Ling takes the call on the far edge of the camp.
Away from the fire.
Away from voices.
Away from anything that might witness the slightest fracture in her composure.
"Mom" glows on the screen.
Ling answers on the second ring.
"Yes, Mother."
No softness. No hesitation. Perfect control.
"You were alone with her again," Eliza says. Not a question.
Ling's jaw tightens imperceptibly. "Mira exaggerates."
Silence.
The kind Eliza uses like a blade, letting it hover just long enough to make the other person speak first.
"There was nothing inappropriate," Ling continues evenly. "She was injured. I handled it."
"You warmed her piercing with your mouth, right?" Eliza replies calmly.
The words land clean. Surgical.
Ling's fingers curl slowly around the phone.
"That's not..."
"...medical," Eliza finishes for her. "Don't insult me by pretending otherwise."
Ling exhales through her nose. "You're listening to Mira."
"I'm listening to what my eyes have been trained to see for decades," Eliza says. "And I see fixation. I see you. I know you."
Ling straightens, spine stiff, pride bristling. "You see what you want to see."
"I see what you refused to," Eliza snaps, the first crack in her voice. "And I will not let you make this mistake."
"I didn't do anything wrong," Ling says coldly.
"No," Eliza agrees. "You did worse. Mira loved foolishly. You don't even admit you're falling."
Ling says nothing.
That silence tells Eliza everything.
"You think you're in control," Eliza continues. "You think because you haven't touched her the way you want to, because you haven't said the word, that you're losing control."
Ling's grip tightens until the phone digs into her palm.
"You don't know what I want," Ling says.
Eliza's voice lowers. "I know exactly what you want. That girl doesn't bow to you. She doesn't fear you. And worst of all, she bleeds and you kneel."
Ling's breath stills.
"She is not your equal," Eliza says sharply. "And she will destroy you if you let her."
Ling's voice is clipped now. Defensive. Controlled. Dangerous.
"She's nothing."
Eliza laughs softly. Bitter. "That's what scares me."
A pause.
Then, firm. Absolute.
"Stay away from Rhea Noir."
Ling's lips press into a thin line.
"This is not a request," Eliza adds. "This is a warning."
"I don't take warnings," Ling replies.
Eliza doesn't raise her voice.
"Mira has been part of your life since childhood," Eliza continues. "She understands you. She fits. She doesn't challenge your authority at every turn."
Ling says nothing.
"And this girl," Eliza adds, almost dismissively, "does nothing but provoke you. Publicly. Repeatedly."
"She doesn't matter," Ling replies quickly.
Eliza's tone shifts, just slightly. "Then you should have no trouble proving it."
Ling's breath stills.
"I won't have my daughter distracted," Eliza says. "You've worked too hard to let some defiant fresher pull you off course."
Ling's pride flares. "I'm not off course."
"Yet you're talking to me from a campsite instead of resting," Eliza replies. "Because Mira cried. Because you're defensive. Because this conversation exists."
"Stay in control," Eliza says at last. Not unkind. Not cruel. Just firm. "That is all I ask of you."
Ling's voice hardens. "I am in control."
"You will this time," Eliza says. "Because if you don't, I will intervene. And I promise you, she will be the one who pays for it."
That does it.
Something dark stirs under Ling's ribs, not fear.
Possession.
"You won't touch her," Ling says quietly.
Eliza smiles on the other end. Ling can hear it.
"Then don't give me a reason to."
"Distance yourself. End this before it becomes something I need to interfere in."
Ling's jaw locks.
"I won't hurt Mira," Ling says.
"That's not what I'm worried about," Eliza answers. "I'm worried about you."
The call ends.
Ling lowers the phone slowly.
Around her, the camp is alive, laughter, firelight, careless youth.
Inside her, something ancient and violent shifts.
Ling stayed where she was, near the bikes, arms crossed, posture relaxed enough to convince anyone watching that she was exactly where she wanted to be.
People notice.
They always do.
Someone laughs too loudly near the fire. Ling's gaze flicks there once, flat, dismissive, and the sound dies instantly. Authority restored. Control intact.
Inside, it's a different story.
Her thoughts circle one place like a wound she refuses to touch.
Rhea.
Her silence.
Ling hates that silence more than Rhea's insults. At least the insults look at her directly.
She tells herself this is discipline. Distance. Strategy.
My mother is right, she thinks, immediately rejecting the thought with quiet violence.
No. I am right.
Her fingers flex, remembering warmth they shouldn't remember. A waist that fit too easily under her palm. A breath that hitched because Ling was close, not because she ordered it to.
Ling's jaw tightens.
She schools her expression again. Cold. Untouched. Untethered.
When Rina passes by and pauses, eyebrow raised in question, Ling doesn't look at her.
"I'm busy," Ling says before Rina can speak.
Rina watches her for a second longer than necessary, then smirks faintly and walks away.
Ling exhales only when she's alone again.
Control, she reminds herself.
And yet,
She angles herself deliberately so she won't see Rhea's tent.
Because if she looks, she knows exactly what will happen.
Mira sits near the fire, wrapped in her jacket, hands clasped loosely in her lap.
From the outside, she looks calm. Thoughtful. Almost serene.
Inside, she is glowing.
Ling didn't go back to Rhea.
Ling answered her mother's call.
Ling stayed away.
Mira watches Ling from across the camp, noting the rigid stillness, the way her shoulders are too straight, too locked.
She chose control, Mira tells herself.
She chose me.
The satisfaction is sharp, but thin.
Because Ling isn't looking at her either.
Mira's smile falters when Ling doesn't come sit beside her, doesn't seek her out for comfort, doesn't even glance her way.
She presses her lips together.
She always does this, Mira thinks. When something matters too much.
That thought scares her.
Because Rhea isn't supposed to matter.
Rhea is loud. Defiant. Temporary.
And yet Mira remembers what she saw in that tent, Ling's focus, her stillness, the way the world had narrowed down to one injured girl who didn't even want her.
Mira's fingers curl into her sleeve.
She tells herself she won.
But the hollow feeling in her chest doesn't listen.
Rhea notices before she admits it.
Ling doesn't come.
Not to check the wound.
Not to bark an order.
Not even to glare.
At first, Rhea tells herself she doesn't care.
She sits in her tent, phone face-down, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the canvas wall like it personally offended her.
Good, she thinks. Finally learned restraint.
The thought should feel like victory.
It doesn't.
Time passes differently when you're waiting without permission.
Rhea hears voices outside. Laughter. Someone revving a bike.
No footsteps she recognizes.
Her chest tightens, not panic. Something worse. Disappointment she refuses to name.
Of course she stayed away, Rhea thinks bitterly. That's what she does. Takes control. Then leaves.
Her mind twists the memory cruelly.
Ling's hand leaving her waist.
Ling saying get some rest.
Ling walking away.
Rhea's jaw clenches.
She got what she wanted, Rhea tells herself. Dominance. Compliance.
She presses her palm against her sternum, annoyed at the ache there.
"You didn't matter," she whispers to the empty tent. "You never mattered."
The lie doesn't settle.
Rhea lies back, staring at the dark, forcing her breathing steady.
She doesn't cry again.
She won't.
But her hand drifts unconsciously to her waist, to the place where Ling's touch had been firm and infuriating and, worst of all, careful.
Outside, Ling Kwong stands rigid in the cold night, Mira watches from the firelight with a smile she doesn't trust, and Rhea Noir stares at absence like it's an answer.
Night fell and they got back to their tents.
None of them say a word.
And all of them are wrong.