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laugh at. Shit. He steps back, trying to steal some space, some air to breathe. Trying to find minimal distance, to see her for what she is rather than the image he wants to see.
    Trouble is, Mim’s not only a master at camouflage, she’s also a drug, and it’s no secret how he feels about those. If she crooked a finger she could have him, and they both know it. After all, he only broke up with her because she made herself a cliff and pushed him off. If she hadn’t…
    She looks amused. “Busy? Getting high?”
    “Yup.”
    He necks his beer, grabs another two, earning a filthy look from some a-hole behind Mim. He ignores it, feeling hunted, cornered, and wanting to run away from her, back to her. Anywhere but here. Shock’s been running forever, and he’s so goddamn
tired
. He lost himself in Mim because it gave him an excuse to stop, because she’s a vacuum he can drown in. That’s partly why he finds her so difficult to resist. He’s pretty sure she’s wise to that. Mim’s got a killer instinct for weak spots. Hence the red bladers. She hasn’t worn them for years. This is all show, all manipulation. He’s so fucking
stupid
.
    “I’ll get round to it,” he says to her, and there’s a resounding “
fuck the hell off
” wound through it. Being belligerent is as close as he gets to protecting his heart.
    “Thought you’d say that,” she says, almost sweetly. “That’s why I invited you.”
    “Huh?”
    Mim gives him a calculating smile.
    “This party, you do know whose it is, don’t you?”
    The first mild stirrings of panic hit.
Oh hell no.
    “Whose?” he asks warily.
    “Mine.”
    Shock closes his eyes. When he opens them, Mim is gone. He doesn’t bother turning around, just sighs and says, “Joon Bug. Been a while.”
    She wanders around him as if he’s a bike she’s considering dropping flim on and he cranks his head up to aim a nervous smile toward where her head might be. Joon’s a human skyscraper, outstripping him by well over a foot, but then he makes for an unusually short Korean man, barely topping five foot three.
    She’s dressed in her usual uniform of scabby grey jeans and band tee, this one a black number so washed-out it looks dark grey in places, with the Rorschach pattern of some Doom or Deth band emblazoned across the front. He tries not to stare at her tits, though they’re staring him in the face. Joon’s not fond of folk engaging with her assets.
    “You look rough,” she says.
    “Being in my situation will kinda do that.”
    She bends down to eyeball him. She’s got incurious brown eyes, deceptively sleepy, though she had her epicanthic fold taken out years ago for perfect, wide, delineated almond eyes.
    “You chose your situation, dumbass. Zero sympathy. Mim says you have flim.” She quirks a brow. “I do believe you owe me.”
    Stamping down rage and dismay, Shock stares purposefully at her tits, trying for the wind-up, even though he’s fully aware Joon’s big enough and mean enough to pound his face in for it. Shit though, being irritating is all he’s got now Mim’s screwed him the fuck over to get her way.
    No surprises there.
    “Yeah, I have flim. It kinda has to go a long way.”
    Joon’s finger presses hard beneath his chin.
    “Eyes up, bitch. And I don’t care how long of a way you have to stretch that shit. You owe me. Cough up, or I’ll turn you upside-down and shake it out of you. I know it’s on you, it always is.”
    Ah, Joon Bug, always so altruistic. Long story bite-size? Shock basically got lazy on a job so boring it was giving him brain bleed a while back and hired in help, AKA JB, to handle it for him. Delegation, you understand. Anyway, fact is, he hired Joon, and then failed to spot her her share of the flim. Not paying wasn’t exactly intentional, but it happened to look that way to the untrained eye, and Joon’s been hungry for a bite of his flim balance, and possibly his flesh, ever since.
    “C’mon, Mim’s little