The midday sun was soft through the curtains, and Kin was in no hurry to leave the warmth of the bed.
Lina lay beside him, her head on his chest, one leg tangled between his. Her skin was smooth, unmarked, her face free of any bruises or swelling. She had slept well, and it showed in the peaceful curve of her lips.
His fingers traced lazy circles on her bare shoulder, and she hummed contentedly against his skin.
"We should do this more often," she murmured.
"Do what? Lie in bed until noon?"
"No." She lifted her head and looked at him with sleepy, half-lidded eyes. "Almost have sex. Then stop. Then talk about almost having sex. Then almost have sex again."
"That's very specific."
"I'm a very specific woman."
He laughed, and she smiled—that real smile, the one she hid from everyone else. She reached up and touched his face, her thumb brushing his lower lip.
"You know," she said, "we never actually finished what we started this morning."
"We got interrupted by breakfast and you had bloody laundry to do."
"Breakfast is not here to stop us now , is it?"
She leaned in to kiss him. He met her halfway when the phone on the nightstand shattered the silence with a shrill, insistent ring.
Lina groaned and dropped her forehead to his chest. "Ignore it."
"It's your phone."
"I know. Ignore it."
The phone kept ringing.
She sighed, rolled over, and grabbed it. The screen glowed with her friend's name. She answered with a grumpy, "This better be important."
Then her expression changed.
She sat up straight, the blanket falling away from her shoulders. Her eyes went wide, then hard. Her jaw tightened.
"Where?" she said. "How many? Is he hurt already?"
Kin watched her dress with her free hand, pulling on jeans, a shirt, boots, all while listening to the voice on the other end.
"A group of six boys," she repeated, her voice flat. "Framed my cousin for rape. They're about to beat him to death."
She listened for a moment longer, then said, "I don't care what his name was. I'm on my way."
She hung up and grabbed her jacket.
Kin was already sitting up. "I'm coming with you."
"No." She pulled her hair into a ponytail, quick and tight. "There's no need. I can solve this."
"Lina, if they're beating him—"
"I said I can solve it." She turned to look at him, and her voice softened just enough. "There's food on the stove. You can warm it a bit when you're hungry. Just don't burn it."
"Lina—"
She was already out the door.
He heard her footsteps on the stairs, then the growl of the SUV starting, then the screech of tires pulling away.
Kin sat in the empty bedroom, the blanket still warm from her body, and stared at the door.
***
The university was chaos when Lina arrived.
A crowd had gathered on the lawn outside the humanities building—students, mostly, but also a few professors pretending not to see. In the center of the crowd, a circle of boys stood over a figure on the ground. Her cousin. Tendai.
She pushed through the onlookers, ignoring the protests. "That's my cousin! Move!"
The circle was made up of about six boys at first, but more had joined in. She counted maybe ten or eleven now, some in student uniforms, others in street clothes. Their faces were hard. Their knuckles were bloody.
Tendai was on his knees. His lip was split. His left eye was swollen shut. His shirt had been torn open, and his ribs were a dark patchwork of bruises. He was trembling, barely conscious, but still breathing.
The girl stood at the edge of the circle, arms crossed, a small smile playing on her lips. Her sweater was torn at the collar—artfully and deliberately.
Lina stepped between the boys and her cousin. "Everyone stop. I'm his cousin. I'm here to take him—"
"This doesn't concern you," one of the boys said. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with flat eyes , he did not look luke a student in any way, he wasn't even trying to look like one, he wasn't . "Your cousin is a rapist. We're delivering justice."
"He's not a rapist. You haven't seen any evidence."
"The girl identified him. That's enough."
Lina pointed at the girl. "She's lying. Look at her. She's enjoying this."
The girl's smile flickered, but she didn't deny it.
The tall boy stepped closer. "Get out of the way, or you'll get what he's getting."
"I'm not moving." Lina turned to the crowd. "Someone call the police. Someone call security. This is a mob beating and you are thugs, not the university fraternity!"
No one moved.
One of the younger boys pulled out his phone. One of the thugs grabbed it from his hand and flung it into the air. It spun once, twice, then crashed onto the concrete and shattered.
The young boy backed away, hands raised.
The tall boy turned back to Lina. "Last warning."
She didn't move.
He shrugged, then kicked Tendai in the stomach.
Her cousin doubled over, groaning, and collapsed onto his side. The crowd murmured. Some looked away.
Lina dropped to her knees beside Tendai. His good eye opened. When he saw her, something in his face crumbled.
"Sisi," he whispered. His voice was wrecked, raw from screaming. "They've been beating me all morning. Now it's round two."
"I know. I'm here."
"I'm innocent." A tear cut through the blood on his cheek. "I never touched her. I don't even know her name. But they won't listen. They won't stop."
"We'll make them stop."
"They won't." His hand found hers, trembling. "They're not even students , and they are going to kill me here. You should leave. Thank you for coming, but please—go. Before they hurt you too."
Lina looked at the circle of boys. At the grinning girl. At the crowd that watched and did nothing.
"I will not leave," she said. "And I will protect you."
She stood up and positioned herself over her cousin's body, arms spread wide, covering him with her own flesh.
"If you want to hit him," she said, her voice steady, "you'll have to kill me first."
The tall boy laughed. "Gladly."
The first blow came from the side—a fist to her shoulder that sent a shock of pain down her arm. She didn't move. The second blow hit her ribs. The third, her back. Each strike was meant to break, meant to hurt, meant to make her curl up and crawl away.
Lina held on.
Her friend from the phone call—the woman who had warned her—tried to push through the crowd to help. A boy grabbed her arm and shoved her back. She stumbled and fell. Another thug picked up the friend's phone from the ground and threw it into the air. It landed on the concrete and shattered into pieces.
The friend crawled backward, helpless.
The beating continued. A fist caught Lina in the side of the head. Her vision blurred. Something warm trickled from her nose—blood, dripping onto Tendai's shoulder. Her ears rang. The world tilted.
Another blow to her head. And another. She felt her knees buckle, but she forced herself to stay upright.
Then the tall boy sprang into the air, his body twisting as he raised his foot to deliver a flying kick aimed directly at her skull. At the same moment, another thug—a stocky man with a scar across his jaw—lunged forward to drive his fist into her ribs from the side.
Before either blow could land, something flashed in the sunlight. Twice.
The tall boy's leg separated just below the knee. The stocky man's arm came off just above the elbow. Not broke. Not snapped. Severed, clean as a butcher's cut. The lower half of the leg fell to the grass, still in its shoe. The arm thudded onto the ground, fingers still twitching. Both men toppled backward, screaming, clutching their stumps as blood sprayed across the lawn.
Everyone moved back at once.
The crowd scattered, screaming, running in every direction. The girl in the torn sweater stumbled and fell, scrambling backward on her hands. Students who had been filming dropped their phones and fled.
Then, from the pockets of the remaining thugs, guns emerged.
Three of them. Black. Sleek. Raised and aimed at the figure standing in the sunlight. The crowd's retreat turned into a full sprint. Professors dove behind benches. The lawn emptied in seconds, leaving only Lina, Tendai, Kin, the two men screaming on the ground, the three thugs with their guns drawn, and the girl.
She was frozen, her back against a tree, her chest heaving, tears streaming down her face. She looked like she wanted to run, but her legs would not obey. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
The thugs formed a loose semicircle around Kin, their weapons steady, their faces hard. The tall boy's screams had dropped to wet, ragged moans. The stocky man had gone silent, his eyes wide with shock.
Kin stood in the center of it all, barefoot, katana dripping, his grey sweatpants and wrinkled shirt still rumpled from bed. The sun blazed behind him, casting his face in shadow.
He did not move.
The thugs did not fire.
The girl did not breathe.
And the screaming of the wounded men filled the air.