The Host (The Host #1)(69)

“Whatcha need, kid?” Jeb asked without looking at him.

“Just wondering what you’re doing,” Jamie answered, his voice striving for nonchalance and only just failing.

Jeb stopped when he got to me and turned to look at Jamie. “Takin’ her for a tour of the place. Just like I do for any newcomer.”

There was another low grumble.

“Can I come?” Jamie asked.

I saw Sharon shake her head feverishly, her expression outraged. Jeb ignored her.

“Doesn’t bother me… if you can mind your manners.”

Jamie shrugged. “No problem.”

I had to move then—to knot my fingers together in front of me. I wanted so badly to push Jamie’s untidy hair out of his eyes and then leave my arm around his neck. Something that would not go over well, I was sure.

“Let’s go,” Jeb said to us both. He took us back out the way we had come. Jeb walked on one side of me, Jamie on the other. Jamie seemed to be trying to stare at the floor, but he kept glancing up at my face—just like I couldn’t help glancing down at his. Whenever our eyes met, we looked away again quickly.

We were about halfway down the big hall when I heard the quiet footsteps behind us. My reaction was instantaneous and unthinking. I skittered to one side of the tunnel, sweeping Jamie along with one arm so that I was between him and whatever was coming for me.

“Hey!” he protested, but he did not knock my arm away.

Jeb was just as quick. The gun twirled out of its strap with blinding speed.

Ian and the doctor both raised their hands above their heads.

“We can mind our manners, too,” the doctor said. It was hard to believe that this soft-spoken man with the friendly expression was the resident torturer; he was all the more terrifying to me because his exterior was so benign. A person would be on her guard on a dark and ominous night, a person would be ready. But on a clear, sunny day? How would she know to flee when she couldn’t see any place for danger to hide?

Jeb squinted at Ian, the barrel of the gun shifting to follow his gaze.

“I don’t mean any trouble, Jeb. I’ll be just as mannerly as Doc.”

“Fine,” Jeb said curtly, stowing his gun. “Just don’t test me. I haven’t shot anybody in a real long time, and I sort of miss the thrill of it.”

I gasped. Everyone heard that and turned to see my horrified expression. The doctor was the first one to laugh, but even Jamie joined in briefly.

“It’s a joke,” Jamie whispered to me. His hand strayed from his side, almost as if he was reaching for mine, but he quickly shoved it into the pocket of his shorts. I let my arm—still stretched protectively in front of his body—drop, too.

“Well, the day’s wasting,” Jeb said, still a little surly. “You’ll all have to keep up, ’cause I’m not waiting on you.” He stalked forward before he was done speaking.

CHAPTER 21

Named

I kept tight to Jeb’s side, a little in front of him. I wanted to be as far as possible from the two men following us. Jamie walked somewhere in the middle, not sure of where he wanted to be.

I wasn’t able to concentrate much on the rest of Jeb’s tour. My attention was not focused on the second set of gardens he led me through—one with corn growing waist-high in the blistering heat of the brilliant mirrors—or the wide but low-ceilinged cavern he called the “rec room.” That one was pitch-black and deep underground, but he told me they brought in lights when they wanted to play. The word play didn’t make sense to me, not here in this group of tense, angry survivors, but I didn’t ask him to explain. There was more water here, a tiny, noxiously sulfurous spring that Jeb said they sometimes used as a second latrine because it was no good for drinking.

My attention was divided between the men walking behind us and the boy at my side.

Ian and the doctor did mind their manners surprisingly well. No one attacked me from behind—though I thought my eyes might get lodged in the back of my head from trying to see if they were about to. They just followed quietly, sometimes talking to each other in low voices. Their comments revolved around names I didn’t know and nicknames for places and things that might or might not have been inside these caves. I couldn’t understand any of it.

Jamie said nothing, but he looked at me a lot. When I wasn’t trying to keep an eye on the others, I was often peeking at him, too. This left little time to admire the things Jeb showed me, but he didn’t seem to notice my preoccupations.

Some of the tunnels were very long—the distances hidden beneath the ground here were mind-boggling. Often they were pitch-black, but Jeb and the others never so much as paused, clearly familiar with their whereabouts and long since accustomed to traveling in darkness. It was harder for me than it was when Jeb and I were alone. In the dark, every noise sounded like an attack. Even the doctor’s and Ian’s casual chatter seemed like a cover for some nefarious move.

Paranoid, Melanie commented.

If that’s what it takes to keep us alive, so be it.

I wish you would pay more attention to Uncle Jeb. This is fascinating.

Do what you want with your time.

I can only hear and see what you hear and see, Wanderer, she told me. Then she changed the subject. Jamie looks okay, don’t you think? Not too unhappy.

He looks… wary.