That night I go to meet in private with Blue. After leaving our room, Lena went to tell everybody that I planned on staying in the caves. Apparently, Margaret's group wasn't too happy with that. The meeting was dismissed for the day and Blue came to our room, asking to speak with me after dinner.
We ate with the others, everybody a little on edge from this afternoon. Mel kept looking at me nervously, as if I was going to leave them right now. Ian held onto my hand the whole time. He wasn't letting me go anytime soon.
I walk two doors down the hall from my room to where Blue lives. I knock on the door and she opens it, a tight smile on her face. "Hi, Wanda," she says. "You can come in." I walk inside and take a seat on the edge of her bed. Her room is quite nice, with the walls painted a warm, blue color. Stacks of books are piled up along the walls, along with neat piles of clothes. She even has some miscellaneous trinkets on a small table beside her bed. I assume she brought all of this stuff from where she lived as a Soul.
She walks in sits beside me, pushing a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. She takes a deep breath before speaking. "I know that you're hesitant to leave your family. I understand that. But without help from your group, it may be impossible to extend our resistance. Every other group we've come in contact has donated at least one of their members to our cause. All you have to do is work on the inside for a few months, make allies and gather information. You're the last group we know of; without you, we may not have the numbers needed to win this war."
She doesn't say anything, just lets me process this information. "I understand that. But I just can't leave my family. I have a partner, a daughter-"
"They could come with you," Blue interrupts, raising an eyebrow.
"What?" I gasp. What is she thinking?
"They could live with you in the city, of course. Lena's a Soul - she could fit right in. Go to school, even, if you like."
"She's not a Soul. Please don't call her one," I repeat, my voice tense and almost angry. Why can't they just understand that she's completely human?
Blue sucks in a sharp breath and I can see that's she's trying to work it out in her mind. She doesn't ask, though. Just continues on. "Well, she appears to be a Soul, Wanda. Nobody would suspect anything of her."
"And Ian? How do you suppose I could bring him into the middle of a city, with Seekers everywhere?" My voice is harsh and I feel bad. But I can't help it - is she really so stupid that she thinks Ian could just walk around the city like anybody else?
Blue's eyes sink and I realize that, whatever her idea was, I would not like it. She swallows hard and starts to speak. "Your daughter gave me an idea this afternoon. I didn't want to say it in front of everybody, but I trust you." She looks me in the eyes and sees my confusion. How does this concern Ian? "Your daughter mentioned that we could give the Souls a reason to leave. Something about the planet or the humans that displeases them."
"Yes, but what?" I have to admit that Lena's idea was very smart. If we could just give them some sort of motive to leave, they probably would. After all, Souls only want the perfect, the ideal.
"One of the reasons our species thrives is because the hosts cannot fight back. Though we've experienced it slightly on this planet, the humans we take over are still not powerful enough to override us completely. Melanie told me today that you were inside of her body, but that she was able to sometimes speak for you, or even control your movements?"
"Yes," I agree.
"Some of our Souls have experienced similar things. The closest the humans have come to resisting their hosts, however, is biologically. I'm sure you're aware that some humans end up killing their inserted Soul as an immune response?"
"Yes. That happened with Sunny a long time ago." I recall the moment when Sunny's new body wouldn't wake up, when she was slowly deteriorating, her host attacking itself. Luckily, we were able to save her.
"Well, the Souls have gotten past that with new medicines and such. It's not a problem anymore. Really, the humans are becoming more and more easy to control as the years go by." Her voice has a tint of sadness and I realize that Blue really does consider our species horrible. She is giving everything she can - all her thoughts and energy - to the human resistance. "What Lena said about giving them a cause to leave Earth goes hand in hand with that. If we could somehow make it so that the human bodies were fighting back, their minds returning and eventually overpowering the Souls, they would have to leave."
I ponder this, considering what this could mean. If we could somehow get the humans inside of their hosts to rise up and rebel, we could reverse the roles of the Souls and their hosts. The humans would be in control, and the Souls would want to flee to the safety of another planet as quick as possible. It's genius, really.
Though I would love to discuss this more, one question still bugs me. "How does this relate to Ian?"
Blue purses her lips and looks right at me. Her silver eyes are warm and inviting, unlike the cold eyes of the Seekers. "If we could get this to work, some sort of medicine that would give the humans control, we could use it on Ian first."
"But, he's not a Soul . . ."
"I know," Blue says, nodding slowly. "But if we were to insert a Soul into Ian, then give him the medicine, he would still be himself. Just with silver eyes."
"No," I mutter, shaking my head.
"Why not? He would be completely in control. Still human - just looking the part. It wouldn't be immediately, of course. Our Healers and doctors here would have to develop this medicine over the next few weeks, months even. But once we were sure it works, he would be able to join you and Lena on the inside."
"No," I repeat.
"Wand-"
"No, Blue. I will not put a Soul into him," I say fiercely, standing up. I don't face her. How could she even think of something like this? Putting a Soul into the human I love so dearly? "What if it doesn't work? What if some nasty Soul takes control of him and he fades away? I can't risk that. I'm sorry."
Tears slide down my face and I wipe them away. I hear Blue shuffling around and she eventually touches my shoulder, turns me around to face her. "We would make sure it worked. We'd test it first, of course."
"I won't let that happen, even if he's fine."
Blue takes a long look at me before tearing her eyes away. I can see the anger in the lines of her face. The gears working in her mind, turning desperately, are almost visible to me. She just wants this to all work. "Fine," she nods. "You don't have to work on the inside, Wanda. Not unless you want to."
"Not without Ian," I reinforce.
"Yes," she says. "But only if you promise to help make this work. To help us figure out how to give the humans control."
"Okay," I agree, taking in a deep breath. "How can I do that?"
Blue flicks her eyes back up to meet mine, a sad smile on her face. "We need as many Healers as we can get."
"What do you mean, she needs Healers?" Ian asks me that night. Sunny's still with Jamie, so we have the room to ourselves until she gets back. Then Ian has to go back downstairs to sleep with the other humans.
As soon as I left Blue's room, I told Ian about everything. He didn't interrupt, not even when I explained how she wanted o use Ian as a test subject, but just let me talk. When I was finished, I finally sat down on the bed, putting my hands in my head. He wrapped his arms around me and waited till I gathered myself.
"She only has two Healers and one doctor living here. If she's going to develop this medicine within a month or two, she's going to need more people working on it."
"But why the time limit?" he asks me, furrowing his brow like he always does. His big, blue eyes are looking at me with a mix of concern and worry.
"She wants to rebel as soon as possible. The human population is only getting smaller - she doesn't want to risk it."
"So she wants us to find her more Healers? What about all of her connections?"
I sigh, just as confused as Ian is by this. "Blue told me that the Healers they're allied with can only devote so little time to helping the humans out. They can't blow their cover. Blue needs a team of Healers who can work on this constantly, all day, everyday."
"What are we supposed to do, though? Just snatch random Healers off the streets?" Ian laughs at this, trying to ease the tension. When he sees my tense expression, he rubs my back, hoping to calm me.
"No. She wants . . she wants to take ours."
"What?" Ian gasps, his voice harsh and full of surprise. I probably sounded the same when Blue told me of this.
"She wants us to give her the Healers we have."
"No," Ian blurts out.
"I know. Trust me, I'm not happy about this either," I sigh, resting my head against his shoulder. "But there's no other option. If we just take some random Healers, they might not be willing to help us. And according to Margaret, the other groups only have a Healer each, or none at all. We have three, Ian."
And it's true. Over the years, we've added two other Healers to our group, aside from Fords. Daisy, a younger Soul from the Flower planet, joined us ten years ago, when she caught us stealing boxes of medicine from the hospital. Instead of turning us in, she admitted that she'd been trying to find a group of humans for years; how much she wanted to help us.
Three years later, we met Echo of the Night, an older Soul who used to work with Fords. He had gone in search of his friend years ago, and saw him traveling with us on a raid. He easily joined the resistance, happy to be reconnected with Fords.
And then there was Jane, a human we found hiding out in an abandoned shack only five years ago. She used to be surgeon and has helped us tremendously over the years.
Not to mention Doc. All in all, we have five trained Healers and doctors, perfect for this sort of job. All of them are very intelligent and would probably be able to help out the medical group here tremendously. But we couldn't give them up, now could we?
"We can't just hand them over like bargaining tools. They're people, Wanda," Ian says. He's trying to keep the anger out of his voice, but I can tell it's hard for him. He cares about these people - especially Doc - so much, just as I do.
"I know," I murmur. "But without more Healers, Blue thinks it could take up to a year to figure this out. We need to help them somehow. It's the least we can do."
He doesn't say anything for a long while, just stares down at the ground and pinches the bridge of his nose. "What are our other options?"
"I leave you and work on the inside," I whisper. He growls in frustration, obviously not liking that idea either. "Ian, I know it's hard. Trust me. It's the last thing I expected to have to do. But all the other groups out there have given someone up to support our cause. We have to do the same if we want to win this. If we ever want to live outside, freely."
He takes a large breath of air and clenches his hands together. I stroke his back gently, then kiss his shoulder. He twists his body closer to me so that there's no space between us. Then, ever so quietly, he says, "Fine. But they get to decide if they leave or not. We're not forcing any one of them to go."
I smile slightly. I know this is hard for Ian to agree to. It's just as hard for me, but it's what needs to be done. "Okay," I agree.
We're going to give up some of our family to win this war.
