The Soul-The Host Fanfiction

Chapter 22: Sought

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to the amazingly amazing @the_hooded_girl. She has an awesome story called Silver Lining and if you aren't already reading it, I encourage you to go RIGHT NOW and READ EVERY CHAPTER!!!! It is about Burns Living Flowers and how he ended up "going native." I also want to thank her for letting me borrow one of her amazing characters, Emma. I just couldn't imagine Burns without her.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 22 Sought

"Burns?" I gasped, shocked.

Another face appeared next to Burns', this one smaller with kind brown eyes and shiny brown hair that reached just past her shoulders. "I call shotgun!" she said.

"Emma?!" I hadn't seen them in a long time. Burns, the other native soul that lived with Nate and his rebel cell, and Emma, the human who was...well, his Ian. I reached back and gave them both a hug. "What are you two doing here?"

"We can catch up while we drive. We need to get ou tof here before the Seekers get back." Emma said.

"What about Mel and Jared?" I asked. "They don't have a soul."

"We can pick them up. We'll leave our car and the moving truck here and you and I can come back and get them later." Burns replied.

Ian and I went around to the backof the van, opened the doors, and climbed in. We stopped by the moving truck, explained everything to Melanie and Jared, and they hopped in with us. "So...why are you guys here?" Mel were all settled, Burns and Emma up front.

The human shrugged. "We were raiding and we spotted you guys. Thought we'd say hi." she replied.

"Just the two of you?" Jared, ever the strategist, asked.

"It's not so much of a raid as an...investigation." Burns corrected. "There have been Seekers out near us, with helicopters and guns. We think souls have gone missing."

Jeb nodded. "We ran into a group of them on our way to talk to Russell." 

"Russell? Why were you going there?" Burns asked. He and I generally tried to avoid the groups of humans without a native soul. They weren't exactly violent or hostile, but they weren't too friendly, either. As a rule, we avoided poking the bear and stayed home whenever the groups got together to trade.

"There's this human, Matt." I began to explain. "He...uh...doesn't like souls too much."

Ian snorted. "That's an understatement." Emma gave him a curious look. "He tried to kill Wanda when he first met her. Then he tried to kill Sunny, and attacked Wanda when she tried to defend her." he explained.

Emma's eyes widened. "Are you alright?"

I nodded. "Yes, I;m fine. And so is Sunny. We're looking fir a new body dor her. Her host, Jodi, came back."

"Oh." Emma said. She was quiet for a moment and her eyes grew distant.

"But we decided that Matt couldn't live with us anymore." Melanie added, picking the story back up. "He put Wanda and Sunny in too much danger. Wanda, of course, didn't want to just kick him out or kill him, so we decided to ask Russell if he could go and live with them, since they have no souls living there and so no one for him to hurt. We didn't make it all of the way there, though. We turned around and headed for town after we talked to the Seekers."

"Do you think...?" Emma trailed off, unwilling to voice her thought. She glanced at Burns.

"We think Russell's group may be kidnapping souls." Jeb supplied.