Disclaimer: The Host belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Although technically, I own a copy…
Okay, I know this story has been offline for a really long time….half a year or so. Yes, yes, I deserve to be strung against a rock and have copies of Breaking Dawn hurled at me (what else is it good for?) but I've been busy. Insanely busy. As in college physics over the summer, starting as a full scholarship kid at an elite private school in the fall, a twelve page paper on one of the most un…erm…writable? Whatever, unwritable authors in America…yeah. Excuses are excuses, but considering I hit crazy in October, mine are damn good. But, then I built up the need to write, and I got some really lovely reviews, and I remembered that I had a lot more to say about Ian. So, here goes. The title of the chapter is crap, but hey, it's a transition chapter. The good stuff is on the way.
Entrusted
The truck raced along the highway at a breakneck speed. The sun would be rising soon, and Jeb said we had to be off the highway by then. That was the only clue he had given us about where we were going. Kyle sat in the small space to the back of the cab, a looming and dangerous presence. That was his job. I sat shotgun, brown furrowed, thinking and rethinking the situation as I stared at the blackness outside my window. Thinking, contemplating, planning: that was my job. Kyle has a mind of his own and is stubborn as a mule, but he ultimately depends on my conclusions. He tells me that it's because I overthink everything. That may be true, but it's gotten us out of more than a few scrapes before. I had decided to trust this stranger, for three reasons: 1) I've never seen a parasite even touch a weapon before, they go all shaky at even the smallest violence.
2) He left Kyle and I alone for a few minutes before we left the house, claiming he needed to use the bathroom, and disappearing for 10 minutes. We naturally used this time to consider his offer to join his community of 21 humans hidden in an undisclosed safe place. Once we had decided to go with him, we used his abnormally long bathroom break to formulate a plan of action if he started to take us anywhere we didn't want to go. Had we chosen to, this time also could have been used to bolt. No seeker would take the chance of losing his prey. He had left us alone, and thereby proved that he wasn't any type of super-seeker with the ability to touch a weapon and to lie.
3) He looked like Santa Claus. A weather-beaten, wrinkly Santa Claus. It was really, really hard not to trust him right away. In a very roundabout way of thinking, a real Seeker wouldn't look half so trustworthy and endearing, because the more trustworthy a person seems these days the less likely it is that they are. Any Seeker in disguise would have enough sense to look at least a little less like your favorite uncle. Anyone stupid enough to disguise themselves as Jeb wouldn't have even been able to find us in the first place. Flip that about on its tail and we can trust Jeb, because he looks so trustworthy and…nice. What a strange world it is.
And so here we were, thanks to a whacky string of logic. On an interstate highway in an old truck, with a man we didn't know, going to a place where we could supposedly find a permanent home. Home…I hadn't used that word for over 5 years to describe anywhere, not even when we were with Josiah. Having a home again would be….well, let's say amazing is an understatement.
I looked out at the window. We had left the city far behind, and for the past few hours had been racing through desert. At least I thought it was desert, the moonless night gave me little light to see by. A line of red was just beginning to creep along the horizon to my right, outlining jagged peaks I had not been able to see before. Suddenly, Jeb swerved to the side of the highway, slamming on the brakes. Kyle and I were thrown forward in our seats. Jeb put the truck in park and got out. I looked at Kyle, seeing the panic I felt reflected in his eyes. We hadn't expected this. What would he do now? Shoot us and bury us in the desert? Or worse, were we in the middle of a sea of parasites, ready to take us back and take over our bodies? I reached over and unbuckled my seatbelt, then put my hand on the door handle. If I was going down, I'd go down standing. Kyle was twisted around in his seat, narrating Jeb's actions.
"He's going to the back of the truck…he's getting something out of the back, I can't see what…damn, what's he doing? He's coming back, he's not holding anything." In spite of this narration, I jumped a little when Jeb reopened his door and got back in the truck.
"Calm down boys, just letting down the tarps to cover our tracks." I let out the breath that I had been holding, my fists loosening. My nails, bitten short, had still left little half moons on the skin of my palm. Now that I thought about it, that was very clever. I put it away in the store if ideas I kept for future use before I realized that, if Jeb was telling the truth about this safe place, I wouldn't need any those survival ideas any more.
Jeb put the car back in drive and turned off the shoulder-less highway into the open desert, now faintly illuminated by the first light of dawn. The tension I had been holding between my shoulder blades began to loosen, and I relaxed. Contemplate as much as I want, we would soon be good and truly lost in the middle of the desert. No going back now. I turned my eyes towards the red peaks in the distance, silhouetted by the rising sun.
Vote: okay, so Ian's never loved anyone like he loves (or will love in the near future) Wanda. He's a Stephenie Meyer male, no SM guy can love twice unless they can't help it (imprinting). But, what do you think about someone in the cave falling for Ian when he shows up? Wanda's not coming for a year and a half, and I know how to get rid of this person should I choose to write her in…but should I? Opinions, please.