Wake up to find Lina already awake and watching you.

Your eyes open to grey light and the smell of fresh coffee.

For a disorienting moment you don't know where you are. The ceiling is yours—the familiar water stain shaped like Tasmania, the hairline crack running toward the light fixture—but everything else is wrong. The sheets are stiff beneath you, dried to a faint crust. Your body aches in strange places: shoulders, lower back, the insides of your thighs. Your mouth tastes like copper and stale sleep.

Then you turn your head and find Lina sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed, watching you.

She's dressed. That's the first thing you register—she's wearing one of your old university t-shirts, the grey one with the faded campus crest, and a pair of your boxer shorts rolled at the waist. The shirt hangs loose on her smaller frame, the neckline slipping off one shoulder. Her dark hair is damp, combed back from her face, and she's holding a mug of coffee in both hands, steam curling between her fingers.

She looks rested. More than rested—she looks clear. The fevered, **** quality that clung to her yesterday is gone. Her brown eyes are steady, calm, focused in a way you haven't seen since you first met her chained in the back of that van.

"Morning," she says. Her voice is light, almost casual, but there's something underneath it—a current of quiet satisfaction, like a cat that's eaten something it shouldn't have.

"What time is it?" you manage, your voice a sandpaper rasp.

"Just after seven." She takes a sip of coffee. "You sleep like the dead, by the way. I could've driven a truck through this room."

You push yourself up on one elbow, blinking against the pale morning light filtering through the curtains. Your brain is sluggish, still booting up. The last thing you remember is lying down beside her at half past six—evening light, the smell of burnt garlic.

"Wait—seven in the morning? I slept through the night?"

"Twelve hours and change." She tilts her head, studying you over the rim of her mug. "You needed it."

"The meeting—Marco's meeting was at eight—"

"Relax." She holds up a hand, palm out. "It's handled."

You stare at her. She meets your gaze without flinching, and something in her expression shifts—not guilt, not triumph. Something quieter. Certainty.

"What do you mean, 'handled'?"

Lina sets her mug down on the nightstand, carefully, the ceramic clicking against the wood. She folds her hands in her lap.

"I woke up around four," she says. "Felt better than I've felt in months—head clear, body steady. The... side effects from the compound had settled down. And I realized I had a window." She pauses, choosing her next words. "So I went to Storage Unit Twelve. Northside Yards."

Your stomach drops. "You went alone."

"I always go alone, Sam. That's how this works." There's no venom in it—just fact. She picks at a thread on the boxer shorts she's borrowed. "There were six men stationed there. Armed. They had some kind of speaker setup, big ugly boxes on tripods. Didn't matter."

She says it the way someone might describe taking out the garbage.

"When I walked in, they opened fire. The usual routine—rifles, a shotgun, one of them had a grenade launcher." A faint, humorless smile. "The speakers hurt for about half a second. Then my body just... absorbed the frequency. Like your notes said—the compound made the diamond elastic. I could feel the vibration moving through me, and then it was nothing."

She looks at her hands, turning them over as if examining them for the first time.

"After that, I read them. Got the confirmation on Marco—he's definitely at the Greenhouse tonight, not last night. The eight PM meeting was postponed. His people are spooked. He pushed it to tonight." Her eyes come back to yours. "Then I destroyed the unit and came home. I've been sitting here since about five, drinking your terrible instant coffee and watching you drool on the pillow."

The information hits you in waves. She went out. She killed six men. She came back. She made coffee. She's been sitting on your bed for two hours watching you sleep, wearing your clothes, and she looks more at peace than you've ever seen her.

"You're telling me Marco's meeting is tonight? Not last night?"

"Tonight. Eight PM. Same place—Rooftop Greenhouse, 5th and Main." She reaches for her coffee again. "We have all day to get ready."

She takes a long sip, watching you over the rim with those brown eyes—Jane's eyes, but not Jane's expression. This expression belongs entirely to Lina: sharp, composed, and carrying the weight of six freshly dead men without a tremor.

"Also," she adds, "you're out of milk."