She whispers the words. Paranoia sets in. Good. Paranoia keeps you alive.
“I’m the guy who keeps you breathing long enough to testify. That’s the entire job description. Don’t complicate it.”
The road narrows. The snow thickens, turning the world into a tunnel of white rushing at us in the headlights. Visibility drops to near zero.
I reach for the console and toggle the heads-up display. The windshield flickers, overlaying the darkness with spectral green lines. Infrared wireframes of the road, the guardrail, the drop-off into the abyss.
“We’re almost there.”
“Where is ‘there’?”
“Safe.”
“There is no safe. Not anymore.”
She closes her eyes.
We wind up a private drive, the tires crunching on fresh powder. The trees part, revealing the Glass House.
It grows out of the cliffside. A cantilevered slab of concrete and steel, walled entirely in panels. From the outside, it looks fragile, a crystalline box suspended over the void. It isn’t. The one way glass is ballistic-rated polycarbonate, thick enough to stop a .308 round. The concrete is reinforced with rebar cages. It’s a bunker wearing a tuxedo.
I kill the engine.
The silence of the mountains is absolute. No hum of traffic. No sirens. No city noise. Just the wind hissing through the pines and thetick-tick-tickof the cooling metal.
“Out.”
I exit the car, the cold air biting exposed skin. It’s ten degrees below freezing up here. The air feels thin, sharp as a knife.
Iris steps out. She stumbles slightly, her boots sliding on the ice. She shivers, a violent, full-body tremor shaking her entire frame. She’s wearing jeans and a thin cardigan. She isn’t built for this environment. She’s a creature of sterile hospitals and heated apartments.
I walk around the car to the trunk, and pull out the gear bags. I look at her, shivering in the snow, arms wrapped around herself.
She looks broken.
I take off my jacket, the leather one smelling of smoke and violence, and drape it over her shoulders.
She flinches at the contact, then pulls it tight. It engulfs her, the sleeves hanging past her hands.
“Come on.”
I lead her to the front door. No keys. Biometric scanner. I place my palm against the frozen panel.
Access Granted.
The heavy steel door swings open on silent hinges.
Heat rushes out to meet us, dry, filtered, climate-controlled air smelling of nothing.
I usher her inside. I follow, scanning the perimeter one last time before I close the world out.
The lock engages.
The deadbolt slides home with a sound of finality. Thud.
It echoes through the emptiness.
We stand in the foyer, the house dark except for moonlight spilling in off the snow. Shadows stretch across the polished concrete floor, long and sharp. The glass walls frame the mountains beyond, vast, indifferent, cruelly beautiful.
