The Host (The Host #1)(198)

“That’s what I wanted to ask her about. Where have you lived, Sunny?”

I was vaguely aware of the subdued voices of the others, greeting Trudy’s arrival. We had our backs to them. I wanted to see what was going on, but I was also glad not to have the distraction. I tried to concentrate on the crying soul.

“Just here and with the Bears. I was there five life terms. But I like it better here. I haven’t had even a quarter of a life term here!”

“I know. Believe me, I understand. Is there anywhere else, though, that you’ve ever wanted to go? The Flowers, maybe? It’s nice there; I’ve been.”

“I don’t want to be a plant,” she mumbled into my shoulder.

“The Spiders…” I began, but then let my voice trail off. The Spiders were not the right place for Sunny.

“I’m tired of cold. And I like colors.”

“I know.” I sighed. “I haven’t been a Dolphin, but I hear it’s nice there. Color, mobility, family…”

“They’re all so far away. By the time I got anywhere, Kyle would be… He’d be…” She hiccuped and then started crying again.

“Don’t you have any other choices?” Kyle asked anxiously. “Aren’t there a lot more places out there?”

I could hear Trudy talking to the Healer’s host, but I tuned out the words. Let the humans take care of their own for the moment.

“Not that the off-world ships are going to,” I told him, shaking my head. “There are lots of worlds, but only a few, mostly the newer ones, are still open for settling. And I’m sorry, Sunny, but I have to send you far away. The Seekers want to find my friends here, and they’d bring you back if they could, so you could show them the way.”

“I don’t even know the way,” she sobbed. My shoulder was drenched with her tears. “He covered my eyes.”

Kyle looked at me as if I could produce some kind of miracle to make this all work out perfectly. Like the medicine I’d provided, some kind of magic. But I knew that I was out of magic, out of happy endings—for the soul half of the equation, at least.

I stared back hopelessly at Kyle. “It’s just the Bears, the Flowers, and the Dolphins,” I told him. “I won’t send her to the Fire Planet.”

The small woman shuddered at the name.

“Don’t worry, Sunny. You’ll like the Dolphins. They’ll be nice. Of course they’ll be nice.”

She sobbed harder.

I sighed and moved on.

“Sunny, I need to ask you about Jodi.”

Kyle stiffened beside me.

“What about her?” Sunny mumbled.

“Is she… is she in there with you? Can you hear her?”

Sunny sniffed and looked up at me. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Does she ever talk to you? Are you ever aware of her thoughts?”

“My… body’s? Her thoughts? She doesn’t have any. I’m here now.”

I nodded slowly.

“Is that bad?” Kyle whispered.

“I don’t know enough about it to tell. It’s probably not good, though.”

Kyle’s eyes tightened.

“How long have you been here, Sunny?”

She frowned, thinking. “How long is it, Kyle? Five years? Six? You disappeared before I came home.”

“Six,” he said.

“And how old are you?” I asked her.

“I’m twenty-seven.”

That surprised me—she was such a little thing, so young looking. I couldn’t believe she was six years older than Melanie.

“Why does that matter?” Kyle asked.

“I’m not sure. It just seems like the more time someone spent as a human before they became a soul, the better chance they might have at… making a recovery. The greater the percentage of their life they spent human, the more memories they have, the more connections, the more years being called by the right name… I don’t know.”

“Is twenty-one years enough?” he asked, his voice desperate.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“It’s not fair!” Sunny wailed. “Why do you get to stay? Why can’t I stay, if you can?”

I had to swallow hard. “That wouldn’t be fair, would it? But I don’t get to stay, Sunny. I have to go, too. And soon. Maybe we’ll leave together.” Perhaps she’d be happier if she thought I was going to the Dolphins with her. By the time she knew otherwise, Sunny would have a different host with different emotions and no tie to this human beside me. Maybe. Anyway, it would be too late. “I have to go, Sunny, just like you. I have to give my body back, too.”

And then, flat and hard from right behind us, Ian’s voice broke the quiet like the crack of a whip.

“What?”

CHAPTER 56

Welded

Ian glared down at the three of us with such fury that Sunny shivered in terror. It was an odd thing—as if Kyle and Ian had switched faces. Except Ian’s face was still perfect, unbroken. Beautiful, even though it was enraged.

“Ian?” Kyle asked, bewildered. “What’s the problem?”

Ian spoke from between his locked teeth. “Wanda,” he growled, and held his hand out. It looked as if he was having a hard time keeping that hand open, not clenching it into a fist.