Chapter 12: Lia
The record had cycled four more times. Lewis traced the line of Yeji’s jaw with his thumb, the skin smooth and cool now. They were a tangle of limbs under the red duvet, the room still heavy with sandalwood and sweat.
“Yeji,” he said, his voice quiet in the dimness. “You can be honest with me. I’m still gonna love you.”
She opened one eye, a sliver of focused dark. “What?”
He swallowed. “It’s pretty obvious. You’re the one who started that… hulk thing. Back at her place. And honestly?” He let out a shaky breath, his thumb still moving on her cheek. “I love you more for that.”
For a second, she didn’t move. Then a smile, genuine and wide, broke across her face. It wasn’t her predatory grin. It was something warmer, more satisfied. She surged up and kissed him, hard, a seal of approval. It tasted like victory and shared secrets.
The crash was apocalyptic.
The entire wall of windows facing the fire escape exploded inward. Not a break. A detonation. A storm of glass shards, big as dinner plates and tiny as needles, rained across the room. It sheeted over the bed, the record player, the carpet with a sound like frozen rain.
Lewis yelled, throwing his arms over his face. Yeji was just a blur of motion. One second she was in his arms, the next she was coiled in a crouch at the foot of the bed, naked and bristling. A low, guttural snarl ripped from her throat, completely alien. Her eyes scanned the swirling dust and glittering debris.
Lia emerged from the wreckage like a ghost forged in rage. She was still in the clothes from the raid—torn jeans, a filthy sweater. Her hair was wild, her lip split, one eye swollen nearly shut. But she moved with a terrifying, single-minded velocity.
She didn’t speak. She just launched herself across the fifteen feet of room.
Yeji met her in the air above the sofa. The impact was a meaty, sickening thud. They grappled, a whirlwind of snarls and tearing fabric, before momentum carried them sideways. Lia, leveraging a strength born of pure adrenaline and gamma-poisoned cells, twisted at the last second.
Yeji’s back hit the exposed brick wall beside the fireplace. Not a slap. A full-body impact. The bricks shuddered. Dust and ancient mortar pattered down. Yeji gasped, the wind knocked out of her, her form flickering—a flash of green, a ripple of expanding muscle—before she reined it in, slamming back to her normal self. She slid to the floor, dazed.
Lia landed in a fighter’s crouch, breathing hard. Her good eye was fixed on Lewis, who was scrambling off the bed, duvet wrapped around his waist. “You,” she spat, the word thick with blood and hurt.
“Lia, wait—” he started.
“Get the thing!” Yeji barked from the floor, her voice ragged but clear. She was clutching her side, but her gaze was locked on Lewis, drilling into him. “Under the bed. Now!”
Lewis didn’t hesitate. He dropped to his knees, the glass biting into them, and shoved his arm into the darkness beneath the bed frame. His fingers brushed against dust bunnies, a lost shoe, and then the cold, hard casing of a metal briefcase.
Lia took a step toward him. “What are you doing?”
He dragged it out. It was heavier than it looked, military-grade steel. He fumbled with the latches, his fingers slick with his own blood from the glass cuts.
“Lewis, don’t you dare!” Lia screamed, starting to run.
The latches sprang open. Inside, nestled in dense black foam, was a stainless steel injector gun, the kind used for livestock. It was loaded with a single glass cartridge filled with a viscous, mercury-colored fluid.
Lia was almost on him. He saw the betrayal in her eyes, the confusion turning to horror.
He grabbed the injector, yanked it free, and turned.
She was right there. He didn’t aim. He just lunged forward and jammed the nozzle against the side of her neck, right into the muscle beneath her jaw.
Her hand was already coming up to break his arm. He saw her fingers, tipped with that strange, crackling energy, inches from his wrist.
He pulled the trigger.
A hard, pneumatic hiss-whump.
Lia froze. Her eyes went wide, not with pain, but with sudden, profound internal shock. The crackling energy at her fingertips winked out like a severed circuit. She made a small, wet sound, like a gasp underwater, and took a stumbling step back.
The color drained from her skin, leaving it a sickly grey. She wobbled, her knees buckling. She didn’t fall dramatically. She just folded, slowly, sinking down onto the glass-littered carpet, sitting there like a discarded doll.
She lifted a hand, stared at it. Nothing happened. She clenched her fist. Nothing. The vibrant, dangerous power that had hummed under her skin since the accident was just… gone. A void. A hollowed-out silence in places that had screamed with energy.
She looked up at Lewis, her expression utterly blank. “What did you do?” she whispered.
The injector gun fell from Lewis’s hand, clattering on the floor. He stared at his own empty palms, then at Yeji, who was pushing herself up from the floor, a grimace of pain twisting her features into something triumphant.
The room was a war zone. Cold night air poured through the shattered window. Glass glittered everywhere, catching the weak light from the hall. The record player was dead, the needle dug into a ruined groove.
In the center of it all, Lia sat very still, exploring the new, terrible quiet inside her own body. The fight was gone. Not subdued. Extracted.
Yeji limped over to Lewis, leaning into him. She looked down at Lia, her head tilted. “See?” she said softly, to both of them. “Clean slate.”