Joe eased out of the back door of the bar, head down, face covered and shoulders hunched into habitual anonymity. The back alley was dark, and stank of decay. Foetid, trash-laden rainwater pooled in pits on the rotted concrete of the alley floor, and reflected the glow of a distant street light into glittering stars. The emergency exit light probably hadn’t worked for years, and refuse collectors stayed well clear of this part of town. This was one of Joe’s favourite hunting grounds; the lack of security or anyone who gave a flying fuck about their neighbours made for easy pickings, which more than made up in quantity what they may have lacked in quality, and he was never one to turn down a free ride.

He stayed in the deepest shadows as he headed for the alley mouth, considering the night’s haul as he walked. Some fresh meat – drunk, careless or just plain stupid – had slipped his jacket over his chair back, which Joe considered as good as an engraved invitation. As a bonus, it seemed to have an extra pocket or two more than the designer had intended, all full of interestingly shaped objects that dragged the leather out of true – and slam, suddenly he was jerked backwards in his tracks, his own momentum nearly yanking him off of his feet. He hadn’t even heard anyone coming. As he tried to regain his balance he was pulled roughly up again, then slammed into a wall, feet scrabbling for purchase on the slime covered ground. A solid weight pressed him face-first into the damp, stinking brickwork, and he felt the lick of an acid tongue rasp across his chin as he whipped his head round to prevent his nose getting broken yet again. Hot breath suddenly slid moistly over his left ear, and a rich, rasping, male voice whispered, "I think you have something of mine. Want to give it back?"

A moment of stunned silence, then Joe’s snarl of "Fuck you, asshole!" shattered the rancid night air. Darkness blurred and coiled in his mind as he twisted viciously in his attacker’s grip. The cuffs and collar of his newly acquired jacket drew hot and tight against the skin of his wrists and neck as he tried to slip away, the reinforced leather less flexible than the rest of the worn animal skin that he hid in. It hurt and the fucker would not let him go. He twisted again, eel quick, and managed to slide the knife at his waist into fast-numbing fingers. He drew in a deep breath, then dropped, a dead weight in his would-be captor's grasp, and it was a good job the jacket was undone or he would have choked himself on the collar.

"Shit!" his attacker grunted, but quietly. He had to let go or risk a dislocated shoulder, but that didn’t prevent him from landing a solid kick on Joe’s kidneys. The impact screamed along his nerves, fire along spilled gas, and if those weren’t steel fucking toe caps he’d eat his gun. He reacted through the pain, rolling and striking out, feeling the blade snag, then slide smoothly across slick flesh. A hiss, this time, when most would have cried out. Whoever he was, the mark was used to keeping things quiet. And wearing steel toe capped boots. Fuck. He’d looked so easy with that fucking baby face and the arm that wasn’t quite right, sat alone in the bar, impossible to resist. In retrospect, maybe it should have occurred to him that the guy was being avoided for a reason.

Banking on the pain of what had felt to be a decent slice to slow the other down, he pulled himself to his knees by brute force, and was half way to standing, trapped in a sprinter’s start, when what felt like a fucking anvil landed on his outstretched hand. Snarling with rage he drove off, up and back into the space where the other should have been… and carried on falling through empty air, hearing his wrist pop even before he felt it. The ground punched him in the back and drove all the air from his lungs, the impact sending his blade skittering across the wet concrete as if trying to escape his outstretched fingers. He distantly felt the weight lift off his hand, and the pain of crushed fingers added itself to the press of agony squatting on his chest. He might even have blanked out for a minute, because suddenly a black-clad knee was looming in his blurred vision as a hand gripped cruelly in his hair and rolled back his head. Then the guy’s face, and the innocence had given way to a pain junkie’s bright sparkling grin. Fingertips eased into his view, glistening red.

"I should kill you for that," the junkie said, no, purred, and a pink tongue flickered out to taste the blood on his fingers, his own blood, and this was beyond fucked up, and it was no-where he wanted to be. The word ‘should’ gave him a moment of hope, but before he had a chance to react to the possible stay of execution, a sudden, sharp numbness joined the excruciating agony in his kidneys. A ripple shook across his vision, a shock wave of pain. "You did remind me that I should be more careful..." he felt his arms being pulled back, the jacket being stripped back in awkward jerks. As teetered on the edge of living, the last words he would ever hear whispered joyfully at his back. "…but you had to make it so fucking easy…"

He fell.