Chapter 1-
The heat sat heavy in the street, the kind that stuck to your skin and made the inside of your mouth taste like dust.
Even the flies seemed sluggish.
Michael's shirt was already damp, sweat prickling down his spine. The tenement loomed over them, its windows boarded, its brickwork bulging like swollen joints.
Mildew, wet plaster, and the sour stink of rot clung to the air, thick enough to taste.
Owen swatted at a fly. "Feels like working in a damn sponge," he muttered, pulling his shirt up to wipe his face.
"That sponge's paying your rent," Luis said, stepping over a broken floorboard with his coffee thermos in hand.
"Yeah, if the mold don't eat me first." Owen leaned on his sledgehammer like it was a walking stick, grinning at Michael. "You look half-dead already."
Michael shrugged, adjusting his gloves. "It's 38 out and the air's soup. I'm allowed to look like hell."
Luis chuckled, a low, rare sound, and handed Michael the pry bar. "Take that upstairs. Start with the frames by the south wall."
The three of them moved through the building's skeleton, the sound of hammers and creaking wood filling the dusty air. They'd done dozens of jobs like this, the rhythm as familiar as the men themselves. Owen was all swagger and noise, always humming some war song he half remembered the words to. Luis kept his head down, quiet but steady, always checking Michael's footing like he was a kid brother instead of a coworker.
By midmorning they were setting the exterior scaffolding. Owen called down for a wrench.
Michael was halfway up when he noticed it, a shadow flicking across the cracked glass of a third floor window.
He squinted. No, not glass. Eyes.
A man stood there, gaunt and hollow cheeked, staring down at them. His skin was marbled with gray lesions, lips cracked and slightly trembling. The stink of mildew had a sharper edge now, with a faint electric tang like broken car batteries and rotten citrus.
A touched.
"Guy in the window," Michael called softly.
Owen frowned up at him. "What?"
Luis followed Michael's gaze. His jaw tightened. "Shit."
The stranger didn't move. He just stared, a hard, unblinking look full of a kind of rage that only the truly desperate have the ability to express.
Michael felt his stomach knot. Thinking back to the decay that had taken his sister almost a year ago. When everything changed.
"Hey," he called up, keeping his voice even. "You can't be in here. Building's condemned."
Nothing.
"You hear me? It's not safe."
The man's eyes flicked to Owen and Luis below, then back to Michael. His breathing looked wrong. Ragged, almost wheezing, but his hands gripped the windowsill hard enough to whiten the knuckles.
Owen stepped forward, voice sharper. "You deaf? Get the hell out before-"
"Don't," Michael cut in, raising a hand. He kept his eyes on the man. "You living here?"
The man's mouth twitched into an expression that could be called either a grin or a snarl as the wheezing of his breath continued. The moment dragged on as all three men met that unblinking gaze.
"We're just here to work," Michael said, voice low but steady. "You want us gone for a bit? Fine. Grab your things. No one needs to get hurt."
The man's cracked lips parted, just slightly, but no words came. His gaze slid past Michael to Owen and Luis, then back. A cough rattled in his chest, wet and weak.
Michael took half a step closer, careful not to spook him. "Look, I get it. This place is dry, roof's still good. It's better than the street right?"
For a fraction of a second, the man's eyes softened. Then they hardened again. His fingers tightened on the sill.
Michael's gut tightened. "Don't!"
In a single motion, the man released the sill and lunged for the scaffolding frame.
"Wait!" Michael shouted.
Metal screamed as the frame lurched sideways.
The whole world seemed to drop an inch. Michael grabbed at the rail, but the boards under him buckled. The crash came all at once snapping wood, clanging steel, Owen's shout cut short.
Michael hit the ground hard, grit filling his mouth. His ears rang.
The dust in his eyes made it take a moment to even see as he tried to bring air back into his lungs.
Then.
Luis was sprawled nearby, leg bent wrong, blood spreading dark through his jeans. His face twisted in pain,
And behind him,
"Owen!" Michael stumbled over the debris, almost tripping on a length of rebar. For a heartbeat he thought Owen was just winded. Then he saw the unnatural stillness in his chest, the way his eyes stared past him at nothing.
"No, no, no" Michael dropped to his knees, shoving at the twisted steel, gloves slipping on hot metal. "Help me get him out!"
Luis dragged himself forward, teeth gritted against the pain, but his bad leg gave out. "Mike… he's"
"Shut up and help me!" The words ripped out of him raw. He knew. He'd known the instant he saw Owen's face, but his hands kept working like maybe if he moved fast enough, he could force the world to take it back.
A cough drew his attention.
The touched man stood a few yards away, doubled over against the wall, like the effort of the push had taken the last bit of will he had left. He should've been running, but he wasn't.
Michael turned on him, breathing hard. "You killed him."
The man just stared, chest heaving.
"You think this fixes anything? You think-"
Three sharp cracks split the air, so close they seemed to tear the street open.
The man jerked backward, hitting the pavement in a tangle of limbs. Blood spread quick and dark beneath him.
Michael spun, ears still ringing. Two officers were pounding up from the far end of the block, pistols up, boots scattering chunks of plaster and glass.
One holstered his sidearm mid stride and grabbed his radio, barking clipped codes into it. The other didn't even look at Michael, just stepped over the man's body like it was nothing more than trash blocking the way.
Michael's hands trembled against the scaffolding.
Luis was still swearing under his breath, trying to crawl free. Owen lay silent between them.
Michael stayed where he was, kneeling in the dust, the world pressing in close as he let that familiar feeling of numbness seep through his brain until it was all that was left as the tunnel that his vision became picked out a singular brick laying on the ground next to Owen's body.