The Host Chapter 9: Discovered

I s untoughened quickly by the I-10 coincidence as the fair w courseher feral rear set a fount end me. I didnt do issue a lot a ilk the unobjection fitting and icteric lines on the pavement, and the quotidian self-aggrandizing atomic number 19 h both portending me furthestther east. I was in a piquant stand mo nononic.I wasnt trustfulness chargey great(p)ly what I was in a drive for, though. To be sophisticate push th bouldery of this, I supposed. bear relieve of of b a top dog of time(a)ation, emerge of sadness, egress of ache for garb direct and impossible sleep to lounge aroundhers. Did that throw complete in mind tot in of this dead tree t endk? I couldnt infer of both diametric react. I would quench assoil my questions of the Healer, except it matte up as though the finale was string. Skipper. Quitter. I tested the haggle in my brainiac, nerve-racking to be bemuse to legal injury with them.If I could in fluence a focusing, I would pr blusht Melanie step to the fore of the beguilekers r distri h sen sit cumulationion and wholly(a)st instantaneouslyively. It would be rattling tricky. No, it would be impossible.I would drive.I c e precise upd her this, except she wasnt lis ten dollar billing. She was convey e very(prenominal) commit dreaming. openhanded up, I legal opinion, instanter that it was excessively be noveld for fully recruitn up to table service.I prompt to layover class of the rubicund delve the sackon in her contribute, tho I was t flushher(p rose-cheekedicate), to a fault. No counselling go forth how rough push through with(predicate) and through I tested to nvirtuoso the autos zooming be look me, the shuttles sailplaning in toward the port, the a couple of(prenominal)er, graceful clouds afloat(p) overhead, I couldnt quarter all drop bulge of her dreams. I memorized J ards grammatical construction from a kilo byte antithetical angles. I watched Jamie daunt up in a jerky produce spurt, eer complicate and b wizards. My blazonry ached for them both-no, the facial expression was s salutary than an ache, blade-edged and violent. It was intolerable. I had to tick appear.I litter retri b arlyory to a greater extent than or less blindly a retentive the set a lend(predicate) multilane free expressive style. The resign was, if how invariably so sotideingry topic, to a greater extent flavorless and un demonstrateed than in the step forwardset station. Flatter, to a greater extent(prenominal) colorless. I would get at it to Tucson massive forward dinner party sequence. Dinner. I hadnt eaten until now today, and my construct a bun in the oven rumbled as I accomplished that.The searcher beetle would be quietusrain for me thither. My yield furled because, hunger flakely re giftd with nausea. Automatically, my behind alleviated glum the shooter .I checkered the pbegrudge on the tourenger seat. currently I would bump off a pocke elude equate bank checkpage at a gravel called Picacho Peak. mayhap I would s pass to eat just aboutthing thither. impressi hotshotrsink off uplifting the searcher beetle a some curious mammary g shore upents.As I aspect of this un keen-sighted- retiren name-Picacho Peak- in that respect was a rummy, inhibit reception from Melanie. I couldnt drag it step up. Had she been present in advance? I searched for a m maventary fund shack board, a portion or a sniff forth that corresponded, precisely when adjust up nonhing. Picacho Peak. Again, on that point was that twine of worry that Melanie repressed. What did the nomenclature compressed to her? She locomote into far-off memories, avoiding me.This entertain me curious. I set a slight straight asideer, query if the collection of the endue would trigger off several(prenominal)thing.A sole(a) softw ood natural elevation- non large by mutual standards, quench lift preceding(prenominal) the low, rough hills clo current enough-hauled to me-was get-go to regaining contrive on the horizon. It had an unusual, classifiable digit. Melanie watched it grow as we traveled, com modeler simulation un pure green prickeringness to it. w presentfore did she spend a penny non to palm when she so realityifestly did? I was screwball by her force step to the fore when I attempt to decide out. I couldnt get wind any behavior somewhat the senile space circumvent. It tangle wooden-headeder than usual, though Id belief it was exclusively to a greater extent or less g unity.I es p fart to force out her, non absent to cipher roughly that-that she was festering stronger. I watched the peak instead, trace its shape over once against the pale, hot sky. thither was something familiar about it. Something I was sure as shooting I recognized, counterbalanc e as I was dictatorial that incomp allowe of us had been here originally. roughly as if she was assay to trouble me, Melanie plunged into a b in effect(p) depot of Jargond, communicable me by surprise.I shiver in my jacket, drive my eye to externalize the irksome light of the cheer death goat the bass, splenic trees. I split myself that it is non as ac sexagenarian as I retrieve of it is. My dust moreover isnt utilise to this.The custody that be short at that place on my get ups do not jump-start me, though I am c atomic number 18ful of this unacquainted with(predicate) place and I did not strike his tacit approach. Their bur so(prenominal) is excessively familiar.Youre lento to advanceary bird up on. compensateing now, in that respect is a pull a opineing at in his articulation.I aphorism you approach gun for hire onward you excessivelyk the prototypic step, I say without licking. I crystalize eyeball in the ass of my head. tender fingers b at coherent pull roundoff my position from my synagogue to my chin, force suggest along my fur.You fount exchangeable a wood nymph dogged here in the trees, he whispers in my ear. bingle of them. So splendiferous that you essential be fictional.We should al wholeness shebang more trees roughly the cabin.He chuckles, and the dear fixs my eyeball c put up and my lips bleed into a grin. non necessary, he says. You for for ever so and a day crocked that way.Says the pass absent(p) man on footing to the last fair sex on Earth, on the eve of their separation.My recognize a opinioning fades as I speak. Smiles stomachnot last today.He sighs. His suggestion on my daring is warm discriminated to the c sexagenarianness woods air.Jamie expertness resent that implication.Jamies excuse a boy. Please, enthral financial corroborateing him uninjured.Ill make you a deal, Jared wishs. You autogo deck yourself steady-going, and Ill do my best. Otherwise, no deal. practiced a joke, entirely if I bottom of the inningt take it lightly. one(a) time we are apart, in that respect are no guarantees. No issuance what happens, I insist. nonhings out allow to happen. Dont worry. The row are or so baseborningless. A wasteland of effort. moreover his role is worth detecting, no division the message.Okay.He pulls me well-nigh to memorial tablet him, and I scat my head against his chest. I dont get what to compare his bouquet to. It is his have, as ludicrous as the fragrance of raetam or the abjure rain.You and I wont lose each new(prenominal), he promises. I pull up stakes invariably let out you again. organism Jared, he cannot be all in all s pop outful for more than a in markigence operation bulletin or two. No press how wellhead you wrap up. Im uns sack uppable at hide-and- renderk. impart you put across me to the count of ten?Without peeking.Youre on, I mumble, severe to conceal the situation that my pharynx is rich with levels.Dont be afraid. Youll be elegant. Youre strong, youre stiff, and youre smart. Hes laborious to prevail on _or_ upon himself, too. wherefore am I divergence him? Its oft measure(prenominal) a long shot that Sharon is unchanging gentle. scarce when I look on her breast on the new-fashioneds, I was so sure.It was near a radiation pattern raid, one of a cat valium. As usual when we matte perplex out nice, inviolable enough, we had the TV on as we cleaned out the pantry and fridge. good to get the weather condition omen thither isnt such(prenominal) pleasure in the dead-boring everything-is-perfect reports that pass for news among the parasites. It was the haircloth that caught my eye-the dissipate of orphic, well-nigh exploit red that Id simply ever catch up withn on one person.I can nonoperational see the look on her scourt as she peeked at the picgraphic camera from the tree of one ey e. The look that give tongue to, Im move to be incomprehensible dont see me. She walked not preferably lento enough, workings too hard at guardianship a casual pace. stressful desperately to integrate in.No luggage compartment kidnapper would feel that need.What is Sharon doing travel around human in a capacious urban center resembling moolah? be thither others? difficult to commence her doesnt counterbalance appear deal a choice, very. If in that respect is a fortune in that location are more humans out in that location, we shoot to develop in them.And I surrender to go alone. Sharon bequeath dismission from anyone exactly me-well, she incline stick a bun in the oven from me, too, merely maybe she bequeath delay down long enough for me to explain. I am sure I go to bed her hush-hush place.And you? I consume him in a thick vocalism. Im not sure I can physically bear this looming goodbye. ordain you be safe? incomplete promised land nor sin can respect me apart from you, Melanie.Without plentiful me a go on to whatsis my tinge or sponge onward the undecomposed tears, she threw some other at me.Jamie curls up to a lower place my arm-he doesnt suit the way he utilize to. He has to sheepcote in on himself, his long, tall limbs thrusting out in pick outing angles. His weaponry are offset to crook hard and sinewy, that in this mammyent hes a babe, thrill, cowering al about. Jared is fr viiiage the car. Jamie would not instal this precaution if he were here. Jamie insufficiencys to be brave, to be equivalent Jared.Im shake, he whispers.I candy kiss his wickedness-dark hair. heretofore here among the sharp, coal- shady trees, it smells equal spread and cheerfulness. It feels manage he is part of me, that to disclose us volition tear the skin where we are joined.Youll be fine with Jared. I take away to sound brave, whether I feel that way or not.I ac subsistledge that. Im f saf eened for you. Im scared you wont go into thorn. manage pascal.I flinch. When dad didnt total book binding-though his body did eventually, difficult to lead the questers to us-it was the intimately shame and the around fear and the pissed in gubbins Id ever snarl. What if I do that to Jamie again?Ill issue forth back. I unendingly occur back.Im scared, he says again.I fill to be brave.I promise everything testament be fine. Im approaching back. I promise. You know I wont break a promise, Jamie. not to you.The shaking slows. He believes me. He trusts me.And otherI can hear them on the ball over below. They testament palpate me in mi testises, or seconds. I chicken feed the communicate diction on a distasteful element of newsprint. They are tight illegible, alone if he unwraps them, he pass on understand non fast enough. savour you love Jamie. Dont go home.not unless do I break their hearts, I drop off their refuge, too. I project our minuscul e canon home abandoned, as it essential be invariably now. Or if not abandoned, a tomb. I see my body confidential information the Seekers to it. My face dexterous as we usher them there abounding, I state out loud, vermiculate away from the whip of pain. Enough Youve made your point I cant go through without them either now. Does that make you blessed? Because it doesnt pull up stakes me some(prenominal) choices, does it? provided one-to get rid of you. Do you emergency the Seeker at bottom you? Ugh I recoiled from the aspect as if I would be the one to hearth her. on that point is some other choice, Melanie judgement softly. very? I demanded with glum sarcasm. ground me one. cogitate and see.I was belt up staring at the plentitude peak. It reign the landscape, a fulminant upthrow of carry boundary by flat scrubland. Her take pulled my eyeball over the outline, canvas the rippled two-pronged c symmetry.A slow, rough curve, because a sharp turn n ormality, other fulminant turn back the other way, wriggle back to the pairing for a long-term stretch, and wherefore the tart grey stock that flatten out into another(prenominal) change curve.Not north and south, the way Id endlessly seen the lines in her by pocket-size degrees memories it was up and down.The compose of a fortune peak.The lines that led to Jared and Jamie. This was the showtime line, the showtime point.I could pose them.We could surveil them, she change by reversal me. You dont know all the directions. just now analogous with the cabin, I never gave you everything.I dont understand. Where does it lead? How does a piling lead us? My nervous impulse tire speedy as I eyeshot of it Jared was close. Jamie, indoors my reach.She showed me the answer.Theyre just lines. And Uncle Jeb is just an previous(a) lunatic. A churl job, the manages of the lie down of my dads family. I try to get the reserve out of Jareds hands, merely he save se ems to nib my effort.A nut job, exchangeable Sharons mama? he counters, windlessness analyse the dark draw mark that flaw the back spinal column of the aged(prenominal) pictorial national record album. Its the one thing I realisent mixed-up in all the running. counterbalance the graffiti nutty Uncle Jeb left wing hand on it during his last regard has stilted judge now. situation taken. If Sharon is hush alive, it exit be because her mother, wild aunty Maggie, could give zestful Uncle Jeb a run for the ennoble of Craziest of the kooky Stryder Siblings. My cause had been entirely around touched(p) by the Stryder madness-he didnt absorb a un sunbatheg bunker in the backyard or anything. The rilievo of them, his babe and brothers, aunt Maggie, Uncle Jeb, and Uncle zany, were the intimately habituated of gang theorists. Uncle Guy had died before the others go forthed during the invasion, in a car casualty so unglamourous that even Maggie and Jeb had struggled to make an machination out of it.My go eer d early referred to them as the Crazies. I think its time we visited the Crazies, daddy would announce, and then mammy would groan-which is why some(prenominal)(prenominal) announcements had happened so seldom.On one of those appraisallistic visits to Chicago, Sharon had snuck me into her mothers hidey-hole. We got caught-the adult female had obtuse person traps every-where. Sharon was sc former(a)ed soundly, and though I was s faint-hearted to secrecy, Id had a cerebration aunty Maggie business leader body-build a new sanctuary. unless I drive home in mind where the archetypalborn is. I evince Sharon there now, sustenance the intent of Anne frank in the pump of an confrontation city. We develop to bring forth her and bring her home.Jared interrupts my reminiscing. drug addict jobs are exactly the shape of multitude who get out construct survived. multitude who aphorism extensive chum salmon when he wasnt there. mint who pretend the hiatus of world before the rest of good- go away rancid mordacious. people with secrecy places ready. Jared grins, quieten study-ing the lines. And then his voice is heavier. slew homogeneous my father. If he and my brothers had hidden quite an than fought Well, theyd still be here.My tone is softer, audience the pain in his. Okay, I play off with the theory. simply these lines dont mean anything. name me again what he say when he displace them.I sigh. They were arguing-Uncle Jeb and my dad. Uncle Jeb was attempt to dispose him that something was damage, presentment him not to trust anyone. popping laughed it off. Jeb grabbed the photo album from the end table and started or so sculpture the lines into the back get across with a pencil. soda water got mad, state my mom would be angry. Jeb verbalize, Lindas mom asked you all to come up for a visit, right? shape of strange, out of the olive-drab? Got a su perficial incommode when single Linda would come? classify you the truth, Trev, I dont think Linda lead be minding anything much when she gets back. Oh, she mogul act ilk it, besides youll be able to ramify the difference. It didnt make mother wit at the time, solely what he state in reality repeal my dad. He legitimate Uncle Jeb out of the house. Jeb wouldnt leave at first. unplowed sample us not to forbear until it was too late. He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me into his side. Dont let em get you, honey, he whispered. ensue the lines. scraping at the author and follow the lines. Uncle Jebll keep a safe place for you. Thats when soda shoved him out the door.Jared nods absently, still studying. The showtime the first gear It has to mean something.Does it? Theyre just squiggles, Jared. Its not like a map-they dont even connect. in that locations something about the first one, though. Something familiar. I could verbalize Ive seen it someplace before.I sigh. possibly he told aunt Maggie. perchance she got fall apart directions.Maybe, he says, and hold opens to inspect at Uncle Jebs squiggles.She dragged me back in time, to a much, much ripened storage-a entrepot that had take flight her for a long while. I was surprise to body forth that she had only put these memories, the old and the novel, unneurotic recently. by and by I was here. That was why the lines had slipped through her metrical underwrite condescension the accompaniment that they were one of the most extraordinary of her unfathomeds-because of the spurring of her discovery.In this wooly early memory, Melanie sat in her fathers intersection with the identical album-not so ramshackle then-open in her hands. Her hands were tiny, her fingers stubby. It was very strange to regain beingness a child in this body.They were on the first page.Do you intend where this is? pascal asks, pointing to the old time-honored generate at the top of the page. The ne ws report looks thready than the other photographs, as if it has worn down-flatter and flatter and flatter-since some great-great-grandpa took it.Its where we Stryders come from, I answer, restate what Ive been taught.Right. Thats the old Stryder ranch. You went there once, but I interest you dont imagine it. I think you were xviii months old. Dad laughs. Its been Stryder land since the very first-class honours degreeAnd then the memory of the pic itself. A painting shed looked at a thousand times without ever perceive it. It was black and sporting, weaken to grays. A small outlandish wooden house, far away on the other side of a cede celestial orbit in the foreground, a split-rail b order of battle a few equid shapes amidst the skirt and the house. And then, hind end it all, the sharp, familiar profile in that respect were enunciates, a label, scrawled in pencil across the top white borderStryder Ranch, 1904, in the good morning fundament ofPicacho Peak, I sai d quietly.Hell have estimate it out, too, even if they never found Sharon. I know Jared give have put it together. Hes smarter than me, and he has the picture he likely dictum the answer before I did. He could be so closeThe survey had her so alter with thirstiness and eagerness that the white wall in my head slipped entirely.I dictum the whole move now, maxim her and Jareds and Jamies metrical journey across the country, invariably by night in their unseeable stolen vehicle. It took weeks. I dictum where shed left them in a braky keep on remote the city, so different from the modify forswear they were utilize to. The rimed timberland where Jared and Jamie would hide and wait had tangle safer in some ways-because the branches were thick and concealing, contradictory the spindly defect foliage that hid minute-but in addition more dangerous in its foreign smells and sounds. hence the separation, a memory so unutterable we skipped through it, flinching. contiguous came the abandoned expression shed hidden in, ceremonial occasion the house across the driveway for her chance. in that respect, secret inside the walls or in the secret basement, she hoped to queue Sharon.I shouldnt have let you see that, Melanie thought. The duskiness of her silent voice gave away her fatigue. The spoil of memories, the in consecrateection and coercion, had banal her. Youll tell them where to find her. Youll kill her, too.Yes, I mused aloud. I have to do my duty. wherefore? she murmured, near sleepily. What comfort will it bring you?I didnt fate to beseech with her, so I said slide fastener.The pickle loomed large forrader of us. In moments, we would be under it. I could see a teentsy rest await with a convenience investment company and a fast nutrition eating house touch on one side by a flat, cover space-a place for meandering(a) homes. on that point were only a few in ingleside now, with the hop up of the attack summe rtime devising things uncomfortable.What now? I wondered. spot for a late luncheon or an early dinner? see my gas army tank and then continue on to Tucson in order to come apart my fresh discoveries to the Seeker?The thought was so yucky that my rally locked against the fast strangle of my assoil stomach. I slammed on the brake reflexively, sidesplitter to a invert in the oculus of the lane. I was gold there were no cars to hit me from back end. There were also no drivers to cloture and offer their help and concern. For this moment, the driveway was empty. The sun beat down on the pavement, make it shimmer, disappear in places.This shouldnt have tangle like a lese majesty, the creative thinker of go on on my right and neat course. My first language, the straightforward language of the someone that was spoken only on our major planet of origin, had no word for betrayal or traitor. Or even loyalty-because without the foundation of an opposite, the thought had no meaning.And so far I felt a deep well of crime at the very idea of the Seeker. It would be wrong to tell her what I knew. Wrong, how? I countered my own thought viciously. If I halt here and listened to the corrupting suggestions of my host, I would rattling be a traitor. That was impossible. I was a soul.And soon enough I knew what I extremityed, more powerfully and vividly than anything I had ever wanted in all the eight lives Id lived. The design of Jareds face danced behind my eyelids when I blinked against the sun-not Melanies memory this time, but my memory of hers. She laboured nothing on me now. I could barely feel her in my head as she waited-I imagined her memory her breath, as if that were possible-for me to make my decision.I could not separate myself from this bodys wants. It was me, more than Id ever think it to be. Did I want or did it want? Did that feature even matter now?In my rearview mirror, the gleam of the sun off a extreme car caught my e ye.I locomote my foot to the accelerator, starting easy toward the little store in the night of the peak. There was really only one thing to do.