Suck it up, she tells herself. None of this is new. This is how it's been for eight years. She sees death everywhere. Everybody dies, just like everybody poops. This guy's no different than anybody else (except, a little voice says, the part where he gets stabbed in the eyes with a rusty fish-gutter and he says your name before getting his brain skewered), so why should she care? She doesn't care (she does), and to prove it, she drinks the shot. One gulp.

It feels like firecrackers soaked in Drano going off in her throat and belly. She can feel it start to explode her liver. It is the worst thing she has ever put in her mouth.

Perfect. She pours another.

Paleface watches, amazed.

She bangs back the second shot, and a creeping numbness starts to settle in. It fuzzes the edges. It takes those terrible thoughts running laps in her head and loops a piano wire around their necks. It drags them to the edge of a filthy kiddypool. It holds their heads underwater. They kick and thrash. They start to drown.

One last thought wriggles free from the pack.

She thinks of a Mylar balloon floating up over a highway.

She shuts her eyes and pours another shot. Miriam doesn't hear the bar door open. Doesn't even notice when someone sits next to her.

"You gonna drink that shot, or is this just foreplay?"

Miriam looks up. He's got a boyish face. Oily black hair in a tangle, like a teepee made from raven wings. Clear eyes. A boomerang smile with a sharp edge.

"I woo all my drinks," she responds.

"You drink that one, I'll buy you another." He looks at the jug. "Or something that doesn't look like mop water."

"Just let a girl die in peace."

"C'mon," he says. "You're too pretty to leave for dead. Even with that black eye."

She can't help it. Her heart skips a beat. She feels a tingling between her legs. He's got a pretty voice. Lyrical, almost, like he could sing the wings off an angel. But not feminine, either. A cocky, balls-to-the-wall confidence lives there. No Southern accent, to boot. He looks like bad news. That turns her on. She likes bad news. It starts to make her feel normal, whatever passes for normal where Miriam is concerned.

Though – his face looks familiar. She just can't place it.

He orders a beer from Paleface. Tips it back. But he watches her. Studies her.

"What do you tell a girl with two black eyes?" she asks him.

"Nothing you haven't told her twice already," he answers, whip-quick.

"Way to blow the punch line," she says. "I thought I had one up on you."

"Nope. Not me." That smile again. Sharp. Too sharp. So hot. Shit. "Besides, I only count one black eye on you."

"Then maybe I haven't learned my lesson, yet."

"My name's Ashley. Ashley Gaines."

"Ashley's a girl's name."

"That's what my dad would say before he'd beat my back with a belt." He says it, but the smile never leaves his face. In fact, it gets bigger, broader.