Jeb had no trouble translating my wordless communication. “That’s a good girl,” he said. “We’ll figure this all out somehow. Doc can just concentrate on healin’ human folks. You’re much more interesting alive, I think.”
Our bodies were close enough that he was able to feel me tremble.
“Don’t worry. Doc’s not going to bother you now.”
I couldn’t stop shivering. Jeb could only promise me now. There was no guarantee that Jared would not decide my secret was more important than protecting Melanie’s body. I knew that such a fate would make me wish Ian had succeeded last night. I swallowed, feeling the bruising that seemed to go all the way through my neck to the inside walls of my throat.
You never know how much time you’ll have, Melanie had said so many days ago, when my world was still under control.
Her words echoed in my head as we reentered the big room, the main plaza of Jeb’s human community. It was full, like the first night, everyone there to glare at us with eyes that blazed anger and betrayal when they looked at him and murder when they looked at me. I kept my gaze down on the rock under my feet. From the corner of my eye, I could see that Jeb held his gun ready again.
It was only a matter of time, indeed. I could feel it in the atmosphere of hate and fear. Jeb could not protect me long.
It was a relief to scrape back through the narrow crevice, to look forward to the winding black labyrinth and my cramped hiding place; I could hope to be alone there.
Behind me, a furious hissing, like a nest of goaded snakes, echoed in the big cavern. The sound made me wish Jeb would lead me through the labyrinth at a quicker pace.
Jeb chuckled under his breath. He seemed to get stranger the longer I was around him. His sense of humor mystified me as much as his motivations did.
“It gets a bit tedious down here sometimes, you know,” he murmured to me, or to himself. With Jeb, it was hard to tell. “Maybe when they get over being cheesed off at me, they’ll realize they appreciate all the excitement I’m providing.”
Our path through the dark twisted in a serpentine fashion. It didn’t feel at all familiar. Perhaps he took a different route to keep me lost. It seemed to take more time than before, but finally I could see the dim blue light of the lamp shining from around the next curve.
I braced myself, wondering if Jared would be there again. If he was, I knew he would be angry. I was sure he wouldn’t approve of Jeb taking me for a field trip, no matter how necessary it might have been.
As soon as we rounded the corner, I could see that there was a figure slumped against the wall beside the lamp, casting a long shadow toward us, but it was obviously not Jared. My hand clutched at Jeb’s arm, an automatic spasm of fear.
And then I really looked at the waiting figure. It was smaller than me—that was how I’d known it was not Jared—and thin. Small, but also too tall and too wiry. Even in the dim light of the blue lamp, I could see that his skin was dyed to a deep brown by the sun, and that his silky black hair now fell unkempt past his chin.
My knees buckled.
My hand, grasping Jeb’s arm in panic, held on for support.
“Well, for Pete’s sake!” Jeb exclaimed, obviously irritated. “Can’t nobody keep a secret around this place for more’n twenty-four hours? Gol’ durn, this burns me up! Bunch of gossipmongers…” He trailed off into a grumble.
I didn’t even try to understand the words Jeb was saying; I was locked in the fiercest battle of my life—of every life I’d ever lived.
I could feel Melanie in each cell of my body. My nerve endings tingled in recognition of her familiar presence. My muscles twitched in anticipation of her direction. My lips trembled, trying to open. I leaned forward toward the boy in the hall, my body reaching because my arms would not.
Melanie had learned many things the few times I’d ceded or lost my command to her, and I truly had to struggle against her—so hard that fresh sweat beaded on my brow. But I was not dying in the desert now. Nor was I weak and dizzy and taken off guard by the appearance of someone I’d given up for lost; I’d known this moment might come. My body was resilient, quick to heal—I was strong again. The strength of my body gave strength to my control, to my determination.
I drove her from my limbs, chased her from every hold she’d found, thrust her back into the recesses of my mind, and chained her there.
Her surrender was sudden and total. Aaah, she sighed, and it was almost a moan of pain.
I felt strangely guilty as soon as I’d won.
I’d already known that she was more to me than a resistant host who made life unnecessarily difficult. We’d become companions, even confidantes during our past weeks together—ever since the Seeker had united us against a common enemy. In the desert, with Kyle’s knife over my head, I’d been glad that if I had to die I would not be the one to kill Melanie; even then, she was more than a body to me. But now it seemed like something beyond that. I regretted causing her pain.
It was necessary, though, and she didn’t seem to grasp that. Any word we said wrong, any poorly considered action would mean a quick execution. Her reactions were too wild and emotional. She would get us into trouble.
You have to trust me now, I told her. I’m just trying to keep us alive. I know you don’t want to believe your humans could hurt us…
But it’s Jamie, she whispered. She yearned for the boy with an emotion so strong that it weakened my knees again.
I tried to look at him impartially—this sullen-faced teenager slumped against the tunnel wall with his arms folded tightly across his chest. I tried to see him as a stranger and plan my response, or lack of response, accordingly. I tried, but I failed. He was Jamie, he was beautiful, and my arms—mine, not Melanie’s—longed to hold him. Tears filled my eyes and trickled down my face. I could only hope they were invisible in the dim light.