I didn’t have an open, rainy field, but at least I had the long south tunnel. It was too dark to run flat out
the way I wanted, but I kept up a steady jog. It felt good as my muscles warmed.
I expected I would find Doc already there, but I’d wait if I had to. He would be alone. Poor Doc, that
was usually the case now.
Doc had been sleeping alone in his hospital since the night we’d saved Jamie’s life. Sharon had taken her
things from their room and moved them to her mother’s, and Doc wouldn’t sleep in the empty room.
Such a great hatred. Sharon would rather kill her own happiness, and Doc’s, too, than forgive him for
helping me heal Jamie.
Sharon and Maggie were barely a presence in the caves anymore. They looked past everyone now, the
way they used to look past only me. I wondered if that would change when I was gone, or if they were
both so rigid in their grudge that it would be too late for them to change.
What an extraordinarily stupid way to waste time.
For the first time ever, the south tunnel felt short. Before I thought I’d gone halfway, I could see Doc’s
light glowing dimly from the rough arch ahead. He was home.
I slowed myself to a walk before I interrupted him. I didn’t want to scare him, to make him think there
He was still startled when I appeared, a little breathless, in the stone doorway.
He jumped up from behind his desk. The book he was reading fell out of his hands.
“Wanda? Is something wrong?”
“No, Doc,” I reassured him. “Everything’s fine.”
“Does someone need me?”
“Just me.” I gave him a weak smile.
He walked around his desk to meet me, his eyes wide with curiosity. He paused half a step away and
raised one eyebrow.
His long face was gentle, the opposite of alarming. It was hard to remember how he’d looked like a
monster to me before.
“You are a man of your word,” I began.
He nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but I held one hand up.
“No one will ever test that more than I will test it now,” I warned him.
He waited, eyes confused and wary.
I took a deep breath, felt it expand my lungs.
“I know how to do what you’ve been ending so many lives to discover. I know how to take the souls
from your bodies without harm to either. Of course I know that. We all have to, in case of an emergency.
I even performed the emergency procedure once, when I was a Bear.”
I stared at him, waiting for his response. It took him a long moment, and his eyes grew wilder every
second.
“Why are you telling me this?” he finally gasped.
“Because I… I am going to give you the knowledge you need.” I held up my hand again. “But only if
you will give me what I want in return. I’m warning you right now, it won’t be any easier for you to give
me what I want than it will be for me to give you what you want.”
His face was fiercer than I’d ever seen it. “Name your terms.”
“You can’t kill them—the souls you remove. You must give me your word—your promise, your oath,
your vow—that you will give them safe conduct on to another life. This means some danger; you will
have to have cryotanks, and you will have to get those souls onto shuttles off-planet. You have to send
them to another world to live. But they won’t be able to hurt you. By the time they reach their next
planet, your grandchildren will be dead.”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
.
He was thinking very hard as I explained. I watched his face to see what he would make of my demand.
He didn’t look angry, but his eyes were still wild.
“You don’t want us to kill the Seeker?” he guessed.
I didn’t answer his question because he wouldn’t understand the answer; I did want them to kill her.
That was the whole problem. Instead, I explained further.
“She’ll be the first, the test. I want to make sure, while I’m still here, that you’re going to follow through.
I will do the separation myself. When she is safe, I’ll teach you how it’s done.”
“On who?”
“Kidnapped souls. The same as before. I can’t guarantee you that the human minds will come back. I
don’t know if the erased can return. We’ll see with the Seeker.”
Doc blinked, processing something. “What do you mean, while you are still here? Are you leaving?”
I stared at him, waiting for the realization to hit. He stared back, uncomprehending.
“Don’t you realize what I’m giving you?” I whispered.
Finally, comprehension slammed home in his expression.
I spoke quickly, before he could. “There’s something else I’m going to ask you for, Doc. I don’t want
to… Iwon’t be shipped off to another planet. This is my planet, it truly is. And yet, there’s really no place
for me here. So… I know it might… offend some of the others. Don’t tell them if you think they won’t
allow it. Lie if you have to. But I’d like to be buried by Walt and Wes. Can you do that for me? I won’t
take up much space.” I smiled weakly again.
No!Melanie was howling.No, no, no, no…
“No, Wanda,” Doc objected, too, with a shocked expression.
“Please, Doc,” I whispered, wincing against the protest in my head, which was getting louder. “I don’t
think Wes or Walt will mind.”
“That’s not what I meant! I can’t kill you, Wanda. Ugh! I’m so sick of death, so sick of killing my
friends.” Doc’s voice caught in a sob.
I put my hand on his thin arm, rubbed it. “People die here. It happens.” Kyle had said something to that
effect. Funny that I should quote Kyle of all people twice in one night.
“What about Jared and Jamie?” Doc asked in a choked voice.
“They’ll have Melanie. They’ll be fine.”
“Ian?”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
”
Doc shook his head, wiping at his eyes. “I need to think about this, Wanda.”
“We don’t have long. They won’t wait forever before they kill the Seeker.”
“I don’t mean about that part. I agree to those terms. But I don’t think I can kill you.”
“It’s all or none, Doc. You have to decide right now. And…” I realized I had one more demand. “And
you can’t tell anyone else about the last part of our agreement. No one. Those are my terms, take them
or leave them. Do you want to know how to remove a soul from a human body?”
Doc shook his head again. “Let me think.”
“You already know the answer, Doc. This is what you’ve been searching for.”
He just kept shaking his head slowly back and forth.
I ignored that symbol of denial because we both knew his choice was made.
“I’ll get Jared,” I said. “We’ll make a quick raid for cryotanks. Hold off the others. Tell them… tell them
the truth. Tell them I’m going to help you get the Seeker out of that body.”
CHAPTER 51
Prepared
Ifound Jared and Jamie in our room, waiting for me, worry on both their faces. Jared must have talked
to Jeb.
“Are you all right?” Jared asked me, while Jamie jumped up and threw his arms around my waist.
I wasn’t sure how to answer his question. I didn’t know the answer. “Jared, I need your help.”
Jared was on his feet as soon as I was done speaking. Jamie leaned back to look at my face. I didn’t
meet Jamie’s gaze. I wasn’t sure how much I could bear right now.
“What do you need me to do?” Jared asked.
“I’m making a raid. I could use some… extra muscle.”
“What are we after?” He was intense, already shifting into his mission mode.
“I’ll explain on the way. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Can I come?” Jamie said.
“No!” Jared and I said together.
Jamie frowned and let me go, sinking down onto the mattress and crossing his legs. He put his face in his
hands and sulked. I couldn’t look directly at him before I ducked out of the room. I was already yearning
Jared followed as I retraced my path through the south tunnel.
“Why this way?” he asked.
“I…” He would know if I tried to lie or evade. “I don’t want to run into anyone. Jeb, Aaron, or Brandt,
particularly.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to have to explain myself to them. Not yet.”
He was quiet, trying to make sense of my answer.
I changed the subject. “Do you know where Lily is? I don’t think she should be alone. She seems…”
“Ian’s with her.”
“That’s good. He’s the kindest.”
Ian would help Lily—he was exactly what she needed now. Who would help Ian when… ? I shook my
head, shaking the thought away.
“What are we in such a hurry to get?” Jared asked me.
I took a deep breath before I answered him. “Cryotanks.”
The south tunnel was black. I could not see his face. His footsteps did not falter beside me, and he
didn’t say anything for several minutes. When he spoke again, I could hear that he was focusing on the
raid—single-minded, setting aside whatever curiosity he felt until after the mission was planned to his
satisfaction.
“Where do we get them?”
“Empty cryotanks are stored outside Healing facilities until they’re needed. With more souls coming in
than leaving, there will be a surplus. No one will guard them; no one will notice if some go missing.”
“Are you sure? Where did you get this information?”
“I saw them in Chicago, piles and piles of them. Even the little facility we went to in Tucson had a small
store of them, crated outside the delivery bay.”
“If they were crated, then how can you be sure —”
“Haven’t you noticed our fondness for labels?”
“I’m not doubting you,” he said. “I just want to make sure that you’ve thought this through.”
I heard the double meaning in his words.
“Let’s get it done, then.”
Doc was already gone—already with Jeb, as we hadn’t passed him on the way. He must have left right
behind me. I wondered how his news was being taken. I hoped they weren’t stupid enough to discuss it
in front of the Seeker. Would she shred her human host’s brain if she guessed what I was doing? Would
she assume I’d turned traitor entirely? That I would give the humans what they needed with no
restrictions?
Wasn’t that what I was about to do, though? When I was gone, would Doc bother to keep his word?
Yes, hewould try. I believed that. I had to believe that. But he couldn’t do it alone. And who would help
him?
We scrambled up the tight black vent that opened onto the southern face of the rocky hill, about halfway
up the low peak. The eastern edge of the horizon was turning gray, with just a hint of pink bleeding into
the line between sky and rock.
My eyes were locked on my feet as I climbed down. It was necessary; there was no path, and the loose
rocks made for treacherous footing. But even if the way had been paved and smooth, I doubted I would
have been able to lift my eyes. My shoulders, too, seemed trapped in a slump.
Traitor. Not a misfit, not a wanderer. Just a traitor. I was putting my gentle brothers’ and sisters’ lives
into the angry and motivated hands of my adopted human family.
My humans had every right to hate the souls. This was a war, and I was giving them a weapon. A way
to kill with impunity.
I considered this as we ran through the desert in the growing light of dawn—ran because, with the
Seekers looking, we shouldn’t be out in the daylight.
Focusing on this angle—viewing my choice not as a sacrifice but rather as arming the humans in
exchange for the Seeker’s life—I knew that it was wrong. And if I was trying to save only the Seeker,
this would be the moment when I would change my mind and turn around. She wasn’t worth selling out
the others. Even she would agree with that.
Or would she? I suddenly wondered. The Seeker didn’t seem to be as… what was the word Jared had
used?Altruistic. As altruistic as the rest of us. Maybe she would count her own life dearer than the lives
of many.
But it was too late to change my mind. I’d already thought far beyond just saving the Seeker. For one
thing, this would happen again. The humans would kill any souls they came across unless I gave them
another option. More than that, I was going to save Melanie, and that was worth the sacrifice. I was
going to save Jared and Jamie, too. Might as well save the repugnant Seeker while I was at it.
The souls were wrong to be here. My humans deserved their world. I could not give it back to them, but
I could give them this. If only I could be sure that they would not be cruel.
I would just have to trust Doc, and hope.
I wondered how many human lives I would save. How many souls’ lives Imight save. The only one I
couldn’t save now was myself.
I sighed heavily. Even over the sound of our exerted breathing, Jared heard that. In my peripheral vision,
I saw his face turn, felt his eyes boring into me, but I did not look over to meet his gaze. I stared at the
ground.
We got to the jeep’s hiding place before the sun had climbed over the eastern peaks, though the sky
was already light blue. We ducked into the shallow cave just as the first rays painted the desert sand
gold.
Jared grabbed two bottles of water out of the backseat, tossed one to me, and then lounged against the
wall. He gulped down half a bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he spoke.
“I could tell you were in a hurry to get out of there, but we need to wait until dark if you’re planning a
smash and grab.”
I swallowed my mouthful of water. “That’s fine. I’m sure they’ll wait for us now.”
His eyes searched my face.
“I saw your Seeker,” he told me, watching my reaction. “She’s… energetic.”
I nodded. “And vocal.”
He smiled and rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t seem to enjoy the accommodations we provided.”
My gaze dropped to the floor. “Could be worse,” I mumbled. The strangely jealous hurt I’d been feeling
leaked, uninvited, into my voice.
“That’s true,” he agreed, his voice subdued.
“Why are they so kind to her?” I whispered. “She killed Wes.”
“Well, that’s your fault.”
I stared up at him, surprised to see the slight curve of his mouth; he was teasing me.
“Mine?”
His small smile wavered. “They didn’t want to feel like monsters. Not again. They’re trying to make up
for before, only a little too late—and with the wrong soul. I didn’t realize that would… hurt your feelings.
I would have thought you’d like it better that way.”
“I do.” I didn’t want them to hurt anyone. “It’s always better to be kind. I just…” I took a deep breath.
“I’m glad I know why.”
Their kindess was for me, not for her. My shoulders felt lighter.
