The Host: Day 26--Chapters 55 and 56

Chapter 55:
"This wasn't so bad, not after what they'd been fearing the last few days. Yes, Kyle was a self-absorbed idiot, their faces seemed to say, but at least he was back, no harm done. No evacuation, no danger of the Seekers. No more than usual, anyway. He'd brought another worm back, but then, weren't the caves full of them these days? It just wasn't as shocking as it used to be."

"It was easy to imagine the frayed state her nerves must be in. Souls were not designed to handle violence and terror."

"I wondered who this strange man was, the one who had come back in Kyle's place. Had they checked his eyes? I couldn't believe he'd carried all this gentleness around inside his big angry body."

"How much longer would I have the feeling of a hand warm around mine? When was the last time I would walk down this tunnel? Was it this time?"

Chapter 56:
"It was an odd thing--as if Kyle and Ian had switched faces. Except Ian's face was still perfect, unbroken. Beautiful, even though it was enraged."

"When Melanie's body touched Jared's body, it was like a wildfire--a fast burn that raced across the surface of the desert and consumed everything in its path. With Ian it was different, so very different, because Melanie didn't love him the way I did. So when he touched me, it was deeper and slower than the wildfire, like the flow of molten rock far beneath the surface of the earth. Too deep to feel the heat of it, but it moved inexorably, changing the very foundations of the world with its advance."

"'Eight full lives,' I whispered against his jaw, my voice breaking. 'Eight full lives and I never found anyone I would stay on a planet for, anyone I would follow when they left. I never found a partner. Why now? Why you? You're not of my species. How can you be my partner?'" "'It's a strange universe,' he murmured."

"How could I find this, find love--now, in this eleventh hour--and have to leave it? Was it fair that my soul and body couldn't reconcile? Was it fair that I had to love Melanie, too?"

"I, the soul called Wanderer, love you, human Ian. And that will never change, no matter what I might become. If I were a Dolphin or a Bear or a Flower, it wouldn't matter. I would always love you, always remember you. You will be my only partner."


---Amelia