In every house there is a door which hides itself from most eyes. It conceals its presence behind corners and in the most forsaken rooms, and no one dares to search for it, knowing what they’ll find. However, no one can know where it leads, and once a person steps through it—excluding the rare occasion—that soul never returns. Jade Espera only looked at the door when she walked people straight to it and pushed them through.

Her fingers drummed against the top of the bar. She stared into the street through the foggy window, her calculating, grey eyes following the paths of autos humming past in the falling dusk. A ruckus in the corner of the smoky, crowded pub pulled her gaze away from the outside world and toward the group of men, street workers by the grease stains on their fingers, who sat around a table cluttered with glasses of burnished bronze liquid. Other customers stood around the hovering board game in the center of the room or lounged on metal chairs. Jade’s nose wrinkled instinctively as the stench of burning drugs wisped through the air, and she met the gaze of the bartender, who grinned.

“You like that?”

She raised a brow at him. “Not particularly.”

He wiped his sweaty bangs from his forehead and nodded in the direction of the conversing workers. “I think they like you, though. You sure you don’t wanna drink?”

“I prefer my evenings sober, but thank you.”

His hairy forearm landed on the counter top as he leaned over it. “So why are you here if not for drugs, a drink, or men?”