She’d wound up in downtown Seattle without a cred-stick. Like so many kids before her, she decided to sell the only thing she had. Herself. She hadn’t been prepared for the jeers, the mocking laughter. Fleeing down an alley, she’d run head-first into Chen, knocking him flat on his ass on a broken bottle. Later, she’d discovered the blood on the seat of his pants. And found out why he gave her the nickname Pita. From that day on she answered only to it, instead of to Patti, the name her parents had given her.