Page 72 of Vying Girls

A couple of very ticked-off workers are doing their best to brush all the glass to one side. They don’t reprimand us, barelyeven look. I’m sure they’re used to rich kids wrecking things down here.

‘We need to get this glass out of you.’ Nic runs regretful eyes over my wounds. Not just regretful,devastated.

I take her hand, leading her away from the mess. ‘You too.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she breathes shakily.

I squeeze her fingers. ‘You didn’t mean it.’

Despite a couple of irate messages from Haz, and a concerned one from Elly, they’re still out when we arrive back at the lodge.

In silence, we head to the bathroom, the walk back having dampened my adrenaline. I feel every tiny cut now, itching and biting in equal measure. There’s glass even in my hair. I shake it out, watching it skitter over the tiles.

Nic points to the bath. ‘Sit.’

‘I think we should do you first. You’ve got more—’

‘Sit the fuck down.’

I collapse onto the rim of the bath, uninterested in fighting. Nic shuffles around in her shoes, something she wouldn’t normally allow, and picks out some cotton pads, tweezers and antiseptic.

‘Think most of it came off on the walk,’ she says, sitting down beside me.

‘Just these ones in my shoulders. Stinging to hell.’ I reach back to touch them, wincing as they pull.

She moves my hair away, combing it down my back. Grabbing an abandoned bobble from the sink, I tie it up.

‘Doesn’t look so bad,’ she murmurs, moving in with the tweezers. ‘Just a couple bits.’

I hold still as she removes the glass. She smells like outside. I probably do too. And there’s something else. Something chemical, like her body’s trying to purge that poison from her sweat.

‘That was fucking dumb,’ she mutters, self-deprecation colouring her tone.

‘Not your finest moment,’ I agree, ‘but also pretty epic, let’s be honest.’

Nic tuts. ‘Easily impressed.’

‘Are you going to be banned from the Vaults now?’

‘Kidding? Probably be hailed as a god.’

‘Not by those workers, hey?’

She grunts, clearly the least of her worries.

‘Gonna clean these now. It’ll sting.’

I shrug, that burn-y kind of anticipation heating my blood, similar to when I’m on the edge of cutting myself. I welcome the pain, each hit of it sloughing off just a little more of that pervading guilt. Like black, deadened skin. It’s potent tonight, in the wake of Nic’s garbled, drug-fuelled confessions.

She upends the antiseptic onto a cotton pad, the astringent reek twitching my nostrils. She doesn’t offer another warning before pressing it to the wound. My stomach tenses with the pain, my breathing stopping for the moment.

After the initial sting, it fades to more of a cosy burn, like that of a tattoo.

‘That’s kind of nice,’ I say dreamily.

‘Jesus,’ Nic scoffs. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

‘Funny question coming from you.’