Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(16)

21. Minooka, Illinois. Which seems dreadful.

22. These sunglasses. Rubbish.

23. The fucking sun! We get it—you’re very fucking bright!

24. Penelope Bunce, who came up with this idea. An idea not accompanied by a plan. Because all she cared about was seeing her rubbish boyfriend, who clearly cocked it all up. Which we all should have expected from someone from Illinois, land of the damned—a place that manages to be both hot and humid at the same time. You might well expect hell to be hot, but you don’t expect it to also be humid. That’s what makes it hell, the surprise twist! The devil is clever!

25. Penelope “Girl Genius” Bunce.

26. And all of her stupid ideas. “Good for us all,” she said; all I heard was “good for Simon.” Crowley … Maybe she was right … Look at him. He’s as happy as a pig in mud. As happy as someone who’s suffering under the “A pig in mud” spell—which I’ve considered casting on him numerous times over the last six months. Because I’m just so tired, and I don’t how to—I mean, there’s nothing— There’s no fixing him.

27. The Mage. May he rest in pain.

28. Penelope—for maybe being right, about Simon. And America. And this wretched convertible. Because just look at him.…

Off the sofa, out of the flat. Over the ocean, under the sun.

Simon Snow, it hurts to look at you when you’re this happy.

And it hurts to look at you when you’re depressed.

There’s no safe time for me to see you, nothing about you that doesn’t tear my heart from my chest and leave it breakable outside my body.



* * *



Simon looks over at me. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say.

“What?!” he shouts. He can’t hear a thing I’m saying over the wind and the engine and the classic rock.

“I hate this fucking car!” I shout back. “The sun is burning me! I might actually catch fire, at any moment!”

The wind is blowing Simon’s hair straight, and he’s squinting—from the sun and from all the smiling. “What!” he shouts at me again.

“You’re so beautiful!” I shout back.

He turns the radio down, so now there’s just the wind and the engine noise to shout over. “What’d you say?!”

“Nothing!”

“Are you okay? You look peaky!”

“I’m fine, Snow—watch the road!”

“Do you want me to put the top up?!”

“No!”

“I’m putting the top up!” He reaches for the lever.

“Wait!”

There’s a metallic creak. I look back—the convertible hood has risen about six inches, then stopped.

“We’ll do it manually!” Simon shouts. “When we pull over!”



* * *



The top of the car is well and truly stuck.

Simon is kneeling in the back seat, yanking at it, and it won’t budge.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to raise it while you’re driving,” I say.

“But they always do it in music videos”—he yanks at the other side—“and Bond films.”

I’m exhausted and sunburnt and starving. And about to walk into a shopping mall full of potential blood donors. One single upside of the convertible is that I can’t really smell Simon and Penny when we’re on the road.…

Though I’m well accustomed to how they both smell when I’m thirsty. Simon smells like the kitchen after you pop popcorn and melt butter. There’s a singe to it, with a round, yellow, fatty feeling that sticks to the roof of your mouth. Bunce is sharper and sweeter—vinegar and treacle. She skinned her knee once, and my sinuses burned for hours.

They probably wouldn’t like it if they knew I’ve thought about how they’d taste, but I just really believe I’m doing them service enough by not actually draining them. By not actually draining anyone. I am so thirsty right now, but I can’t do any hunting till the sun sets. So instead I’ll go and have dinner in a shopping mall, and everyone will live.

“Come on, Snow,” I say. “The cheesecake awaits.” Bunce is already inside. She went straight into the restaurant, as soon as we parked the car.

“We can’t just leave the top down,” he says. “Can you magic it up?”

“Sure, I’ve got a dozen convertible-repair spells.”

“Good.”

“I’m joking. There’s not a spell for everything—did you forget them mentioning that every day at Watford?”

Simon climbs out of the car. “Yeah, I really wish I would’ve paid more attention at magic school—maybe I could have been somebody.” I can hear the resentment in his voice, but when he turns to me, he starts to laugh.

“What.”

He looks away from me, covering his mouth.

“What are you laughing at.”

He looks down, but waves his hand at me. “You—your—”

I refuse to look down at myself. “My what, Snow?”

“Your hair.”

I refuse to touch my hair.

“You look like that guy, with the wig—” He mimes playing the piano. “Duh, duh, duh, duhhh.”