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been approached numerous times by pimps, had made the mistake of believing one once when he said he just wanted to buy her breakfast at a nearby diner. Remnants of fear and desperation, the headlong run through a strange city to get away from him when he tried to force her into his car, made her breaths come faster. When the leather-coated man put his hand on the teen’s duffel and she jerked it away, Iris started across the street, dodging a taxi cruising for a fare.
    She stopped three feet from the couple and made eye contact with the startled girl. She couldn’t be more than fourteen, Iris thought, observing the braces. She swiped her tongue across her top teeth at the memory of twisting the braces from her teeth with a pair of pliers in a bus depot restroom in Topeka. The blonde looked clean and reasonably well-rested; she hadn’t been running long. Maybe Iris could talk her into returning home and buy her a ticket back to where she’d come from. “You don’t have to go with him, you know,” Iris said, voice gentle and reasonable, holding the girl’s gaze.
    The man glowered at her. “What the fuck business is it of yours? C’mon.” He tugged on the girl’s arm.
    “He’s a pimp,” Iris said. “Whatever he’s told you about buying you a meal or helping you find a place to stay, he’s lying.”
    The man swung toward her, anger darkening a face that was all long nose and cheekbones like blades. “What the fuck—?”
    Iris widened her stance and brought her arms up slightly so she’d be ready if he took a swing at her. Adrenaline buzzed in her veins, headier than any drug. She willed him to do it, visualizing how she’d take advantage of his momentum to catch his arm and pull him in closer so she could maximize the impact of her knee in his groin. That would probably put him down. If it didn’t, she’d—
    “He’s my brother.”
    It took a moment for the girl’s words to penetrate. When they did, a flush warmed Iris’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I thought—” She turned on her heel and walked away, hands pushed into the pockets of her jacket. How did I get it so wrong?
    “Loony bitch,” the man muttered behind her. “I told Mom not to let you take the bus. Too many weirdos.”
    Iris ducked her head as if the words were missiles and hurried toward the bar parking lot. She burned with humiliation and was so caught up in berating herself for her stupidity that she didn’t notice the dark figure ooze out of the alley beside the bar until the man grabbed her arm and jabbed a gun into her ribs.
    “Wallet and keys,” he rasped.
    The sickly sweet rot of his breath and the way he jittered told Iris he was a tweaker. Her years of self-defense training took over automatically, and she stamped on his instep while pivoting and bracing her right arm to sweep his gun arm away. Savage exhilaration swept through her. Something clanked on the asphalt. Iris followed through with a palm strike, glimpsing red-rimmed eyes and stringy hair as the heel of her palm crunched into his nose. His hand flailed upward, thudding against her temple, and he crumpled to the ground. She stood over him, breathing sharply, almost hoping he would get up. The too-brief fight had left her unsatisfied, like sex that was over too soon. A sound like a cow lowing issued from the mugger and she knew he wasn’t getting up. Tension drained from her shoulders.
    “Hey, you okay? I’m calling the cops.” A man had emerged from the bar and was hurrying toward Iris as he punched in 911.
    Iris turned toward him and her foot stubbed something hard that skittered away. She bent to pick up the mugger’s weapon. Her fingers closed around smooth glass, not the heavy metal weightiness of a gun. A beer bottle. She huffed a laugh under her breath. She’d been held up by a damned Michelob bottle.
    The ringing phone cut through her thoughts of last night. Iris eyed Jane’s number on the caller ID and answered