That is when Tank's control broke. She moved faster than anyone expected for someone her size, shoving the guard away from Shuyin with enough force to send him stumbling backward. "Do not put your hands on her like that!"
"Tank, don't!" Shuyin managed to say, but it was too late.
Two more guards rushed forward, batons already drawn. One swung at Tank, but Blade intercepted, grabbing his arm and twisting it. The baton clattered to the concrete, echoing roughly.
"Stand down!" the guards were shouting. "Stand down now!"
But Razor had joined the struggle, unable to remain passive while her cellmates fought. She threw herself at a guard who was reaching for his radio.
The yard erupted into chaos. More guards poured out, batons swinging. Tank was holding off three guards at once. A baton connected with her ribs, then another struck her shoulder. Blade was slammed against the wall, the impact knocking the air from her lungs. Razor took a baton strike to the face and fell hard, blood streaming from her nose.
"Stop! Please stop!" Shuyin screamed, but her voice was lost in the tumult.
It ended quickly after that. Tank was tackled by four guards, her face forced into the concrete. Blade and Razor were hauled to their feet, dazed and bleeding.
"Isolation!" the head guard barked, his face red with fury. "All of them! Including this one!" He pointed a baton at Shuyin. "You want to cause trouble? You can share their fate."
Shuyin was shoved forward, joining her cellmates. Tank, being dragged past her, managed to catch her eye. Her lip was split, but her voice was steady. "Do not give up, princess. You hear me? Do not you dare."
They were hauled away, all four of them, through a heavy steel door that led deep into the lower levels of the prison. The air grew cold and damp as they descended a narrow staircase into the isolation wing. The final door slammed shut with a terrible finality, sealing them in the dark.
---
The isolation cell was a concrete box, four meters by four, with a single drain in the center and a dim, recessed light behind a wire mesh in the ceiling. There were no bunks, only a cold, hard floor. The door was solid steel, with a small slot for food.
For five days, they existed in that grey twilight. Meals consisted of a single portion of cold slop pushed through a slot. The guards ignored their injuries.
Shuyin's condition deteriorated the fastest. The pain in her ribs became a constant, burning fire with every breath. Her broken hand swelled into a purple, useless claw. A fever set in, wracking her body with chills and sweats. She drifted in and out of consciousness, curled on the floor.
Tank, Blade, and Razor did what they could. They huddled around her for warmth. They used scraps torn from their own uniforms to wipe the sweat from her brow. They tried to get her to drink the brackish water. But it was a losing battle. They were all weakening, and Shuyin had been broken long before they ever entered this hole.
On the fifth night, Shuyin's breathing became a wet, ragged gasp. Each inhale was a visible agony.
"Hey," Tank whispered, cradling Shuyin's head in her lap. "Stay with us, princess."
Shuyin's one good eye fluttered open. The emptiness was gone, replaced by a terrifying clarity. "They… won," she rasped, her voice barely audible.
"No, they did not," Blade said fiercely from the shadows. "Not while you are still breathing."
But Shuyin was barely breathing. She looked at the three women surrounding her, these brutal, loyal strangers who had fought for her, who had suffered for her, and dragged her into all this mess... "I am… sorry."
"Do not be sorry," Razor murmured, her own face still bruised. "You just need to fight through this."
But the will to fight was gone. Lin Shuyin had nothing left. Her family had taken everything from her: her fiancé, her freedom, her inheritance, and her grandmother's memory. Now, they would take her life.
Her body gave one final, weak shudder. Then, the ragged breathing stopped.
Tank shook her gently. "Shuyin? Hey. Princess?"
There was no response. The stillness was absolute.
Lin Shuyin died on the cold floor of an isolation cell in Blackwater Ridge Prison, on her sixth night incarcerated.
For a long moment, there was only silence, broken by the distant drip of water. The three surviving women looked at each other, a shared, grim understanding passing between them. They had failed.
Tank did not weep. Her grief was too vast and too hot for tears; it solidified in her chest into something cold and unyielding.
Gently, she laid Shuyin's head back on the hard floor, her large, calloused hands lingering for a final moment to smooth the hair from the girl's still, fevered brow.
The fight had gone out of the cell, leaving a void heavier than the darkness itself. It was a silence that spoke of extinguished hope, of a story cut short by deliberate cruelty.
— — — — — —