was cold and angry, Jared was calling to me. Melanie was even more eager than I was as I stepped
carefully around the corner and into the blue light; I hesitated there.
Ian stood just a few feet ahead of me, poised on the balls of his feet, ready for whatever hostile
movement Jared might make toward me.
Jared sat on the ground, on one of the mats Jamie and I had left here. He looked as weary as Ian,
though his eyes, too, were more alert than the rest of his exhausted posture.
“At ease,” Jared said to Ian. “I just want to talk to it. I promised the kid, and I’ll stand by that promise.”
“Where’s Kyle?” Ian demanded.
“Snoring. Your cave might shake apart from the vibrations.”
Ian didn’t move.
“I’m not lying, Ian. And I’m not going to kill it. Jeb is right. No matter how messed up this stupid
situation is, Jamie has as much say as I do, and he’s been totally suckered, so I doubt he’ll be giving me
the go-ahead anytime soon.”
“No one’s been suckered,” Ian growled.
Jared waved his hand, dismissing the disagreement over terminology. “It’s not in any danger from me, is
my point.” For the first time he looked at me, evaluating the way I hugged the far wall, watching my
hands tremble. “I won’t hurt you again,” he said to me.
I took a small step forward.
“You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to, Wanda,” Ian said quickly. “This isn’t a duty or a
chore to be done. It’s not mandatory. You have a choice.”
Jared’s eyebrows pulled low over his eyes—Ian’s words confused him.
“No,” I whispered. “I’ll talk to him.” I took another short step. Jared turned his hand palm up and curled
his fingers twice, encouraging me forward.
I walked slowly, each step an individual movement followed by a pause, not part of a steady advance. I
stopped a yard away from him. Ian shadowed each step, keeping close to my side.
“I’d like to talk to it alone, if you don’t mind,” Jared said to him.
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”
“No, Ian, it’s okay. Go get some sleep. I’ll be fine.” I nudged his arm lightly.
Ian scrutinized my face, his expression dubious. “This isn’t some death wish? Sparing the kid?” he
demanded.
“No. Jared wouldn’t lie to Jamie about this.”
Jared scowled when I said his name, the sound of it full of confidence.
“Please, Ian,” I pleaded. “I want to talk to him.”
Ian looked at me for a long minute, then turned to scowl at Jared. He barked out each sentence like an
order.
“Her name isWanda, notit. You will not touch her. Any mark you leave on her, I will double on your
worthless hide.”
I winced at the threat.
Ian turned abruptly and stalked into the darkness.
It was silent for a moment as we both watched the empty space where he had disappeared. I looked at
Jared’s face first, while he still stared after Ian. When he turned to meet my gaze, I dropped my eyes.
“Wow. He’s not kidding, is he?” Jared said.
I treated that as a rhetorical question.
“Why don’t you have a seat?” he asked me, patting the mat be-side him.
I deliberated for a moment, then went to sit against the same wall but close to the hole, putting the length
of the mat between us. Melanie didn’t like this; she wanted to be near him, for me to smell his scent and
feel the warmth of his body beside me.
I did not want that—and it wasn’t because I was afraid he would hurt me; he didn’t look angry at the
moment, only tired and wary. I just didn’t want to be any closer to him. Something in my chest was
hurting to have him so near—to have him hating me in such close proximity.
He watched me, his head tilted to the side; I could only meet his gaze fleetingly before I had to look
away.
“I’m sorry about last night—about your face. I shouldn’t have done that.”
I stared at my hands, knotted together in a double fist on my lap.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
I nodded, not looking at him.
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”
I shrugged. I couldn’t find my voice with the weight of his antagonism in the air between us.
I heard him move. He scooted down the mat until he sat right beside me—the way Melanie had hoped
for. Too close—it was hard to think straight, hard to breathe right—but I couldn’t bring myself to scoot
away. Oddly, for this was what she’d wanted in the first place, Melanie was suddenly irritated.
What?I asked, startled by the intensity of her emotion.
I don’t like him next to you. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t like the way you want him there.For the
first time since we’d abandoned civilization together, I felt waves of hostility emanating from her. I was
shocked. That was hardly fair.
“I just have one question,” Jared said, interrupting us.
I met his gaze and then shied away—recoiling both from his hard eyes and from Melanie’s resentment.
“You can probably guess what it is. Jeb and Jamie spent all night jabbering at me.…”
I waited for the question, staring across the dark hall at the rice bag—last night’s pillow. In my
peripheral vision, I saw his hand come up, and I cringed into the wall.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again, impatient, and cupped my chin in his rough hand, pulling my
face around so I had to look at him.
My heart stuttered when he touched me, and there was suddenly too much moisture in my eyes. I
blinked, trying to clear them.
“Wanda.” He said my name slowly—unwillingly, I could tell, though his voice was even and toneless. “Is
Melanie still alive—still part of you? Tell me the truth.”
Melanie attacked with the brute strength of a wrecking ball. It was physically painful, like the sudden
stab of a migraine headache, where she tried to force her way out.
Stop it! Can’t you see?
It was so obvious in the set of his lips, the tight lines under his eyes. It didn’t matter what I said or what
she said.
I’m already a liar to him,I told her.He doesn’t want the truth—he’s just looking for evidence,
some way to prove me a liar, a Seeker, to Jeb and Jamie so that he’ll be allowed to kill me.
Melanie refused to answer or believe me; it was a struggle to keep her silent.
Jared watched the sweat bead on my forehead, the strange shiver that shook down my spine, and his
eyes narrowed. He held on to my chin, refusing to let me hide my face.
Jared, I love you,she tried to scream.I’m right here.
Time passed slowly while he waited for my answer. It was agonizing, having to stare into his eyes, having
to see the revulsion there. As if that weren’t enough, Melanie’s anger continued to slice at me from the
inside. Her jealousy swelled into a bitter flood that washed through my body and left it polluted.
More time passed, and the tears welled up until they couldn’t be contained in my eyes anymore. They
spilled over onto my cheeks and rolled silently into Jared’s palm. His expression didn’t change.
Finally, I’d had enough. I closed my eyes and jerked my head down. Rather than hurt me, he dropped
his hand.
He sighed, frustrated.
I expected he would leave. I stared at my hands again, waiting for that. My heartbeat marked the
passing minutes. He didn’t move. I didn’t move. He seemed carved out of stone beside me. It fit him, this
stonelike stillness. It fit his new, hard expression, the flint in his eyes.
Melanie pondered this Jared, comparing him with the man he used to be. She remembered an
unremarkable day on the run…
“Argh!” Jared and Jamie groan together.
Jared lounges on the leather sofa and Jamie sprawls on the carpet in front of him. They’re watching a
basketball game on the big-screen TV. The para-sites who live in this house are at work, and we’ve
already filled the jeep with all it can hold. We have hours to rest before we need to disappear again.
On the TV, two players are disagreeing politely on the sideline. The cameraman is close; we can hear
what they’re saying.
“I believe I was the last one to touch it—it’s your ball.”
“I’m not sure about that. I wouldn’t want to take any unfair advantage. We’d better have the refs review
the tape.”
The players shake hands, pat each other’s shoulders.
“This is ridiculous,” Jared grumbles.
“I can’t stand it,” Jamie agrees, mirroring Jared’s tone perfectly; he sounds more like Jared every
day—one of the many forms his hero worship has taken. “Is there anything else on?”
Jared flips through a few channels until he finds a track and field meet. The parasites are holding the
Olympics in Haiti right now. From what we can see, the aliens are all hugely excited about it. Lots of
them have Olympic flags outside their houses. It’s not the same, though. Everyone who participates gets
a medal now. Pathetic.
But they can’t really screw up the hundred-meter dash. Individual parasite sports are much more
entertaining than when they try to compete against each other directly. They perform better in separate
lanes.
I stand by the back door out of habit, not because I’m tensed to run. Not because I’m frightened.
Empty habit, nothing more.
I go to Jared. He pulls me onto his lap and tucks my head under his chin.
“Comfortable?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, because I really, truly am entirely comfortable. Here, in an alien’s house.
Dad used to say lots of funny things—like he was speaking his own language sometimes. Twenty-three
skidoo, salad days, nosy parker, bandbox fresh, the catbird seat, chocolate teapot, and something about
Grandma sucking eggs. One of his favorites wassafe as houses.
Teaching me to ride a bike, my mother worrying in the doorway:“Calm down, Linda, this street is
safe as houses.” Convincing Jamie to sleep without his nightlight:“It’s safe as houses in here, son, not
a monster for miles.”
Then overnight the world turned into a hideous nightmare, and the phrase became a black joke to Jamie
and me. Houses were the most dangerous places we knew.
Hiding in a patch of scrubby pines, watching a car pull out from the garage of a secluded home, deciding
whether to make a food run, whether it was too dicey.“Do you think the parasites’ll be gone for
long?” “No way—that place is safe as houses. Let’s get out of here.”
And now I can sit here and watch TV like it is five years ago and Mom and Dad are in the other room
and I’ve never spent a night hiding in a drainpipe with Jamie and a bunch of rats while body snatchers
with spotlights search for the thieves who made off with a bag of dried beans and a bowl of cold
spaghetti.
I know that if Jamie and I survived alone for twenty years we would never find this feeling on our own.
The feeling of safety. More than safety, even—happiness. Safe and happy, two things I thought I’d never
feel again.
Jared makes us feel that way without trying, just by being Jared.
I breathe in the scent of his skin and feel the warmth of his body under mine.
Jared makes everything safe, everything happy. Even houses.
He still makes me feel safe,Melanie realized, feeling the warmth where his arm was just half an inch
from mine.Though he doesn’t even know I’m here.
Ididn’t feel safe. Loving Jared made me feel less safe than anything else I could think of.
I wondered if Melanie and I would have loved Jared if he’d always been who he was now, rather than
the smiling Jared in our memories, the one who had come to Melanie with his hands full of hope and
miracles. Would she have followed him if he’d always been so hard and cynical? If the loss of his
laughing father and wild big brothers had iced him over the way nothing but Melanie’s loss had?
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.
I wondered if the same held true for me. Would I love him now if he were like this in her memory?
Then I was interrupted. Without any cue that I perceived, suddenly Jared was talking, speaking as if we
were in the middle of a conversation.
“And so, because of you, Jeb and Jamie are convinced that it’s possible to continue some kind of
awareness after… being caught. They’re both sure Mel’s still kicking in there.”
He rapped his fist lightly against my head. I flinched away from him, and he folded his arms.
“Jamie thinks she’s talking to him.” He rolled his eyes. “Not really fair to play the kid like that—but
that’s assuming a sense of ethics that clearly does not apply.”
I wrapped my arms around myself.
“Jeb does have a point, though—that’s what’s killing me! Whatare you after? The Seekers’ search
wasn’t well directed or even… suspicious. They only seemed to be looking for you—not for us. So
maybe they didn’t know what you were up to. Maybe you’re freelancing? Some kind of undercover
thing. Or…”
It was easier to ignore him when he was speculating so foolishly. I focused on my knees. They were
dirty, as usual, purple and black.
“Maybe they’re right—about the killing-you part, anyway.”
Unexpectedly, his fingers brushed lightly once across the goose bumps his words had raised on my arm.
His voice was softer when he spoke again. “Nobody’s going to hurt you now. As long as you aren’t
causing any trouble…” He shrugged. “I can sort of see their point, and maybe, in a sick way, itwould be
wrong, like they say. Maybe there is no justifiable reason to… Except that Jamie…”
My head flipped up—his eyes were sharp, scrutinizing my reaction. I regretted showing interest and
watched my knees again.
“It scares me how attached he’s getting,” Jared muttered. “Shouldn’t have left him behind. I never
imagined… And I don’t know what to do about it now. He thinks Mel’s alive in there. What will it do to
him when… ?”
I noticed how he saidwhen, notif. No matter what promises he’d made, he didn’t see me lasting in the
long term.
“I’m surprised you got to Jeb,” he reflected, changing the subject. “He’s a canny old guy. He sees
through deceptions so easily. Till now.”
He thought about that for a minute.
“Not much for conversation, are you?”
There was another long silence.
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l
would I know? I hate the way their logic makes sense to me. There’s got to be another explanation.”
Melanie struggled again to speak, not as viciously as before, this time without hope of breaking through.
I kept my arms and lips locked.
