Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(81)

“Agatha!” Simon shouts. He’s already shooting towards her.

“Wait!” I call. “Simon! We have to stay together!”

“They’re baiting us,” Shepard says.

Obviously. But we have to take the bait to see what happens next. We have to take the bait because it’s what we came for. I start running.

Shepard runs after me. “You should really let me handle this, Penelope!”

This Normal really thinks his voice is the last thing I want to hear on this earth. “Honestly, Shepard. Shut up.”

I’m making plans. And backup plans. I’m thinking of spells. I’m clutching my stone in my right hand. I’m telling myself we might catch a break, even though I’ve never felt so far from one. Agatha’s alive, that’s something.

We’re close enough to see her face now. She is crying. She’s shaking her head no.

I push my gem in my mouth and swallow it.





AGATHA


I knew it. I knew they’d come for me, they always do—they can’t help themselves.

Idiots!

They think they can keep sticking their heads into the lion’s mouth, just because they haven’t lost their heads so far. It’s flawed logic! I’ve told them it’s flawed logic—I’ve told them so many times!

Surviving monsters doesn’t make you monster-proof. Escaping once doesn’t enhance your odds of escaping again.

Penny always argues with me. “The past is the best predictor of the future.”

Simon refuses to engage on any discussion of logic. What did he say to me seventh year? “Ease up, Ags, I’ll always save you. I’m good at it. And I get better every time.”

“You think luck makes you lucky,” I told him. He’d just found me in a well. My hair was still wet. “But you’re just a cat burning through his nine lives. And mine, as well.”

He didn’t listen. They never listen.

And now here we are again.

Here we are, finally.

Fresh the fuck out of luck.





BAZ


Shepard ran after them before I could stop him. Lamb didn’t care. I watched them all climb to the top of the dune—Snow flying beside Bunce like her pet dragon. When they got to the top, he turned back and waved at me.

I waved back.

A moment later, there were gunshots.





PENELOPE


It happens fast.

Simon reaches out for Agatha, and she shakes her head so hard, she falls over.

The vampires step out from behind the cars then. They weren’t even hiding, really. Just standing back there, holding automatic weapons.

I want to laugh. We wouldn’t have been ready for those guns, even if we still had our magic. Would I have got out a single spell?

Simon fights anyway.

The vampires—youngish men, mostly white, dressed like they’re on safari—fire their guns in the air, presumably at Simon.

I don’t see it happen—they already have me. They tape my mouth, tie my hands. Throw me into the back of a four-by-four with Agatha. She kicks me in the ear, trying to push them off of us.

That’s it. That’s all that happens. Then it’s over.

Then we’re done.





56





AGATHA


The guns keep firing. Like there were more than two people to shoot down.

I thought the guns might be for show—that the NowNext creeps would want to take us all alive. But maybe Penny and I are enough of a score.

She’s sitting next to me in the back of Braden’s Mercedes.

I look in her eyes, half expecting her to have a plan—is anyone else coming? I wonder if Penny even realizes how bad this situation is. I try to tell her with my glued-closed face:

It’s worse than you think, Penelope. It’s worse than we ever thought to fear.

She looks wildly back at me. There’s no plan. There’s no hope.

No one comes to throw Simon into the back of the car. But after a few minutes, one of the NowNext guys gets into the front seat, his face flushed with excitement. He grins back at us, like he expects us to celebrate with him. They must all be feeling so tough and clever.

Penny slumps forward, refusing to look at or be seen by him.

I turn to the window. We’re parked facing away from the fight, so I can’t see what they’re doing to Simon. I’m glad of that—does that make me a coward? Well, a leopard can’t change its spots.

I stare out at the blank horizon. I pretend I don’t notice the vampire in the front seat taking a selfie.

What a fool I’ve been.

I thought I was the practical one.

I honestly thought I could walk away from it all—like magic was a place. Like magic was a person. Or a habit I could break.

When Simon first came to Watford, he couldn’t make his wand work. He could barely cast a spell. He thought they were going to kick him out, that he wasn’t magic enough.

“You don’t do magic,” Penelope told him. “You are magic.”

I … am magic.

Whether I like it or not, whether or not I claim it. Whether or not I carry my wand.

It’s in me, somehow. Blood, water, bone.

And Braden is going to get it out.