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Chapter Text

The storm swept over Gotham as though it meant to wash away the city’s sins. But in a place like this, rain was never enough. Water hammered rusted rooftops, spilled through rat-ridden alleys, mingling with the grime and blood the city no longer bothered to hide. Beneath the gray curtain, faces blurred into shadows, hurrying for cover. Gotham was no place to linger; it was a living beast that devoured calm and fed on fear.

Among the faceless crowd, a lone figure pressed forward. Her trench coat clung to her thin frame, heavy with rain, her boots steady yet betraying the weariness in every step. Li Zhang kept her gaze lowered, but nothing escaped her notice: the sway of a drunk stumbling into the street, the quick fingers of a boy testing the pockets of strangers, the distant cry of a siren rising and falling like a lament. Every detail was filed away—threat or irrelevant.

She did not belong here. Her posture was too precise, too disciplined for an ordinary civilian. The way her shoulders stayed taut, as if braced around an invisible rifle, spoke of years of war. Even her silence carried a suppressed violence, something no downpour could wash away.

Hunger was her enemy now. She had survived for days on scraps—stale bread, spoiled fruit, the leavings of others. Her body ached for food, and that need was a cruel reminder: no matter how strong she had been in her own world, here she was no one—nameless, homeless. Her teeth clenched with anger. Hunger was worse than an adversary: it weakened, humiliated, forced her to ask when the last thing she wanted was to depend on anyone.

Crossing an avenue lit by flickering neon, she stopped at the sight of a news broadcast. On the screen, a man in blue and red lifted the ruins of a collapsed bridge while the crowd wept and cheered. Superman. The name had been whispered through the streets, and now it had a face. Li stared, unblinking. She could not understand. A being with such power—celebrated, adored? In her world, someone like that would have been branded an enemy, hunted, executed, or enslaved in the name of human fear.

The thought unsettled her more than she wished to admit. She pressed her lips together, turned away, and let the current of Gotham swallow her again.

The rain thickened as she neared the heart of Chinatown. The air shifted. Scents of fried noodles, spices, and hot tea drifted through the mist. Red lanterns swayed from rooftops, tinting the fog with warm glimmers. For a moment, the chaos of Gotham seemed far away. Li halted. The aromas pulled memories from deep within her: nights before the war, bustling markets where her mother tugged her through noisy crowds, laughter she had not heard in years. The memory was so sharp it hurt.

She walked on until a small shop caught her eye. A weathered wooden sign read Zhao House Behind a fogged window, an old man moved calmly, arranging dishes as though the world outside did not exist.

Li lingered in the rain, watching. She had not decided whether to approach when the man looked up and met her eyes. There was no surprise there, no distrust. He regarded her the way one recognizes a book already read, as if he knew exactly what lay behind her rigid stance and weary gaze. He stepped to the door, opened it, and the bell gave a soft chime.

“Come in,” he said in Mandarin, his voice slow and worn with years.

Li did not move. She trusted no strangers, least of all those who offered something for nothing.

“I don’t need help,” she said, her words as sharp as knives.

The old man tilted his head slightly, calm unbroken.

“Perhaps not. But you need to eat.”

Chapter Text

Three days had passed since Li had crossed the threshold of Mr. Zhao’s small restaurant.

Three days since she had accepted a cup of tea, a hot meal, and a bed untainted by ash.

Three days since she had begun to experience the strange sensation of standing still in a world that didn’t seem intent on devouring her at the slightest misstep.

The room Zhao had offered her upstairs was modest, but to Li it felt almost unreal. The walls were stained with damp patches, and the window barely shut, letting in Gotham’s humid night air with a low whistle that mingled with the distant roar of cars and sirens. To one side, a wooden bed creaked whenever she moved, covered in sheets clean yet roughened by years of use. To anyone else, it was hardly more than a forgotten corner. To her, it meant refuge. A place where she could close her eyes without the constant dread that someone might burst in to kill her. That feeling brought her both relief and distrust in equal measure—peace was something she had never known without paying a price.

Mornings always began the same way. Long before the sun could pierce through the gray clouds that seemed permanently fastened above Gotham, the sound of Zhao’s knives cutting through meat and vegetables filled the building. To Li, who slept in a state of constant alertness, that noise startled her awake with the same urgency as a bombardment or the heavy steps of an enemy squadron in her own universe. Yet what she found when she went downstairs was not war, but an old man with a wrinkled face already boiling water for tea.

He never greeted her with grand gestures. He simply poured a cup and set it before her, as though that routine had been carved into the world years before. Li accepted it without a word. She drank slowly, her fingers gripping the porcelain as though it were the only solid thing in a world still foreign to her. And Zhao, with his unshakable patience, began his day without demanding anything in return.

Working in the restaurant was a different trial altogether, and Li knew it. Her body was built to survive pressure, not to carry dishes between tables or smile at strangers. She moved trays with a harshness that made them clatter, sometimes set down cutlery with more force than necessary, and when a customer tried to spark small talk, she answered in a curt murmur—or not at all. She had no interest in learning the invisible rules of service. Her attention was always divided: one part of her scanning every corner of the establishment, reading the movements of each person, watching the shadows outside the windows; the other part just barely performing the minimum required to get food to the tables.

Even so, Zhao never scolded her. Not once did a word of reproach leave his lips. Instead, as he scrubbed utensils or stirred broth, he would begin to talk to her as though she were a lifelong neighbor. He reminisced about the days when Chinatown had been filled with young people laughing on the corners; spoke of the flavors his mother had taught him to cook; recounted small stories of his son, the one who had left the restaurant in search of a brighter future, and from whom little had been heard since.

Li listened in silence, her gaze fixed on the table she was cleaning or the plate in her hands. She did not interrupt, but neither did she stop him. At first, she suspected it was a ploy—that the old man meant to earn her trust so he could ask for something in return. In her world, kindness without cost was as rare as peace itself. But after three days of mundane anecdotes, she began to understand that Zhao simply had few people to talk to. His voice carried a loneliness so persistent that even she, who had taught herself to distrust everything, couldn’t bring herself to silence it.

The customers who stepped into the restaurant, few though they were, soon noticed Li. It wasn’t difficult—her demeanor set her apart instantly from any other waitress. Her steps were taut, almost military; her shoulders remained stiff, as though she expected an attack at any moment. The way her eyes swept the room bore no resemblance to someone concerned with orders. It was the gaze of a hunter—or perhaps of prey that refused to be caught.

And then there was the scar. A burn that began above her right eyelid and ran down across her cheek, etched into her skin like a living memory. Some customers turned their eyes away in discomfort; others could not help but stare, trapped by the mark that seemed to shout of fire and violence. Sometimes she heard whispers, murmurs half-concealed between spoonfuls of soup or mouthfuls of noodles. None dared to ask, but the glances were enough.

Li endured them with the same coldness with which she endured everything else. If she had learned anything, it was never to let scars become weaknesses. But inside, the attention grated on her. She had spent too long hiding to now be seen so easily. And yet what unsettled her most was not the stares, but what she observed in the world around her.

They weren’t soldiers or executioners. They weren’t hunters sent to drag her off to a camp. They were ordinary people, seeking a hot meal after a long day, speaking of family businesses, of money troubles, of trivial matters like the rain or the cold. No one seemed to thirst for another’s blood. No one feared that a single mistake might cost them their life. That normalcy, so alien to her own reality, disturbed her more deeply than any battlefield ever had.

Each night, when the restaurant closed, Zhao would extinguish the lights and climb the stairs to his own room, while Li returned to the small chamber that had been lent to her. She let herself collapse onto the bed still clothed, staring at the shadowed ceiling. The city’s silence seeped through the walls, broken only by the occasional siren far away. It was a silence too clean, too safe.

But within her mind, calm was never complete. When she closed her eyes, she still heard the voices of her pursuers, the metallic march of those who hunted metahumans, the screams of the condemned during the purges. The smell of ash and charred flesh clung to her memory like a second skin. Gotham, however tranquil it seemed by comparison, could not strip her of those invisible scars.

She told herself it was only temporary. That she was waiting for the right moment to find a path back to her world, back to the war she knew. That this routine of served dishes and trivial conversations could never last.

___

On the fourth day since Zhao had taken her in at his small restaurant, Li realized she had rested long enough. Four days—a luxury in her native world—would have meant the death of a comrade, the loss of a refuge, the opportunity for an enemy to erase what little remained of her people from the face of the earth. Here, however, those days had passed with an almost insulting cadence: the murmur of pots and pans in the kitchen, the clinking of dishes against the counter, the scent of fried rice filling the air, and Zhao, always with that serene patience that exasperated her.

But that morning, before the restaurant opened, Li said firmly:

“Today, I’m going out.”

Nothing more.

Zhao looked up, sipped his tea, and nodded slowly. Not a question. Not a “Where?” nor a “Why?” Li silently appreciated it, keeping the gratitude off her face. Gratitude was a luxury, like tenderness: two emotions she had learned to suppress among the ruins of her world.

She stepped into Gotham’s streets, the cold biting at her skin. The sky was a heavy blanket of clouds, and the city seemed to exhale a damp breath of sewers and rust. The pavement glistened under the recent drizzle, reflecting the flickering signs of bars and rundown shops. Gotham smelled of smoke, sweat, and despair. Yet it was not her world. Here, fear did not press like a blade against her throat. Danger was more abstract, a diffuse threat in the air, a shadow lurking in distant alleys.

Li walked as she had for years: every step calculated, every corner scouted, every unknown face a potential threat. She could not shake the habit; it would be like shedding her own skin. But unlike in her universe, no one sought to hunt her. No one called her name. That silence, the city’s apparent indifference toward her, unsettled her. Like a dream too fragile to endure.

The public library emerged like a relic from another century: a sturdy building, walls blackened by rain and time, columns evoking past grandeur. She stopped on the steps, staring at the heavy wooden doors. She inhaled deeply. Entering would mean exposure. Crowds, records, eyes. Yet she had no other choice. Zhao’s old computer was an electronic coffin that barely opened a browser. Here, she might find answers.

She pushed the door open and was greeted by the smell of dust and aging paper. The silence was almost religious, broken only by the rustle of pages and the murmur of fluorescent lamps. To her relief, few people were inside: a couple of students hunched over their notes, and an older woman lost in a cheap novel. Li’s heart, always quickened by habit, slowed its rhythm slightly.

She approached the counter and pressed the bell. The metallic sound echoed off the walls.

A figure approached: a red-haired woman with discreet glasses, seated in a wheelchair that moved with the same confidence as a soldier in formation. Her smile was warm, almost too warm. Her eyes, however, were surgical: precise, inquisitive, incapable of missing a detail.

“Welcome,” the woman said. “How can I help you?”

“I need a computer,” Li replied, her tone sharp, without preamble.

The librarian arched a brow, maintaining her courtesy.

“Do you have a library card?”

“No.”

“I could make you one, but I’d need to see an ID.”

Li’s stomach clenched, though her face remained unreadable. That word—ID—was poison. She could not afford to give anything, not in her world nor in this one.

“I lost it,” she said calmly. A brief lie, the safest of all.

The woman held her gaze for a few seconds, as if she wanted to see through her, then nodded softly.

“In that case, I can open a guest session for you. It will be temporary, but it should suffice.”

Li nodded faintly.

The woman turned her chair and guided her to the row of computers. The wheels squeaked lightly against the polished floor, marking a rhythm Li found irritating, like a drum in the midst of silence.

“If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call me,” she said when she left Li in front of a screen.

Li did not answer. She sat, waited until the woman moved away, and let out a barely audible sigh. That look… she had recognized it. Beneath the librarian’s feigned kindness, she was being analyzed. The same gaze of the soldiers who had hunted her in her universe, only masked with courtesy. A hunter in the guise of a host.

She powered on the computer and opened the browser in incognito mode.

First, her name: Li Zhang.

Results poured in: professionals, students, even artists sharing her name. None wanted. None hunted. None made a target. A common name, far too ordinary to draw attention. A relief.

Next: Metahumans.

Headlines, images, chronicles. Individuals with powers who had saved cities, hailed as symbols. The term “heroes” repeated in every article, in every photograph. Men and women in colorful suits, raising fists, as if humanity needed them to remember hope still existed.

Li frowned. “Heroes.” The word felt alien to her tongue, her skin, her memory. In her world, no one fought for glory. No one wore capes or banners. There was only resistance: the brutality of surviving another day, blood dried on lips, the certainty that tomorrow someone else would fall.

With a stab in her chest, she typed: Decree of the Clear Blood.

She waited. The screen’s blinking seemed eternal. And in the end, nothing. No reference. No document. No shadow of the decree that in her world had sealed the fate of her species.

Here, it did not exist.

Li froze, fingers tense over the keyboard. A chill ran down her spine. Not because she had failed, but because the absence of the decree was a revelation in itself: in this world, they had never been persecuted. Never hunted like animals. Never reduced to ashes in the name of purity.

A knot tightened in her throat. Anger burned her chest. Envy cut like a knife. And buried beneath it all, a dangerous spark glimmered: hope. A hope that terrified her, because it was false, cruel, and could shatter her. This world was what hers would never be, and she was trapped in the contrast.

She spent an hour devouring news, reports, archives. Each word was simultaneously a wound and a balm. Until she could bear no more. Her mind a minefield of contained emotions, she logged off, rose, and strode toward the exit, determined to shake off the invisible weight the library had placed upon her shoulders.

But before she crossed the threshold, the librarian appeared again. Her chair glided with contained elegance, as if floating rather than rolling. And her voice, soft yet firm, reached Li like an arrow:

“Come back soon.”

Li did not respond. Gotham’s cold air greeted her as she stepped outside, carrying a chill she could not shake. It was not the words that stung, but the woman’s eyes. A gaze that would not cease following her, even as she disappeared into the city’s wet streets.

---

Barbara Gordon knew how to read patterns. She had made it a way of life, both in the library and during the years when Gotham had been a jungle of shadows and capes. Gestures, voices, glances—everything revealed more than people believed.

So, when that young woman entered the library with measured steps and rigid shoulders, Barbara knew she was no ordinary person. Something about her screamed danger and fragility at once, like a rusted blade still capable of cutting.

The first thing that caught her attention was the scar. A brutal mark, burned into the skin around the right eye, darkened as if it had tried to consume the eyelid but stopped just short of total destruction. It was no domestic accident nor childish carelessness; Barbara had seen war wounds, and this was one. A scar speaking of fire, pain, and survival.

The second was the gaze. Or rather, its absence. The left eye, intact, moved with analytical speed, scanning entrances, exits, and angles. The right, framed by the burn, remained fixed, dead, as if the spark of life had been torn away with the flesh. It was not merely a mark: it testified to someone who had seen too much, leaving part of their soul behind in the process.

Barbara approached with her practiced kindness, that smile serving as both shield and key.

“Can I help you with something?”

The girl’s voice was sharp, dry as a gunshot:

“I need a computer.”

Nothing more. No hesitation, no courtesy.

Barbara feigned calm. She had learned to endure words as sharp as blades, yet inwardly she took note. The lack of adornment, the stiffness of gestures, the almost military tone—all details reinforcing the same truth: this young woman had lived under a different set of rules, far harsher than Gotham’s.

When asked for identification, the reply was a quick “I lost it,” sounding evasive. Barbara did not press; experience had taught her that sometimes it was better to leave the rope loose and see how far the other would go alone.

She guided her to the computers, watching her sink into the task with fevered intensity. Fingers struck keys urgently, eyes scanning the screen with ferocious focus. She sought not leisure nor distraction: she sought answers, certainties the world had likely never given her.

Barbara pretended to work elsewhere, but her attention never strayed. She noticed small changes: the tension in her shoulders when confronted with unexpected results, the short sigh when words on the screen hit her silently. That dead gaze hardened further, as if sinking into a void that followed her everywhere.

When the girl finally logged off and rose, Barbara rolled her chair gently toward the exit. She did not wish to stop her— not yet. She only wanted to leave a mark.

“Come back soon,” she said, letting the echo of her words linger in the air.

The girl did not answer. Only the faintest nod of her head before passing through the door.

Chapter Text

The night was shattered by the relentless echo of war. The sky, once blue, had become a canvas perpetually veiled in smoke, where sunlight filtered only as a sickly, orange glow that painted the ruins and corpses in hues of fire and blood. The Clear Blood Decree had changed everything: no city, village, or territory had escaped the bite of that proclamation. Humanity had decided that metahumans were a plague, and by granting that conviction legal weight, they had unleashed a hunt that swiftly became extermination.

Patrols marched through the streets with automatic weapons and dogs trained to detect even the slightest variation in a metahuman’s vital energy. The decree was more than a document; it was a death sentence written on every corner. Metahuman mothers were executed before their children, elders left to burn in public squares, children torn from their homes and branded as “potential threats.” It was a brutal landscape where the monstrous did not come from the supernatural, but from the blind conviction of a humanity that believed it had the right to erase another branch of its own species.

Amid that devastation, Li walked a step behind her master. Ektherion moved without hurry, as if the destruction of the world belonged to him. Tall, with straight shoulders and a bearing that radiated power, his mere silhouette silenced those who dared meet his gaze. He needed no weapon, no display of force; the dense, dangerous vibration of plasma that obeyed his will was enough to declare he was no ordinary man.

Li followed with controlled, tense steps. She did not obey out of blind submission, but because she knew opposing Ektherion would be as futile as trying to extinguish a volcano with bare hands. He had not only saved her at her darkest moment, he had shown her what survival meant in a world determined to erase her kind. And though his methods often wounded her, Li repeated to herself that following him was necessary—because there was no other choice.

Before them, on the floor of an abandoned factory, two humans knelt. A man and a woman, both torn by wounds, skin marked with cuts and bruises, trembled under the gaze of master and disciple. Their clothes were filthy, stained with dust and dried blood; their impotence was etched as much in their bodies as in their eyes.

The woman pressed her lips tight as if she wanted to plead, but the words found no strength. The man, however, held his head high, his expression oscillating between defiance and fear. Li knew that look all too well. It was the gaze of those who did not regret what they had done—only the fact of being caught. They shed no tears for their victims, nor for the blood on their hands, only for their own misfortune.

Ektherion stopped before them. His voice, deep and dry, reverberated against the crumbling walls.

“Burn them.”

He spoke the words as though ordering a lamp to be lit—with the same simplicity, the same absence of emotion. To Ektherion, those two lives meant nothing. To him, no human life was worth more than ash.

Li tensed. Her hands, clenched into fists, trembled slightly. The command seemed simple, but the weight of carrying it out crushed her inside. Part of her wanted to obey without thought, to unleash her flames and reduce them to dust. Another part wondered if by doing so, she would become the very monster she despised.

Her dark, hardened eyes fixed on the pair. The woman’s lips finally parted, but not to beg forgiveness—only to release a dry sob. The man glanced at her, reproach in his look, as if her weakness disgusted him. That confirmed it for Li: they felt no remorse for what they had done, only for failing.

Ektherion, always observant, noticed her hesitation. He stepped closer and laid his gloved hand on her shoulder. The touch conveyed more than warmth—it was pure energy, vibrating plasma coursing through his veins, threatening to consume her if she did not act.

“You hesitate?” he asked, with a trace of mockery.

Li clenched her teeth, unable to answer.

His hand slid from her shoulder to her face, stopping at the scar that crossed her left eye. The fingertip of the glove traced the marked skin, and phantom pain flared as if the wound had been freshly opened.

“Do you forget who did this?” he whispered, his voice a lash.

The scar burned in Li’s memory. That was no ordinary battle wound—it was the mark of betrayal. Not merely a reminder of physical agony, but of broken trust, of those who had tried to erase her from the world when she believed in them most.

The silence became unbearable. The woman on the ground lifted tear-filled eyes, begging without words. The man frowned, proud even in misery. Ektherion bent slightly, cruelly patient, like an executioner savoring the education of his apprentice.

“They breed like vermin,” he said, voice low but venomous. “And yet they believe themselves the dominant species. Let them live, and tomorrow they will burn others like you—men, women, children. If you don’t reduce them to ashes now, tomorrow they will mark another skin like yours.”

Something cracked inside Li. Her fingers literally burned. Energy gathered in her hands like embers, spreading through her veins. The scent of fire thickened the air, and the pair finally understood what was about to happen.

The woman’s scream was drowned by the roar of flames. The man tried to shield her, but the fire devoured them mercilessly. Flesh blackened, bones sizzled under the merciless heat. Li turned away for an instant, clinging to the justification she repeated in her mind: This is right.

Still, their screams pierced every corner of her conscience.

When silence returned at last, only ashes and two charred bodies remained. Ektherion regarded the scene impassively, as one might watch a bonfire consume itself. Then he turned to Li. His gaze was cold, though deep within it gleamed a flicker of satisfaction.

He knew his disciple still did not fully understand—that killing remained a burden for her. But he also knew that each time she did it, the weight became just a little lighter.

Li, however, turned her back on her crime. The stench of burnt flesh would haunt her forever, she knew, but she tried to bury it beneath a mantra: I am doing what is necessary.

---

Dawn in Gotham was different. Gray, yes, but not from war—only from pollution, from the routine of a city that never slept. Li woke in the bed that had once belonged to Zhao’s son, in a narrow, poorly ventilated room. Slowly she sat up, her body still carrying the weight of her nightmares. She sighed, dressed in simple dark clothes bought with the wages Zhao had given her days before, and descended the stairs.

The deep snore from Zhao’s room confirmed the old man still slept. Li locked herself in the bathroom, brushed her teeth, washed her face. In the mirror, her reflection stared back: dark, disheveled hair, dim eyes, and the scar carved across the left side of her face—unmistakable, impossible to hide. She ran her fingers over it. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever would.

A knock startled her.

“Everything alright in there?” Zhao asked, voice rough with sleep.

“Yes. I’ll be out in a minute,” Li answered curtly.

They opened the restaurant with the usual routine. Tables wiped clean, plates aligned, steam rising in the kitchen. Her role as waitress still felt uncomfortable. She did not smile, offer pleasantries, or feign warmth. And yet Zhao never reprimanded her. He let her be, as if he understood that every curt word, every cold gesture, was part of what she needed to remain standing.

That day, while serving a table, a boy of about five stared at her insistently. Not at her uniform, not at her movements—but at the scar on her eye.

“What happened to your eye?” the child asked suddenly, with the brutal candor of childhood.

His mother blanched.

“David!” she scolded, then looked at Li in embarrassment. “Please forgive him.”

Li stayed silent a moment. The boy now looked confused, ashamed of being scolded without understanding why. She held his gaze with a neutral look and finally spoke.

“I trusted the wrong people.”

The entire table went silent. No one understood what she meant, and Li offered no explanation.

“I recommend the tāngyuán for dessert,” she added after a moment, before turning away.

She chastised herself inwardly. She had spoken too much, revealed more than necessary. In this world, no one understood what scars meant. Here, it was strange not to have an unbroken face.

A commotion at the counter pulled her from her thoughts. Zhao stood there, tense, facing a burly man radiating arrogance. His clothes were flashy but cheap. A toothpick dangled from his mouth as he made demands in a low but firm voice.

Li approached without hesitation.

“Is there a problem?” she asked sharply.

The man arched a brow, laughing condescendingly.

“And who’s this?”

“My waitress,” Zhao cut in quickly, nervous. “Forgive her rudeness. She’s still learning how the business works.”

The man spat his toothpick onto the counter, leaving a smear of saliva. The gesture was vile, so disrespectful it ignited Li’s anger.

“Interesting.” The man leaned closer to Zhao. “So you’ve got money to pay employees, but not to pay rent.”

Zhao opened the register with trembling hands, ready to hand over everything inside. But before he could, Li slammed it shut with a metallic snap.

“In this business, only those who work here get paid,” she said, eyes locked on his. “If you want money, put on an apron.”

Silence thickened. The man raised a brow, more surprised than angry. Zhao gripped her arm, tense.

“Li,” he muttered, scolding, pulling her back.

But the man lifted a hand to stop him. His smile returned, sharper this time.

“Leave it, leave it… I’ll collect another time. Meanwhile, teach your waitress how Gotham works. Or someone else will have to.”

He left without another word.

Zhao collapsed into a chair, pressing a hand to his forehead. He sighed as though years had been torn from him.

“Do you know what you just did?” he reproached. “You picked a fight with very dangerous people.”

“As far as I know, you own this place,” Li retorted. “You don’t owe rent to anyone.”

“It’s not rent—it’s territory. It’s always been this way. They demand, and you pay if you want to keep breathing.” Zhao rubbed his forehead, exhausted.

Li studied him silently. Perhaps this dimension was not so different from her own, after all.

Zhao looked at her, weary.

“Most likely, next time they come, they’ll demand double. I’m sorry, but if that happens… I’ll have to take it out of your wages.”

She didn’t answer. Money mattered little to her. Zhao could take whatever he wished; as long as he didn’t throw her out, as long as he gave her a roof and food, it was enough.

But when her eyes fell on the toothpick abandoned on the counter, still wet with the man’s saliva, Li felt the burn spread through her hands. Never had she wanted so much to reduce someone to cinders.