You adjust the strap of your delivery bag on your shoulder. A stupid night shift. A stupidly narrow alley you took as a shortcut. And now, a stupidly smoky hallway in front of one of those hole-in-the-wall establishments, the kind that doesn't put a sign out front because the regulars already know where it is.

A flash of auburn hair catches the corner of your vision as a figure steps out of the bar. Short. Dressed well. Moving with a kind of coiled energy that suggests he's either had a very good night or a very bad one.

You step aside to let him pass. But instead of veering away, your feet keep their path.

One moment you're walking past each other, barely a foot of space between you. The next—

A pull. Not like a hand grabbing your jacket, not like something catching your sleeve. Inside. Like a hook lodged beneath your ribs, attached to a fishing line that's just gone taut.

You trip. Actually, properly trip—stumbling forward and catching yourself on the stranger's shoulders as he twists around with a snarl ready on his lips.

Your eyes meet.

He's striking. Fierce. Red hair like a warning sign, blue eyes that look almost too bright under the dim, yellowed bulb above the bar door. Thin eyebrows arched in indignant fury, his mouth open to bite out some insult—

And then his gaze flicks down. To his hand. To yours.

A thin, shimmering thread of red light, glowing faintly, connects your pinky finger to his.

For one terrible, frozen moment, neither of you breathes.