So anyway, Jeb (the uncle) gives her water, and then he leaves her in the desert and fetches the rest of the humans. It's revealed at this point that he knows what Souls look like in their natural form - basically insects. So nobody else is all that excited about Wanderer, they call Jeb crazy and an old fool for wanting to bring her back to their camp. But he just does it anyway? I mean, you can see their point. Wanderer could be a Seeker or anything and he's just like "Well, I don't give a shit, she used to be my niece so wtf can go wrong."
The others make him tie a bandana around her eyes so she can't see where they're going. And they go back to the camp and she has her grand reunion with Jared, who shows her he loves her in the way only Jared can - he punches her, and pretty fucking hard.

The blow was so hard that my feet left the ground before my head slammed into the rock floor. My eyes rolled back in my head, and a ringing sound shimmered (Stephenie, you do realise that's a visual word, not an audial?) in my ears. I fought the dizziness that threatened to swing me unconscious.
Stupid, stupid, I whimpered at her. I told you not to do that.
Jared's here, Jared's alive, Jared's here. She was incoherent, chanting the words like they were lyrics to a song.

I know he thinks she's a parasite and whatever the fuck, but what good does punching do? He's literally just abusing the body of the girl he supposedly loves. And Melanie doesn't give a shit that he just punched her. She's on cloud nine.

So they chat a bit and Jared is still pissed and glaring. She meets Jamie again, all is grand for a while, except the others don't trust her, especially this lad named Kyle. That mad bastard Jeb is still happy, though, even when they lock her up in a cell. Kyle and his brother Ian are all up for killing her, but Jeb says it should be Jared's decision, because, "Whoever the body belongs to makes the call."
Excuse me?
Jared owns Melanie's body? Since when? Why should he have any decision on whether it lives or dies?

Jared acts like a bastard and she gets beaten up a few times. Ian nearly strangles her. But it's all ok because then they become sort of friends. Jamie and Wanderer become good friends too, along with the mad bastard Jeb.
So then Jared and Wanderer have to camp, and Jared tells Jeb he only needs one bedroll because Wanderer isn't a person and has to sleep on the floor. Jeb says, "Sorry honey."
Jared snaps at him for talking to her. Melanie is still wondrously happy about looking at him and all that shit. He's got nice dark gold tan (?) skin and tells her he'll kill her if she tries to escape. So not only has he been physically and verbally abusive to his supposed soulmate's body, now he's threatening it with death. See, you can understand how it might hurt him that a "parasite" has taken over his girlfriend's body. But ffs, he doesn't hesitate at all in hitting her or saying he'll kill her.

Something I also noticed was that people kept spitting on the ground. Actually, not just people, but men. Jared and Ian, specifically. Like....why?
Also, note the lack of any female friends. All Meyer mentions are guys, guys, guys, all the time. Guys insulting women, guys hitting women, hitting each other, spitting on the floor, fighting over girls, guys being possessive, guys forcefully kissing girls. She has got such a thing for abusive men.
It's not even funny at this stage, it's just extremely disturbing. She says a lot that Twilight was based on a dream she had - what kind of fucked up dreams does she have? I don't think I even want to know.
A lot of the boys go on a sort of a trip for a few weeks, leaving the womenfolk and injured and old men behind, because idk, the future is like the 1800s. They let her out of her cell while Jared's gone.

She starts telling some of the nicer humans like Jamie and Ian stories about all the lives she's lived, and finally mentions about the gender of Souls - somehow they can tell the difference - and what planet they come from, Origin. She explains that Origin is the only place they live for long out of their host bodies. Apparently Origin was invaded by Vultures (can't she make up any planets or aliens?) years ago, and that's how they found out they could inhabit the bodies of creatures.

Anyway they get on for a while but then Jared comes back and flips out about them treating her like a person.

Jared! Melanie's exultant voice was loud, a silent shriek of elation. She burst into radiant life inside my head. Jared is home!

Ok, so basically at this point, Melanie's gone kinda dormant. She only wakes up when Jared is mentioned or there, and doesn't seem to give a shit about anyone else except sometimes her brother. On the topic of her brother: Stephenie Meyer can't write children. I hate to see this in fiction, but it happens a lot.
So Jamie is about thirteen, but he acts like he's fucking seven or something. Stephenie appears to have never met a real teenage boy in her life, despite having three sons.
A real teenage boy would never want to sleep in the same room as his sister by choice, even if he did think she was dead. Trust me, I've got a fourteen year old brother. It's not going to happen.
A real teenage boy would not hug so easily nor ask such innocent questions.

So Jared wants to kill Wanderer (or Wanda, as Jeb and the others started calling her) but Jeb says there's somebody else with a claim just as strong as his, maybe even stronger. Apparently Jamie owns Melanie's body now. What the actual fuck? It's just creeping me out. Why does her body have to be owned by men? Why can't it still belong to her, or even to Wanda, who's, I don't know, THE FUCKING THING INHABITING IT????

Jared and Jamie have a fight, la la la, surprisingly Melanie decides Jamie is more important than staying alive.
So fucking Melanie is now jealous of Wanda because she thinks that she's in love with Jared too. When Jared takes her aside to talk, she keeps telling Wanda to keep her hands to herself and to sit away from him. Jared is acting actually ok, and I began to wonder if he was getting to be a better person.
And then Jared the friendly sex offender grabs her face and kisses her.

Wanda doesn't really like it but Melanie thinks she does and is so jealous that she controls her right hand and punches him. Pfft.
I don't think Stephenie could write anything without trying to shove a love triangle in.

Kyle tries to kill Wanda but nearly dies himself. Wanda saves him, but almost dies. When his brother, Ian, comes to rescue her, he doesn't really care about his brother. All he cares about is Wanda. I think we can all see where this is going.
Kyle wakes up, only for Jared to punch him because apparently he actually cares about Wanda now. The reason? When they kissed, he could tell Melanie was still in there.

So one of the other guys dies of cancer and they all go out to bury him. Wanderer is drugged in case she leads anyone back to the camp but she's woken by someone touching her cheek. Ian, who's apparently learning Jared's tricks.

Now Ian's being really nice to her but fucking Melanie isn't happy again.

I think Ian likes you too much.
Too much?
I'm here too. Does he even care about that?

Melanie, you fucking idiot, can't you be happy with anything? You weren't happy when you thought Wanderer was in love with Jared, and now you're not happy because you think she's in love with Ian. Worry about something better - oh, I'm sorry, I forgot you can't. You're a female character in a Stephenie Meyer book. All you worry about are guys.

Now the humans who don't like her want to kill her because they say she tried to kill Kyle. They give her a moment to speak in her defence - AND SHE STILL FUCKING STICKS UP FOR HIM. LIKE WHY?????

And now Jared is really fucking nice and everyone forgives him, but you know what, Jared? You don't get to do that, just fucking turn around and say you're sorry. You punched her in the fucking face, you tried to strangle her, you forcefully kissed her. You're a fucking psychopath to be able to turn your emotions that quickly.

And now Melanie says that she doesn't like him touching Wanda. -_-
Jared tells Ian to take his hands off Melanie because the body doesn't belong to Wanda.

"The body and the person inside it belong to me."

Here we go again. Melanie does not belong to you, Jared. Shut the fuck up.
He tells Ian about kissing her, kind of even laughs, like haha lol look I kissed a girl and she punched me lol.

"Did you think for one moment what that must have done to her?" Ian hissed.
"Mel?"
"No, you fool. Wanda!"
"Done to Wanda?" Jared sounded bewildered by the idea.

So obviously he seems to think that Wanda has no feelings.
Ian talks to Wanda again - and he keeps fucking touching her face! Like, brushing her hair back, stroking her cheek. Apparently when he beat her up on that first day he scarred her face. Like....wtf?
And Wanderer is disturbed by him calling her beautiful because she's jealous that he's calling Melanie's body beautiful.
*deep, deep sigh*

Wanda tells Ian that she could function just fine in a man's body.
Ian tries to kiss her - Melanie wants to beat him up.

Have you forgotten Jared?
Of course not. Have you forgotten that you don't want me to love him?

There is a very simple solution here, but it's like the two girls keep choosing the most difficult of options, only so somebody could say that it's a love triangle. It isn't. They are clearly "in love" with two different guys. Marketing it as a love triangle is wrong. Melanie doesn't care about Ian and Wanda doesn't particularly care about Jared either.

Doc has been cutting upon the dead bodies of Souls so he can see what they look like. Jared gets them for him, and he's so devoid of human emotion he doesn't understand why Wanda would be upset when she sees them.
Jamie has a bacterial infection is his leg and they don't have antibiotics to heal him so now he's dying,
Wanda can't hear Melanie anymore so she comes up with a genius plan. She tries to get Ian to kiss her, and he does, but she doesn't hear Melanie.

And then she gets Jared, and that fucking wakes her up alright. Wanda is so stupid that she thinks she's got a great plan to go back to the Souls, pretend she got hurt hiking, and steal medicine to bring back.
Everyone says no, because it's a stupid plan, and also Doc doesn't trust drugs he doesn't understand.

Jared drugs Doc with chloroform so that they can go. Wow, Jared is really sensitive, and really cares about other people!
So Wanda stabs herself in the arm and then gets taken to a Healer called Knits Fire (these names, I swear)

She steals the medicine and they go back and heal Jamie. Guess what brilliant names Meyer gave the medicine. No Pain, Heal and Clean. Seriously.

So her arm is healed and now Jared is stroking the scar for some random reason. At apparently the same time, Ian is stroking her cheek.
And now Ian is angry at Jared for letting her hurt herself.

"It was my idea," I said. "I had to."
"Of course it was your idea," Ian growled. "You'd do anything.....you have no limits when it comes to these two. But Jared shouldn't have let you - I don't understand how he could sit there and watch you do that to yourself."

Jared shouldn't have let her. As though he controls her. I swear to God....

So the days pass, for some reason they leave the camp, and this guy called Wes gets killed by the Seeker from the start of the book, who they now have captive.
They're going to try and separate her from the body she's in, and Doc says he might do it to Melanie and Wanda if the operation is successful.

So now Melanie is sad because she knows Wanda will die if she's taken out of her body. That girl can't seem to decide wtf she wants at all.
So they get the Soul out of the Seeker, and put it in a hibernation chamber, and it turns out the host body is called Lacey.
Apparently she was still there, too, and that's why the Seeker hated Wanda so much. She wanted to be strong like her (???) and it "gave her a real kick when she thought Melanie had won."

They've got more Souls that they're going to take out, some Healers, and one was called Sunlight Passing Through The Ice (or Sunny),  they're kinda friends, la la.
It's obvious Sunny and homicidal Kyle are going to have a thing, because she's in the body of his old girlfriend.

I'm going to leave this part here. The next chapter will probably be the last on this shitty book. It'll be a while before I finish it, maybe tonight or tomorrow.