When she was 12, she left her father lying face down on a dirty linoleum floor. A gift in the form of a rainbow seen in the pool of blood and alcohol sugared by broken glass. People always get what they want in the end. She never looked back. Now there was only the city and herself, a white blood cell in stiletto, purifying the stream.

She has learned to dance, the movements precise, controlled. The man dances too, just outside her reach, taunting her, she thinks. The form is strict; one movement is for the money, another is just for fun, with the rats, with lesser creatures. But, the man eludes her and she cannot finish without him. His scent is what she follows. Always at night, when sick yellow has faded to pure black.