Chapter 21

Will saying that he and Wanda will pretend to be partners for the plan does it for me. I get up and take her with me.
I have to show her. She can't do this. I can't let her leave. I'm just thinking about ways to convince her, to keep her here. She's always putting the greater good above her own needs, this time I want her to put herself first. She won't though, I know she won't. But I'm going to try to make her see. To make her see what she'll be missing. What she has to loose.

I take her to Jodi first. Surely she won't want to leave Helen. Jodi ruins part of my plan, saying she and Helen have to take their afternoon nap so we leave sooner than I wanted. Luckily, we run into Jamie as soon as we leave the room.
"Good, Jamie, I was looking for you! Let's go play a game."
As soon as we sit down at a table, Melanie passes us.
"Come sit with us, Mel!"
Perplex because of my enthusiasm, she sits down and joins in the game.
"I'm loving it here!" We've been here for a month but Jamie still can't stop talking about how much better he likes this place compared to the caves. "All I had to do today was put in the laundry this morning. I am glad I didn't have to clean the toilets though, that's the only job I really don't like."
"I don't mind it." Wanda claims.
"That's because you girls clean the girl toilets, the men are making a mess of it!"
Wanda leans into me and whispers in my ear.
"I know what you're doing."
"That's okay!" Mel and Jamie look up but I keep focused on the game. Until Wanda abruptly stands.
"I need to go to the bathroom, I'll be right back."
"I'll come with you," I say as I stand up as well.
"Don't be ridiculous," She snaps at me – wow, she actually snapped at me. "I can go to the bathroom alone, I will be right back."

Jamie seems to be clueless about what's going on, but Mel casts me a knowing look.
Wanda is back so soon that I'm sure she never made it to the bathroom at all. Confidently, she tells me to come with her.
Right outside the door we pass Jared. He looks me straight in the eyes, almost daring me to say anything to him. At this moment, it would be really impossible to dislike him any more than I do now. I know my fight has been fought. And I lost, of course I lost.
Still, when we get to our room, I know I have to plead with her one more time.
"Please don't go. I can't stand the idea of it. Even a few weeks, it's too long. We can't protect you. I can't protect you."
"Ian, you know I have to do this. Humans – human emotions – are irrational. You would sacrifice a lot for me. You just want to keep me. And I get that. I feel the same about you. I would always choose you. But doing this, that is also for you. It's for you. It's for Jamie, Melanie, Jodi and Helen: everyone. And by that, it's for me. I don't feel like I need to, I want to!"
A minute ago I was pleading with her, now she is pleading with me, wanting me to understand.
"I want to help getting you your world back. I want to help get you safe. Not just safe in hiding, but safe in your world. Ian, you would've let Sunny go, if she were still here. You would let Burns or Nick go. You're just not willing to let me go."
I want to deny it, but we both know she is right.
"But I have to do this. And you know I do."
The one step of distance between us feels like too much. Especially now that she will not be here tonight. I take her in my arms.
"I know." I breathe into her hair. "I know you do. I know you have to, my Wanderer."

Wanda wants to tell Jodi and Jamie that she's leaving herself, so we head to Jodi's room first, hoping that she'll be awake by now. We catch Kyle and her lying on the bed, Wanda blushes at the sight of it.
"I'm leaving tonight."
Kyle and Jodi both look shocked and after Wanda explains everything, Kyle surprises me.
"You don't have to do this Wanda, you have a choice."
Wanda's face is mirroring the surprise I'm feeling.
"Thank you Kyle." She pats his knee, he doesn't pull away. "I am choosing to do this, I want to do this."
Jodi has tears streaming down her face.
"I'm sorry." She wipes away the tears, but more just follow. "It's just the hormones. Well, of course I don't like you going up, but this crying," She gestures to herself and Kyle hands her a tissue. "Ugh. Hormones, I'm not that upset."
She gets up for a big hug with Wanda.
"Be safe."
"I will."
"Make sure you come back, Wanda." Kyle adds before we leave the room to go look for Jamie.

"Mel told me already."
Wanda looks a bit hurt at that, she wanted to explain herself. Jamie, however, seems excited.
"I just wish I was a Soul! Then I could come with you, you're going to be there for all the action!"
"So you're not going to miss her?" I tease him.
"Of course I will! I always miss you when you're gone, Wanda."

We head to our room in silence, not talking as she starts packing some of the essentials. She doesn't take much, most of the things would have to be replaced up there anyway, she will get everything brand new.
She's holding up one of my t-shirts, silently asking me if she can take it with her. Of course she can take it, the thought of her sleeping in it gives me a bit comfort, as small as it may be.
Unwilling to leave the room yet I pull her in close and we just stand there for a few minutes. She tries to pull back but I lean in and kiss her fiercely.
"Come back to me, Wanderer."
Breathlessly she replies.
"I will."
Knowing it's time to let her go now I reluctantly take her to the sitting room.
All our friends are waiting there to see her off. Will is standing impatiently by the door while everyone hugs Wanda. She goes to Jared, Mel and Jamie last. Jamie has calmed down his excitement, I wouldn't say he looks sad, but he does have a new found seriousness. At moments like this everyone sees he really has grown.
"Take care." Jared gives her a quick hug, Melanie and Jamie follow.
I don't care about everyone watching, so as I kiss her I let it linger, not letting her step away from me. She does care about people watching though, so I still break the kiss sooner than I would have liked to, still keeping her tight in my arms. Over her shoulder my eyes lock with Will's, he looks away but I already saw the strange look in his eyes. It must be weird for him; seeing a human and a Soul so close.

As soon as Wanda, Will, Burns and Nick close the door behind them, people start leaving the room. I go into the kitchen, we wanted to spend every minute together so we didn't have dinner yet. I'm already worried about Wanda's well being, hoping she won't try to be polite and not ask for anything to eat tonight on Will's behalf.
Even though we have a perfectly fine and large living room in the bunker, most people still tend to go to the kitchen to get together. Dinner time is about two hours ago but it's still crowded in here. Trudy hands me a plate she saved for me and I look around the room, spotting Jared and Mel. I direct my words at Jared.
"So, explain."
Jared shrugs his shoulders. "Will, Nick and Burns explained to you."
"Their side of it, yes. And only maybe half of it. I want to know everything."
Jared wants to protest but Melanie cuts in.
"Oh, come on! This secrecy is no longer necessary Jared. We're not going anywhere."
Looking around the room, Jared agrees.
"Not in here though."
I finish my food and return the plate to the counter, following Jared and Mel to their room. It's very different from the room they had in the caves. They had shared that room with Jamie, this room doesn't show any sign of him at all. I wonder how Jamie feels about having a room to himself now. Does he like it? Or would he rather share?

"Nick came up with the plan." Jared starts. "Not the Soul Nick, the human Nick inside. He figured it out, a plan to give the world back to the humans."
"Jared." I interrupt him. "Can you start at the beginning? What where you and Mel doing every time you left the caves?"
He seems annoyed that he has to explain things from that far back, but I never entirely understood their plans in the first place.
"Fine." He sighs.
"Melanie and I had regular contact with the leaders from the other human cells. The Souls that were helping were involved in those meetings as well. All of us soon realized that maybe we should make a real plan, something that would really help the humans instead of only keeping them hidden and safe. Besides, the being safe part was relative to begin with. Our cell in the caves was one of the safest locations, only one Soul knew it's location and she wasn't going anywhere. Nick and Burns both knew about the location of Russel's cell and they agreed it wasn't a very good place. At least two times a week they were at risk of being discovered, they were that close to the nearest village.

One meeting Nick spoke up and said that he had thought of a plan to get the world back for the humans. He said that if we started small, we could get all the Souls out of the bodies.
If we would start with a few people at a time, that would likely raise suspicion, suddenly there would be Souls missing.
So we decided to go a bit bigger at once. Nick and Burns pointed out that not only they, but also Wanda and Sunny were on the human's side. They wanted to go and try to get more Souls on our side."
"We all were strongly against that," Mel says, "We had put our faith into the Souls hands, they didn't know our location, but the two of them, they knew where all the other human cells were located. If they got caught..."
"But they promised to be very careful about it. And we knew it had to be done. If we weren't going to take a risk in any way at all, nothing would ever change for us humans.
How long would we be able to stay hidden? And even if we managed that, then how long until the humans really are extinct?
While we were still deciding on the best way to do it, Nick found this bunker. He told us about it and also the town above it is very small. So this town is our plan.
We get all the humans here, from all the cells. Nick and Burns are going to find as much Soul sympathizers as they can and they have already found a lot of them by now. You'd be surprised by how many Souls wish to live peacefully alongside the humans."
"And in three weeks from now?" I ask him.
"We're going up. All the Soul sympathizers are going to invite other Souls to their houses. We're going to use Sleep on them and remove the Souls from the body. Humans will be going outside to help the bodies to wake up."
I could see the plan working, if it all happened fast, we could take the entire town in one night. Assuming it was indeed not a very big town. But what would happen after that? Regaining one town, how would that help us?
Melanie saw the questions on my face.
"After taking back this first town, we're going to expand. Going out at night, taking large parts at a time. We're hoping that the Souls who sympathize and are going to stay in a body will be willing to travel in front of us, finding more sympathizers. We know that not every human will return to their body. But every one that will is one more.
And you know what, Ian, we can't take over of the world, we don't want to either. I personally don't want have anything to do with any re-organizing. All I want to do is take the world back. People smarter than me or with more vision can think about new rules, or re-instating the old rules. But as long as we take it from one place and keep expanding, the Souls won't see us coming. And by the time that maybe they do, we will have a large enough group to be able to stand our ground.
Except for the odd one out, the Souls are not aggressive, they will always talk first. So if after some time they will realize what's going on, we are sure that we can talk to them and make them understand us."

Once I'm lying in my bed, I keep thinking about these plans they have made. I still feel left out, more for Wanda than for myself. Why wouldn't they include her in the plans sooner? She's another Soul that could help.
But I know why they didn't. Everyone is so protective of Wanda in this new body. Her gentle side is now also clearly visible in not only her posture but the body itself as well. Even Jared, who always can make the hard decisions because hard things just need to be done, didn't want to include Wanda in this before it was absolutely necessary.

I keep tossing and turning in our bed. This doesn't feel right, since the first night of the rain in the caves, I have not spend one night without Wanda next to me. A knock on the door startles me.
"Ian? Can I come in?"
A look at my watch tells me it's past midnight.
The door opens a bit and I sit up straight.
"Hey Jamie, what's up?"
"Well..." he drawls, "I thought... Since Wanda is gone... I've not been sleeping well in my room alone, no sound at all. Can I stay here? Maybe just for this night?"
"No." I tell him and his face falls. "You can stay here until Wanda is back. Come on."
He's already holding a mattress, a blanket and a pillow in his other hand, a huge relieved smile on his face now.
Next to Melanie, who clearly won't be sleeping here, Jamie is the closest connection I have to Wanda now. Through all the intertwining relationships he's become like a little brother to me as well.
And even though I still don't get much sleep, I do sleep a lot better with him close.