City of Lost Souls

“What did you do?”


“I got the hell out of there,” said Rebecca. Simon could tell she was trying to sound tough, but there was a thin, frightened edge to her voice. “It was pretty clear Mom had lost it.”

“Oh,” Simon said. Rebecca and his mother had always shared a fraught relationship. Rebecca liked to refer to his mother as “nuts” or “the crazy lady.” But it was the first time he’d had the sense she really meant it.

“Damn right, oh,” Rebecca snapped. “I was frantic. I texted you every five minutes. Finally I get that crap text from you about staying with a friend. Now you want to meet me here. What the hell, Simon? How long has this been going on?”

“How long has what been going on?”

“What do you think? Mom being totally mental.” Rebecca’s small fingers picked at her scarf. “We have to do something. Talk to someone. Doctors. Get her on meds or something. I didn’t know what to do. Not without you. You’re my brother.”

“I can’t,” Simon said. “I mean, I can’t help you.”

Her voice softened. “I know it sucks and you’re just in high school, but, Simon, we have to make these decisions together.”

“I mean I can’t help you get her on meds,” he said. “Or take her to the doctor. Because she’s right. I am a monster.”

Rebecca’s mouth dropped open. “Has she brainwashed you?”

“No—”

Her voice wobbled. “You know, I thought maybe she’d hurt you—the way she was talking—but then I thought, No, she’d never do that, no matter what. But if she did—if she laid a finger on you, Simon, so help me—”

Simon couldn’t take it anymore. He stripped off his glove and held his hand out to his sister. His sister, who’d held his hand on the beach when he was too small to toddle into the ocean unassisted. Who’d mopped blood off him after soccer practice, and tears off him after their father had died and their mother was a zombie lying in her room staring at the ceiling. Who’d read to him in his race-car-shaped bed when he still wore footie pajamas. I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. Who once accidentally shrunk all his clothes in the wash so they were doll-size, when she was trying to be domestic. Who packed his lunch when their mother didn’t have time. Rebecca, he thought. The last tie he had to cut.

“Take my hand,” he said.

She took it, and winced. “You’re so cold. Have you been sick?”

“You could say that.” He looked at her, willing her to sense something wrong with him, really wrong, but she only looked back at him with trusting brown eyes. He bit back a flare of impatience. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know. “Take my pulse,” he said.

“I don’t know how to take someone’s pulse, Simon. I’m an art history major.”

He reached over and moved her fingers up to his wrist. “Press down. Do you feel anything?”

For a moment she was still, her bangs swinging over her forehead. “No. Am I supposed to?”

“Becky—” He pulled his wrist back in frustration. There was nothing else for it. There was only one way. “Look at me,” he said, and when her eyes swung up to his face, he let his fangs snap out.

She screamed.

She screamed, and fell off the bench onto the hard-packed dirt and leaves. Several passersby looked at them curiously, but it was New York, and they didn’t stop or stare, just kept moving.

Simon felt wretched. This was what he’d wanted, but it was different actually looking at her crouching there, so pale that her freckles stood out like ink blots, her hand over her mouth. Just like it had been with his mother. He remembered telling Clary there was no worse feeling than not trusting the people you loved; he’d been wrong. Having the people you loved be afraid of you was worse. “Rebecca,” he said, and his voice broke. “Becky—”

She shook her head, her hand still over her mouth. She was sitting in the dirt, her scarf trailing in the leaves. Under other circumstances it might have been funny.

Simon got down off the bench and knelt down next to her. His fangs were gone, but she was looking at him as if they were still there. Very hesitantly he reached out and touched her on the shoulder. “Becks,” he said. “I would never hurt you. I would never hurt Mom, either. I just wanted to see you one last time to tell you I’m going away and you won’t need to see me again. I’ll leave you both alone. You can have Thanksgiving. I won’t show up. I won’t try to stay in touch. I won’t—”