Page 84 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 5-8
Richard grinned, mischief and longing in his eyes. He ran his hands over the back of one of the pews. “I’d like that.”
“Do you have time?”
Richard nodded toward Collin, far ahead of them, his security keeping pace with him. “I’ll make time.” He looked down, caressing the back of the pew again. “Make sure they save these pews. There’s a lot of good wood here, and you’re going to need it.”
“What do you see?”
Richard gave Damian a contemplative look as if he were reading him down to his soul. Then he turned back, hooking his thumbs in his belt and pacing down the nave. Damian trailed after him.
Richard waved to the two holes in the ceiling. “You’ll have structural damage beneath both of these and wherever the water flowed. Possibly foundation issues. Although if you have sufficient drainage to keep water flowing away from the foundations and solid enough supports, that could be minimal. These old buildings were built different. You may lose most of this floor, but you can salvage a lot of the actual surface tiles.” He tapped the marble with the toe of his shoes. “What’s underneath?”
“A full basement.”
“So many options then.”
“Jun asked if we could leave the roof open.”
“Structurally, long-term, no, you can’t just keep a roof open. But you could build open space into the center especially if you walled it off with glass and made sure to have a rain cache.”
They left Collin measuring with the help of the security guys and went downstairs. Daman turned on a flashlight he’d brought with him. Richard produced one of his own.
Cheaply made walls of drywall and particle boards divided the basement up into offices, classrooms, and storage rooms. Damian and Richard walked down the first hallway that ran the length of the sanctuary above. The smell of water wasn’t as strong as it could have been. Richard moved carefully, checking above and below before stepping through. Light came through window slits at the very top of the ceiling. It wasn’t completely dark.
“You have a lot of drainage,” he said. “There’s no settling marks, at least nothing recent.”
“I don’t think there’s enough height in here for a full dungeon.”
“No. But there’s still a lot that could be here. And this floor might be able to be lowered.” He scuffed his toe against the ragged minimal shag blue carpet that looked like it had been taken out of a 1990s corporate office catalog. “This is a later addition. I’d expect to find clearance below this. And this.” He waved at the ceiling, ugly white rectangles from the eighties, “These are just hiding ductwork and lighting. There’s height on the other side. Put in side lights and pillar mounted lights, use exposed ductwork, and you’ll have more room.”
It was well after six when they were finished. The wind was chilled. The sky was hinting at either freezing rain or snow as they returned to their cars. Instead of taking his car back, Damian swapped places with one of the security guys and rode back with Richard and Collin. He took the quiet of the drive to check his messages.
There were many. One of them was from his sister, Dalia.
Damian closed his eyes and pressed the knuckles of his fist between his eyes. This was blackmail, pure and simple. He let out a long breath and passed his phone to Richard.
Richard frowned as he read it and passed the phone back. Collin watched but didn’t speak. “She’ll probably talk anyway.”
True. Damian ran his hand over his head. He typed back:
She replied almost at once.
His mind already in the future, thinking of what their texts would look like submitted as evidence in court, he wrote:
Dalia:
Damian gritted his teeth together. He knew very well what kids needed. He’d been there for Deana, their younger sister, and he’d practically raised Armada for the first twelve months of her life. When Dalia wanted to go out and party, he’d been the one who had bought formula, slept beside his infant niece, woken up to feed her when she cried, and made her bottles. He’d scraped for diaper money and cajoled Dalia to take her in for her shots and wellness checks. He knew more than Dalia; having kids you didn’t want or plan to raise was cruel.
He swallowed it all back down. But it left him with nothing to say. If he buckled now and sent money, not only would that take away from what he had to work with on the church project, but it would also weaken him when it came to looking after Jun.
Jun was his responsibility. He’d learned a long time ago at the end of a flying fist that, no matter how much he cared, Dalia and her children were not his responsibility. If anything, they were Dalia and his father’s, the man who allowed them to live in his house.
He blinked back tears, thinking of Armada’s little face the last time he’d seen her. She had blinked at him silently from the kitchen floor, still trapped in her high chair, laid out flat where her grandfather had hit her. He’d tried to reach her, to find out if she needed a doctor, but his father hadn’t let him. He’d been this large, screaming body between them, a force without a face, just a voice and pain, battering against Damian, driving him back.
His hand flexed, feeling the impact of when he’d turned and fought back. The fear had never left.
She’d be eighteen soon. For better or worse, he was going to find a way to reach her. She wouldn’t know him, wouldn’t remember, but he would. He’d known the wrinkle on her toes, that she preferred her green cup over her blue one, and that she hated bananas but loved yams. No one else had known those things.
He just had to decide if he was going to reach out the day she turned eighteen or if he was going to wait until she should have graduated.
