Agree to take Lina to your apartment, leaving campus immediately.

"Let's go to my place," I say, already moving to grab my backpack. "It's about twenty minutes by bus if we cut through the south exit. Marco's people don't know where I live—Viktor never bothered to check."

Lina nods, pulling the lab coat tighter around herself. "Lead the way."

We slip out of the laboratory through the service corridor, avoiding the main hallways. The campus is mostly deserted during break week, and the few students we pass barely glance at us—just a shirtless guy and a girl in a lab coat, presumably some kind of science experiment gone wrong. Lina keeps her head down, dark hair falling across her face.

The bus ride is uneventful. Lina sits close to me, her bare knee pressing against my leg through the lab coat. She doesn't speak, but I catch her eyes scanning the other passengers with that focused look I've come to recognize as her telepathic sweep. After a moment she gives me a barely perceptible nod. All clear.

By the time we reach my apartment building—a modest third-floor walkup on Elm Street—the afternoon sun has begun its descent, casting long amber shadows through the stairwell windows. I unlock the door and usher her inside.

The apartment is small but clean. A leather sofa faces a wall-mounted TV in the living room, with an open kitchen separated by a breakfast bar. Down the short hallway, a bedroom and bathroom. Books and engineering journals are stacked on every available surface. A framed photo of Jane sits on the bookshelf—something Lina notices immediately, her breath catching.

She picks it up, studying her twin's face with an expression that's impossible to read. Then she sets it down gently, without comment.

"Let me find you something more comfortable to wear," I say, heading toward the bedroom. I return with a pair of sweatpants and an old university t-shirt. "These'll be big on you, but—"

"No thanks," Lina says, already shrugging off the lab coat and draping it over the back of a kitchen chair. She begins unbuttoning my shirt—my shirt that she's wearing—with deliberate fingers.

"Lina—"

"Don't," she says quietly, not looking at me. The shirt falls open, revealing the pale curve of her breasts, her flat stomach, the dark triangle of shadow at the junction of her thighs. She slides it off her shoulders and folds it neatly on top of the lab coat. She stands before me completely naked, unselfconscious, her skin luminous in the fading afternoon light.

"Being naked feels more comfortable right now," she says, as if explaining something obvious. "Ever since the compound, fabric feels... abrasive. Like every nerve ending is turned up to eleven." She runs her palm along her own forearm, and I watch goosebumps bloom in the wake of her touch. "This is better."

She turns and walks to the leather sofa, sinking into it with a sigh that's almost a moan. Her bare back presses against the cool leather and her eyes close momentarily. The sight of her—Jane's face, Jane's body, yet so distinctly not Jane in the way she carries herself, the way she inhabits her own skin—makes something twist deep in my chest.

"Let me cook something," I say, turning toward the kitchen before the moment can become something I'm not ready for. "You need to eat before tonight. Real food, not adrenaline."

"Domestic," she murmurs from the couch, a hint of amusement in her voice. "Jane never mentioned you cook."

"Jane never saw this apartment," I reply, pulling a pan from the cabinet. "We always met at coffee shops and the library. Keeping things quiet."

I find chicken breasts in the fridge, some garlic, olive oil. The rhythmic sound of chopping fills the apartment as I work, grounding me in something mundane and controllable.

"Sam." Her voice reaches me from the living room, quiet but charged. "If I asked you for something... would you give it to me?"

I pause mid-chop, the knife hovering over a clove of garlic. "Depends on what it is," I say carefully.

"That's not a yes."

I set the knife down and turn to look at her. She's watching me over the back of the sofa, her chin resting on her folded arms, dark eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that makes my mouth go dry. Her bare shoulders are visible, the swell of her breasts just hidden by the sofa back.

"Yeah," I hear myself say. "If you asked me for something, I'd give it to you."

A beat of silence. The garlic sizzles forgotten on the cutting board.

"I need sexual pleasure," Lina says. The words come out steady, measured, but I can see the faint tremor in her jaw, the flush creeping up her neck. "The compound has done something to my body. Every sensation is magnified. Every time I use my powers, it's like... foreplay that never resolves. I've been vibrating since this morning and I can't make it stop."

She swallows, her throat working visibly. "I've never been with anyone, Sam. I was always too focused on finding Jane's killer. And now..." She trails off, then lifts her chin with something like defiance. "Give me pleasure tonight. Take my virginity."

The words hang between us like a held breath. The apartment is silent except for the soft hiss of oil heating in the pan behind me.