Ghosts in the Heating Vents

The Glass House was not designed for triage. It was designed for cocktail parties and sunrise yoga.

Maya had dragged Dario out of the tub and onto the plush rug in the center of the bathroom. The floor heating was the only mercy the house offered. She had raided the owners' linen closet for expensive Egyptian cotton towels, which she was now using to staunch the flow of blood from his abdomen.

"This is going to hurt," she said.

She held a needle she had sterilized with a lighter from her pocket. She didn't have anesthetic. She had a bottle of vodka she’d found in the wet bar.

Dario took a long pull from the bottle, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the rug. "Do it."

Maya worked. She wasn't a doctor, but she had spent the last five years caring for a dying mother. She knew how to clean a wound. She knew how to bind it. The bullet had passed through, tearing the flesh above his hip bone but missing the vital organs. It was a messy, ugly hole, but it wasn't immediately fatal.

As she stitched, Dario watched her. His eyes were fever-bright.

"You stayed," he whispered.

"Someone had to pay the bills," Maya said, not looking up. "Mom got sick right after you left. Cancer took its time."

"I heard," Dario said. "I'm sorry, Maya."

"Don't," she snapped, pulling the thread tight. Dario hissed through his teeth. "You don't get to be sorry. You left, Dario. You went to the city to become a 'big shot.' Is this what big shots do? Bleed out in strangers' bathtubs?"

"I made mistakes," he gasped.

"You look like a criminal."

"I am a criminal," he admitted. The honesty hung between them, heavy and cold.

Maya finished the knot and cut the thread. She taped a pad of gauze over the wound. "There. If it doesn't get infected, you might live."

She sat back on her heels, wiping her bloody hands on a towel. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by a deep, aching exhaustion. She was trapped in a house that wasn't hers, with a man she shouldn't know, hiding from people she couldn't imagine.

"Why here?" she asked. "Why Point Grey?"

"It's winter," Dario said, closing his eyes. "Town's empty. And... it's the only place I knew the way to without a GPS."

"That's a lie," Maya said. "You came here because you knew I was here."

Dario opened his eyes. They were dark, filled with a mixture of pain and calculation. "Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to see the ocean one last time."

Maya stood up. "I need to get the heat up. If the pipes freeze, we're both dead."

She walked out of the bathroom, leaving him on the floor. She went to the main thermostat and overrode the lock, cranking it to seventy. The furnace in the basement roared to life, a distant rumble that shook the floorboards.

She looked out the window. The sun was setting, turning the grey ocean into a bruised purple. The snow was falling harder now, a white curtain closing them off from the world.

She was an accomplice now. The realization settled in her stomach like a stone. She had touched the blood. She had hidden the gun.

She walked back to the bathroom. Dario was trying to sit up. He had pulled the black duffel bag onto his lap.

"Maya," he said. "Look."

He unzipped the bag.