A/N: chap. 1 added to because FF cut it off before i wanted. please feel free to re-read. chap 2 to come soon.
Oh yeah! Disclaimer: i own nothing and only aspire to do justice to the wonderful characters D&T&D have given us. Hail the Illustrious Zydrate King!

Shilo shuttered as she looked blankly at her dealer's body where it lay crumpled on the ground behind the filthy dumpster with a bullet hole in his head. Since she'd found him a month after the Opera, her Zydrate dealer had been the only person she ever spoke to, even then they barely exchanged a word. Now he was dead.

Perfect, Shilo thought as she wrapped her arms tighter around herself and glanced around the alley to see if she was alone. She knelt down and sorted through his coat to see if there was anything left that she could use, he'd long since been picked over; his Zydrate, gun, and even his boots were gone, as she'd guessed. Shilo shrugged her tiny shoulders and hauled the ugly coat off the stiff corpse and wrapped it around herself to try and stave off the chill. She looked down at the man who'd been the closest thing to a friend that she'd had since her world had fallen apart. As a sign of respect for the criminal, she closed his lids over his blank staring eyes before brushing off her skirt and leaving the alley.

It had been a little over a day since her last fix and Shilo estimated that she could go maybe another day or two before she couldn't function without another hit. The only problem was that she'd stumbled across this dealer by accident. There was only one other that she knew of and the thought of him made her break into a cold sweat. In her mind she could still see his skeletal white face lit blue with the drug that was now the only thing keeping her sane.

The Zydrate king watched Ms. Sweet's bodyguards carry her out of the alley. With a single swift motion he grabbed a rag from the ground near where he was holding court and deliberately wiped the few drops of Amber's blood from the tip of the gun. Not a terribly health conscious person, he usually settled for wiping it off between selling spots or when things got slow to keep it in proper working order; but there was something bad in Amber Sweet's blood, something tainted that didn't need to spread.

Not even scalpel sluts deserved to be exposed to something that tainted.

He turned his attentions back to flirting with his subjects and shooting them full of glowing bliss while they filled his pockets with credits.

After a while, on a whim, he looked past the pawing hands and slack faces of his addict admirers; a slip of a thing caught his attention. It had barely made it into the alleyway before collapsing, a long coat spreading onto the neon-reflecting pavement. He gave the poor working girl an amused smirk; he looked at one of the addicts that was already coming down enough to be useful and with a sharp shift of his head sent him scurrying towards the fallen addict to carry her over. Looking around at his gathered junkies, he grinned,

"She's come all this way, but she didn't quite make it. Should I give her what she came for?" there was a mixed chorus of yeses and no's, but the general feeling seemed to be "if she can pay, let her play." The dealer laughed as he knelt beside the prone body and brushed the hair to the side exposing face and neck. He was surprised to discover that the hair brushed back in a strange manner, almost sliding off instead of staying rooted to her scalp. The white face that stared at him from the ground made him pause, the white face stood out sharply against her black hair and clothes.

Shilo, where've you been kid?

Shilo opened her eyes and found herself staring into the dark eyes of a living corpse. She started when it's mouth curved up in a half smile.

"What do you need, kid?"

"Graverobber…" her un-used voice grated the inside of her throat, making her cough sharply.

"At your service," he gave her a little bow as he removed one of the glowing vials from inside his coat and waved it a little in front of her face, "is this what you want?" she tried to croak out a yes, but her throat was too dry, so all she could was nod. "First hit's free, kid." He said as he pressed the cold tip of gun into her exposed neck and blue sparks exploded in her brain.

The world came back to Shilo in layers: her sight became sharper, the blurry shapes and colors became people and objects again; the roaring echo in her ears sorted itself out into voices and background noises. A sharp laugh from Graverobber came to the forefront of her attention as she started to sit up. She looked around for him, a slight agoraphobic panic hitting her directly in her chest, needing her stabilization. He seemed to be discussing something with a skinny boy with bright red and purple spiked hair. Shilo shakily started to sit up, without taking her eyes off Graverobber or his shorter companion. The boy acknowledged her first and motioned her to the dealer, who turned and watched her guide herself to her feet, supporting herself on the building beside her.

"Feel better?" he asked, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Whether he was still amused from what the boy had said or if he was silently laughing at her, Shilo wasn't sure, either way she started walking towards him anyway, hand firmly planted on the wall of the building so she wouldn't trip and fall. The boy laughed, catching Graverobber's attention again before continuing to speak.

"So that's what she's been up to from what I hear."

"Honestly, you and I could run GeneCo better then she is, business meetings during the day, surgeries at night."

"'nd somewhere in between, still manages ta come see you fera hit of glow, right?" The boy laughed.

"Speaking of, ya got yer cash?" the boy nodded and reached into the pocket of his ragged looking leather pants. He passed it over and Graverobber unholstered his Zydrate gun and shot the boy just over his prominent collarbone, causing the boy to let out a small noise as he closed his eyes dreamily.

"Yes." Shilo finally answered, voice still harsh and raspy from lack of use, as they watched the boy drift lazily down the alley. "Thank you." She added softly.
"Finally found your cure, huh?" was all he asked.
"I guess so. It does the job." He gave her a sly look out of the corner of his eye; Shilo took no notice, her eyes were fixed on the brightly clad addicts that still littered the alley. If it were at all possible, she looked even smaller then she had on the holoscreens the night of the Opera, but then grief mixed with rage always makes people stronger. But without rage as a buffer, grief just eats people alive.
"What job is that?" he asked like he didn't already know the answer. It was just as interesting, if not more so, to find out what she thought.
"Forgetting."
"I could have helped you with that sooner, didn't I offer?"
"That wouldn't have helped."
"How so?"
"Because you make it real."
"You had reality issues before the Z didn't you?" she looked confused, but her eyes never faltered. "First you're shocked and surprised to find I'm actually a real person, now I make things too real?" It made sense, but did she understand what she was talking about.
"Without seeing anyone it's easy to not know where I'm from or what's happened, everything goes just one day at a time. No present, no future. You're the only one who brings it all back, makes me remember that I have nothing."
"Yet you still came and found me."
"I needed Zydrate."
"I taught you how."
"Needle through a bug…" she hadn't come completely down from her high yet, making it easier to drag these realizations from her without her pesky emotions getting in the way.
"Exactly. Are you sure you weren't looking for something else?"
"Closure, companionship."
"Change the world?"
"Chase the morning."
"Can you do that alone and addicted to glow, just like the bitch head of GeneCo?"
"No."

Graverobber smiled to himself, almost to easy.

Why are you bothering? A voice in his head asked.

It's a challenge, and she's a damn site more interesting to talk to than Amber.

And she's cute?

It helps. He chucked a little at the banter inside his own head, then he heard Shilo's gasp of surprise. He followed her gaze to one of his scalpel sluts sitting on the stairs of the fire escape, feet dangling into oblivion. She was leaning heavily on the banister and Graverobber noticed that there was a pool of blood forming on the ground beneath her. Still heavily in the numbing embrace of her glow, the girl was calmly watching herself bleed to death.

"What the hell?" He muttered to himself. He crossed the alley in only a few strides and hauled himself straight up to where the girl was, not bothering running all the way around and using the stairs. He dragged her further back on the stairs so he could check where she was bleeding from, her fishnets catching on the rusty metal and tearing. The blood was gushing though new surgery stitches in a way that put Graverobber on edge. But before he could figure out just what had been botched, the girl's heart stopped.