” She did not seem dismayed by the idea of a fragile peace—rather, it seemed to please her.

I bit my lip hard. Melanie wanted so badly to make another denial, to claim the boy was just part of a dream. Don’t be stupid, I told her. That would be so obvious. It said much for the repellent nature of the Seeker that she could put Melanie and me on the same side of an argument.

I hate her. Melanie’s whisper was sharp, painful like a cut.

I know, I know. I wished I could deny that I felt… similarly. Hate was an unforgivable emotion. But the Seeker was… very difficult to like. Impossible.

The Seeker interrupted my internal conversation. “So, other than the new location to review, you have no more help for me on the road maps?”

I felt my body react to her critical tone. “I never said they were lines on a road map. That’s your assumption. And no, I have nothing else.”

She clicked her tongue quickly three times. “But you said they were directions.”

“That’s what I think they are. I’m not getting anything more.”

“Why not? Haven’t you subdued the human yet?” She laughed loudly. Laughing at me.

I turned my back to her and concentrated on calming myself. I tried to pretend that she wasn’t there. That I was all alone in my austere kitchen, staring out the window into the little patch of night sky, at the three bright stars I could see through it.

Well, as alone as I ever was.

While I stared at the tiny points of light in the blackness, the lines that I’d seen over and over again—in my dreams and in my broken memories, cropping up at strange, unrelated moments—flashed through my head.

The first: a slow, rough curve, then a sharp turn north, another sharp turn back the other way, twisting back to the north for a longer stretch, and then the abrupt southern decline that flattened out into another shallow curve.

The second: a ragged zigzag, four tight switchbacks, the fifth point strangely blunt, like it was broken…

The third: a smooth wave, interrupted by a sudden spur that swung a thin, long finger out to the north and back.

Incomprehensible, seemingly meaningless. But I knew this was important to Melanie. From the very beginning I’d known that. She protected this secret more fiercely than any other, next to the boy, her brother. I’d had no idea of his existence before the dream last night. I wondered what it was that had broken her. Maybe as she grew louder in my head, she would lose more of her secrets to me.

Maybe she would slip up, and I would see what these strange lines meant. I knew they meant something. That they led somewhere.

And at that moment, with the echo of the Seeker’s laugh still hanging in the air, I suddenly realized why they were so important.

They led back to Jared, of course. Back to both of them, Jared and Jamie. Where else? What other location could possibly hold any meaning for her? Only now I saw that it was not back, because none of them had ever followed these lines before. Lines that had been as much of a mystery to her as they were to me, until…

The wall was slow to block me. She was distracted, paying more attention to the Seeker than I was. She fluttered in my head at a sound behind me, and that was the first I was aware of the Seeker’s approach.

The Seeker sighed. “I expected more of you. Your track record seemed so promising.”

“It’s a pity you weren’t free for the assignment yourself. I’m sure if you’d had to deal with a resistant host, it would have been child’s play.” I didn’t turn to look at her. My voice stayed level.

She sniffed. “The early waves were challenging enough even without a resistant host.”