by Aimee Carter
Instead of ignoring him like he expected, she snapped her head around to look at him. “The what?”
“The . . .” Simon eyed the word. “The Stilio. Am I saying it wrong, or—”
Winter snatched the book from him. “The Stilio. I used to get letters from them.”
“Really? What kind of letters?” said Simon hopefully.
“I don’t know. I never opened them.” She squinted at the page. “I remember the logo on the envelope, though. That’s definitely the same one.”
She handed the book back to Simon. Beside the column detailing the amenities at the Stilio Resort and Spa was a circle—or at least he thought it was a circle. Taking a closer look, he noted that it was actually a snake eating its own tail. He shuddered inwardly.
“So that’s where we’re going,” he said. “To the Stilio.”
While Ariana and Jam pored over every detail the guidebook had to offer about the hotel, Winter refocused on the window and rested her cheek against the back of the seat. Simon didn’t realize he had been staring until Winter’s eyes suddenly locked on his.
“What?” she said.
Simon blinked. “I—” He leaned closer to her, as if that would somehow stop Ariana and Jam from overhearing. “I was just wondering why you threw the letters away.”
“Because some of us were actually happy before this whole mess started,” she muttered. “Just because you were pining away for a life you didn’t have doesn’t mean I was, too.”
“You weren’t curious at all?” said Simon. He couldn’t imagine not reading one of his mother’s postcards.
“Why would I be? I already had a family—I didn’t need another one. Especially from the reptile kingdom.”
“You do know every time you put them down, you’re putting yourself down, too?” said Ariana.
Winter’s face grew red. “I’m not one of them.”
“Maybe you weren’t raised a reptile, but that’s what you are, like it or not. It’s not a bad thing, you know.”
“Do I?” snapped Winter. “Because as far as I can tell, calling someone a snake isn’t a compliment.”
Ariana snorted. “I think being one of the most venomous snakes in the country is pretty awesome. But even if someone else doesn’t, so what? When it comes to you, the only opinion that matters is your own. We can’t decide what kind of Animalgam we are, but we can control what kind of person we are. I don’t know why you settled on whiny spoiled brat, but it’s getting really old.”
Winter’s jaw dropped, and her eyes filled with tears as if no one had ever spoken to her like that before. Simon scowled at Ariana. He didn’t disagree with her, but that didn’t mean she had to say it out loud. Ariana merely shrugged, while Jam stared down at the guidebook, clearly trying to look like he wasn’t listening.
“I was supposed to be able to fly,” said Winter, and her voice caught. “Don’t you get that? You have no idea how lucky you are, Simon—I was supposed to be you. I was supposed to be a bird. Orion said so my whole life—I was too smart to be a reptile. Too level-headed, too logical. I did all the right things. I studied the right subjects. I read the right books. I did everything they told me to do. We were a family, and I was supposed to be one of them. But instead of feathers—instead of feathers, I got scales.”
She spat out that last word as if it were poison, and angrily she wiped her eyes. Simon plucked a few tissues from a dispenser attached to the wall and wordlessly offered them to her. At first she glared at him, but after several long seconds, she finally took them and dabbed her cheeks.
“I was happy before. That’s why I didn’t open the letters. I told you, I already had a family—I had everything I wanted, and those stupid letters didn’t matter. And now . . .” She shook her head and blew her nose so loudly that Simon briefly wondered if she was part goose. “And now I have nothing but an adoptive grandfather that doesn’t want me anymore and letters I never read.”
“You have me,” said Simon. “You have us, and we’re not going to leave you. I promise.”
Winter was silent. It didn’t matter—she didn’t need to speak for Simon to know exactly what she was thinking. They weren’t the family she wanted.
“And maybe Rowan was telling the truth,” added Simon. “Just because Orion’s a horrible person doesn’t mean they all are.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, and for a moment Simon thought she might start sobbing. Instead she exhaled slowly and stood in the narrow space between the seats, hugging her purse.
“Don’t get my hopes up, Simon,” she said. “It hurts too much.”
Taking a few more tissues from the dispenser, she then walked out of the compartment, leaving the three of them behind. Simon tried to follow her, but Ariana grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t,” she said. “If she wants to be alone right now, there’s nothing you can do to help. She’ll come back when she’s ready.”
That wasn’t what Simon was worried about, but against his better judgment, he sat back down. He knew what it was like to feel like an outsider, and he knew how much it hurt to watch his mother walk away from him time and time again.
Simon had always had Darryl, though. He had never doubted how much his uncle loved him, and that had given him the strength to keep his chin up when everything else in his life was going wrong. He had been Simon’s rock.
Orion had been Winter’s rock, too, and now he wasn’t just gone; he had abandoned her, leaving her questioning everything. It was worse than death somehow. It was rejection—rejection of something Winter couldn’t help, something she desperately hated about herself, and Simon felt awful for her.
The steward pulled their beds down for them while Ariana lied about their parents staying nearby, and by the time the three of them had brushed their teeth and changed in the tiny bathroom, Winter still hadn’t returned. Simon opened the door and stuck his head out, glancing up and down the narrow corridor. “I should go after her,” he said.
“She’s probably waiting until we’re all asleep so she doesn’t have to talk to us,” said Ariana. “Come on. The sooner you go to bed, the sooner it’ll be morning, and maybe by then she’ll be in the mood to talk.”
Ariana was right about the first part. Nearly an hour passed as Simon lay awake, staring out the window and trying to will himself to sleep, but eventually light from the hallway briefly filled the compartment as Winter slipped back inside. He wanted to say something, but Jam was snoring softly, and Winter didn’t make a sound as she crawled into the bed directly below Simon’s bunk. He listened as her breathing evened out, and only when he was sure she was asleep did he let himself drift off, too.
But by the time Simon woke up right after dawn, Winter was gone. He would find her before breakfast, he decided, and he roughly dug through his backpack for a change of clothes.
“Ouch!” came a tiny cry from inside his bag, and Simon jumped back, knocking into Winter’s empty bunk. As a tiny mouse wriggled out from between his balled-up socks, his surprise turned to anger.
“What—Felix! I told you not to come,” said Simon, scooping him into his hands. “Don’t you ever listen?”
“About as well as you do, I’d imagine.” Felix stretched, his nose twitching.
“But—I left you in the Alpha’s office,” said Simon. “How did you even find us?”
“I hitched a ride with Winter. Do you mind? I’m dying of thirst.”
“Do you mind? Some of us are sleeping,” muttered Ariana. She pulled her pillow over her head, and Simon got the hint, retreating into the bathroom and closing the door. He turned the tap on low, and Felix tilted his head back, drinking directly from the faucet. Simon would have thought it was funny if he wasn’t so upset.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
Felix didn’t reply right away. Instead he drank his fill before straightening out his rumpled whiskers. “Someone has to watch your back.”
“Oh, like you were a huge help against Perrin and Rowan,” s
aid Simon. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Look on the bright side—then you won’t have to worry about feeding me anymore,” said Felix, and he climbed up the sink to perch beside the soap. “We both know I was never going to let you go alone, so stop acting surprised. I’m here. Short of leaving me in Chicago, there’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well let me help you.”
“And how do you expect to do that?”
“Haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“Great.” Simon grabbed his toothbrush. “When you do, let me know. In the meantime, stay in the compartment. If anyone catches you . . .”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” muttered Felix, and he returned to the nest he’d made in the backpack and sulked.
Once Simon had changed, he began his search for Winter. There were only so many places she could go on the train, and it didn’t take him long before he spotted her in the dining car, alone in the corner as she scribbled something into a notebook. Despite the early morning, several other passengers sat scattered at other tables, reading newspapers or chatting over cups of coffee, and Simon skirted around them, making his way straight for Winter. As soon as he reached her table, he stopped, but she was so busy writing that she didn’t look up.
For a moment, Simon wondered if giving her more time alone wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. They wouldn’t reach Chicago until that evening, and she didn’t look like she wanted company. But he remembered the look on her face the night before, after her argument with Ariana, and his resolve hardened. She needed someone right now, and Simon was the only person on that train who cared enough to put up with whatever attitude she would fling his way.
As he opened his mouth to apologize, however, he spotted a few pages of discarded notebook paper sitting at the end of the table. And while Simon didn’t mean to snoop, as someone who had spent his whole life escaping into books, he couldn’t help but read the first line of her neat handwriting.
Dear Orion.
Shake a Tail Feather
Simon grabbed the piece of paper bearing Orion’s name, and Winter started.
“Simon? What are you—give that back!” She snatched the unfinished note away with such force that it ripped. “That’s mine.”
“What are you doing?” said Simon. He’d been planning on apologizing to her, but now he was too confused and angry. “Are you telling him where we’re going?”
“Of course not,” said Winter, but there was an edge to her voice that Simon didn’t trust. “How many times do I have to prove I’m on your side?”
“Then why are you writing him?”
“Because—” Winter faltered, and she looked away, crumpling her discarded letter into a ball. “I just wanted to, okay? Sometimes it helps. I wasn’t going to send it.”
Right now she had a better chance of convincing him that she was secretly a flamingo, and he’d hallucinated the whole cottonmouth thing. “I don’t believe you.”
Her expression hardened. “Then I guess you shouldn’t have guilted me into coming with you.”
“I shouldn’t have had to,” said Simon. He dropped what was left of the notebook paper onto the table. “Do whatever you want to do, Winter. Just don’t mess this up for the rest of us.”
With all the times Winter had betrayed him, he shouldn’t have been surprised that once again he was questioning whether she was on his side, but disappointment and frustration formed a knot in his chest. He knew Winter wasn’t the kind of person she wanted everyone else to think she was. She was stubborn, yes, but she made good choices most of the time, and when she didn’t, her heart was always in the right place. But he’d already lost his uncle because of her betrayal. How many chances could he give her before she took everything else from him, too?
By the time he reached the compartment, where Ariana and Jam were arguing over who got to use the bathroom first, he had resigned himself to no longer having Winter on their team. Maybe they wouldn’t need her after all. He could always pretend to be a member of the reptile kingdom if he had to. The last thing he wanted was to reveal his secret to anyone, but if it gave him and his friends the opportunity they needed to infiltrate the Stilio on their own and find his mother, he would do it.
“Is breakfast good?” said Jam, who had lost the fight. He sat on the edge of his bed, fiddling with a padlock as he waited none too patiently for his turn.
“I don’t know. Didn’t eat anything,” said Simon, climbing onto his bunk. Felix was curled up in the middle of his pillow, snoring softly. “What are you doing?”
“Ariana’s teaching me how to pick locks,” said Jam. Sighing, he pulled a thin metal object from the padlock. “I can’t get it right.”
“That’s because you’re going too fast,” called Ariana from the bathroom. She stuck her head out the door, a green toothbrush in her mouth. “Technically lock picks aren’t allowed at the Den, but after what happened in September, I had my mom send me some. You should learn how to use them, too, Simon.”
“Maybe later,” said Simon, trying not to picture Darryl’s beat-up and bloodied wolf form trapped in a cage. “I found Winter in the dining car. She—”
He stopped suddenly. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t tell them that Winter had been writing to Orion, because what if he was wrong? What if Winter really never intended to send her letter?
“She’s what?” said Jam curiously.
“She’s just—writing stuff,” said Simon with a shrug. “She looked mad, so I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Ariana disappeared long enough to spit out her toothpaste. “She better get over this before we reach Paradise Valley.”
“I’m not sure you just get over losing your entire family,” said Simon.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” she said. “This isn’t all about her right now. This is about your mom and the Predator. She might be the center of her web, but she isn’t the center of mine. Or yours.”
“I know,” mumbled Simon. He would find out eventually if Winter had been telling the truth about being on their side. Until then, all he could do was hope that no matter how upset she was, she wouldn’t jeopardize their plans.
Simon spent the rest of the trip in the compartment, staring out the window or trying to read the book he’d brought with him. Eventually he gave up and studied the postcard, tracing his mother’s words over and over again. Though Simon didn’t ask for privacy, Ariana and Jam left him alone, only coming back to bring him lunch.
He didn’t see any hint of Winter until the conductor announced they were thirty minutes out from Chicago. Only then did she return to wordlessly pack her things, but she didn’t so much as glance at Simon. He wasn’t sure whether she felt guilty for betraying them to Orion or if she was still upset he thought she would, but either way, by the time the four of them stepped off the train and onto the busy Chicago platform, Simon didn’t expect her to ever talk to him again. And he wasn’t so sure he minded.
“We have an hour and a half before the train to Arizona shows up,” said Ariana, examining the schedule on a monitor overhead while Winter lingered behind them. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m dying for a cheeseburger.”
“There’s a food court on the upper level,” said Simon, spotting a sign. Lunch had been hours ago.
“Uh, guys? I think that cheeseburger is going to have to wait,” said Jam. “Look.”
Perrin stood on the platform, scanning the crowd as passengers exited the train. The four of them were close enough toward the end that Perrin hadn’t spotted them yet, but a sick feeling overcame Simon, and as he pulled his hat back on, he searched the platform. He counted four other men lingering nearby, none of them carrying luggage and all of them facing the train, waiting.
Simon rounded on Winter. “Did you tell them where we were?”
“What? Who?” she said, clutching her purse.
“The flock,” said Simon. “They have us surrounded.”
Winter’s
face lit up, her green eyes bright, and she stood on her tiptoes. “Is Rowan with them?”
Ariana tugged her down with one hand while pulling her hood up with the other. “Are you crazy? They’ll recognize you instantly.”
“That’s probably why she’s doing it,” blurted Simon.
Winter sputtered as if he’d slapped her. “If you really think I’d—”
“How else did they find us?” said Simon. “Someone must have told them. You could have easily asked a bird to deliver the message for you.”
“There were only two trains on the platform in New York, genius,” said Winter. “Maybe they split up.”
“Enough,” said Ariana, and Simon’s retort died on his lips. “We need to split up. They’re probably expecting all four of us together. If we can blend in with other groups, we’ll have a better chance of sneaking past the flock.”
Simon swallowed his anger and nodded, looking at her purple hair. Even underneath her hood, it was a dead giveaway. “It might be better if you shifted,” he said.
“Right. On it.” She ducked behind a pillar nearby, bending down as a large group of people passed. A few seconds later, a shiny black spider crawled up Simon’s pant leg to his shoulder. He almost suggested she join Felix in his backpack, but he wasn’t sure how the mouse would react to unexpected venomous company.
“We’ll meet up at the front of the station,” he said. “If you want to leave, Winter, here’s your chance.”
Winter’s face twisted, her expression sharp with hurt and resentment, but he didn’t have any sympathy left. Not when they were seconds away from being discovered. He caught Jam’s eye and managed a quick, reassuring nod before ducking into the crowd.
Simon fell into step beside the first family he found. Keeping his head down, he stuck close to them, trying to look like he belonged as they passed a member of the flock. Simon didn’t dare sneak a glance at him—if he accidentally caught his eye, the game would be up.
“Almost there,” said Ariana in a tiny voice from his shoulder. “He’s looking the other way—I think it’s working. Just keep walking.”