Read Online Savage City by Sophia McDougall - Free Book Online Page A

her, as the whole room rolled indistinctly, as if at sea.
    ‘Don’t,’ she gasped pre-emptively, lurching away from him, out of the room.
    Sulien went after her as far as the short flight of stairs up to the two bedrooms, moving carefully, placing his feet as quietly as he could. He sat there, a few steps down from the landing, his forehead pressed into his hands, hoping he wasn’t waiting for anything. He could hear her moving about restlessly. He flinched at the noises – the thud of something hitting the wall or floor, and at the dreadful sobbing, like a long, hitching attempt at a scream without enough breath for it – but forced himself to remain still, letting it go on and on. After some minutes he closed his eyes and made his thoughts diffuse, monitoring Una’s cries on the edge of his attention, falling into the forgiving blankness at the centre.
    There was a shriek, and the sound of glass breaking. Sulien sprang up the remaining steps, through the door and into the middle of the dark bedroom in a few strides, overcharged with fear and readiness.
    A cool gust of fresh, damp air flowed across the room. Una, silent now, was standing by the window and surveying the damage with a taken-aback, interested look on her face. Her arms were gloved to the elbow in blood, fins of glass standing out of the flesh. Her scarlet fists were still clenched. She turned a look of slightly embarrassed surprise at Sulien and raised one shoulder in a tiny, nonplussed shrug.
    ‘Oh . . .
Fuck
, Una,’ breathed Sulien, running his hands over his face.
    ‘It’s all right,’ said Una knowledgeably, calmly, stuttering a little. And yet again when Sulien approached, she drew back.
    ‘Are you going to walk around with glass in your arms for the rest of your life?’ asked Sulien, hearing a shrill tremor of hysteria in his own voice.
    Una found it remarkable that she could have acted so violently without any awareness of what she was doing until it was over. The pain was far more intense than she would have expected, and fascinating, a glittering red lattice she could almost see in the air around her.
    She backed a few unsteady steps away from Sulien and explained reasonably, ‘Let me have some water and towels and I can do it myself.’ She looked down and plucked curiously at a quill of glass lodged in her wrist. It snagged on the underside of the skin.
    ‘Stop it! Gods, stop it!’ shouted Sulien, terrified, hideously aware of how close the sharp edge was to the artery, and rushed forward, closing the gap between them whether she liked it or not. He grabbed her hands and forced them to her sides.
    Una’s detachment winked out in an instant; she let out a cry of rage and struggled savagely, weeping, elbowing him and twisting until he felt her blood running over his hands and let go, afraid of doing worse harm by holding on.
    Released, Una’s hands flew up and struck at him wildly before she limped away to huddle against the wall, panting.
    ‘What are you doing, Una?’ said Sulien helplessly. He felt tears starting again, and pleaded, ‘I got there as fast as I could – you know that, don’t you? If there was anything I could have done, I— You
can’t
blame me; it’s not fair.’
    Una gave a scoffing, worn-out laugh, her face still curtained off within her blood-tipped hair. ‘I know. I don’t. For God’s sake.’
    It was strange that somewhere far off he could feel so much relief at that, while he was still so unnerved and frantic. Voicing the idea of his own guilt, even to deny it, had somehow given it form and weight. ‘Then come on, come here—’
    But she didn’t move except to turn her head against the wall and moan, ‘Can’t you let me have a second by myself?’
    ‘Like this? Of course I can’t,’ said Sulien. ‘What have I done? Why are you so angry with me?’
    Una looked up sharply, the motion like the snarl of something baited and attacked. ‘Because I can’t
leave
you here, can I?’
    For a second