The Host (The Host 1)

"Doc!" I gasped in the tiny, fragile voice. "Doc, you promised! You gave me your oath, Eustace! Why? Why did you break your word?"

A dim recollection of misery and pain touched me. This body had never felt such agony before. It shied away from the sting.

"Even an honest man sometimes caves to duress, Wanda. "

"Duress," another terribly familiar voice scoffed.

"I'd say a knife to the throat counts as duress, Jared. "

"You knew I wouldn't really use it. "

"That I did not. You were quite persuasive. "

"A knife?" My body trembled.

"Shh, it's all okay," Ian murmured. His breath blew strands of golden hair across my face, and I brushed them away-a routine gesture. "Did you really think you could leave us that way? Wanda!" He sighed, but the sigh was joyful.

Ian was happy. This insight made my worry suddenly much lighter, easier to bear.

"I told you I didn't want to be a parasite," I whispered.

"Let me through," my old voice ordered. And then I could see my face, the strong one, with the sun-brown skin, the straight black line of the eyebrows over the almond-shaped, hazel eyes, the high, sharp cheekbones. . . See it backward, not as a reflection, the way I'd always seen it before.

"Listen up, Wanda. I know exactly what you don't want to be. But we're human, and we're selfish, and we don't always do the right thing. We aren't going to let you go. Deal with it. "

The way she spoke, the cadence and the tone, not the voice, brought back all the silent conversations, the voice in my head, my sister.

"Mel? Mel, you're okay!"

She smiled then and leaned over to hug my shoulders. She was bigger than I remembered being.

"Of course I am. Wasn't that the point of all the drama? And you're going to be fine, too. We weren't stupid about it. We didn't just grab the first body we saw. "

"Let me tell her, let me!" Jamie shoved in beside Mel. It was getting very crowded around the cot. It rocked, unstable.

I took his hand and squeezed it. My hands felt so feeble. Could he even feel the pressure?

"Jamie!"

"Hey, Wanda! This is cool, isn't it? You're smaller than me now!" He grinned, triumphant.

"But still older. I'm almost -" And then I stopped, changing my sentence abruptly. "My birthday is in two weeks. "

I might have been disoriented and confused, but I wasn't stupid. Melanie's experiences had not gone to waste; I had learned from them. Ian was every bit as honorable as Jared, and I was not going to go through the frustration Melanie had.

So I lied, giving myself an extra year. "I'll be eighteen. "

From the corner of my eye, I saw Melanie and Ian stiffen in surprise. This body looked much younger than her true age, hovering on the edge of seventeen.

It was this little deception, this preemptive claiming of my partner, that made me realize I was staying here. That I would be with Ian and the rest of my family. My throat thickened, felt oddly swollen.

Jamie patted my face, calling my attention back. I was surprised at how big his hand felt on my cheek. "They let me come on the raid to get you. "

"I know," I muttered. "I remember. . . Well, Pet remembers seeing you there. " I glared at Mel, who shrugged.

"We tried not to scare her," Jamie said. "She's so. . . kind of fragile-looking, you know? And nice, too. We picked her out together, but I got to decide! See, Mel said we had to get someone young-someone who had a bigger percentage of life as a soul or something. But not too young, because she knew you wouldn't want to be a child. And then Jared liked this face, because he said no one could ever dis. . . distrust it. You don't look dangerous at all. You look the opposite of dangerous. Jared said anyone who sees you would just naturally want to protect you, right, Jared? But then I got the final say, because I was looking for someone who looked like you. And I thought this looked like you. Because she sort of looks like an angel, and you're good like that. And real pretty. I knew you would be pretty. " Jamie smiled hugely. "Ian didn't come. He just sat here with you-he said he didn't care what you looked like. He wouldn't let anyone else put a finger on your tank at all, not even me or Mel. But Doc let me watch this time. It was way cool, Wanda. I don't know why you wouldn't let me watch before. They wouldn't let me help, though. Ian wouldn't let anyone touch you but him. "

Ian squeezed my hand and leaned in to whisper through all the hair. His voice was so low that I was the only one who could hear. "I held you in my hand, Wanderer. And you were so beautiful. "

My eyes got all wet, and I had to sniff.

"You like it, don't you?" Jamie asked, his voice worried now. "You're not mad? There's nobody in there with you, is there?"

"I'm not mad, exactly," I whispered. "And I-I can't find anybody else. Just Pet's memories. Pet's been in here since. . . I can't remember when she wasn't here. I can't remember any other name. "

"You're not a parasite," Melanie said firmly, touching my hair, pulling up a strand and letting the gold slide between her fingers. "This body didn't belong to Pet, but there's nobody else to claim it. We waited to make sure, Wanda. We tried to wake her up almost as long as we tried with Jodi. "

"Jodi? What happened to Jodi?" I chirped, my little voice going higher, like a bird's, with anxiety. I struggled to get up, and Ian pulled me-it took no effort, no strength to move my tiny new body-into a sitting position with his arm supporting me. I could see all the faces then.

Doc, no more tears in his eyes. Jeb, peeking around Doc, his expression satisfied and burning with curiosity at the same time. Next, a woman I didn't recognize for a second because her face was more animated than I'd ever seen it, and I hadn't seen it much anyway-Mandy, the former Healer. Closer to me, Jamie, with his bright, excited smile, Melanie beside him, and Jared behind her, his hands around her waist. I knew that his hands would never feel right unless they were touching her body-my body!-now. That he would keep her as close as he could forever, hating any inch that came between them. This caused me a fierce, aching pain. The delicate heart in my thin chest shuddered. It had never been broken before, and it didn't understand this memory.

It made me sorry to realize that I still loved Jared. I wasn't free of that, wasn't free of jealousy for the body he loved. My glance flickered back to Mel. I saw the rueful twist of the mouth that used to be mine, and knew she understood.

I continued quickly around the cluster of faces circling my bed, while Doc, after a pause, answered my question.

Trudy and Geoffrey, Heath, Paige and Andy. Brandt, even. . .

"Jodi didn't respond. We kept trying as long as we could. "

Was Jodi gone, then? I wondered, my inexperienced heart throbbing. I was giving the poor frail thing such a rough awakening.

Heidi and Lily, Lily smiling a pained little smile-none the less sincere for the pain. . .

"We were able to keep her hydrated, but we had no way to feed her. We were worried about atrophy-her muscles, her brain. . . "

While my new heart ached harder than it had ever ached-ached for a woman I'd never known-my eyes continued around the circle and then froze.

Jodi, clinging to Kyle's side, stared back at me.

She smiled tentatively, and sudd

enly I recognized her.

"Sunny!"

"I got to stay," she said, not quite smug but almost. "Just like you. " She glanced at Kyle's face-which was more stoic than I was used to seeing it-and her voice turned sad. "I'm trying, though. I am looking for her. I will keep looking. "

"Kyle had us put Sunny back when it looked like we would lose Jodi," Doc continued quietly.

I stared at Sunny and Kyle for a moment, stunned, and then finished the circle.

Ian was watching me with a strange combination of joy and nervousness. His face was higher than it should have been, bigger than it used to be. But his eyes were still the blue I remembered. The anchor that held me to this planet.

"You okay in there?" he asked.

"I. . . I don't know," I admitted. "This feels very. . . weird. Every bit as weird as switching species. So much weirder than I would have thought. I. . . I don't know. "

My heart fluttered again, looking into those eyes, and this was no memory of another lifetime's love. My mouth felt dry, and my stomach quivered. The place where his arm touched my back felt more alive than the rest of my body.

"You don't mind staying here too much, do you, Wanda? Do you think that maybe you could tolerate it?" he murmured.

Jamie squeezed my hand. Melanie put hers on top of his, then smiled when Jared added his to the pile. Trudy patted my foot. Geoffrey, Heath, Heidi, Andy, Paige, Brandt, and even Lily were beaming at me. Kyle had shuffled closer, a grin spreading across his face. Sunny's smile was the smile of a coconspirator.

How much No Pain had Doc given me? Everything was glowing.

Ian brushed the cloud of golden hair back from my face and laid his hand on my cheek. His hand was so big just the palm covered from my jaw to my forehead; the contact sent a jolt of electricity through my silvery skin. It tingled after that first jolt, and the pit of my stomach tingled along with it.

I could feel a warm flush pinking my cheeks. My heart had never been broken before, but it had also never flown. It made me shy; I had a hard time finding my voice.

"I suppose I could do that," I whispered. "If it makes you happy. "

"That's not good enough, actually," Ian disagreed. "It has to make you happy, too. "

I could only meet his gaze for a few seconds at a time; the shyness, so new and confusing to me, had my eyes dropping to my lap again and again.

"I. . . think it might," I agreed. "I think it might make me very, very happy. "

Happy and sad, elated and miserable, secure and afraid, loved and denied, patient and angry, peaceful and wild, complete and empty. . . all of it. I would feel everything. It would all be mine.

Ian coaxed my face up until I looked him in the eyes, my cheeks flushing darker.

"Then you will stay. "

He kissed me, right in front of everyone, but I forgot the audience quickly. This was easy and right, no division, no confusion, no objection, just Ian and me, the molten rock moving through this new body, melding it into the pact.

"I will stay," I agreed.

And my tenth life began.