Max nodded at a door on the right. “Back out the way you came, and across the club.”

“Cheers,” she added with a wink.

June kept her pace even, casual, as she crossed the club. All she wanted now was a shower. Strip clubs were like that. The smell of lust and sweat, cheap drinks and dirty bills, so thick it coated your skin, followed you home. It was a trick of the mind—after all, June couldn’t feel, couldn’t smell, couldn’t taste. A borrowed body was just that— borrowed.

She was halfway there when she knocked into a man, thin, blond, and dressed in all black. Not unusual, in a place like this, where businessmen leered alongside bachelors, but June reeled at the contact— when she’d brushed his arm, she’d seen . . . nothing. No details, no memories.

The man had barely registered her, was already moving away. He disappeared through a red door at the back of the club, and June forced herself to keep walking too, despite feeling like her world had shuddered to a stop.

What were the odds?

Slim, she knew—but not none. There’d been another, a few years ago, a young guy she’d passed on the street one summer night; knocked into, really—she’d had her head tipped back, he’d had his down. When they touched, she’d felt that same flush of cold, the same stretch of black where the memories should be. After months of taking on looks and forms with every touch, the absence of information had been startling, disconcerting. June hadn’t known, then, what it meant—if the other person was broken, or if she was, if it was a feature or a glitch— not until she followed the guy and saw him run his hand along the hood of a car. Heard the sudden rumble of an engine starting under his touch, and realized he was different.

Not in the way she was different, but still, miles from ordinary.

She’d started looking for them, after that.

June, who’d never before been a fan of casual contact, unwanted

touches, now found every excuse to brush fingers, kiss cheeks, searching for those elusive patches of darkness. She hadn’t found another.

Until now.

June slipped behind a column, shedding the blond girl in favor of a man with a forgettable face. Up at the bar, she ordered herself a drink and waited for the stranger to resurface.

Ten minutes later, he did, carrying a black briefcase. He slipped out into the dark.

And June followed behind.

* * *

THE streets weren’t empty, but they also weren’t crowded enough to hide a tail. Every time she dipped out of streetlight, she shifted form.

What would June do if the man in black noticed her?

What would she do if he didn’t?

June didn’t know why she was following the man, or what she planned to do when he stopped walking. Was it a gut feeling pulling her along, or just curiosity? She hadn’t always been able to tell them apart.