Ian, tired of waiting, grabbed my arm and hauled me up from the floor. When Sunny seemed like she was coming along, too, still joined to my side, Ian shook me until she fell off.

And that’s why Ian wins. Sure, Jared beat her bloody a few times but only Ian views her as a doll he can do whatever he feels like to.

“Ian, stop,” I begged.
“You stop,” he growled back at me.
He yanked me through the arch into the tunnel, then pulled me north. I had to almost run to keep up with his longer stride.
…
There was nothing but silence and blackness behind us now. I stumbled in the dark, trying to keep up.
It was then that I began to feel the throbbing from Ian’s grip. His hand was tight as a tourniquet around my upper arm, his long fingers making the circle easily and then overlapping. My hand was going numb.
He jerked me along faster, and my breath caught in a moan, almost a cry of pain.

It’s because he loves her so much. Remember, when someone says “I love you”, call the police.

Anyway blah blah Ian doesn’t want to lose her.

I did it to save Mel, Ian.”

Bull. Shit. You should have done it to save Melanie, but we know that wasn’t your reason for doing it because we’ve been trapped in your head this whole book!

“She’s trapped in here, Ian. It’s like a prison–worse than that; I can’t even describe it. She’s like a ghost. And I can free her. I can give her herself back.”
“You deserve a life, too, Wanda. You deserve to stay.”
“But I love her, Ian.”

You know what this reminds me of? Wither. The author kept insisting the three girls were BFF and super close, even though Rhine barely noticed them between going on about how she missed her brother or how hot she found servant guy or how Rapist-chan was so sweet, and when she did it was mostly to hate Cecily. The authors seem to share a similar desire to write about a female friendship and a similar utter inability to actually write a female friendship.

He says he loves her, and she says that’s the point, because we can’t even keep up the fiction it’s for Melanie’s sake for a few more paragraphs. She loves him back, but that’s

Me, the little silver worm in the back of her head. But my body doesn’t love you.

To be more specific, it’s not that Melanie’s screaming at her to stop that’s the problem, it’s that her body’s physical responses are still too much based on Melanie. If that wasn’t getting in the way, apparently this would be fine.

I could have borne it. But watching him suffer because of my body’s limitations? Not that.

And so at last we have the real reason. It’s as terrible as you’d expect for the book.

Anyway, Melanie is so overcome by this horribleness she tells the brainslug that they can kiss and she won’t complain, and we get a long metaphor about how she feels heat from Ian but it’s like magma moving under rock rather than wildfire like with Jared and blah blah SOULMATE because yes, souls pair up into monogamous presumably heterosexual somehow pairs for life.

She talks around her actual plan to imply that she’s going to another planet and not killing herself. I actually like this tiny subset of the conversation, since it’s her showing spine.

Anyway, so, he calls a tribunal.

It was a small tribunal this time, not like the trial for Kyle’s life. Ian brought only Jeb, Doc, and Jared.
…
Just one blue lamp, one dim circle of light on the stone floor. We sat on the edge of the ring of light; I was alone, the four men facing me.

And so, she’ll finish her time the caves as she lived in them – cowering submissively in front of the men.

And yet there was some stupid part of me that hoped… hoped that there was a solution that would make everything perfect and let me stay with Ian and Mel with Jared in a way that absolutely no one would suffer for.

Lacey’s a brainslug sympathizer or tries to escape and put them all at risk due because she refuses to do chores, “forcing” them to brainslug her, at which point she’s easily crushed down because as the healer said back in chapter five or so, our brainslug protagonist is actually the strongest brainslug ever and it’s only because Melanie was the strongest human ever that she was having trouble? And it’s not murder because the tribunal sentenced her to murder anyway, so she was going to be shot and by taking her body at least the brainslug’s preventing physical death.

The only flaw in all this is we keep getting told Lacey’s ugly and she doesn’t have proper white suntanned skin, so maybe not.

Ian’s argument is that his Wanda-chan is super useful and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the Melanie. Jared wants to know what Melanie wants, as usual being the only one who gives a fuck about that, so the brainslug lies about how super much Melanie wants it. Then she says Melanie can do what she does anyway.

Jeb blew out a puff of air, frowning. “I don’t know, Wanda. Ian’s got a point.”

What hypocritical bullshit. Jeb risked everyone to save his niece’s body. Every five seconds he’s said that he doesn’t give a fuck what the rest of the group wants or even needs, because fuck you got mine. But now he’s pretending that’s a reason when it’s obvious he’s only objecting for the same reason he ever objects, which is personal reasons.

“That’s Melanie’s body!”
“And Wanda’s, too.”

Huh, this actually seems like a good abortion metaphor, at least to the degree blithely saying the other party’s rights trump the actual owner of the body makes about as little sense in either case.

Jared choked on his response and had to start over. “You can’t leave Mel trapped in there–it’s like murder, Jeb.”
Ian leaned forward into the light, his face suddenly furious again. “And what is it that you’re doing to Wanda, Jared?

Well, certainly not murder. Her decision to suicide rather than take a new host doesn’t make it murder, any more than it’d be murder if she threatened suicide over not getting cheetos.

“No! It comes down to what Melanie wants! That’s her body!”

And this is not actually a thing that matters to them because women don’t have any rights regarding their bodies. Thanks for trying, Jared. You’re actually kind of okay! The abuse is still pretty disturbing, but you’ve shown how well you distinguish between Melanie and the thing in her head, so it really isn’t abusing Melanie, and I guess I can’t blame you just because Melanie was so weird about it. You’ve consistently been the only person to care about her wellbeing or opinions. I guess that’s why you don’t get to be the winning love interest.

You save lives. I got to think about the welfare of my household.”
Jared spoke through his teeth. “So we get her another body. Obviously.”

Oh god dammit does everything I like have to be ruined? Fuck everyone.

Incidentally, everyone thinks that’s a great idea.

She actually says that it’s possible a new host would make her love someone else or even go back to the brainslugs, so…it’s pretty clear that she knows she’s completely irrational right now about her whole suicide because I could never love another planet like I love this one thing and her feelings would change if only she changed her body. God, that must be so weird. And so creepy. Maybe that’s why the souls don’t seem to have strong bonds with each other but just a general broad friendliness – they know so much of their personality is arbitrary, so getting attached to people over it is just going to lead to sadness. Also, she’s tired of being a horrible parasite that destroys lives.

We get no real exploration on the actual morality of an obligate parasite that specifically destroys sapient life. When they question why she’d be okay going to another planet if she’s so against taking another human, she says, and she’s explicitly not lying because she says it’s only true things:

“It’s different on other planets, Jeb. There isn’t any resistance.

This book sure is victim-blamey, isn’t it? If your brain is set up differently and you can’t fight back as well, that’s obviously just because you don’t want to exist enough.

What’s particularly astounding here is we know from the story of the see weeds that other species have resisted far more strongly than humans. Humans did not commit mass suicide rather than be taken, and unlike humans, the see weeds could read the minds of the brainslugs. They knew exactly what would happen, and they killed themselves down to the very last one.

And the hosts themselves are different. They aren’t as individualized as humans, their emotions are so much milder. It doesn’t feel like stealing a life.

Mass suicide.

We don’t know how other species have responded, but we know they infiltrate because their hosts fight back. That’s why the see weed planet was bungled, the fact the hosts couldn’t physically run or attack made them think they didn’t need to worry about hiding their presence the way they do on every other planet, where the hosts flee and fight back. The only thing different about the humans seems to be we’re particularly violent about it, but I’m hardly seeing how that’s virtuous.

She starts getting upset because she’s going to kill herself soon and she doesn’t want to spend that time on some dumb tribunal about whether she should kill herself, so she says there’s no rush and everyone should sleep on it.

I made Ian get the food and bring it to me while I hid in the field where half-grown sprouts of wheat replaced the corn.

Wait, why are they growing wheat? Corn is better than wheat. (And if they want a grain other than corn, why not rice? They don’t seem to have any lack of water. Setting up some nice pools to grow it in might actually help the general livability by boosting humidity.)

Then she goes to the doc. Jodi is still lying there and hasn’t woken up yet, and Kyle is cuddling Sunlight’s cryotank.

I just…didn’t want to leave her alone over there. She was so sad and so… sweet.”

This would be sweet, book, if only she was actually a kid and not an adult getting written as a kid. As it is, it’s just more of your weird pseudopedophila.

The other woman is elsewhere but apparently she’s still badly confused and doesn’t know her name yet, just that it’s something close to Mandy, but they’re glad because apparently before they could only refer to her as “the body” or “the healer’s host” because god forbid you call her “the doctor” or something.

He nodded, still staring at Jodi. “Is there something I’m supposed to be doing here? Is there some way to help?”
“Talk to her, say her name, talk about things she’ll remember.

Wow, he really doesn’t seem to care much compared to Sunlight. Talking to people in comas is just basic caring behavior even when it isn’t clear it’d do any good, and here, we know that’s exactly what helped the last one. But he’d rather huggle Sunlight’s tank.

I touched Jodi’s arm softly. She was much like Lacey in some ways. Olive skinned and black haired and tiny. They could almost be sisters, except that Jodi’s sweet, wan face could never look so repellent.

Well, at least that’s an olive skinned black haired woman who isn’t repellent, even if she’s not actually a character.

Anyway, he and Ian banter a bit about Ian punching him in the face and stuff, and he says he’s sorry for the trying to kill her thing, in case anyone’s still unfairly holding a grudge there instead of just focusing on hating Sharon, Bitch-Queen of the caverns.

There was no point in lingering. Jodi would either come back or she would not, but neither outcome would change my path now.

Or maybe Jodi doesn’t come back and after they’ve sent poor Sunlight off, she gets stuck in the body and double marries Kyle and Ian. I mean, yeah, Mormonism is one guy many women, but the author’s female.

So she leaves with Ian and they lie down together and kiss and talk about how much they love each other, then she sneaks away when he falls asleep.

a heavy hand dropped on my shoulder from the darkness. “Going somewhere?”

Next chapter, we’ll discover whether that was a stupid fakeout or more pointless dragging out of the inevitable! What suspense!