Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(20)

I take the bed.



* * *



I’m the only one who takes a shower. But I’m also the only one who spent half an hour behind a skip, wrestling tabby cats. I have a nasty scratch on my chest, plus my nose is still charred from the sun. (That’s never happened before, and I’m not wholly confident that it will heal. Maybe this is how you disfigure a vampire.) I’m glad I brought my toiletries from home. The hotel soap smells like marshmallows.

When I get out of the bathroom, the lights are out, and I can’t tell if the others are asleep.

I lie in bed for a while, watching the ceiling fan spin in the dark. I think Bunce might be crying.

I don’t blame her. I don’t have half the security she had, and I can’t bear the thought of losing it.





17





SIMON


It’s freezing in this hotel room.

Penny’s crying.

Baz is clean. He opens the door to the bathroom, and steam and cedar and bergamot roll out. It takes me back to our room at Watford. To every morning that he stepped out of the shower, and I pretended not to care—no, I wasn’t pretending. I just didn’t know.

I genuinely didn’t know how I felt.

I thought I hated him. I thought about him all the time. I missed him so much in the summer. (I thought I was just lonely. I thought I was hungry. I thought I was bored.)

Baz stepping out of the shower with his hair slicked back. Baz tying his school tie in the mirror—I could never take my eyes off him.

We used to spend every night together and wake up together every morning.

How long has it been since I fell asleep listening to him breathe?

If I wait, tonight, could I sit up and watch him sleep? (I used to be that shameless.)

It wasn’t supposed to be like this—Baz and I were supposed to kill each other.

And then it wasn’t supposed to be like this—we were supposed to be together.

I’m the one who fucked it up (I am fucking it up) by being too fucked up in the first place. By not wanting to talk to him. And never wanting him to spend the night. By not wanting him to look at me. (By not wanting him to see me, actually.)

“How can you expect me to do this?” I said one night. When he— When we—

“I thought you wanted this,” he said.

And I did. But then I didn’t.

“It’s just a lot,” I said. “You’re pushing me.”

“I’m not pushing you. I won’t push you. Just tell me what you want.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not the same anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know—stop pushing me.”

“Are you talking about sex?”

“No!”

“Okay.”

“Yes, maybe.”

“Okay. I don’t know what you want, Simon.”

“It’s just too much.”

That’s the last time I tried to explain how I felt, and the last time he asked me to. I still don’t have any answers. What do I want?

Baz is the only person I’ve ever wanted. The only person I’ve ever loved, like this.

But when I think about him touching me, I want to run. When I think about kissing him—

You can’t hide from someone who’s kissing you, even if you close your eyes.

I hear Baz getting up and moving around again in the dark. I wonder if he’s cold. Or thirsty. Then, in a rush of warmth and cedar and bergamot, he kisses my cheek. “Good night, Snow,” he says.

And then I hear him climb back into bed.





18





AGATHA


Ginger slips into our room, trying not to wake me.

I came back to the room hours ago. I didn’t have the stomach for evening cryotherapy. Or the singalong out on the deck. (Which I could still hear from our room. I swear these guys only know two songs—“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and that Queen song about wanting to live forever. It’s like being in the car with my dad.) “I’m not asleep,” I say.

“You should be!” Ginger whispers. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”

“You’re the one up late, fooling around in somebody else’s mansion.”

She giggles, but doesn’t argue.

“Why is tomorrow a big day?” I ask. “Are you levelling up?”

“No, that happens on the last night. It’s a ceremony, I think.”

“What does it even mean, Ging? Do you get a pin and a key to the clubhouse?”

“It means I’ll be one of them. Like, I’m one of the people who’s going to lead humanity forward. Toward the light.”

“Ginger, please don’t follow anyone into the light.”

“It’s not a joke, Agatha. It’s like they see me for who I am. My spirit.”

“I just … what does that even mean? The rest of them invented the Internet and work in pharmaceuticals.”

“Are you saying I’m not successful enough to level up?” She sounds hurt, and I don’t blame her. That is basically what I’m saying.

“I just worry,” I say. “You should think about what it is they want from you.”