Perhaps because my mind had cleared, for the first time I could track his movements.
Left foot back, twist, and I dodged his fist!
No time to celebrate. I took a deep breath and swung for his ribs!
But his reaction was blindingly fast.
He dodged my punch again.
And the next time, and the next...
Meanwhile, his fists and kicks landed on me every time.
Time was draining away.
I could feel the pills losing their effect.
I was losing track of his movements again.
Perhaps because the medication had worn off. Because my eyes were swelling shut. Because the pain was catching up. Because a young woman fighting a man who lived by the blade would always face an insurmountable gulf...
Defeatism spread through me like poison.
I didn't know how long—five minutes, ten minutes.
I could only lean against the wall, barely alive.
Through bleary vision, I saw the burned man barely wounded, bending to pick up a cleaver from the floor.
Walking toward me.
And in this moment closest to death, I thought I heard a voice.
My father's voice.
20
"Sable, do you know? Sometimes, you don't need to keep forcing yourself to stay calm."
21
The burned man's blade came down again.
Whoosh!
My hair flew.
The cleaver struck the wooden plank beside my head, less than five centimeters from my skull, and embedded itself deep.
A breeze poured in through the gash.
The burned man staggered back, his face showing panic for the first time, then twisting into a snarl.
"Lucky shot. Next—"
Before he finished, I started laughing. A quiet chuckle that grew into a wild, echoing cackle that filled the bare concrete room.
I stood up, straightened my spine. Through the hair falling over my forehead, I locked eyes with him.
"Not luck."
"I let you miss."
22
I unleashed my manic self.
The self I'd suppressed for eight years.
A force that wasn't mine yet felt wholly familiar surged through every muscle in my body.
When I threw my next punch, I knew it would land.
It did. Then a second, then a third.
The burned man staggered back for the first time. I spun and grabbed a hammer from the wooden table.
But when I looked at him again, my vision plunged into blackness!
The burned man had killed the lights.
His voice echoed from every corner of the room.
"Ever heard of wild beasts? They have instincts."
"Dogs, cats, wolves, grizzly bears. Survive, hunt, eat people."
"Have you ever felt the rush of living by instinct alone? No, you haven't. Because you've never been burned like me!"
"I can see you, little girl."
In the darkness, I couldn't see him at all.
But every few seconds, some part of my body was sliced.
Shallow cuts that bled freely but wouldn't kill.
I knew he was toying with me. And I knew we were still far from the thirty-minute mark.
I started swinging wildly, a desperate madwoman making pointless gestures. All it earned was the burned man's laughter in the dark.
Eventually, all I could hear was the sound of my own blood dripping on the floor.
Everything was going hazy.
Until a sound cut through, halting his movement and snapping me back.
A siren.
A siren, ten minutes early.
23
"Look at me. People with depression gain more sensitive emotions. Where you suffer more, you grow stronger. So what about you?"
24
So—what about him?
When the siren wailed, the burned man pressed his blade against my throat and demanded to know if I'd called the police. I touched his skin.
Pocked and pitted. But thin, like a fragile membrane.
Why did he have the instincts of a beast? Why such fast reactions? How could he see me in the dark?
Every mystery crystallized the moment I felt that skin.
I stopped reaching for the hammer.
Instead, I blew gently.
Like a reflex, the burned man flinched away from me.
"Where you suffer most, there you're strongest."
"I know your secret," I said.
"It's the wind."
25
I finally understood. The burned man had no beastly instincts, no primal gift.
The very sensitivity he used to torment me was the scar he could never shed.
I remembered something I'd read.
There are people who are extraordinarily sensitive to wind.
Even the gentlest breeze is perceptible to them.
Usually, these are people who've suffered extensive burns. Due to lowered immunity, they develop cold-air allergies—or perhaps something else. Any contact with air causes an allergic reaction.
The burned man had weaponized years of suffering, turning it into ability.
He could track every movement I made by the disturbance of air I created.
In the darkness, after a brief silence, the burned man said only one thing: "No more games."
Then he charged.
I scrambled backward, but I knew the bigger my movements, the more precisely he could track me.
Until I was driven back against the window.
My back pressed against the boarded-up window. My flailing hand found the cleaver the burned man had embedded in the plank.
26
"Sable, don't be afraid. Go out and take a walk. The things you're most scared of aren't that scary."
27
In an instant, everything came flooding back.
The cargo area, the burned man wrapped head to toe.
The underground garage, the burned man's inexplicable coughing.
The cleaver stuck in the plank, letting in a breeze—and how the burned man had retreated.
Wind was his weapon—and his weakness!
I felt his blade swinging at me.
And I raised the hammer at almost the same instant.
A split second later, searing pain shot through my right side—I could tell he'd committed to the kill.
But I was smiling.
I said: Don't be afraid. Go out and take a walk.
And I brought the hammer crashing down on the boards over the window.
28
Wind poured in.
The bitter southern wind, sharp as a blade, howled through the room.
The burned man shrieked. From the sound of his footsteps, he'd bolted to another room.
I ignored him.
Blow by blow, I smashed the boards apart. Moonlight and gusts flooded in.
In the freezing wind, I whistled—feigning ease—and walked step by step toward the door.
I hit the lights and locked the door from the outside.
"Hey, little monster. Don't even think about running."
I called toward the bedroom.
Then I reconsidered, unlocked the door, and threw it wide open.
The cross-draft grew even fiercer.
I murmured: That's better.
You can't escape.
29
A wall of wind swept through the living room, whipping my black hair in every direction.
I spat a strand out of my mouth and listened to the agonized howling from the bedroom.
Until the cold air carried the sound of approaching sirens.
I walked into the bedroom.
There, the burned man was huddled in the corner, his body covered in red hives. Patches of skin had turned black. Everywhere his hands could reach, he'd scratched himself bloody.
I walked past him without a glance.
Blow by blow, I smashed the boards on the bedroom windows too.
Finally, I used the tip of the blade to lift the blanket off the burned man's body.
"I've got you."
30
The burned man looked up at me, his eyes full of terror.
He rasped: "Let me go. I beg you. I'll turn myself in."
I shook my head.
His voice cracked with disbelief: "You... you'll be sentenced to death!"
I kept shaking my head.
"It doesn't matter. Self-defense, premeditated murder—neither matters."
"Think about that man. The one you ran over."
"He was my father."
"I swore an oath. I'd make you understand that not turning yourselves in was the biggest mistake of your lives."
The burned man's eyes clouded with confusion.
"That man...?"
Gradually, a complex expression crossed his scarred face.
"I get it. I get it... The guy who came to buy dogs, right?"
The realization struck me like lightning, and in a daze, I understood.
I ground my teeth and pressed harder.
"Why was he buying dogs?"
"He said..." The burned man thought back, then anger twisted his features. "Damn it! Why else?! To get a dog for his daughter!"
My heart sank, and hot tears threatened to spill.
I fought the burning in my eyes, slapped him hard, and said through clenched teeth: "Explain clearly. Why was he buying a dog?"
The burned man's face flickered between humiliation and desperation.
"To protect his kid! Why else!"
31
Time rewound to that night.
"Dad, if you didn't have to protect a crazy daughter like me, wouldn't you... have a better life?"