Savages

36: So Close

The train pulled into Birchwood station at 10:36pm, and Sannah climbed off. It was still so bright in the city, the night nothing more than murky shadows compared to Hirta's black ink. The crowds, the noise, the smells... it was surreal. None of it was real.

She'd eaten three chocolate bars on the train, unable to resist, even though she knew she shouldn't have spent the money.

Then she'd brushed her hair and her teeth in the poky little train toilet. She tried to make herself as presentable as possible in the scratched mirror, even lining her eyes with dark kohl. Her clothes looked terrible, so worn and dirty after months in the mud of the island, like she was homeless. The hair on her armpits and legs was as long and thick as a dog's fur.

Sannah wondered if she should go to Faro and Dierdra's before trying to see Saint. At least she could shower and shave then, perhaps borrow some city-suitable clothes from Dierdra.

But no.

If she went, she wouldn't be able to leave, not tonight anyway. And she'd waited long enough. She couldn't bear to wait any longer.

Not now.

Not when she was so close.

It didn't matter if she was grubby, her legs unshaved. That stuff wasn't important. She just had to see him.

Sannah pulled her rucksack off the train and headed for the bus. The lights and noise and bustle around her was overbearing, everything so loud and fast.

It was eerie how familiar everything was. So much the same. The lines of the train station, the bus stop in the same old spot it was before. How had life just gone on so uneventfully for everyone else, when the universe had been turned inside out for her?

It was like she'd never left. Like the city, unfeeling, never missed her at all.

Sannah paid her fare and sat in the front seat of the bus, automatically avoiding the top deck. She watched the streets flow by, the people and shops and smog and traffic. It was cold and dull outside—though nowhere near as cold as the island—and pedestrians' faces were sunk into jackets as they stepped over gas-slick puddles, eyes fixed straight ahead.

Sannah's heart buzzed like a generator.

So close.

She felt a twinge of guilt as the bus passed through Faro and Dierdra's neighbourhood, her finger itching to press the bell.

Maybe she should stop. She should, really. She could work tonight at the Metropol, make some money, send it back to Gaen and Deera. Wasn't that the plan?

Yes it was, but the plan could wait, for one night anyway. The Metropol would still be there tomorrow. And this was important too, wasn't it? To find out if they could shift the chang, if there was somebody willing to buy.

Yeah, right.

Sannah knew that wasn't why she was going.

The bus turned onto a familiar road and electricity tingled along the nape of her neck, fizzling around her hairline.

Sannah stood up and pressed the bell.