Skater grabbed one of the chairs and sat, waiting to be sure Duran and the rest were long gone before he took his own departure. He wouldn't let himself think about how he felt. The members of the team could never be called friends, but as runners they were all chummers, and there was no question they'd have laid down their lives for each other on a run. They'd already done it more than once over the past three years.

His grandfather had died when Skater was twelve, which was why he'd left the Council lands to live with his mother in Seattle. She'd been a fixer, surviving on the dirty edge of the shadows, and Skater had learned early not to trust the men she brought around. They were rough and uncaring, quick to swat when he didn't move fast enough.

For the past three years the team had been the closest Skater had ever come to feeling like he belonged somewhere. The closest to something he could call family, even though each one lived with his or her own secrets.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd considered the possibility of one of them betraying him or each other.

Now they were gone.

And his last words to them had been a lie. because Skater had a very good idea who'd set them up, even though he couldn'l even begin to guess why. By rights he should have come clean and confessed his suspicions.

The only problem was. Skater was still in love with the woman.

4

"Cutting and running, eh?" the driver of the gypsy cab asked him maybe thirty minutes later.

For a moment Skater froze, halfway into the vehicle parked at the curbside. The trickers hustling the corner under a working street light only a few meters away took his indecision as possible interest. Dressed in a variety of street synthleathers and revealing lingerie, both sexes came at him, some entreating and some abrasive in their challenges.