Page 57 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 9-12
Mark searched him, finding nothing else.
Jun came in from the stairwell. When had he left? “Thaddeus might be close.” He held up the phone Howser had been holding.
Armada cursed. She grabbed the phone from Jun, scrolling.
“He’s close.” She stood, moving close to Betti but not touching her.
Mark linked Howser’s ankles to his wrists. He and Damian stepped back. Howser pressed his head into the carpet, shaking.
Damian held out his hand to Armada. She passed him the phone.
It was exactly as she and Jun had said. Thaddeus had been sending Howser directions. He might have even gotten Howser the gun, although it wasn’t directly mentioned in the text stream.
Damian pulled out his own phone and dialed the detective who’d been at the house with him the first time Betti had been kidnapped.
Mark spoke into his mic, updating Cedric upstairs of their status.
“We need to move, sir,” Mark said.
Damian grimaced. He was on hold.
Jun was crouched down beside Betti. She wasn’t looking at him, her focus on Armada, who was soothing her. Jun checked her scalp, where she was bleeding.
What a tableau they were: Jun with his almost healed bruises, Armada’s bruises just starting to heal, and Betti with fresh blood on her hands and face. Who could blame the younger generations for being feral when their elders were bent on using them until they broke?
Cold, old rage burned inside Damian’s ribs. He looked down at Howser. The preteen was as much a victim as the rest of them, but the disease he was infected with was a virus Damian couldn’t contain. He had pointed a gun at Jun. He had hurt Betti.
Thaddeus had ruined the boy.
Howser’s name was no longer on the list of those Damian could save. He wouldn’t risk the girls’ lives and bodies or let him spread Thaddeus’s disease to Kimbo or Habibi.
And yet he deserved to be saved as much as the rest of them.
A casualty in a war that never needed to be fought.
“You win,” Damian whispered to a man who wasn’t there. Defeat tasted like sidewalk filth in his mouth.
The detective finally answered on the other side of Damian’s call. “We need units to my location,” Damian said numbly. “There’s been an attempted abduction.”
“You broke everything!” Howser snarled at Armada. Tears laced his face.
Armada crossed her arms, face drawn. She exchanged a look with Damian, looking closer to forty than twenty.
What was there to say? A boy had just ruined his life.
“How’d you find us?” Damian said to Armada.
Armada grimaced. “It was too quiet. I came looking.”
“Betti needs stitches,” Jun said from where he was kneeling on the floor. “She’s still bleeding.”
Another casualty. They were all casualties. The ones bleeding and the ones who cleaned it up.
Jun
The sight of uniformed police officers—even though somewhat different from South Korean uniforms—chilled Jun to the bone. There was no space to ask for comfort. Damian was making his report. The officers formally arrested Howser and read him his rights. They questioned Armada. Jun held Betti in his lap, holding a ripped-off piece of his undershirt against the wound in her scalp, waiting for the paramedics. It was as much for his own comfort as hers. She half hid against his chest, peeking out from between her fingers as Howser was taken away.
The look on Damian’s and Armada’s faces cut fresh wounds in Jun’s soul. Whether or not Howser felt tied to them, they had felt tied to him. What hurt him hurt them.
