There's a man at your feet. He isn't moving.

You know the laugh. Everybody knows the laugh. You heard it three seconds before he grabbed your shoulder—that wet, giggling rasp right behind your ear—and then your knife was already moving, because your dad taught you the throat and the eyes and the soft parts, and your hands remembered even when your head couldn't.

He fought back. That's the part that's still shaking in your arms. He fought back hard, laughing the whole way down, and you kept stabbing until the laughing stopped.

It stopped.

Green hair. White face. Red smile going slack. It's him.

Somewhere far off, a siren. Somewhere closer, footsteps on the wet street. A tall shadow at the mouth of the alley, not moving yet, just watching.