She’d worn the leather and Spandex mostly because Velvet had believed she wouldn’t; protective camouflage, that was all. She felt exposed in it, marked for a victim. She’d never, never do it again.

If I live through it this time, she thought miserably. Oh, god, I’m sick.

Across the street, a man in a camel brown coat came walking out of the neon-lit tunnel of Dallas Alley—not walking, actually, slipping and sliding and trying to run. He was shouting into a cellular phone. She rested her cheek against the telephone pole and watched him come closer; he was expensively dressed, preoccupied.

One last score, and she could go home.

“—Mean, wrecked? How could it wreck? Oh, god, you’re not serious! The whole shipment? Where were you? No, you, where were you? This is a disaster! No, I’m not going to give you a refund—”

All she had to do was let go of the pole, walk toward him, take his wallet. Easy. So easy.

When she let go of the pole, she almost fell.

“Whoa!” The man in the camel-hair coat snapped his cell phone shut and grabbed her by the arm. There. That was better. All she had to do was reach out—“Are you okay? You look—”

He stopped and stared at her. At her face. At the outfit she knew she shouldn’t have worn. The chilly slide of icy rain on her skin stopped feeling good and made her shiver.

“Hey—” he said, and his fingers tightened around her arm. He looked at her face again. “That little bitch wore the wrong clothes. I can’t believe it. You’re the other one, the thief.”

Robby tried to break free, but her muscles felt hot and painful, and her head was spinning. Bile tasted rough on the back of her throat.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled. Her lips felt numbed, her tongue slow and clumsy. She tried to get his wallet, but it slipped out of her fingers and fell. “Let me go.”

“Not a chance.” He fumbled in his pocket. His face took on a blank expression of panic. He switched his hold on her to his other hand. “Shit. Shit! I lost it.”

“What?”

“The gun. I lost the gun! Oh, never mind, shut up and walk. Just walk. Come on.”

He dragged her to a stumble, as fast as his slick-soled shoes could go on the icy sidewalk. Behind them, people and music spilled out of the Gearbox. She tried to break away again but he held tight.

“Faster. Walk faster. Hurry. Are you warm, are you getting warm?” He looked over at her face. “Damn. It’s too cold out here.”

He let go of her arm and stripped off his coat. Before she could get more than three weaving steps away, he threw it around her shoulders and grabbed her wrist.