"That's right, son. Look at you. Big tough guy."

"Where's Mom?" Hazel asked.

Charlie seemed flustered. "Don't know how many times I gotta tell you. I have no idea."

Maybe he wasn't lying. Their mother could be anywhere in the city's innards by now. On Channel 8, a black bat straight out of a Transylvanian castle swooped out of the basement door-Pest Control officers lifted their guns but the bat had woven itself into the feathery strands of the Channel 8 reporter's hair. The audio feed was quickly cut but they could see the terror and anguish on her face. It was cosmic, sublime; truly something to behold.

Traffic cones made a ring around the subway at 27th Street. Yellow tape and a metal safety gate stretched across its entrance. The children lurked around the corner and listened to sounds of battle-shrieks and bodies falling and flat slams of bone hitting bone-rising from below. "It's the pests," said Ace. "They took over the subway."

"But it doesn't sound like animals, does it?" said Hazel. "It sounds like people."

Ace's high-pitched whine-"Oh, ma-an"-drew the attention of one of the patrol cops guarding the subway station. He sauntered away from his post slowly at first, glancing both ways as if to cross the street, before lowering his shoulders and hurrying toward the children. They ducked behind a shuttered newsstand, but he found them there.

"You kids take the Red Train home from school? Station's closed today. It's nothing to worry about, it's just . . . " He was interrupted by a wet underground scream. He looked embarrassed. "It's not safe. Y'all better get along."

Hazel squeezed Ace's hand-it was cold and wet, like an aquarium eel. "There's the stop on 56th," she said to him, but the patrol cop cleared his throat.

"I wouldn't take the subway at all, hon." He whispered this as if he was himself scared, this big tall barrel-chested man in military colors. The absurdity of it almost made Hazel laugh, but she had learned long ago that adults did not want their emotions laughed at.

"We'll take the bus," she said.

"Good girl," said the patrol cop, and left.

They had not taken the city bus for years, not since the winter strike, and the bus shelter looked like an abandoned war bunker now. A glossy perfume poster was hidden behind Missing Pet and Missing Person signs, as well as Beware: Dangerous Pest notices. These came complete with pictures of snarling, bright-eyed rabbits and raccoons, and details of the pest-person's crimes against society: Thief. Addict. COMPULSIVE LIAR.

The children sat next to a teenage girl dressed in rags whose bare knees were pulled up to her chest. She smelled of sewage. She was gnawing at herself. An older woman with bursting grocery bags sat down on their left and sifted through her purchases, checking her receipts. Hazel took a peek at the bags and saw the same emergency stocks her father had started collecting during the war-freeze-dry food, cans of peaches, horrible whole grain crackers. "It's gonna get bad," the woman whispered when she saw Hazel looking. Her eyes were gleaming with joy. Hazel could bet she had already hoarded pesticides, and fantasized about introducing her to their father. "You know we're in for a fight. Oh, God, there's one of them there."

The woman's gaze had shifted to the ragged girl with soiled nails on the far end of the bench. "Kids, you'd better squeeze in close to me," she grunted. "She's a pest."

The girl was tugging at her matted hair. "I don't-don't-don't know what happened. I don't know how I got here, I just want to get home."

"Oh, I'm sure you know exactly what you did. They'll have boarded those doors when you get home, sweetie, I'll promise you that."

The girl's moan was bloated, like the sound of something rising through layers of mud. She spat up a bit of soap scum: hard to imagine what all she had been eating. It must have angered the woman, because she pulled a can of Home Defense out of her purse and sprayed it in the girl's eyes. The girl yelped-a shocking, harrowing noise-and fell forward onto her hands and knees on the pavement. There her muscles seemed to settle into a familiar, easy space. Her joints locked into position and her fingers caressed the gritty asphalt. The children wondered who she'd been before the change: a rave angel, a shoplifter, some anonymous angry sixteen-year-old that pissed off the wrong person? Whichever-she was something else now. Even semi-blind the girl scurried down the street, scraping the skin off her knees.

The woman settled back proudly, but there were others-shabby, disoriented people who jerked and stumbled down the sidewalks as if searching for something lost. They were side-stepped-with the city so nervous and quiet, this was not hard. Some passers-by did spit at them and hiss things. "Curse you," it looked like; it was what all the kids at school were saying. The returnees always snarled back. Everyone said that pests were twice as aggressive as natural animals, and no wonder, they had more to resent, more to grieve. Ace and Hazel watched this drama from the slow, shuddering safety of the city bus, but whenever they hit a stop light and one of the pest-people stared back at them, they'd duck down, breathing hard. What awful eyes those people had. Naked in their desperation.

Charlie was in one of his slow, smoldering bad moods, so they didn't tell him about the subway. People at work were going AWOL, he said, and he was sick of picking up their slack-but Hazel suspected he was worried.

They ate in silence because the television had become a nightmare-flood of infestation footage: cheap triage, shaky cam, people screaming with fear and rage in the dark. The hall outside their apartment filled this silence, not with rustling shopping bags or jangling keys or the neighbors' usual bitter mumbles-those comforting sounds had been absent for the past week-but with deep, slow creaks that came from right up against the other side of the wall, like an old boatman was rowing through the slate-blue carpet. "Maybe it's the super," said Charlie.

"I don't think so," said Hazel, and then someone knocked on the door. It startled all three-Charlie picked up his knife, Ace pushed away his plate, and Hazel stood. She walked to the door despite her father's yells, looking back over her shoulder once to say, "I'm just going to see who it is," and see Charlie stuck at the table, halfway between sitting and standing. His eyelids were trembling. He looked a little like Ace.

Hazel went up on her tiptoes and looked through the peephole. In the few seconds that she could balance without falling, she caught a flash of blond hair and clammy, dirty skin, like their visitor had been swimming in the Sound. She tasted salt and thought of the time they had gone-all four of them, back when their wounds were still whole-to the Sound and eaten hot dogs on the pier. The water had been too cold to swim in. Wrong time of year, their father said. I told you so. Dazed, Hazel unlocked the door.

"Hazel!" her father shouted, but it was too late.

The door handle began to turn and Hazel jumped back. After the door swung free of its latches, a pale hand snaked inside the fortress, followed by a pale woman. She had draped herself in plastic. She had no shoes. She smelled a bit like rotten fish-probably all she'd been able to get on good days. Despite all this, she grinned broadly when she saw the children. The corners of her mouth lifted to reveal two long and yellowed fangs.

Here she was, returned. Smilodon. Their mother. The children smiled back. Her expressions had always been contagious, and they had missed the warmth of her burning heart. Charlie sat. He was strangely calm. Maybe some tiny raw place in his heart was glad that she'd come back, even now and even like this, that she wasn't such a quitter after all. Lisa Cunningham pushed her heel against the door as if she was just coming home from the office-tired, spent, flinging off her purse-and shut it with a soft, finalizing click. The weight of the old plastered walls finally settled on their bones.

The children did not need to see this last fulfillment of their family saga. Hazel led Ace to a window, and from this vantage point they watched the progress of the infestation on the street below. There was motion in that coiled darkness, the frantic energy of vermin in mid-swarm. This crawling energy swept other things into its chaos: people, cars, the ground floors of buildings. Everything fell. Everything was punctured. Maybe that's what it means to be infested, Hazel whispered. She was holding her brother close, helping him block out the rest. Up and up the infestation climbed, drawing ever closer to their fortress in the sky.

WATCHMEN.

AARON STERNS.

The illuminated advertisement on the front of the cigarette-machine is a slivered beacon of blue sky and clouds amongst the smoke and strobe lights; a slice of heaven obscured by a couple deep in conversation: the guy all pained mouth and gesturing arms; the woman silent, staring. They are oblivious to the throng around as if enclosed in a vacuum. I stare at them from my post, trying to work out what they're saying-their voices drowned out by the brain-regressing bass pounding up through my feet-but an image of Lisa arguing with me kicks in and I have to flick my eyes away across the dancefloor. I try to suppress a surge of anger.

The straining flux of dancing bodies moves in waves of artfully-ripped faded clothing, bleached hair and pale flesh made gaunt and alien-blue by the overhead fluoros. The sunken dancefloor-the Pit-is huge, nearly fifty feet across, and it's hard to survey its entire length. I glance over at the other black-clad figures on their raised podiums: impassive dark statues almost lost in the belching haze of smoke machines and cigarette smoke, legs spread and hands clasped over their groins as if cupping themselves. They seem like ciphers to me, unsmiling names; protective of their cohesion. I'm still the interloper.

Two girls walk past below, staring up. One is breathtakingly beautiful: tight tan in red lycra, angry auburn hair and clear eyes. She smiles and I reflexively smile back, feeling instantly guilty. She pauses, tracing the neckline of her dress as if considering approaching my podium to stand at uncomfortable groin height and flash her hungry smile up at me, then runs a finger down her perfect cleavage. Unsettled, I'm about to look away when she flicks down the right side of her top to reveal a dusky nipple. She teases it to quick stiffness then disappears into the crowd, hungry eyes melting into the crush of bodies. Her friend follows.

The two-way almost slips from my sweaty hand as I try to track their passage towards the front of the club. I lose them amongst the squawking, impatient drinkers clamoring at the huge main bar for the attention of the bargirls. Disappointed, I glance up at the semi-circular balcony and its darkened tiered couches overlooking the main bar, the figures standing at its edge separated from death only by a thin brass railing. But the massive scale of this cavern has lost its novelty value by now and my gaze drops.

An angry voice pierces the oppressive techno music and I search again through the disorienting sweeping lasers. The man by the cigarette machine throws his hands in the air and stalks off. The girl stares transfixed, tears on cheeks. Just broken up, presumably. I shake my head and start to look away.

But the man can't let this go. He whirls and punches his girlfriend. Hard.

She crumples to the ground. The guy looks at her without expression, then reaches down and grabs her by the back of the neck and the waistband, lifting her off the ground to swing like a battering ram into the illuminated blue cigarette-machine. The crack sounds even above the deafening techno bass. The machine short-circuits and spits flame.

I slam into him too late and we skid through the crowd. His nose smacks into someone's shin in a spray of blood, and when he struggles against me I snap him in the nose again with the two-way, pinning him around onto his front so I can cradle his throat in the crook of my arm and lace the other arm behind his head. He tries to claw up at my arms, my eyes, but I put him out with a vicious tensing of my biceps, cutting off the circulation in his neck. I rest his deadweight on its side and bring the cracked and blood-flecked radio up to my mouth to call the others.

A group of middle-class yuppies ring me, too scared to help but perversely rooted in place by the bloody spectacle. I stare back from my crouch, wondering if the guy has friends here, if someone will launch from the crowd to kick at my face. I can't see the girl past the gathering designer jeans but don't want to risk leaving him alone: sleeper-holds aren't debilitating enough; when they wake they wake instantly, mad and in control- -and then splitting the crowd like huge black-clad figures of death, smooth-shaven and short-haired, barely contained. They push the crowd back, striking one guy who won't move with an open hand to the face, sending him beneath their feet. A fury of movement around and then Lucs over me, omnipotent Lucs, always uncannily first on the scene, grabbing the unconscious boyfriend from me, eyes almost gleaming red in the searching light. Raph beside him, staring past me. I follow his gaze to the prone of the girl: her head split like a melon, open and weeping, curled brains nestled within.

We take the boyfriend up the stage stairs, a warning procession past groping couples on low-slung seating, and shoulder through the milling dancers to a door reading STAFF ONLY. Lucs bursts through the swinging door using the boyfriend's head and dumps him on the corridor floor. The doors close after us like a dampening field. An overhead light glares above and my vision swims as I adjust from the dimness outside, getting a brief glimpse down a corridor extending away in progressive darkness. Raph barks something into his two-way.

Lucs in my face: "What happened?" Angry goatee and sharp slicked crewcut: I'm bigger, nearly six-four, but step back anyway.

"They were arguing-just a domestic-right near me, and he snapped her and . . . and before I could get to him he rammed her into the smoke machine. The sound . . . fuck-"

He grabs my shirt-front, silencing me: "This is what we do."

I shrug him off and nod, straightening my shirt. "I know."

He looks down at the sprawled body; the guy waking now, eyes flitting open and straining at the light. A kick to the side of the head and he is out again. "Take his foot" and we drag him down the corridor and the stairs at the end, the soft thud of his skull on each concrete step keeping beat with the muted, somehow-threatening music through the walls next to us. His head leaves a soft trail of blood. Raph walks ahead and unlocks the door at the bottom of the stairwell. I hear a car pulling up outside, then voices through the wood. A few steps from the bottom my boss pushes me away and reaches down to grasp the shuddering body, standing up with a hand on either side of the guy's head, a raggedy-doll in his grasp. Lucs holds my gaze and then snaps his wrists, sending the guy's arms and legs flailing to flap against the huge chest. A moist crack from the guy's neck and Lucs lets the slide to the floor. I feel like I'm going to vomit.

Raph opens the door to waiting uniforms and a huge white van. Silent revolving lights on its roof spark blue and red eerily around the alley. One of the uniforms walks up, a cop: "This the fucker?" Lucs drags the to the van's back-doors and throws it inside. A soft thud. The back hadn't been empty. His partner closes the doors and they drive off, still without the siren, faces swiveling at me as they turn onto the street.

Lucs waits in the doorway, shirt flecked with blood. I look at the empty street and the fading ghostly lights and then back at him, my head spinning. The reek of the alley is like a cocoon. Nausea floods my stomach.

On the way to my post I stop at the staff toilets to scrub the blood off my face. I grip the sink and stare at the mess of flyers pasted above the mirror: amongst them are missing persons photos, a mix of male and female faces, mostly young. Someone has mockingly drawn moustaches on a few. The door opens behind me. Raph's hulking brother Gabe. "We know you get this, David. We wouldn't have let you in otherwise. You think this is any different from what you've done?" He stares at me for a moment then leaves.

The dark figures across from me now seem ominous, always on the periphery of my vision as I scan the Pit. The feeling that they're all watching me, silent, unnerving, is greater than ever and my heart quickens. As much as I want to drop the two-way and rip off my shirt and leave, I can't. The warning in Lucs' eyes as he broke the guy's neck is enough to stop that.

Old Max from the Terminal, where I first started bouncing, had warned me the security at the Metropolis were "hard cunts"; a tight-knit, dangerous crew. When I was still at the ratty Village sports bar I'd see them come in for a quiet drink, these huge refugees from the Meatpacking District dressed in black talking amongst themselves at the bar. I'd tense up, expecting them to cause trouble, but they never did, just stared at any patron stupid enough to come near. They were there the night I lost it, beat the fuck out of this asshole guido: some drunk gangster wannabe who told me he didn't take shit from steroid meatheads telling him when to leave and then tried to pull a piece when I didn't back down. All the shit I'd put up with, all the abuse and violence and threats working as a bouncer, all the shit from my father against Mom and me, became too much and I dropped him with a sharp left-the first time I'd ever hit anyone on the job, the punch feeling like it'd been pent up forever-then grabbed him by the throat and dragged him out to the back alley, and the guy had tried to fight back and I took the hit then splayed his nose across his face-actually feeling the cartilage disintegrate beneath my fist-and rode him to the ground, hitting again and again and again until his face was slurry against the cobblestones.

He'd lain there blowing bloody bubbles into the air and as I hunched crouched over his crumpled I could see nothing in his hand-it'd been a bluff, there'd never been a gun-and I felt my chest constrict, the world spin. I'd gone too far. I'd be going to jail. My life was over. I dropped to my knees, feeling the shock burn through me.

Then someone had grabbed me: one of the Metropolis guys-Mikhaels, Lucs' second-and started pulling me away up the street as two cops ran around the corner. They'd paused and looked at Mikhaels.

Then one had nodded, letting him lead me away-trembling as the adrenalin wore off and the delusions of power faded-as they went on to the barely-alive man.

"This is how it works," Lucs had said when I fronted before him at the Metropolis. "The cops look after us. We look after them. Way of the world. Work for us we make sure nothing ever comes of it."

I'd never seen them go this far until now. They must've been holding back the whole time, waiting until I'd proven myself enough to be accepted into the crew. Until they could trust me. Now they're showing their true selves: the real way of the world.

And Gabe's right: it's not like I can throw stones. It's not like what I did's any different.

But I sometimes wonder now how convenient it is Mikhaels'd been there that night, remembering him looking at me from across the bar just before I'd beaten the man; as if he'd instigated it somehow, his presence drawing out the darkness in me.

Maybe I just can't confront the truth: that I'd nearly beaten someone to death. It'd be much easier to blame anyone but myself- Dammit. There's always too much time in here to think: an endless stretching of seconds, minutes, hours into meaninglessness; aided by the curtains shut against the outside sky, encouraging timelessness and the rejection of reality. Fuck it. The guy deserved it. He killed that girl. Lucs was right to snap his neck. The prick would've just bought his way out of it before some bullshit judge in a bullshit courtroom under a bullshit legal system. Weaseled his way to leniency as criminals always did. The system didn't work so what choice is left?

But what's really scaring me-and why I should've run as soon as Lucs turned his back after killing the guy, why I should never have come here in the first place-is that seeing Lucs deal out such justice makes me think of her. Of Lisa and that fuck Paul. My hands shake. Sweat rises on my face and across my back. Because I should have fucking- A drunk is dancing with a chair he has dragged onto the dancefloor as if it's his partner. He clutches it in his arms and pirouettes, then throws it onto the ground and awkwardly leaps over the seat. The crowd around him seem to enjoy his absurd parody of some forties musical star-even the muscle-shirted Greek guy takes the hit in the shins good-humoredly-and I'm roundly booed as I jump off my podium and grab the chair, handing it to Raph who has appeared from across the Pit to back me up. But I need the distraction of work. I push the drunk past the bar to the front door and he gibbers at me: "I was pretty swish out there though wasn't I?" Infectious humor that catches me off guard. His eyes are dilated, oversexed on E's as well: he wants to touch me as I walk him out, feeling my shoulders through my shirt. I just shrug him off. He's harmless.

Then he catches a glimpse of Raph behind me and starts pulling away, seeing something I don't, some revelation his drugged-out brain throws up. "Keep him away from me! Don't you see what he is?"

Raph, following a few feet behind, stares back stonily, eyes drilling into the patron. The drunk gets more and more agitated and I tell him not to worry, to just walk out, but he seems oblivious to me and then tries to run as we enter the foyer, dodging to his left and around a group milling outside the toilets. Raph is already blocking his way to slam him in the chest, and we drag the guy kicking and swearing out the front to dump him on the pavement. He rolls into a ball at Raph's feet, wrapping his hands protectively around his head, and then there is a bark behind me: "That's enough, get back inside." I turn and Lucs stands glaring at us, two doormen behind like twin Cerberus statues at the gates of hell. There are people in line staring at us, elderly couples and families from surrounding cafes, theatergoers passing by. Too visible.

Raph slinks beside me as we head back to our posts, his bleach-blond hair and powerlifter-traps like talismans splitting the crowd before him. He leans in as we reach my post: "These sheep don't understand anything else", then leaves me staring after him.

I continue my watching, unnerved and searching for order in the madness, in the frenetic, restless movement; for some shifting code, some meaning in the faces that coalesce into momentary distinction only to become unformed clay when I look away-brown eyes, blue eyes, blond hair, black hair, blue hair, in an interchangeable melange. I search for joy, for revelation, for knowledge in the faces, for some reason why they come here to waste away their lives with drink and mindless primal movements. All I find is blankness, slack-eyed vapidness. I'm so sick of this.

A hole opens in the crowd and I wonder for a moment if the dancers are ducking someone's vomit. I look closely at those ringing the gap to see if they have that coy disgusted fascination, like dogs trying to avoid their own shit in the backyard. Then I see the swinging arms and sudden surge of bodies across the space and even as I raise the two-way hear a voice, Gabe's perhaps, rattle in my hand: "Security to Dancefloor, Security to Dancefloor," and I jump off to push roughly through the crowd, chest and shoulders hard and unforgiving, distantly savoring the passing looks of dumb shock. I emerge into chaos and grab two of the fighting patrons, tearing apart their clutch by pushing one away, grabbing the other around the neck. The guy I'm holding starts lashing out instead with his feet. "Settle down," I yell with a jabbed compression of his neck for emphasis and he subsides. I look around and Gabe, Mikhaels and Raph are also restraining fighters. We stand each with subdued patrons hanging in our arms searching for further threats, for something missed.

I'm about to turn and haul off my captive when from nowhere comes a fist swung wild and hard to smash into my temple. I hear the disembodied thump rather than feel it-having had much worse before-and swivel to focus in on the terrified tanned face. I drop my forgotten captive and like a berserker lost in fury pummel the face. On the edge of vision I see the other security react as if under fire, choking out their quarry and launching into the crowd with random punches, staining the beer-soaked floor with spatters of blood.

And then I'm sitting on my attacker's chest, yelling at his dazed face: "Why the fuck did you do that? We were breaking it up!"

Spit splays into his mouth as he tries to speak, no air in his lungs. "Be- Because you . . . hit me."

I grab his shirt: "Like fuck I did!" and bring his face up to mine.

He persists: "So-Someone hit me."

I stare into his glazed, convincing eyes and then a hand lands on my shoulder; quick spin and armlock, bending the elbow back to breaking point, my fist cocked-and Lucs stares back at me, a hand raised instinctively to protect his face. I let him go.

He moves in close, goatee like a pointer: "Kill him."

I step back though it's hard to hear him above the music, above the screams of the crowd. "What?"

He surges in again: "Now, while there's still confusion, while there's justification." I push him away, open-handed against the hard solidity of his pecs. "Damn you," he says slit-eyed, "stop fighting it."

I stand over the bleeding kid and, eyes still on Lucs, reach down to haul him up: "Get the fuck out of here." The kid looks at me in disbelief so I slap him across the cheek, bringing sudden clarity to his eyes. I look back at Lucs as he watches the patron disappear into the crowd. Lucs glares at me and walks away, saying something to Mikhaels.

His second looks at me then heads towards the front doors, pushing past the doormen and disappearing outside. I wonder what the hell Mikhaels is doing, leaving the club halfway through the night. I don't understand anything about this place any more.

I watch as Gabe and Raph drag away the injured. But the patrons soon start dancing again, the music an unstoppable Pied Piper-calling to their gyrating and fondling, to the slackening of the vague, drugged faces. Their shoes smear the forgotten blood into the polished floor.

I'm dismissed from my post at the Pit and sent upstairs as punishment. Danteis, who I'm relieving, passes me on the stairs with a nod, grateful to be heading down to the world of the big boys for a change. Heaven, the upstairs bar and club's wasteland, looks much easier to patrol than downstairs: a bar and small dancefloor on one level, leading up to another small bar, some pool tables and a series of isolated grimy couches ringed around a balcony overlooking the Pit. I stand midway up the stairs that split the levels and look out over the sweaty, milling drinkers by the larger bar.

I can't take in anything. I feel strange, panicky. The faces around me, the colors of the lights and bright yellow walls seem to warp and shift. I wonder if it's the cocktail of drugs I'm taking: uppers to get through the night; stanozolol to maintain my size, my intensity. I feel like I'm tripping.

A girl wearing only a black bra-top and set of tiny shorts walking up the stairs towards me catches me glancing at her. "You want a fucking picture?" She is gone before I can respond, before I can even take offense at her insult. She passes me later, smirking over her shoulder, knowing her allure, as she heads downstairs, tight, arrogant ass rolling beneath the black leather.

"You're not naive, David." I jump at the voice in my ear; Lucs has sidled up beside me while I've momentarily closed my eyes. He stares out over the drinkers, eyes reflective and distant, silent for a moment. I follow his gaze. "Look at these weak cockroaches," he finally says quietly. "Most of them can't even string two words together; fill them with alcohol and they become zombies, mindless scum."

"And that justifies killing them?"

He turns to me, as if contemplating this for the first time. "This is the way it's always been. You know that. There has always been those like us willing to seek the truth, to unlock the darkness inside."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Think about it, David. Think of how you feel about them. How you feel about your girlfriend. Remember that night at the Terminal."

"What do you know about my girlfriend-" I start to demand, having never told them about Lisa. Then he touches my shoulder.

Sudden pain along my chest and arms, as if I'd done a heavy workout, the muscles burning and flaring. I want to recoil but the muscles on my arms and chest ripple in sympathy. I shudder as a wave of pain surges through me; like something opening out inside.

Just like I felt after beating the gangster. Jesus. I'd forgotten that, suppressed that weird feeling as I'd knelt on the cobblestones.

I break his grip and back away, spooked, mouth groping for a reaction. I grab my chest but the pain has just as quickly receded.

Lucs stares at me as I back down the stairs. What the fuck was that? What's wrong with me? He watches me go.

I stumble downstairs, knocking patrons out of the way as if they aren't there. The radio bucks in my hand but I don't hear what's said. Lucs perhaps, telling the others. One of the doormen-that asshole Pteris who hated me from the moment I arrived, as if I didn't deserve to be here-appears from the foyer near the front door and stands waiting for me. I double back, heading for the back. I traverse the edge of the dancefloor, trying to keep out of sight of the other security perched like gargoyles on their posts.

I reach the Stage unharmed and burst through the double doors into the muted corridor to rest panting against a damp wall, waiting for my smoke-stained eyes and nose and throat to clear. My pulse throbs in my head, keeping complicit time with the music rumbling through the walls.

The one hanging light casts weird shifting sprays of illumination down the corridor. I touch my chest again, recalling that strange pain. I must be going insane, too many late nights, the shock of seeing someone killed. Maybe it's the drugs finally getting to me.

Yet Lucs' words nag at the back of my brain.

I force them from my mind. All that matters is getting out of here and I push off the wall and head for the back door.

I round a corner. Too late realize I'm not alone.

A figure is coming towards me, filling the narrow space. When I see the size of the guy I instinctively put one foot back, planting myself.

Gabe. He's big-bigger even than me-and in the tight corridor he almost scrapes the roof with his head. I tense and wait for him. Then I glimpse over his shoulder another darkened figure bent over something on the ground, something framed by yellow-it is blond hair, it is a woman. Tight black shorts. Bra-top.