It was Jamie's first, and he fell on his knife like a doofus. One day, Jared and Jamie return from a supply run. She believes that most humans are ruled by their anger, and Kyle isn't any different. He doesn't succeed, but Wanda refuses to let the others punish him. Ian's brother Kyle hates her enough to try to drown her in the bathing cave. Jared loves Melanie, but still kind of hates Wanda. This compassionate act endears her to Doc, the cave's flamenco dancer. She goes along with it, offering him comfort and compassion until he dies. On his deathbed, he mistakes Wanda for his deceased wife Gladys. Unfortunately, Walter, one of the cave dwellers, has cancer and is dying. Life is fairly calm for a bunch of alien-resisting rebels. One of the cave dwellers, Ian, might even be falling in love with her. They start calling her by the less creepy name of 'Wanda.' Wanda tells them stories of her lives on other planets.

Jamie doesn't think she's half bad, and becomes like a brother to her. Over the next few weeks, Wanderer slowly acclimates to cave life, and the humans kind of get used to her, too. He puts Wanderer/Melanie into a tiny little prison cave, where they keep her fed and watered like a scraggly houseplant until they decide what to do with her. And since he's in charge, what he says goes. Jeb doesn't want Wanderer/Melanie dead, though. For all we know, this might be the preferred method of action. Well, it's not like Emily Post has an etiquette tip on what to do when your girlfriend has been taken over by an alien parasite. He greets her with a backhand to the face. She finds out that Jamie and Jared are still alive, but Jared is so not happy to see her. Dehydrating in the desert is starting to look good after all.

They revive, only to find themselves confronted with a dozen or so angry, alien-hating humans. Melanie's Uncle Jeb finds Wanderer/Melanie in the desert and gives them a drink of life-giving water. She guzzles through their water supply way too fast and passes out from exhaustion in the desert. Unfortunately, she's not very good at resource management. To make sure they're safe and keep them that way.ĭeciding to betray her species, Wanderer sets off into the desert and uses Melanie's memories to find Jared and Jamie's hideout. Wanderer wants to find Jared and Melanie's brother Jamie herself. More than that, she likes the way Melanie's memories of her hunky boyfriend, Jared, make her feel. The thing is, Wanderer starts liking Melanie. They call the alien Wanderer, and Wanderer's job is to access the memories of her host body, Melanie, and tell the Seeker where to find more humans.

The story opens with an alien parasite being implanted into a human body. The alien invasion is over, and, uh, we kind of lost.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer