unattainable, as with Jared.
Or was it simply better somehow? Because these humans could hate
with so much fury, was the other end of the spectrum that they could
love with more heart and zeal and fire?
I didn’t know why I had yearned after it so desperately. All I
knew was that, now that I had it, it was worth every ounce of risk and
agony it had cost. It was better than I’d imagined.
It was everything.
By the time the food was prepared and consumed, the late-or rather
early-hour had gotten to us all. People stumbled out of the crowded
room toward their beds. As they left, there was more space.
Those remaining slouched down where we were as room became
available. Gradually, we melted in place until we were horizontal. My
head ended up pillowed on Jared’s stomach; his hand stroked my hair
now and then. Jamie’s face was against my chest, and his arms were
around my neck. One of my arms wrapped around his shoulders. Ian’s
head was cushioned on my stomach, and he held my other hand to his
face. I could feel Doc’s long leg stretched beside mine, his shoe by
my hip. Doc was asleep-I could hear him snoring. I may have even been
touching Kyle somewhere.
Jeb was sprawled on the bed. He belched, and Kyle chuckled.
“Nicer night than I was plannin’ for. I like it when pessimism
goes unrewarded,” Jeb mused. “Thanks, Wanda.”
“Mmm,” I sighed, half asleep.
“Next time she raids…” Kyle said, somewhere on the other side of
Jared’s body. A big yawn interrupted his sentence. “Next time she
raids, I’m coming, too.”
“She’s not going out again,” Ian answered, his body tensing. I
brushed my hand against his face, trying to soothe him.
“Of course not,” I murmured to him. “I don’t have to go anywhere
unless I’m needed. I don’t mind staying in here.”
“I’m not talking about keeping you prisoner, Wanda,” Ian
explained, irritated. “You can go anywhere you want as far as I’m
concerned. Jogging on the highway, if you’d like that. But not a raid.
I’m talking about keeping you safe.”
“We need her,” Jared said, his voice harder than I wanted to hear
it.
“We got by fine without her before.”
“Fine? Jamie would have died without her. She can get things for
us that no one else can.”
“She’s a person, Jared, not a tool.”
“I know that. I didn’t say that -”
“’S up to Wanda, I’d say.” Jeb interrupted the argument just as I
was about to. My hand was holding Ian down now, and I could feel
Jared’s body shifting under my head as he prepared to get up. Jeb’s
words froze them in place.
“You can’t leave it up to her, Jeb,” Ian protested.
“Why not? Seems like she’s got her own mind. ’S it your job to
make decisions for her?”
“I’ll tell you why not,” Ian grumbled. “Wanda?”
“Yes, Ian?”
“Do you want to go out on raids?”
“If I can help, of course I should go.”
“That’s not what I asked, Wanda.”
I was quiet for a moment, trying to remember his question to see
how I’d gotten it wrong.
“See, Jeb? She never takes into account her own wants-her own
happiness, her own health, even. She’d do anything we asked her to,
even if it got her killed. It’s not fair to ask her things the way
we’d ask each other. We stop to think about ourselves. She doesn’t.”
It was quiet. No one answered Ian. The silence dragged on until I
felt compelled to speak for myself.
“That’s not true,” I said. “I think about myself all the time. And
I… I want to help. Doesn’t that count? It made me so happy to help
Jamie tonight. Can’t I find happiness the way I want to?”
Ian sighed. “See what I mean?”
“Well, I can’t tell her she can’t go if she wants to,” Jeb said.
“She’s not a prisoner anymore.”
“But we don’t have to ask.”
Jared was very quiet through all this. Jamie was quiet, too, but I
was pretty sure he was asleep. I knew Jared wasn’t; his hand was
tracing random patterns on the side of my face. Glowing, burning
patterns.
“You don’t need to ask,” I said. “I volunteer. It really wasn’t…
frightening. Not at all. The other souls are very kind. I’m not afraid
of them. It was almost too easy.”
“Easy? Cutting your -”
I interrupted Ian quickly. “That was an emergency. I won’t have to
do that again.” I paused for a second. “Right?” I checked.
Ian groaned. “If she goes, I’m going, too,” he said in a bleak
tone. “ Someone has to protect her from herself.”
“And I’ll be there to protect the rest of us from her, ” Kyle said
with a chuckle. Then he grunted and said, “Ow.”
I was too tired to lift my head to see who had hit Kyle now.
“And I’ll be there to bring you all back alive,” Jared murmured.
CHAPTER 47. Employed
This is too easy. It’s not really even fun anymore,” Kyle
complained.
“You wanted to come,” Ian reminded him.
He and Ian were in the windowless back of the van, sorting through
the nonperishable groceries and toiletries I’d just collected from the
store. It was the middle of the day, and the sun was shining on
Wichita. It was not as hot as the Arizona desert, but it was more
humid. The air swarmed with tiny flying bugs.
Jared drove toward the highway out of town, carefully keeping
below the speed limit. This continued to irritate him.
“Getting tired of shopping yet, Wanda?” Ian asked me.
“No. I don’t mind it.”
“You always say that. Isn’t there anything you mind?”
“I mind… being away from Jamie. And I mind being outside, a little
bit. During the day especially. It’s like the opposite of
claustrophobia. Everything is too open. Does that bother you, too?”
“Sometimes. We don’t go out during the day much.”
“At least she gets to stretch her legs,” Kyle muttered. “I don’t
know why you want to hear her complain.”
“Because it’s so uncommon. Which makes it a nice change from
listening to you complain.”
I tuned them out. Once Ian and Kyle got started, they usually went
on for a while. I consulted the map.
“ Oklahoma City next?” I asked Jared.
“And a few small towns on the way, if you’re up for it,” he
answered, eyes on the road.
“I am.”
Jared rarely lost his focus when on a raid. He didn’t relax into
relieved banter the way Ian and Kyle did every time I completed
another mission successfully. It made me smile when they used that
word- mission. That sounded so formidable. In reality, it was just a
trip to the store. Just like I’d done a hundred times in San Diego
when I was only feeding myself.
Like Kyle said, it was too easy to provide any excitement. I
pushed my cart up and down the aisles. I smiled at the souls who
smiled at me, and I filled my cart with things that would last. I
usually grabbed a few things that wouldn’t, for the men hiding in the
back of the van. Premade sandwiches from the deli-things like that for
our meals. And maybe a treat or two. Ian had a fondness for mint
chocolate chip ice cream. Kyle liked caramel sweets best. Jared ate
anything he was offered; it seemed as if he’d given up favorites many
years before, embracing a life where wants were unwelcome and even
needs were carefully assessed before they were met. Another reason he
was good at this life-he saw priorities uncontaminated by personal
desire.
Occasionally, in the smaller towns, someone would notice me, would
speak to me. I had my lines down so well that I could probably have
fooled a human by this point.
“Hi there. New in town?”
“Yes. Brand-new.”
“What brings you to Byers?”
I was always careful to check the map before I left the van, so
the town’s name would be familiar.
“My partner travels a lot. He’s a photographer.”
“How wonderful! An Artist. Well, there’s certainly a lot of
beautiful land around here.”
Originally, I’d been the Artist. But I’d found that throwing in
the information that I was already partnered saved me some time when I
was speaking to males.
“Thank you so much for your help.”
“You’re very welcome. Come back soon.”
I’d only had to speak to a pharmacist once, in Salt Lake City;
after that, I’d known what to look for.
A sheepish smile. “I’m not sure I’m getting the right nutrition. I
can’t seem to avoid the junk food. This body has such a sweet tooth.”
“You need to be wise, Thousand Petals. I know it’s easy to give in
to your cravings, but try to think about what you’re eating. In the
meantime, you should take a supplement.”
Health. Such an obvious title on the bottle, it made me feel silly
for asking.
“Would you like the ones that taste like strawberries or the ones
that taste like chocolate?”
“Could I try both?”
And the pleasant soul named Earthborn gave me both of the large
bottles.
Not very challenging. The only fear or sense of danger I ever felt
came when I thought of the small cyanide pill that I always kept in an
easily reachable pocket. Just in case.
“You should get new clothes in the next town,” Jared said.
“Again?”
“Those are looking a little creased.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I didn’t like the excess, but the steadily
growing pile of dirty laundry wouldn’t go to waste. Lily and Heidi and
Paige were all close to my size, and they would be grateful for
something new to wear. The men rarely bothered with things like
clothes when they were raiding. Every foray was life-or-death-clothes
were not a priority. Nor were the gentle soaps and shampoos that I’d
been collecting at every store.
“You should probably clean up, too,” Jared said with a sigh.
“Guess that means a hotel tonight.”
Keeping up appearances was not something they’d worried about
before. Of course, I was the only one who had to look as if I were a
part of civilization from close up. The men wore jeans and dark
T-shirts now, things that didn’t show dirt or attract attention in the
brief moments they might be seen.
They all hated sleeping in the roadside inns-succumbing to
unconsciousness inside the very mouth of the enemy. It scared them
more than anything else we did. Ian said he’d rather charge an armed
Seeker.
Kyle simply refused. He mostly slept in the van during the day and
then sat up at night, acting as sentry.
For me, it was as easy as shopping in the stores. I checked us in,
made conversation with the clerk. Told the story about my photographer
partner and the friend who was traveling with us (just in case someone
saw all three of us enter the room). I used generic names from
unremarkable planets. Sometimes we were Bats: Word Keeper, Sings the
Egg Song, and Sky Roost. Sometimes we were See Weeds: Twisting Eyes,
Sees to the Surface, and Second Sunrise. I changed the names every
time, not that anyone was trying to trace our path. It just made
Melanie feel safer to do that. All this made her feel like a character
in a human movie about espionage.
The hard part, the part I really minded-not that I would say this
in front of Kyle, who was so quick to doubt my intentions-was all the
taking without giving anything back. It had never bothered me to shop
in San Diego. I took what I needed and nothing more. Then I spent my
days at the university giving back to the community by sharing my
knowledge. Not a taxing Calling, but one I took seriously. I took my
turns at the less-appealing chores. I did my day collecting garbage
and cleaning streets. We all did.
And now I took so much more and gave nothing in return. It made me
feel selfish and wrong.
It’s not for yourself. It’s for others, Mel reminded me when I
brooded.
It still feels wrong. Even you can feel that, can’t you?
Don’t think about it was her solution.
I was glad we were on the homestretch of our long raid. Tomorrow
we would visit our growing cache-a moving truck we kept hidden within
a day’s reach of our path-and clean out the van for the last time.
Just a few more cities, a few more days, down through Oklahoma, then
New Mexico, and then a straight drive through Arizona with no stops.
Home again. At last.
When we slept in hotels rather than in the crowded van, we usually
checked in after dark and left before dawn to keep the souls from
getting a good look at us. Not really necessary.
Jared and Ian were beginning to realize that. This night, because
we’d had such a successful day-the van was completely full; Kyle would
have little space-and because Ian thought I looked tired, we stopped
early. The sun had not set when I returned to the van with the plastic
key card.
The little inn was not very busy. We parked close to our room, and
Jared and Ian went straight from the van to the room in a matter of
five or six steps, their eyes on the ground. On their necks, small,
faint pink lines provided camouflage. Jared carried a half-empty
suitcase. No one looked at them or me.
Inside, the room-darkening curtains were drawn, and the men
relaxed a little bit.
Ian lounged on the bed he and Jared would use, and flipped on the
TV. Jared put the suitcase on the table, took out our dinner-cooled
greasy breaded chicken strips I’d ordered from the deli in the last
store-and passed it around. I sat by the window, peeking through the
corner at the falling sun as I ate.
“You have to admit, Wanda, we humans had better entertainment,”
Ian teased.
On the television screen, two souls were speaking their lines
clearly, their bodies held with perfect posture. It wasn’t hard to
pick up what was happening in the story because there wasn’t a lot of
variety in the scripts souls wrote. In this one, two souls were
reconnecting after a long separation. The male’s stint with the See
Weeds had come between them, but he’d chosen to be human because he
guessed his partner from the Mists Planet would be drawn to these
warm-blooded hosts. And, miracle of miracles, he’d found her here.
They all had happy endings.
“You have to consider the intended audience.”
“True. I wish they’d run old human shows again.” He flipped
through the channels and frowned. “Used to be a few of them on.”
“They were too disturbing. They had to be replaced with things
that weren’t so… violent.”
“ The Brady Bunch?”
I laughed. I’d seen that show in San Diego, and Melanie knew it
from her childhood. “It condoned aggression. I remember one where a
little male child punched a bully, and that was portrayed as being the
right thing to do. There was blood.”
Ian shook his head in disbelief but returned to the show with the
former See Weed. He laughed at the wrong parts, the parts that were
supposed to be touching.
I stared out the window, watching something much more interesting
than the predictable story on television.
Across the two-lane road from the inn was a small park, bordered
on one side by a school and on the other by a field where cows grazed.
There were a few young trees, and an old-fashioned playground with a
sandbox, a slide, a set of monkey bars, and one of those hand-pulled
merry-go-rounds. Of course there was a swing set, too, and that was
the only equipment being used currently.
A little family was taking advantage of the cooler evening air.
The father had some silver in his dark hair at the temples; the mother
looked many years his junior. Her red brown hair was pulled back in a
long ponytail that bobbed when she moved. They had a little boy, no
more than a year old. The father pushed the child in the swing from
behind, while the mother stood in front, leaning in to kiss his
forehead when he swung her way, making him giggle so hard that his
chubby little face was bright red. This had her laughing, too-I could
see her body shake with it, her hair dancing.
“What are you staring at, Wanda?”
Jared’s question wasn’t anxious, because I was smiling softly at
the surprising scene.
“Something I’ve never seen in all my lives. I’m staring at… hope.”
Jared came to stand behind me, peeking out over my shoulder. “What
do you mean?” His eyes swept across the buildings and the road, not
pausing on the playing family.
I caught his chin and pointed his face in the right direction. He
didn’t so much as flinch at my unexpected touch, and that gave me a
strange jolt of warmth in the pit of my stomach. “Look,” I said.
“What am I looking at?”
“The only hope for survival I’ve ever seen for a host species.”
“Where?” he demanded, bewildered.
I was aware of Ian close behind us now, listening silently.
“See?” I pointed at the laughing mother. “See how she loves her
human child?”
At that moment, the woman snatched her son from the swing and
squeezed him in a tight embrace, covering his face with kisses. He
cooed and flailed-just a baby. Not the miniature adult he would have
been if he carried one of my kind.
Jared gasped. “The baby is human? How? Why? For how long?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never seen this before-I don’t know. She has not
given him up for a host. I can’t imagine that she would be… forced.
Motherhood is all but worshipped among my kind. If she is unwilling…”
I shook my head. “I have no idea how that will be handled. This
doesn’t happen elsewhere. The emotions of these bodies are so much
stronger than logic.”
I glanced up at Jared and Ian. They were both staring openmouthed
at the interspecies family in the park.
“No,” I murmured to myself. “No one would force the parents if
they wanted the child. And just look at them.”
The father had his arms around both the mother and the child now.
He looked down at his host body’s biological son with staggering
tenderness in his eyes.
“Aside from ourselves, this is the first planet we’ve discovered
with live births. Yours certainly isn’t the easiest or most prolific
system. I wonder if that’s the difference… or if it’s the helplessness
of your young. Everywhere else, reproduction is through some form of
eggs or seeds. Many parents never even meet their young. I wonder…” I
trailed off, my thoughts full of speculation.
The mother lifted her face to her partner, and he kissed her lips.
The human child crowed with delight.
“Hmm. Perhaps, someday, some of my kind and some of yours will
live in peace. Wouldn’t that be… strange?”
Neither man could tear his eyes from the miracle in front of them.
The family was leaving. The mother dusted the sand off her jeans
while the father took the boy. Then, holding hands that they swung
between them, the souls strolled toward the apartments with their
human child.
Ian swallowed loudly.
We didn’t speak for the rest of the evening, all of us made
thoughtful by what we’d seen. We went to sleep early, so we could rise
early and get back to work.
I slept alone, in the bed farthest from the door. This made me
uncomfortable. The two big men did not fit easily on the other bed;
Ian tended to sprawl when he was deeply asleep, and Jared was not
above throwing punches when that happened. Both of them would be more
comfortable if I shared. I slept in a small ball now; maybe it was the
too-open spaces I moved in all day that had me constricting in on
myself at night, or maybe I was just so used to curling up to sleep in
the tiny space behind the passenger seat on the van’s floor that I’d
forgotten how to sleep straight.
But I knew why no one asked me to share. The first night the men
had unhappily realized the necessity of a hotel shower for me, I’d
heard Ian and Jared talking about me over the whir of the bathroom
fan.
“… not fair to ask her to choose,” Ian was saying. He kept his
voice low, but the fan was not loud enough to drown it out. The hotel
room was very small.
“Why not? It’s fairer to tell her where she’s going to sleep?
Don’t you think it’s more polite -”
“For someone else. But Wanda will agonize over this. She’ll be
trying so hard to please us both, she’ll make herself miserable.”
“Jealous again?”
“Not this time. I just know how she thinks.”
There was a silence. Ian was right. He did know how I thought.
He’d probably already foreseen that given the slightest hint that
Jared would prefer it, I would choose to sleep beside Jared, and then
keep myself awake worrying that I’d made Jared unhappy by being there
and that I’d hurt Ian’s feelings in the bargain.
“Fine,” Jared snapped. “But if you try cuddling up to me tonight…
so help me, O’Shea.”
Ian chuckled. “Not to sound overly arrogant, but to be perfectly
honest, Jared, were I so inclined, I think I could do better.”
Despite feeling a little guilty about wasting so much needed
space, I probably did sleep better alone.
We didn’t have to go to a hotel again. The days started to pass
more quickly, as if even the seconds were trying to run home. I could
feel a strange western pull on my body. We were all eager to get back
to our dark, crowded haven.
Even Jared got careless.
It was late, no sunlight left lingering behind the western
mountains. Behind us, Ian and Kyle were taking turns driving the big
moving truck loaded with our spoils, just as Jared and I took turns
with the van. They had to drive the heavy vehicle more carefully than
Jared did the van. The headlights had faded slowly into the distance,
until they disappeared around a wide curve in the road.
We were on the homestretch. Tucson was behind us. In a few short
hours, I would see Jamie. We would unload the welcome provisions,
surrounded by smiling faces. A real homecoming.
My first, I realized.
For once the return would bring nothing but joy. We carried no
doomed hostages this time.
I wasn’t paying attention to anything but anticipation. The road
didn’t seem to be flying by too fast; it couldn’t fly past fast enough
as far as I was concerned.
The truck’s headlights reappeared behind us.
“Kyle must be driving,” I murmured. “They’re catching up.”
And then the red and blue lights suddenly spun out in the dark
night behind us. They reflected off all the mirrors, dancing spots of
color across the roof, the seats, our frozen faces, and the dashboard,
where the needle on the speed gauge showed that we were traveling
twenty miles over the speed limit.
The sound of a siren pierced the desert calm.
CHAPTER 48. Detained
The red and blue lights swirled in time with the siren’s cry.
Before the souls had come to this place, these lights and sounds
had had only one meaning. The law, the keepers of the peace, the
punishers of offenders.
Now, again, the flashing colors and angry noise had only one
meaning. A very similar meaning. Still the keepers of the peace. Still
the punishers.
Seekers.
It wasn’t as common a sight or sound as it had been before. The
police force was only needed to help in cases of accidents or other
emergencies, not to enforce laws. Most civil servants didn’t have
vehicles with sirens, unless the vehicle was an ambulance or a fire
truck.
This low, sleek car behind us was not for any accident. This was a
vehicle made for pursuit. I’d never seen anything quite like it
before, but I knew exactly what it meant.
Jared was frozen, his foot still pushing down on the gas pedal. I
could see that he was trying to find a solution, a way to outrun them
in this decrepit van or a way to evade them-to hide our wide white
profile in the low, gaunt brush of the desert-without leading them
back to the rest. Without giving everyone away. We were so close to
the others now. They slumbered, unaware…
When he gave up after two seconds of frantic thought, he exhaled.
“I’m so sorry, Wanda,” he whispered. “I blew it.”
“Jared?”
He reached for my hand and eased up on the gas. The car started to
slow.
“Got your pill?” he choked.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Can Mel hear me?”
Yes. The thought was a sob.
“Yes.” My voice only barely escaped being a sob, too.
“I love you, Mel. Sorry.”
“She loves you. More than anything.”
A short, aching silence.
“Wanda, I… I care about you, too. You’re a good person, Wanda. You
deserve better than what I’ve given you. Better than this.”
He had something small, much too small to be so deadly, between
his fingers.
“Wait,” I gasped.
He could not die.
“Wanda, we can’t take the chance. We can’t outrun them, not in
this. If we try to run, a thousand of them will swarm after us. Think
of Jamie.”
The van was slowing, drifting to the shoulder.
“Give me one try,” I begged. I fumbled quickly for the pill in my
pocket. I pinched it between my thumb and forefinger and held it up.
“Let me try to lie us out of this. I’ll swallow it right away if
anything goes wrong.”
“You’ll never lie your way past a Seeker!”
“Let me try. Quick!” I pulled off my seat belt and crouched
be-side him, unfastening his. “Switch with me. Fast, before they’re
close enough to see.”
“Wanda -”
“One try. Hurry!”
He was the best at split-second decisions. Smooth and fast, he was
out of the driver’s seat and over my crouched body. I rolled up into
his seat while he took mine.
“Seat belt,” I ordered tersely. “Close your eyes. Turn your head
away.”
He did as I said. It was too dark to see it, but his new soft pink
scar would be visible from this angle.
I strapped my seat belt on and then leaned my head back.
Lying with my body, that was the key. It was simply a matter of
the right movements. Imitation. Like the actors on the TV program,
only better. Like a human.
“Help me, Mel,” I murmured.
I can’t help you be a better soul, Wanda. But you can do this.
Save him. I know you can.
A better soul. I only had to be myself.
It was late. I was tired. I wouldn’t have to act that part.
I let my eyelids droop, let my body sag against the seat.
Chagrin. I could do chagrin. I could feel it now.
My mouth turned down into a sheepish grimace.
The Seekers’ car did not park behind us, the way I could feel Mel
expected. It stopped across the road, on the shoulder, facing the
wrong way for that lane’s traffic flow. A dazzling light exploded
through the window of the other car. I blinked into it, raising my
hand to shade my face with deliberate slowness. Faintly, past the
glare of the spotlight, I saw the gleam of my eyes bounce against the
road as I looked down.
A car door slammed. One set of footsteps made a pattern of low
thuds as someone crossed the pavement. There was no sound of dirt or
rocks, so the Seeker had emerged from the passenger side. Two of them,
at least, but only one coming to interrogate me. This was a good sign,
a sign of comfort and confidence.
My glowing eyes were a talisman. A compass that could not
fail-like the North Star, undoubtable.
Lying with my body was not the key. Telling the truth with it was
enough. I had something in common with the human baby in the park:
nothing like me had ever existed before.
The Seeker’s body blocked the light, and I could see again.
It was a man. Probably middle-aged-his features conflicted with
one another, making it hard to tell; his hair was all white, but his
face was smooth and unwrinkled. He wore a T-shirt and shorts, a blocky
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