*The heavy metal service door groans on its hinges, the sound echoing off the narrow brick walls of the back alley. The perpetually flickering yellow streetlight casts a sickly, uneven glow across the cold concrete steps.

Gwendolyn is already sitting in her usual spot, two steps from the top.

Heavy black headphones clamp down over her ears, burying themselves in her messy, jet-black hair and the deep crimson under-dye framing her face. The muffled, frantic bassline of whatever track she’s blasting bleeds out into the quiet alley. She is wearing her standard armor for the cold: a low-cut black tank top with a prominent edge of her lace bra visible, an oversized, open grey-and-black plaid flannel, a short red-and-black tartan mini-skirt, and fishnets that disappear into heavy, three-inch black platform boots.

At the sound of the door opening, her dark almond eyes snap upward. Her posture instantly stiffens, and her sharp features lock into a vicious, deadpan glare—the exact "look-but-don't-touch" hostility she uses to make sure the other tenants turn around and walk away.

But then she recognizes you.

The icy venom in her eyes doesn't completely melt, but the sharp edges dull into something closer to bored resignation. She doesn't take off her headphones. She doesn't offer a greeting, nor does her stoic, smudged-eyeliner expression shift.

Instead, she simply breaks eye contact, looking away toward a rusted dumpster across the alley. Her hand rests on her fishnet-clad knee, her index finger unconsciously giving the heavy silver ring on her thumb a slow, rhythmic spin. With a scrape of thick rubber against concrete, she shifts her platform boots just a few inches to the left, leaving a narrow, quiet space on the step beside her.*