The Wind City Read Free

concern.
    “Shut up,” Saint snapped at him. “… By which I mean sorry, yeah, I’m fine, sorry. Sorry, mate,” he said again, to his phone this time. He wondered if Steff had heard him yell. Probably.
    “Yes, you said. What’s wrong?”
    “Just… ” Buses. And that really shouldn’t have been terrifying, buses were the least terrifying thing in the world, but… “I just remembered my nightmare, that’s all.” His hands were shaking, a little.
    “You had a nightmare?”
    “Obviously!” He winced at how that came out, which must have been a lot more angrily and a lot less laconically than he meant it to, because Steff went all quiet. The Flatmate lumbered back into the lounge. Saint gripped the counter harder and took calming breaths. “Yeahhhh, suppose I owe you an explanation after that lack of composure there.”
    “Mmmm,” Steff said. “Yes, quite. You very nearly showed signs of actual emotions. For shame. Do better next time.”
    “There wasn’t a girl, this morning.”
    “What? But… ” It was weird how Steff could still sound so lost sometimes, even all grown up and clever and insufferable. “But you said there was.”
    “Well, you can’t rely on what I say, pet, I’m as shifty as a Shift key that’s decided on a life of crime. There was a girl and she – she was beautiful but beautiful in… ” How to describe it? “In strange ways.”
    A pause. “Eh?”
    “It was… There was something about the way she stood – I mean, sat, mainly. Uh, we were on a bus… ” The girl sitting across the aisle from him like she belonged there, staring at him with her wide dark eyes like pools of night and – gods, that was the most overdramatic description in the world but it fit , that was the problem. She’d been all sharp-angled, too much so, all the over-exaggerated beauty of a supermodel but taken even further, past the point of still looking human. Still far too captivating, all the same. He searched for words. “It was a dream, okay? You know how things work in dreams. She was just wrong .”
    “Okay, following so far. Wrong naked girl.”
    Saint grinned. “In any other context a rather pleasant-sounding scenario,” he said. “She was… she had all this long white hair, and that was fine, but then I looked into her eyes and they had black in them.”
    The Flatmate made a surprised little grunting sound. Saint ignored him. From Steff there was nothing but a confused pause, and then, “Most people’s eyes have –”
    “Solid black. Black all the way through. No pupil, no… iris? No iris, really. No colour at all, just this black blankness.” He half-hugged himself, absentmindedly, wrapping his arm around his chest. “It was terrifying.”
    “Okay,” Steff said, and then, after a pause, “Sorry? I mean, it sounds like it was… unpleasant?”
    “ Yes ,” Saint snapped. His friend was talking warily, like he wasn’t quite sure yet whether this was some odd joke that Saint was pulling. Which – fair enough, but. “She wasn’t human , see. Forgive me if I find that a little off-putting.”
    “Are you okay?”
    Saint forced himself to relax out of the rigid curl he’d tensed into, straightening his hunched shoulders, letting go of the counter. His nails had dug little gouges into the wood. “Naturally I am,” he said easily, “I’m lovably fearless. What the hell’s so important about this sudden urge for socialising, anyway? You could’ve just texted me, you know. That tends to cut down on unnecessary waking-me-up-unhealthily-early, which has been scientifically proven to cut down on grumpyface Saint. Then everyone can go on with their everyday lives of frolicking with kittens, unconcerned, little knowing the catastrophe they so narrowly avoided.”
    “Four in the afternoon,” Steff said stiffly. “That does not count as early to any reasonable person. What the hell have you been doing ? Living it up, yes, message received on that front, but. Jesus. At least