Seeping under a gap between workshop door and threshold, opera music ascends the apartment's stairwell. Ave Maria. Elia sighs and lets a heavy footfall carry her down each step. "Without fail."

Inside the shop, Otto is tucked under a minivan's popped hood. He wrenches away at something and makes slow, exaggerated swings of his hips to the song's lyrics.

Between him and Elia, Duffie's workstation sits empty — aside from oil stains; a tool cabinet with drawers ajar; and memories. The workstation isn't Duffie's. Not anymore.

Elia breaks her glazed-over stare. Maybe I should go ahead and put up some postings.

A 2302 Pontiac Firebird Redux sits in the center of her own workstation, maroon paint chipping and one side mirror gone. Otto must have moved it in for her. She glances at him — his music-inclined ass, too. As if on cue, Ave Maria fades out and Nessun Dorma starts.

Mom's favorite.

Memories flit through Elia's mind — old sensations of her mother's cooking. Enfrijoladas. Tortillas there, but on the verge of disappearing into a creamy, black bean sauce. Cocadas. The smell of roasted coconut wafting through their apartment. More. So many more. Alongside all, Nessun Dorma crackles out the speakers of her mother's thirdhand phone.

Elia blinks away her reverie. She's not standing where she was when the music swept her away. In front of her, a clipboard lies atop her tool cabinet — the Firebird's work order clipped to it. She lifts her toolbelt off the cabinet and wrestles it into place at her waist. He can keep the headphones off, today.

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Lunch comes fast. A couple rungs from the top a step ladder and rag in hand, Elia dabs sweat off her brow. Three work orders down; two left. She eases down the hood of a Ford F-250, its leaky coolant hose now replaced. An easy job if the thing wasn't a building's worth of steel and fiberglass.

The shop is quiet; no music. Elia descends her step ladder and leans around the truck's hulking body. Did he go to lunch already?

No, he didn't. Only Otto's feet are visible, poking out from underneath yet another minivan and tapping away to nothing. Headphones.

She drapes her toolbelt over her cabinet. "Nice of him."

A bit of walking and Elia pounds on the van's hood, sending metallic warbles echoing off the shop's concrete walls. "Lunch time!"

Otto slides out atop a roller. Headphones cover his ears, smudges of grease cover his cheeks, and beads of sweat glitter along his scalp; he wrenches the headphones off. "Sorry! What did you say, boss?"

"Lunch time."

He starts scrambling to his feet. "Going to Sickbay? I'm coming?"

Elia's mind jumps to the tin of disgusting meat paste waiting overhead. She could be back by now.

Elia's eyes drift upward, catching girders that support the shop's ceiling — somewhere beyond which waits a tin of disgusting meat paste. "Ah, hmm — no. No, I don't think so. Going it alone today; I'll be up in my apartment if you need me."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Otto settles back, sitting upright on the roller's butt cushion. "Oh, okay. Yeah. Whatever you need, boss." He pulls off a glove and his brow furrows. "Are you sure?"

She bounces her fist against the minivan's hood — three times, lightly. She doesn't do a fourth. "Yeah, I'm sure. Enjoy your lunch."

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Upon crossing her apartment's threshold, Elia rushes to the windowsill. A swarm of flies dance above the tin. Earlier, she could fight back against the fear; keep her emotions in check long enough to think. Not now. All her worry spills forth, coating her body in sweat. She shoos flies and stares out over the shop's gravel parking lot. Do I go out and try to find her?

None of the rusted husks of cars yell an answer back, but she's already made her decision. It's there — in her chest. Solid. The rest of her just hasn't accepted it yet. It doesn't take long; that resolution spreads like a fever. A hot, urgent ache. Her legs move, trailed close by her mind. Where would she be?

There isn't a good answer to that. Only bad and worse.

She yanks a puffer coat out the closet in her foyer, rushes down stairs, and barrels through the shop door.

Crack. Doorknob meets concrete with explosive force. From near his tool cabinet, Otto flinches and jerks his neck around. Seeing Elia, he scrambles to get his headphones off his ears. "Hoo, gave me a spook. Everything good? Okay?"

She freezes half a dozen steps between the stairwell and the door to the parking lot, mid-stride — straddling long-ways. What do I tell him?

Nothing. That's it; what she'd always say. Why is it a question now? Her heart writhes between that nothing and something else. Something tender, raw to the touch. Secret.

The truth.

"I didn't see her this morning, so I left out food, but she hasn't touched it. So I was— I was—" Midway through her explanation, she dabs away a dribble of snot and snuffles through the rest. "I— I was going out to look for her."

Otto doesn't hesitate. He breaks into a jog and they collide, his arms wrapping around her. He squeezes. "Oh no. Oh no. Do you want help? Where do I look?"

That mysterious something warring with silence wasn't just some ideal like truth. It was personal. It was trust: trust that Otto wouldn't run at a flicker of emotion — good or bad. Her mind goes to her chest pocket, where her mirror hangs heavy.

No. She let's herself trust him. "Dumpsters in the alley behind BuntsMart." She says.

Their bodies part. Forcing a smile, he holds her at arms length and nods that big, thoughtful, bald head of his. "Okay. I'll be right over there."

She breaks away and shoves one arm into the sleeve of her puffer coat. "We'll split up: if you find her, I'll be searching around Mangrove."

There's no more words to say. They both wrestle on their jackets, lock up the shop, and jog over shifting gravel. At the sidewalk, their path's diverge. Elia to the left; Otto to the right.

Her heart races. Each beat pumps fear-defying adrenaline through her veins. Though, that's not all that fights her fears. She wheels back around and calls after Otto, quiet enough to leave him hearing to chance. "Thank you."

He throws a hand over his head. "Yeah, boss!"

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Lunch is far past and Elia has looked everywhere along Mangrove Street. Restaurants, bodegas, delis. Anywhere a gross cat might find gross, discarded food. Everywhere except for one place; the thought of it curdles her blood. She pounds pavement with her work boots. Every second, the alley grows closer. The alley where she found poor Bamboo lying in the rain; beaten, scratched to hell, and unable to move.

Elia clenches her hands into fists. She's okay. She's fine.

At the alley's mouth, she swings around to face it. It's cluttered. A mountain of milk crates, empty trashcans, trash bags tossed in the direction of said trashcans. She pauses. Braces. Prepares herself for what she might find— there, a swishing tail behind the crates.

Her heart leaps; her stomach flips. She tears down the alley, work boots trampling the odd billowing bag. "Bamboo! You're okay!"

For a moment the cat's tail disappears. After a breath, emerald eyes and pointed, fuzzy ears replace it. "Roaw?"

A second pair of eyes join Bamboo's: brown ones framed by frizz of the same shade.

Elia's haphazard sprint peters out. "Thea?"