The Host_ A Novel - Stephenie Meyer [208]
Kyle simply refused. He mostly slept in the van during the day and then sat up at night, acting as sentry.
For me, it was as easy as shopping in the stores. I checked us in, made conversation with the clerk. Told the story about my photographer partner and the friend who was traveling with us (just in case someone saw all three of us enter the room). I used generic names from unremarkable planets. Sometimes we were Bats: Word Keeper, Sings the Egg Song, and Sky Roost. Sometimes we were See Weeds: Twisting Eyes, Sees to the Surface, and Second Sunrise. I changed the names every time, not that anyone was trying to trace our path. It just made Melanie feel safer to do that. All this made her feel like a character in a human movie about espionage.
The hard part, the part I really minded-not that I would say this in front of Kyle, who was so quick to doubt my intentions-was all the taking without giving anything back. It had never bothered me to shop in San Diego. I took what I needed and nothing more. Then I spent my days at the university giving back to the community by sharing my knowledge. Not a taxing Calling, but one I took seriously. I took my turns at the less-appealing chores. I did my day collecting garbage and cleaning streets. We all did.
And now I took so much more and gave nothing in return. It made me feel selfish and wrong.
It’s not for yourself. It’s for others, Mel reminded me when I brooded.
It still feels wrong. Even you can feel that, can’t you?
Don’t think about it was her solution.
I was glad we were on the homestretch of our long raid. Tomorrow we would visit our growing cache-a moving truck we kept hidden within a day’s reach of our path-and clean out the van for the last time. Just a few more cities, a few more days, down through Oklahoma, then New Mexico, and then a straight drive through Arizona with no stops.
Home again. At last.
When we slept in hotels rather than in the crowded van, we usually checked in after dark and left before dawn to keep the souls from getting a good look at us. Not really necessary.
Jared and Ian were beginning to realize that. This night, because we’d had such a successful day-the van was completely full; Kyle would have little space-and because Ian thought I looked tired, we stopped early. The sun had not set when I returned to the van with the plastic key card.
The little inn was not very busy. We parked close to our room, and Jared and Ian went straight from the van to the room in a matter of five or six steps, their eyes on the ground. On their necks, small, faint pink lines provided camouflage. Jared carried a half-empty suitcase. No one looked at them or me.
Inside, the room-darkening curtains were drawn, and the men relaxed a little bit.
Ian lounged on the bed he and Jared would use, and flipped on the TV. Jared put the suitcase on the table, took out our dinner-cooled greasy breaded chicken strips I’d ordered from the deli in the last store-and passed it around. I sat by the window, peeking through the corner at the falling sun as I ate.
“You have to admit, Wanda, we humans had better entertainment,” Ian teased.
On the television screen, two souls were speaking their lines clearly, their bodies held with perfect posture. It wasn’t hard to pick up what was happening in the story because there wasn’t a lot of variety in the scripts souls wrote. In this one, two souls were reconnecting after a long separation. The male’s stint with the See Weeds had come between them, but he’d chosen to be human because he guessed his partner from the Mists Planet would be drawn to these warm-blooded hosts. And, miracle of miracles, he’d found her here.
They all had happy endings.
“You have to consider the intended audience.”
“True. I wish they’d run old human shows again.” He flipped through the channels and frowned. “Used to be a few of them on.”
“They were too disturbing. They had to be