Kin picked her up at seven.
She was standing outside the hospital entrance wearing a dark green dress that went past her knees and a pair of low shoes she had borrowed from one of the medical crew. The dress was a little too big in the shoulders but unnoticeable , and the shoes were a perfect fit, and she had a dark wig on her head that was sitting slightly crooked. She reached up and adjusted it twice while she waited.
When Kin stepped out of the car, she looked at him. He was wearing a simple button-down shirt and dark trousers, the cleanest things he had. He had combed his hair. It was the first time she had seen him look like a man going out for the evening and not a man going to war.
"You look nice," Kin said when he reached her.
"This thing is heavy," Nia said, touching the wig. "And it itches. I do not know how women wear these every day. It feels like a dead animal is sitting on my head."
"You could take it off."
"No. I am dressing up for yoy." She pulled down the sun visor in the car and looked at herself in the little mirror. "I look normal. That is the point. If anyone sees us, they will see a normal couple at a normal restaurant."
They drove to the beach. The road followed the coastline for the last mile and the ocean opened up on the left side of the car, dark and wide and moving under the moonlight. Nia kept her window down and let the wind hit her face. She did not say much. She just watched the water.
***
The restaurant was on a wooden deck built out over the sand. It was open to the air and the tables were lit by small glass lanterns. There was a low sound of music from the kitchen and the ocean was loud in the dark beyond the railing.
When they walked in, the host looked at them for a second too long.
Kin was a tall man. Nia was a small woman who barely reached his chest, and with the wig on and the borrowed dress, she could have easily passed for a teenager. The host looked at them, looked at the space between them, and then led them to a table near the railing without saying a word.
They sat down. The menus were brought. Kin ordered seafood. Nia ordered the same.
The food came on heavy white plates. They ate for a while without talking. Nia picked at a piece of grilled fish. She held her fork a little too tightly. Kin noticed but did not mention it.
"I have never done this before," she said eventually.
"Eaten seafood?"
"Sat down at a table with someone. In a place like this. With a wig on." She looked at him across the lantern. "I have run past a hundred places like this. I have never sat in one."
Kin set down his fork.
"The System paralyzed you tonight."
"That was Odile's order."
"The System obeyed her." Nia looked at him. "You are a good man, Kin. That is rare. Most men I have met are either afraid or they are cruel. You are neither. You are gentle."
"I am not gentle."
"You carried me out of the road when the van blew up. You have carried me twice now. You are gentle." She looked down at her plate. "I wish you were mine."
Kin did not answer right away. He moved his fork across his plate. Then he said, quietly, "I have a girlfriend."
"I know. Lina."
"Yes."
"Does she know what you do?"
"She knows enough."
Nia nodded slowly. "She is lucky."
They sat in silence for a minute.
"I have one request," Nia said. "It is a stupid request. You can say no."
"Say it."
"Lay with me on the beach tonight. Not the way you are thinking. Just lay beside me, on the sand, and hold me. Make me feel like a loved person for one hour. You are the first man I have ever liked. You are probably the last."
"Why would I be the last?"
She looked at him.
"Because I am a speedster," she said. "I am not like you. I have not been upgraded by a System. I was born this way. The speed I have, it was bred into me. My clan raised speedsters for war. They took children and they fed them and they trained them and they kept them soulless and brainless so they would obey. I was a reject. I adopted a brain. I asked questions. They tried to beat it out of me. They failed. So they sold me to the previous Decapitator."
Kin listened.
"A speedster's body burns twice as fast," Nia said. "My organs are already aging. I look young outside, I keep my skin and my face, but my heart is a heart that belongs to a woman in her sixties. When I hit twenty-five next year, I will unlock my last tier of speed. And when that tier unlocks, it will burn through whatever is left. I will be faster than I have ever been. And after that, I will not be here."
"How long," Kin said.
"A year. Maybe two. It is why I agreed to this mission. It is why I am not afraid when I am running. I have very little to lose."
Kin looked at her. Then he pushed his chair back. He stood up and walked around the table and put his arms around her and pulled her out of her seat and held her. She was so small that her head only reached his chest. She stood there for a minute without moving and held on to the front of his jacket.
"You are not a reject," Kin said.
"I am."
"You are a soldier."
"I am a runner."
"You are a soldier. You went into that compound in a general's face and you did not run. That is not a reject."
She did not say anything. She just held on.
***
He carried her down to the sand.
He did not put her down. She was so small in his arms it was like carrying a child. The deck ended and the sand began and his shoes sank into it, and he walked past the wooden steps and down to the waterline where the sand was wet and firm.
He set her down gently. She wobbled for a second and he caught her elbow. She laughed, a short breath of a sound, and then she kicked off the borrowed shoes.
"The sand is cold," she said.
"It is the ocean."
"I know it is the ocean. I am just saying it is cold."
She walked a few steps and the sand crunched under her bare feet. Kin took off his own shoes and rolled his trousers to the knee and followed her. The sand crunched under his feet too. They walked along the waterline in the dark with the ocean loud on one side and the lights of the restaurant on the other.
A few people were walking on the beach. A couple holding hands. A man with a dog. They all looked at Kin and Nia as they passed. A tall man and a small woman in a green dress with a wig that was still slightly crooked. They looked at them the way people look at things that do not quite match.
Kin did not care. Nia did not seem to notice.
They sat down on the sand, away from the waterline, where it was dry and soft. Kin sat first and Nia sat beside him and then she lay back and looked at the stars. Kin lay back too. The sand was cold against his back but he did not mind. He put his arm out and she curled up against him and put her head on his chest.
Her touch was light. She was so small that her weight was almost nothing. He could feel her breathing against his ribs. She smelled of salt and fish and some expensive soap .
They lay there for a long time. The ocean was loud and the night was cold and the stars were bright above them.
After an hour, she said, "I have a room."
"What?"
"Near here. The medical crew booked it for me. It's just for tonight. I don't want to sleep in the hospital."
"I'll take you."
He stood up and brushed the sand off his trousers. He helped her up and she brushed the sand off the back of her dress with both hands. He brushed the sand off her hair, carefully, his fingers working through the wig to get the grains out of the strands.
They walked back up the beach. Their feet were covered in sand. Their shoes were still in their hands. They walked to the wooden steps and sat down on the bottom step and patted the sand off their feet and their ankles and the backs of their legs. Nia shook out the wig and a small shower of sand fell onto the wooden step.
They walked up the street to a small hotel with a blue neon sign. Kin walked her up the stairs to the second floor and opened the door and she went in and stood in the middle of the room.
The bed was made. The curtains were open. The window showed the ocean.
Kin stood at the door. "I should go."
"Stay," she said.
"You asked me to lay with you on the beach. I did."
"I know. I am asking you to stay." She looked at him. "Just tonight. Just hold me. It is probably the last time I will see you. The medical crew is taking me back to the base tomorrow and then I will be somewhere else and you will be somewhere else and we will not cross paths."
Kin looked at her.
Then he stepped inside and closed the door.
She turned her back to him and reached up and pulled the wig off. Her own hair was short and close to her scalp and there was sand in it. She set the wig on the chair by the window.
"Turn around," she said.
Kin turned around.
He heard her change. The rustle of the dress coming off, the soft sound of fabric being folded and set down. He looked at the wall and the curtain and the dark ocean outside the window.
"You can turn back," she said.
He turned. She was in a plain white t-shirt that was too big for her and a pair of shorts. Her face was clean of makeup. She looked young and tired and very small.
Kin sat on the edge of the bed. He took off his shoes and set them on the floor. He brushed the sand off his own feet and then he pulled back the blanket and got into bed.
She climbed in beside him. She turned toward him and he put his arm around her and she tucked her head under his chin.
"You are a good man," she said.
"Sleep," Kin said.
She closed her eyes. Kin lay awake for a long time with her sleeping against him and the ocean outside the window and the lights of the city far behind them.