When she walked in the door of Pins and Needles, the cowbell clanged.

Rabbit glanced over his shoulder.

"Be right with you," he called. As the man beside him talked, Rabbit absently ran a hand over his white-and-blue-dyed hair.

Leslie lifted a hand in greeting and walked past him. This week he had left a tiny goatee directing attention to his labret piercing. It was that piercing under his lower lip that had caught her attention the first time Ani and Tish had brought her to the shop. Within a week, she'd had her own piercing—hidden under her blouse—and found herself spending time in the studio.

She felt safe there—away from Bishop O.C., away from the unpleasantness of her father's drunkenness, away from whatever letches Ren brought home to share his drug of the week. At Pins and Needles she could be safe, quiet, relaxed—all the things she couldn't be most other places.

"Yes, always use new needles," Rabbit repeated to the prospective customer.

As Leslie walked around the shop, she listened to the snatches of Rabbit's comments that wound into the silence between songs: "Autoclave…sterile as a hospital."

The man's gaze drifted lazily over the flash on the walls, but he wasn't there to buy. He was tense, ready to bolt. His eyes were too wide. His posture was nervous—arms folded, body closed in on itself. Despite the number of people who came through the shop, only a few would actually lay down money for art. He wasn't one of them.

"I have a couple questions," she called out to Rabbit.

With a grateful smile at her, Rabbit excused himself from the man, telling him, "If you want to look around …"