Page 67 of Lethal in Pink

She knows I’m reading her, too. Her response has been to play harder, pushing tighter angles and taking riskier fights just to see if I can keep up.

I find it infuriating. I also find it—though I’d rather swallow glass than admit it out loud—absolutely fucking sexy.

We queue up for Battle Royale, dropping straight into the meat grinder of Fragment East on World’s Edge (60 PLAYERS REMAINING / 20 SQUADS). We clear two squads off the rooftops, pushing north as the automated system voice cuts through the comms: “Attention: Ring 2 closing in sixty seconds.”

We push into the final circle, but as the barrier forces us into the open, two converging squads pinch us from opposite angles. Heavy fire rains down from the ridge. I take out one, but her Horizon goes down under a barrage of grenades. Seconds later, my screen flashes blue: 2ND PLACE / SQUAD ELIMINATED. Neither of us mentions the loss.

We don't log off. The post-game lobby sits quietly on our screens. I lean back, the leather of my chair creaking in the dark. Outside, Seoul is completely quiet.

“You still there?” Amiyah asks. Her tone softens, the competitive edge melting into something warmer.

“Still here.”

A quiet hum lingers on her end—the faint clatter of a coffee mug, the soft click of her laptop keys. Early morning in Los Angeles. She’s probably sitting at her desk, hair pulled back in that messy knot she only lets me see on webcam, surrounded by early readings for the semester.

“What’s on your schedule today?” she asks.

“Family negotiations,” I say simply. “You?”

“Reading an eight-hundred-page property law brief before classes hit in three weeks. The usual law student prep.”

I smile into the dark room. “Sounds thrilling.”

“I live for the glamour.”

We talk for another hour—about case law, ridiculous campus posts, and the terrible artisanal coffee she bought that tastes like melted crayons. Her voice carries through the earpiece with a steady, quiet intimacy that shrinks the sixteen-hour time gap down to nothing.

“I should go,” she says softly. “Got two more chapters to outline before noon.”

“Go kick that outline’s ass, hotshot.”

“I always do, Jae. Try to keep up.”

“Unbelievable,” I murmur.

And then she laughs—that real, unguarded laugh that breaks through her reserve, warm and bright. It fills my headset, fills the quiet darkness of my room in Seoul, and lingers long after the line goes dead.

Chapter twenty-two

Amiyah

My feet hit the treadmill belt at a perfect 7.5, my legs pumping at a steady rhythm.

Interval training.

Four minutes at pace, one minute recovery. Rinse, repeat, don’t think.

The earbuds are playing something aggressively synthetic—a playlist I curated specifically to drown out the sound of my own thoughts, which is the entire point of running at 6:15 on a Tuesday morning when the rest of Los Angeles is still negotiating with its alarm clock.

Unit 1504 is quiet and soft-pink in the early light, exactly as I left it last night. A takeout container sits on the kitchen island, the lid askew, chopsticks poking out at an angle that suggests I was either very hungry or very tired when I put it down. Probably both. The floor-to-ceiling windows are still set to privacy mode, the glass frosted to a soft white that turns the early sunlight into something diffuse and manageable. Outside, the city is just beginning to wake up—distant traffic, the low hum of a garbage truck somewhere on the block below, the quiet stretch of a Tuesday before the real heat hits.

Pink sports bra. Pink leggings. The Nikes pounding the treadmill belt are a shade of blush the box called “millennial rose”, which I obviously bought under duress. My hair tie is currently digging into my scalp like it has a personal vendetta against my central nervous system.

I refuse to fix it.

The pain is data.

Data is valid.