Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell Page 0,39

you,” he says, sounding a bit more urgent. (Good, he should feel urgent.) “I thought you were leading me off the interstate. How was I to know you didn’t know what you were doing?”

“Why would you follow three monsters leading you away from civilization?”

He shrugs. “Curiosity?”

I blow air through my teeth. My grip tightens. “If it was all an accident, then how did the dark creatures know to find us there?”

“You weren’t exactly lying low,” the Normal says, glancing over at me. “You cast a dozen spells and killed seven vampires at a Ren Faire. Out in the open! Those places are crawling with magickal types.”

“Why would anyone with magic want to go to that place?” I demand. “It’s a complete farce—it was insulting!”

The Normal starts to laugh. I can feel it under my thumb.

I feel ridiculous. This whole situation is ridiculous. This whole country. I let go of him and sit back in my seat.

Simon’s face is in the window behind me. He’s clinging to Baz. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a town ahead,” the Normal says. “Scottsbluff.”

“They’ll expect us to stop there,” Simon says.

The Normal’s looking at Simon in the rearview mirror. He raises his voice to be heard: “Maybe. But we’re safer in plain sight. On the road. In towns.”

“All right,” Simon says, “but we need to pull over for a second.” He turns to me. “Baz…”

“Pull over,” I order.

“There’s a rest stop in five minutes,” the Normal says. “Sanctuary.”

SIMON

It’s too loud to talk in the back of the truck.

I huddle close to Baz, half in his lap, while the shock of still being alive passes. He holds me there, a little too tightly. Usually I forget Baz is so much stronger than me. He doesn’t carry himself like he’s that strong. He doesn’t touch me that way. He never pulls or pushes me, not like that. Not any harder than I can push back.

I push in a little closer.

His voice is thick, strained. “You should be wearing your cross.”

“We’ve been through this—I’d rather risk a bite.”

His arms tighten. It’s a bit hard for me to breathe.

“I would never,” he says.

“I know.”

After a few minutes, we pull over at some roadside services. Baz gets out to hunt, and I get out to piss. Penny charms a vending machine—it takes her a few tries—and I grab armfuls of crisps and cheese biscuits.

She leans, headfirst, against the glass. “I’m running on empty. I couldn’t cast a truism right now.”

I nod. “Baz’s the same. He dumped all his magic on cloaking us. Can we trust Shepard?”

Penny pushes away from the vending machine, shaking her head. “My magic says yes, but my gut says no. Simon, he knows too much—how does he know so much? We should leave him here and steal his truck.”

That feels harsh. “He did save us. And we don’t even know where we’re going.”

“Fine,” she says. “But we lose him at the next stop. Steal someone else’s car, spell him stupid.”

I lick my lips and nod.

* * *

Baz is steadier when he climbs back into the truck. But he still looks a shambles. His hair is as wild as I’ve seen it, and his fancy blouse is shredded and stained with blood. He looks like some sort of disgraced angel. (I suppose that’d be a demon.)

He drops down next to me, and I rap my knuckles on the back window. We roll out. The engine was already running.

I hand Baz some crisps. “All right?”

“I’ve had better holidays, Snow.”

I sneak my arm around him—the mood has changed, and I’m not sure this is still okay. “Have you?” I say.

Baz casts his eyes down and smiles—girlishly, I would have said, but on him it’s not girlish. It’s, I don’t know, vulnerable. He leans in, so I can hear him, his mouth at my ear. “Does Bunce have a plan?”

I nod. “Get to Colorado, lose the Normal, regroup.”

“We need to rest,” he says.

“We can rest first.”

“Maybe we should go home.”

I feel Baz’s back under my arm. I feel his shoulder in my palm. “Yeah,” I say. “Probably.”

PENELOPE

“How many hours to Denver?”

The Normal sneaks a look at me. He’s been very eyes-on-the-road, lips-sealed since the rest stop. “Three.”

“And we’re clear of the … Quiet Zone?”

“Yeah. There’s not that much of it. There aren’t many places left without people, even around here.”

“Who…” I think about what I want to ask him, and whether I want to encourage more conversation. “Who makes the rules?”

He looks over again and smiles. I wouldn’t say it’s a