The Host (The Host #1)(27)

This floors me. “That can’t be.”

“Twenty-nine days. I’m counting.”

I think back. It’s not possible that it has been only twenty-nine days since Jared changed our lives. It seems like Jamie and I have been with Jared every bit as long as we were alone. Two or three years, maybe.

“We’ve got time,” Jared says again.

An abrupt panic, like a warning premonition, makes it impossible for me to speak for a long moment. He watches the change on my face with worried eyes.

“You don’t know that.” The despair that softened when he found me strikes like the lash of a whip. “You can’t know how much time we’ll have. You don’t know if we should be counting in months or days or hours.”

He laughs a warm laugh, touching his lips to the tense place where my eyebrows pull together. “Don’t worry, Mel. Miracles don’t work that way. I’ll never lose you. I’ll never let you get away from me.”

She brought me back to the present—to the thin ribbon of the highway winding through the Arizona wasteland, baking under the fierce noon sun—without my choosing to return. I stared at the empty place ahead and felt the empty place inside.

Her thought sighed faintly in my head: You never know how much time you’ll have.

The tears I was crying belonged to both of us.

CHAPTER 9

Discovered

I drove quickly through the I-10 junction as the sun fell behind me. I didn’t see much besides the white and yellow lines on the pavement, and the occasional big green sign pointing me farther east. I was in a hurry now.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was in a hurry for, though. To be out of this, I supposed. Out of pain, out of sadness, out of aching for lost and hopeless loves. Did that mean out of this body? I couldn’t think of any other answer. I would still ask my questions of the Healer, but it felt as though the decision was made. Skipper. Quitter. I tested the words in my head, trying to come to terms with them.

If I could find a way, I would keep Melanie out of the Seeker’s hands. It would be very hard. No, it would be impossible.

I would try.

I promised her this, but she wasn’t listening. She was still dreaming. Giving up, I thought, now that it was too late for giving up to help.

I tried to stay clear of the red canyon in her head, but I was there, too. No matter how hard I tried to see the cars zooming beside me, the shuttles gliding in toward the port, the few, fine clouds drifting overhead, I couldn’t pull completely free of her dreams. I memorized Jared’s face from a thousand different angles. I watched Jamie shoot up in a sudden growth spurt, always skin and bones. My arms ached for them both—no, the feeling was sharper than an ache, blade-edged and violent. It was intolerable. I had to get out.

I drove almost blindly along the narrow two-lane freeway. The desert was, if anything, more monotonous and dead than before. Flatter, more colorless. I would make it to Tucson long before dinnertime. Dinner. I hadn’t eaten yet today, and my stomach rumbled as I realized that.

The Seeker would be waiting for me there. My stomach rolled then, hunger momentarily replaced with nausea. Automatically, my foot eased off the gas.

I checked the map on the passenger seat. Soon I would reach a little pit stop at a place called Picacho Peak. Maybe I would stop to eat something there. Put off seeing the Seeker a few precious moments.

As I thought of this unfamiliar name—Picacho Peak—there was a strange, stifled reaction from Melanie. I couldn’t make it out. Had she been here before? I searched for a memory, a sight or a smell that corresponded, but found nothing. Picacho Peak. Again, there was that spike of interest that Melanie repressed. What did the words mean to her? She retreated into faraway memories, avoiding me.

This made me curious. I drove a little faster, wondering if the sight of the place would trigger something.

A solitary mountain peak—not massive by normal standards, but towering above the low, rough hills closer to me—was beginning to take shape on the horizon. It had an unusual, distinctive shape. Melanie watched it grow as we traveled, pretending indifference to it.

Why did she pretend not to care when she so obviously did? I was disturbed by her strength when I tried to find out. I couldn’t see any way around the old blank wall. It felt thicker than usual, though I’d thought it was almost gone.

I tried to ignore her, not wanting to think about that—that she was growing stronger. I watched the peak instead, tracing its shape against the pale, hot sky. There was something familiar about it. Something I was sure I recognized, even as I was positive that neither of us had been here before.

Almost as if she was trying to distract me, Melanie plunged into a vivid memory of Jared, catching me by surprise.

I shiver in my jacket, straining my eyes to see the muted glare of the sun dying behind the thick, bristly trees. I tell myself that it is not as cold as I think it is. My body just isn’t used to this.

The hands that are suddenly there on my shoulders do not startle me, though I am afraid of this unfamiliar place and I did not hear his silent approach. Their weight is too familiar.

“You’re easy to sneak up on.”

Even now, there is a smile in his voice.

“I saw you coming before you took the first step,” I say without turning. “I have eyes in the back of my head.”

Warm fingers stroke my face from my temple to my chin, dragging fire along my skin.