Page 6 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 9-12
Damian pulled a chair toward him and leaned on the back with his hands. “It’s Kramer fuckery.”
Jun leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “You believe her.”
“Unless she’s stupid, then she’s gambling everything on this. Sounds like she brought receipts. She’s pregnant. Her story can be proven true or false. If her mother or her grandfather get custody of her after she’s made a report like this, they might never find the body.”
Damian looked back at Richard. His mentor met his gaze, solid, unmoved. There was anger there, but not for Damian.
“They want me to take the kids. It could be for the weekend, for months, forever. Depends on whether or not Dalia loses parental rights.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the space.
Richard broke it first. “Where are the children now?”
“Here, somewhere.”
Jun shoved his hands in his pockets. “We should ask them.”
Damian frowned. “Ask them what?”
“Where they want to be.”
Richard nodded in approval toward Jun. “They may know something neither we nor the social workers know.”
It was a good call, actually. They might have someone they felt safer with than a long-lost uncle who had never been allowed to visit them. “I want to talk to Armada, alone, first.”
“I’ll go see if I can find someone,” Collin said.
“Take Cedric,” Richard ordered.
Collin blushed and nodded.
Cedric rumbled in approval, exchanging a look with Richard. Richard turned his face away, hiding a half smile.
Heart in his throat, Damian nodded to Welwick and stepped past him into the room where Armada waited for him. The other kids were elsewhere, but Armada had asked to speak to him alone before anything else.
So many years. She’d been a baby when he’d last seen her. The woman sitting at the white office table wasn’t grown yet, but there were markings of the adult she would be. Her hair was in small red and brown braids. There was a baby in her arms, less than a year old, and she was holding a bottle to his mouth.
Damian paused in the doorway, hand on the handle. “Hey.”
“Hey.” She jiggled the baby and tapped the nipple of the bottle against the baby’s lip so he would latch again. “Sorry, I just got him nursing. If I stand up, he’ll get distracted and stop and then he’ll cry.”
She looked tired. There were dark marks near her eyes, reminding him of Jun, and there was the edge of a white bandage showing along the collar of her shirt.
Damian shut the door, careful not to draw the baby’s attention. “Is that Habibi?”
“Yeah.” She sighed, looking down at the baby. “Let’s hope he eats and sleeps. He’s been off all afternoon.”
“You keep him on a schedule?”
She rolled her eyes. “I try. It’s hard when I’m at school. Mom and Gramps don’t bother to follow it.”
“Is Habibi yours or?—”
“Not mine.” Armada rolled her eyes again. “That’s why we’re here. I know better. Mom just keeps having kids.”
Damian sighed. He sat down on the edge of a chair across from Armada.
She looked back down at Habibi, cooing to him a little. His eyes were on her face, and his little hands were wrapped around hers and the bottle. “He might as well be mine. Every day I leave for school, I wonder if he’s still going to be in one piece when I get back. You’re a lawyer, right?”
