The Host (The Host #1)(6)

I should not have been afraid. After all, I was called Wanderer now. And I’d earned the name.

With another deep breath, I delved into the memories that frightened me, faced them head-on with my teeth locked together.

I could skip past the end—it didn’t overwhelm me now. In fast-forward, I ran through the dark again, wincing, trying not to feel. It was over quickly.

Once I was through that barrier, it wasn’t hard to float through less-alarming things and places, skimming for the information I wanted. I saw how she’d come to this cold city, driving by night in a stolen car chosen for its nondescript appearance. She’d walked through the streets of Chicago in darkness, shivering beneath her coat.

She was doing her own seeking. There were others like her here, or so she hoped. One in particular. A friend… no, family. Not a sister… a cousin.

The words came slower and slower, and at first I did not understand why. Was this forgotten? Lost in the trauma of an almost death? Was I still sluggish from unconsciousness? I struggled to think clearly. This sensation was unfamiliar. Was my body still sedated? I felt alert enough, but my mind labored unsuccessfully for the answers I wanted.

I tried another avenue of searching, hoping for clearer responses. What was her goal? She would find… Sharon—I fished out the name—and they would…

I hit a wall.

It was a blank, a nothing. I tried to circle around it, but I couldn’t find the edges of the void. It was as if the information I sought had been erased.

As if this brain had been damaged.

Anger flashed through me, hot and wild. I gasped in surprise at the unexpected reaction. I’d heard of the emotional instability of these human bodies, but this was beyond my ability to anticipate. In eight full lives, I’d never had an emotion touch me with such force.

I felt the blood pulse through my neck, pounding behind my ears. My hands tightened into fists.

The machines beside me reported the acceleration of my heartbeats. There was a reaction in the room: the sharp tap of the Seeker’s shoes approached me, mingled with a quieter shuffle that must have been the Healer.

“Welcome to Earth, Wanderer,” the female voice said.

CHAPTER 3

Resisted

She won’t recognize the new name,” the Healer murmured.

A new sensation distracted me. Something pleasant, a change in the air as the Seeker stood at my side. A scent, I realized. Something different than the sterile, odorless room. Perfume, my new mind told me. Floral, lush…

“Can you hear me?” the Seeker asked, interrupting my analysis. “Are you aware?”

“Take your time,” the Healer urged in a softer voice than the one he had used before.

I did not open my eyes. I didn’t want to be distracted. My mind gave me the words I needed, and the tone that would convey what I couldn’t say without using many words.

“Have I been placed in a damaged host in order to gain the information you need, Seeker?”

There was a gasp—surprise and outrage mingled—and something warm touched my skin, covered my hand.

“Of course not, Wanderer,” the man said reassuringly. “Even a Seeker would stop at some things.”

The Seeker gasped again. Hissed, my memory corrected.

“Then why doesn’t this mind function correctly?”

There was a pause.

“The scans were perfect,” the Seeker said. Her words not reassuring but argumentative. Did she mean to quarrel with me? “The body was entirely healed.”

“From a suicide attempt that was perilously close to succeeding.” My tone was stiff, still angry. I wasn’t used to anger. It was hard to contain it.

“Everything was in perfect order —”

The Healer cut her off. “What is missing?” he asked. “Clearly, you’ve accessed speech.”

“Memory. I was trying to find what the Seeker wants.”

Though there was no sound, there was a change. The atmosphere, which had gone tense at my accusation, relaxed. I wondered how I knew this. I had a strange sensation that I was somehow receiving more than my five senses were giving me—almost a feeling that there was another sense, on the fringes, not quite harnessed. Intuition? That was almost the right word. As if any creature needed more than five senses.

The Seeker cleared her throat, but it was the Healer who answered.

“Ah,” he said. “Don’t make yourself anxious about some partial memory… difficulties. That’s, well, not to be expected, exactly, but not surprising, considering.”

“I don’t understand your meaning.”

“This host was part of the human resistance.” There was a hint of excitement in the Seeker’s voice now. “Those humans who were aware of us before insertion are more difficult to subdue. This one still resists.”

There was a moment of silence while they waited for my response.

Resisting? The host was blocking my access? Again, the heat of my anger surprised me.

“Am I correctly bound?” I asked, my voice distorted because it came through my teeth.

“Yes,” the Healer said. “All eight hundred twenty-seven points are latched securely in the optimum positions.”

This mind used more of my faculties than any host before, leaving me only one hundred eighty-one spare attachments. Perhaps the numerous bindings were the reason the emotions were so vivid.