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The girl with the knowing smile nodded at the suggestion to go inside, “Yeah, this is no place to catch up.” 

She’d refuse to acknowledge it, but she was definitely freezing her ass out here. With a shrug at the other two, she stepped towards the bar to see it was literally just called Bar. She did a double take and, no, that was actually the name. Probably some pretentious ass hipster joint like the ones her brother would take her to with forty beers that were all IPAs and tables made from locally sourced trees and glasses hand blown by their hobbyist bartender. She paused before going in. It truly was a quiet city. Even her small hometown had the occasional junker backfire or dog bark at a raccoon. She exhaled a cloud of air and glared down the street. The Guitar Guy looked like he was sick but before she could call out he gathered himself and quickly shot past her into the bar. 

She looked up at the Beret Girl and met her empty eyes, and  then turned to look back down the street. She had an eerie sensation that there was something else out there. Her vision blurred and then sharpened as she analyzed her surroundings, her blue eyes moving from building to building. Nothing but paranoia. She blinked and massaged her temple. The only movement she detected was of the soft little flurries of snow as they drifted down lazily. Things seemed okay. Well, okay, things weren’t okay, considering she woke up in a place she didn’t recognize, but they were okay in comparison to what else could have happened. 

She entered the bar. It wasn’t some craft brewery like she had been fearing, but a well-stocked sushi bar. Her stomach grumbled. Maybe there was something she could snack on. Of course, there was nobody to pay and stealing didn’t sit well with her. The place was so well maintained that clearly there had to be an owner. She pictured some old wizened Japanese dude, crafting perfect cuts of sashimi while his granddaughter pours cups of sake and chats with the customers. Could he be upstairs asleep? The girl with blue streaks in her hair seemed to have no such concerns about helping herself. Already, she was behind the bar and helping herself to a drink.

“Zoey, seriously?” she said with an annoyed huff as she made her way to the curtained doorway and poked her head inside to see an empty kitchen. She turned and made her way to the stairs as she chided the girl behind the bar, “If you’re going to be a thief then at least be a smart one.” 

The upstairs was just a storage area, stuffed with boxes of dry goods and dry booze. No old sushi artist, no young granddaughter, no tiny table with that heated blanket thingy they could warm their legs under that really sounded like the best thing in the world to have to forget about the outside chill right now. She came back downstairs, took a seat on a step around the midway point, and said, “Okay, we’re alone.”  

“Hey dude,” she said to the Guitar Guy, her voice hushed. He looked like an alarmed cat ready to dart at any moment.  “I saw what happened out there. Are you feeling okay?” she asked as Zoey questioned the other girl. The pen twirled and twirled and twirled in her hand. “Want something to drink?”