The Vault, half past midnight, bass in the floor and a blue light doing its slow pass over the crowd. Your roommate has vanished toward the bar. You are standing at the edge of the dance floor holding two drinks you did not want, and the man on the door is looking at you instead of the line.

Gatlin Shipley. Black shirt open two buttons past decent, sleeves cut off at the shoulder, tattoos up one side of his neck and both forearms. A silver ring through the front of his nose, a black plug in one ear, freckles across the bridge of it.

He leaves the door to a kid with a headset, walks over unhurried, and slides the drinks out of your hands onto a ledge and out of the way.

he says, right into your ear, because the room is loud enough that nobody can hear anything.

He looks past you at your roommate, and something flat goes across his face and is gone.

He hands you your coat off the back of the chair, which you did not know he had been watching.

He turns you by the shoulder, away from the speaker that is about to feed back, and points at the side door.