I've never really been the sentimental type. Losing the things that you've loved over and over again will probably do that to a person. First the car accident, then Kilgrave. I don't really believe in fate but it seems like I was never meant to be happy for long. It's why I try not to get too attached to people or things, though that sometimes fails.

The bar is still black from the smoke, the front blown out completely. Inside the mangled hole is the bar itself, one end touching the floor where the cabinets burned down. The sunlight catches the sparkle of broken glass everywhere. The shards scatter out onto the street where the tiniest bits have been ground into dust. People walk by without taking a second glance, as if they're used to that sort of thing by now. After the city being invaded by aliens, I guess certain things fail to surprise people.

I try not to picture him behind that bar, but it's too late. He's there, in a plain white t-shirt, his arm muscles twitching with each twist of the rag inside the empty glass. He flashes a smile at a customer when they speak. He places the glass somewhere beneath the countertop and reaches for another one. He nods at the customer and responds in turn. His head turns in my direction, and suddenly his stare is cold, his smile is gone, and it's like ice down my spine.

A horn honks and the bar is empty, black, the acrid smell of smoke still thick in the air. Luke is nowhere to be seen.

My phone rings. Malcolm. I press the reject button and slip it back into my pocket. I give the bar one last look and then take off in the opposite direction.

The pizza sits like soggy paste in my stomach on the walk back to my apartment. That's what I get for eating Trish's gourmet vegan shit. I stop at the convenient store up the street from me and get a wonton soup and bottle of bourbon to go. My body's not all that used to too many solids right now.

My phone rings again on the elevator. This time Trish's name comes up on the display. I reject that call too. One of the things Kilgrave's death gave me was the freedom to disappear. With my soup and bourbon, that's my plan for the rest of the day.

But when the elevator gets to my floor and the door slides open, I see that the hallway has about three extra people in it, none of whom I recognize as residents of the building. The fourth person and the one standing closest to me is Malcolm. His hands are tucked inside his armpits. He steps towards me the moment he lays eyes on me.

"Jessica," he says. "I tried to call you."

I realize then that these people are waiting outside my door, the one that should have said "Alias Investigations" on the glass window but now only aids the peep-show into my office space.

"What's going on?" I ask. "Who are all these people?"

We keep our voices low. The other three haven't noticed I'm here yet; one is peering intently into my apartment, practically slicing his stomach open on the glass shards as he leans further and further through the hole in the window, and the other two are leaning against the hallway walls staring off into space.

"I don't know," Malcolm says. "They're clients, I think. They've been coming all day, but you haven't been home."

"Who's 'they'?"

Malcolm sighs. His innate goodness makes it difficult for him to hold patience with my inherent shittiness.

"People who want you to help them."

My mouth stays hanging open as Malcolm takes my elbow. I'm sure, "What the hell?" is written all over my expression. He steers me towards the small crowd of people outside my apartment door.

"Guys, this is Jessica Jones," Malcolm says. It takes everything I have not to punch him in the face. I jerk my elbow free of his hand.

"Let go of me," I snap. Three pairs of eyes have turned to stare at me.

"What do you want?" I ask impatiently. "I have wonton soup that I was about to enjoy."

The three of them start speaking at once. A lady starts pleading with me in Mandarin. I have no idea what she's saying. An elderly man tells me that his wife has been wandering out of their apartment at all hours of the day and night and has acquired many pieces of expensive jewellery. The second man, the one with his head inside my apartment a moment before, says something about his step-daughter and her boyfriend.

Malcolm reads my expression and waves his arms in the air.

"Okay, okay," he says. "Maybe we can let Jessica into her office and then you can each meet with her one at a time."

The woman nods and backs away. The elderly man casts his eyes towards the floor as if he's been chastised by a school teacher. The man with daughter-issues takes a step back but informs me that he was there first. I shoot him a sarcastic, tight-lipped smile and then glare at Malcolm.

"What do you expect me to do here?" I ask.

"Jessica, these people came to you for help."

"Why?"

Malcolm looks at me like I'm an idiot.

"Because you're a PI," he says slowly. "Because even though Kilgrave's dead, you still have bills to pay and rent to make every month."

I roll my eyes. Malcolm grabs my arm when I go to walk away.

"Don't ignore this opportunity, Jessica," he pleads. "I'm not asking you to be a hero. But being a regular person doesn't mean you can't help people."

"I'm not a regular person," I hiss.

"You know what I mean." Malcolm stares at me, his eyes clear. "It's why you became a PI, right? To help people. And it's why you wanted to kill Kilgrave. So that nobody else became his victim."

"Yeah, and I did a pretty shitty job of it."

"No, Jessica, no you didn't." Malcolm sighs. "Look, whatever you're thinking, whatever you're feeling…it'll go away with time. And support. You should come by one of the meetings, for real this time. You might find that it helps you. In the meantime, there are people here who need you. Go back to your normal life."

But I don't know what normal is anymore. I don't tell Malcolm that when I stepped off the elevator and saw these people standing there, my first instinct was to assume that Kilgrave had sent them and run. It hasn't sunk in that he's dead yet. Maybe it never will. How can I learn to live in a world without constant fear and paranoia?

I grip the plastic bag holding my container of wonton soup tighter in my hand and step forward. Three pairs of eyes look at me expectantly.

"You'll have to wait while I eat my lunch," I tell them. I push past the cluster and reach through the hole to unlock my door. Then I step inside and slam the door behind me. I eat at my desk and take my time, fully aware of the fact that they're watching me while I do it. There's a certain pleasure in pissing people who need you off.

I sign contracts with the elderly man and the woman after using a translating app to figure out what the hell she's saying. I make the second man wait the longest. The chair across from me creaks when he lowers himself into it. He looks at our surroundings with a curl to his lip. He clearly thinks this place is a dump. He's bald in the top centre of his head and wears thick wire-rimmed glasses. His golf jacket says money, as do his manicured and clean finger-nails, but his gut says he spends more time eating and drinking at the club than he does golfing. Chances are he's a businessman who needed a place to wine and dine his clients; a membership at a swanky golf club was probably just convenient and flashy. The impression he gives off is that of complete asshole; I know the type.

He tells me about his step-daughter: sixteen, miserable, standard daddy issues. That's what I glean from his complaints, anyways. Dating a kid that this guy thinks is a dickhead. He suspects her of sneaking out at night, having come into her room more than once to find the bed empty. When he questions her about it, she denies everything, and her mother takes her side.

When he finishes his story, asks me if I can figure out where she's going at night and if she's meeting up with her boyfriend, I get the sense that there's more going on than he'd like to say. The way he speaks about her goes beyond interest for her well-being. He's controlling, manipulative, and probably has some serious anger issues. I twist the cap of my pen between my fingers as the guy continues to gesticulate in front of me. Beads of sweat dabble his forehead. He seems to take the girl's behaviour personally, her absence at night some pointed affront to him. But what I want to know is why he's going into her room at night at all.

I have him sign the contract, but it's just for show. When he leaves, I shred it. Then I gather his information and start doing a little digging around on the internet. It isn't hard to find the golf club where he's a member, and to find his profile on Ashley Madison. So the guy's a slime-ball. I'm not surprised. His Facebook page is standard—pictures uploaded just to show off, mostly of family vacations and nights out on the town. His wife is good-looking, so his need to sleep around purely stems from him being a dick. There are a lot of pictures up of the threesome: him, his wife, and his step-daughter. His step-daughter is also really good-looking. He's tagged her in a lot of his posts, I notice. Blonde hair, slim build. After some browsing I find a picture of her in a cheerleading uniform at her high school's football game. In that instant she reminds me so much of Hope that I slam my laptop closed and push myself away from my desk. I lean my forehead against the wall. I breathe. My hands shake and I can't stop them. I punch my fist into the plaster; my hand goes right through. I reach for my bottle of bourbon and down the remains. Suddenly I feel like I'm going to be sick. The dizziness is so overwhelming that I clench my eyes shut. After a moment it passes. I list off the four street names without having to think about them; my tongue's muscle memory forms the syllables without hesitation.

I turn back to my search with more purpose than I had before. The guy's not good at hiding much. I find out about his ex-wife and their divorce online. I get his ex's contact info and call her pretending to be Patsy looking for 'John,' the name he used on his Ashley Madison account; he'd introduced himself to me as Richard. I find out from his ex that he legally changed his name and took on his new wife's surname when they married; with a detailed and violent message to pass along to him, his ex gives me his cell number. Now that I know he changed his name, it doesn't take long before I find out what it used to be. John Reinhart, now Richard Manson, was convicted of possessing child pornography twenty years ago.

I call the guy's cell phone and pretend to get cut off. He calls me back a moment later, and when I answer it, I track his number. It's located just outside his step-daughter's high school. He could be picking her up, but I take a taxi to over to check it out myself. It turns out as I suspected. While his step-daughter attends cheerleading practise in the football field, he's positioned in the bushes jacking off as he watches her.

I walk over casually. He doesn't notice me—too busy with his hand down his pants. I grab onto his jacket from behind and hurl him behind me. He goes flying and skids across the middle of the street on his back. He gets onto his hands and knees; his fly is open and his belt buckle drags on the ground.

"What the fuck?" he yells. He looks up at me.

"Jones?" he says.

"Get up, asshole," I say. I walk over to him and lift him by the front of his jacket until his feet are dangling in the air. I chuck him further across the street. His back smashes into the side of a car, denting the door. I hear the air rush out of his lungs as he collapses to the ground. There's no one around to see, but I wouldn't care if they were. I don't deal kindly with people like him.

"What—what are you doing?" he asks. He struggles to stand and do up his pants at the same time. "I'm just here to pick up Sarah…"

"Shut up," I tell him. I land a solid right hook to his jaw and blood flies out of his mouth. I force him to stand, pinning him against the car. I get real personal, so he knows exactly how things are going to go.

"I saw what you were doing, you disgusting prick," I hiss. "So this is what you're going to do. You're going to go home, pack your things. You're going to ask your wife for a divorce. Then you're going to leave before Sarah gets home. Go as far away from here as you can. Do not contact Sarah ever again. If you do, I'll cut your balls off myself."

I drop Richard back onto the ground and turn around.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, lady?" the guy asks. He cowers against the dented car behind him.

"A murderer," I say without looking back, "and you'd better not fuck with me."