Silver Lining - The Host fanfiction

Chapter 66 The Odd Man Out

No man is useless who has a friend,
And if we are loved,
We are indispensable

 -Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Burns

 

I’m not sure how much time has passed, but my stomach starts to growl. My eyes find Emma’s and she gives me a wry smile. She must be hungry too. I don’t know what to do. The others took our food for the group and that’s fine. They need it too. Should we just go into the kitchen and eat? We don’t know the rules yet and Nate is nowhere in sight.

James and Philip may have agreed to back down for now, but there are other humans here that would rather see me go.

I don’t want to put Emma in danger again. I had thought that things would be better for her once we had found humans, but it seems I was wrong.

“We’ll go see if there’s somewhere we can eat,” Emma says.

“I don’t know,” I say, “I don’t want to get in their way. You should go. I’ll just stay here.”

“You need to eat too, Burns,” she says, “and I’m not leaving you here by yourself.” She bites her lip. “I’ll… I’ll ask Blake.” She doesn’t seem too willing to talk to him though and I wonder why that is. Maybe there’s more than she’s telling me. She said they weren’t friends, but why else would she have mentioned his name?

He sure seemed friendly with her.

I nod. “Aright.” I follow her down the tunnel to where we came from this morning. Luckily we don’t get lost.

Rachel is there with Sophie. They eye us warily, but don’t say anything.

“Where’s Blake?” Emma asks softly.

Rachel keeps quiet. She is eyeing us suspiciously.

Sophie turns her gaze back to her chore. She seems to be cleaning some vegetables. “He’s not here,” she says.

Emma nods. I wonder why she is suddenly so withdrawn. She takes a deep breath. “Do you know where I can find him?”

“You don’t know your way around,” Sophie answers, “he’ll be here when he’ll be here.”

“What do you want, Emma?” Rachel asks. The tone in her voice is not exactly nice.

Emma sighs and I glance at her. She looks tired. “We were just wondering if we could get something to eat,” she say, “we don’t know the rules here yet. Are there set times?”

“There are,” Sophie answers in that same cut off tone again, “it’s almost lunch time.”

I smile at her and place a hand on Emma’s arm. “Then we will wait here for the others.”

Rachel’s eyes narrow. “Our food is not for aliens,” she says.