CHAPTER 12 – RUINED FLOORS, OPEN SKY
The building looks different in daylight.
Last night it was just a dark stack of windows in a sea of dirty orange and shadow. A blank column where the city forgot to turn the lights on. Today, the clouds are a flat, ugly gray, and the brick shows its age properly—streaks of old water, faint outlines where signs used to be, one corner bowing inward like the whole place is tired of standing.
From the roof I'm on, I count again.
Three fire escapes on this side, rust down the rails like dried blood. One roof box that's probably access. One vent cluster. One satellite dish pointed at nothing. A crooked line of windows, most with either no glass or that fogged, ancient kind that can't decide if it wants to be clear.
Whole column right down the middle: dead.
No curtains. No plants. No laundry lines. No cheap LED strips glowing purple around the frames. Just black.
Everything around it has life. Two doors down, there's a window with a kid's drawings taped up—stick figures, lopsided sun, someone tried. On the corner, somebody forgot to turn off a neon open sign so it buzzes weakly at nobody. A little farther, steam coughs out of a roof vent like the building's vaping.
But that central stack? Nothing.
Could be condemned. Could be a trap. Could be some rich creep's idea of privacy. Could be nothing but rot.
Or.
It could be mine.
The thought comes in fast and hot, and I smack it down just as quick. I don't get to use words like "mine" about anything bigger than what fits in my pockets. Not safely.
I rest my forearms on the parapet anyway and look a little longer.
Even from up here I can tell the brick isn't completely hopeless. Cracks, yeah. Some bowing near the middle. But the lines are mostly straight. Roof doesn't sag like a hammock. Fire escapes are rusted but not falling off.
I've slept in worse.
The wind knifes across the rooftop, cold enough to sneak under every layer I own. Somewhere behind me, a metal vent clanks as it contracts; the sound jumps, bounces, disappears.
Alright.
Data gathered from above. Time for the street-level version.
I pull back from the edge, drop low, and move away from the parapet. My legs feel… not exactly steady, but focused. Quiet shoes whisper against the tar; the tape and cloth layers I hacked onto them last night earn their keep as I cross to the roof door.
My hand lands on the bar without thinking, palm flat, fingers spread. I always do that before I open anything—feels like taking its temperature. The metal's cold but not icy; no recent hands.
Good.
I slip back down through the building, out the service door into the alley, and circle around toward the target at normal-kid pace, hands in pockets, hood up. Just another teenager cutting through the Marrow on an errand he doesn't want to be on.
Heart beating a little too fast for "just another teenager," but nobody can see that.
The Marrow looks different when you're walking like you belong there.
Same broken sidewalks, same leaning lamp posts, same trash nests in the corners of alleys. But if you square your shoulders a little and don't flinch at shouting, the street sort of shrugs and lets you pass.
I keep my eyes moving. Not wide—wide eyes get you marked. Just enough.
The building sits half a block off the main road, wedged between a shuttered laundromat and what used to be a pawn shop before someone decided bricks looked better with smashed glass.
Up close, the front door doesn't look like a portal to anything except tetanus.
The buzzer panel's a graveyard of names—most of the labels are torn, ink washed out, or written over. "3B – Rdz" smeared into nothing. "2C–Holloway" barely legible. One button has tape over it. The casing around the lock is bent like someone tried to kick it in and got tired halfway.
A taped-up city notice curls on the glass, yellow paper turned gray at the edges. The words "UNSAFE" and "VIOLATION" jump out from beneath dirt and tags, but the date is old. A year? Longer. Long enough nobody even bothers to pretend they'll fix it soon.
The Marrow Boys have tagged the brick near the corner—white ribcage spray, that jagged skull with lines down the forehead. But the actual door is almost clean. No giant spine logo across it, no "KEEP OUT OR ELSE" in all caps.
Interesting.
If they truly owned this place, their ego would be all over it.
I do a lazy loop around the block like I'm just killing time. Across the street, some dude in a heavy coat smokes on a stoop, hood up, eyes half-lidded. He clocks me once and loses interest when I don't look back. A beat-up car creeps past with music loud enough to leak bass through the warped windows.
I check reflections in shop glass, bus stop plexiglass, even a puddle to see who's watching. Nobody seems to care about the skinny kid loitering.
Good.
I pause near the door to fake with my hoodie strings and listen.
Depending on where you stand, you can hear a building answer you. This one is… quiet. No TV noise behind the walls. No baby crying, no couple yelling, no water running. Just the distant thud of someone's footsteps way above and a low clank somewhere in the pipes.
There's a smell, though. Damp plaster. Old smoke. A hint of mold that's had time to settle in.
And under all that, something else. The stillness of a room nobody's opened in a long time. Air that hasn't been breathing people.
It shouldn't feel comforting. It does.
That's the part that worries me.
"You're not moving in," I tell myself, under my breath. "You're just checking for collapse risk and psycho squatters. That's it."
Head nod like I just agreed with someone. Dumb habit.
The front lock is half-busted, but it faces the main street. Too many sightlines, too much chance some bored beat cop or passing Marrow Boy remembers my face.
There's a side alley. I saw it from the roof. You can't see down it unless you're almost on top of it.
So that's where I go.
The alley beside the building is narrow enough that two people would have to turn sideways to pass each other. Damp brick sweats cold against my shoulder as I slide by. Overflow pipes jut out at random heights; one drips a slow, steady rhythm into a bucket someone left under it months ago.
Halfway down, there's a metal door, paint flaking off in big scabs. No handle on the outside, just a rusted keyhole and a latch plate that's seen better screws.
Nobody ever fixes side doors if they can help it. They're perfect.
I crouch and fake tying my shoe while my fingers brush the latch.
The screws are loose. The metal's warped. The lock itself might still function, but the door frame around it doesn't trust it.
In the pocket of my hoodie, my fingers find the mini-driver shaft. It comes out tucked in my palm, the way I practiced—no flash of metal, no dramatic tool reveal.
A couple of quick twists on the latch screws, just enough to give the metal more play. Then I press my shoulder against the door like I'm just resting.
Slow pressure. No jerking.
The frame sighs, wood complaining in a low creak. For a second it sounds too loud; my heart jumps. I freeze, breath held.
Somewhere behind me on the street, a car backfires. A dog barks in offended confusion. The timing covers the worst of the noise.
Lucky. Don't rely on luck.
I push a little more. The latch slips past the warped strike plate, and the door nudges inward an inch, stale air leaking out.
I slide inside and let it click shut behind me, as quiet as the old hinges will allow.
The air on the other side is colder and drier, like the building is holding its breath.
"Hi," I think, stupidly. "I'm Xavier. Please don't murder me."
Inside, the light goes gray.
Not dark, exactly—there are grimy windows somewhere, letting in just enough to keep me from tripping over myself—but all the colors flatten. Peeling paint on the walls. Old flyers half-torn from a notice board. A dead potted plant that's more dust than anything else.
The lobby is small. Mailboxes line one wall, most of the doors stuck open or bent. A few envelopes still sit inside, swollen with damp, edges curled. Junk mail from a life nobody is living here anymore.
The floor has a film of dust and grit over it. Not deep enough to show every footprint, but enough that disturbances would be obvious if someone came through regularly.
I walk slowly, watching where I step. My silent soles leave faint marks, but at least I know what they are.
In the corner, someone's track of shoe prints crosses the floor, older now—less defined, like the dust has started smoothing them over. They go to a door on the far side, probably a lower apartment, then back out the way I came.
Someone's been here. But not constantly. Good and bad at the same time.
The stairwell waits on the other side of a half-open fire door. The metal has a dent near the handle where someone kicked it once and didn't bother to apologize.
I rest my ear to the gap and listen.
No footsteps on the stairs right now. No voices. Just a slow drip from somewhere above and the building's deep, low creaks.
I slip through.
The first step looks solid—concrete with some kind of decaying rubber overlay. I tap it with my toes, feeling for give. It rings true enough.
Second step: same test. Heel down carefully. That one makes a sharper cracking noise and dips a fraction under my weight.
That's a problem.
I pull back, shifting most of myself onto the first step again. My pulse is loud enough that for a second it drowns everything else out.
Last thing I need is to find out how "unsafe" that city notice really is by punching straight through the stairs and breaking something important on the way down.
I exhale slow.
"Okay," I whisper. "You're not trying to kill me yet. Thanks."
Hug the wall, my brain says. Load-bearing. Closest to where the structure actually does its job. Middle rots first.
I slide one hand along the railing and one along the painted cinderblock wall, fingers splayed, feeling for vibration, wobble, anything.
The railing shakes more than it should in its brackets. It's good for balance, not for catching a fall. Noted.
I edge up the stairs with my feet angled so most of my weight rides on the inner third of each step. Where the concrete sounds denser, the rubber coating less bubbled.
Step. Test. Decide. Commit.
The building complains around me. A pipe knocks somewhere deep in the core. I smell cold metal, wet plaster, faint rot. Every sound I make—cloth rustle, breath, the subtle grit under my soles—feels under a microscope.
Halfway up to the first landing, one step gives a lot more than the others. The surface dips, heel sagging, and my ankle rolls just enough to make a bolt of panic shoot up my leg.
My hand smacks into the wall, palm scraping paint. I jerk back onto the previous step, breathing fast.
The damaged step sits there, faintly tilted, a small crack opening along one side. Below, empty dark space peeks through where concrete has fallen away.
I stare at it until I can breathe normally again.
That one gets an invisible red X in my head. Never step there again. I could mark it physically, but markings are information. Information is leverage. Leverage belongs to whoever finds it.
For now, it's my secret.
I skirt that tread, toe on the part closest to the wall where it still feels somewhat solid, weight light. Then I move on.
On the first and second floor landings, most of the doors are closed. One has a padlock newer than everything else on the frame. Another has a strip of light under it and the faint, stale smell of cheap detergent and fried food.
Someone lives here. At least one someone.
I don't knock. I don't breathe too loud outside their door. I keep climbing.
Every inhabited unit is a risk and a data point. I file them away.
The higher I go, the quieter it gets.
Third floor: no light under any doors. Dust undisturbed except for my footprints trailing behind me. Someone dropped a plastic bag in the hall once and never picked it up; it's collapsed in on itself, color leached away.
Fourth floor: same, but colder. A broken window somewhere up there lets in a draft that slips down the stairwell, cutting straight through my hoodie.
Near the top, one of the stairs gives a sharp pop at the edge when my foot brushes it. A hairline crack spiders out and a little sand crumbles down into the void beneath.
"Okay," I whisper through my teeth. "Point taken. You don't like sudden moves."
I stay so close to the wall I'm practically sidestepping. My hands smell like old dust and cold metal by the time I reach the top landing.
The door I want is at the end of the hallway, in the dark column of windows I could see from the roof. The number plaque is missing; just two rusted screws and a faint square outline where it used to be.
That appeals to me more than I want it to. No name. No number. No identity on the record. Just a door.
The handle is stiff when I wrap my fingers around it. Not frozen, but not loose either. The latch moves a few millimeters, then sticks.
Of course.
I could force it. A good shoulder hit would probably splinter the already cracked frame and announce me to every person within yelling distance.
Or I can go slower.
I choose slower.
The mini-driver comes out again. Two quick twists on the strike plate screws, loosening the grip. Then I put my weight into the door, not as a hit, but as steady pressure.
The frame complains in a low, drawn-out groan. Wood fibers shift. The latch kisses past the catch with a tired little pop.
The door opens just enough for me to smell stale air, dust, and faint mold, with an undercurrent of something else I can't name. Old carpet maybe. Old lives.
I stand in the hall with my hand on the handle, heartbeat ticking in my throat, and feel a very stupid rush of… hope?
It's thin and ridiculous and fragile, but it's there: a film of possibility over everything.
Then the other part of me shows up, the one that kept me alive before I got here.
Don't get attached. It's a room, not a promise.
I slip inside anyway.
The light inside the unit is dim and sour, thinning out near the windows where the glass is either gone or too dirty to help much.
The first step is always the worst one.
I keep most of my weight on the hall side and tap the floorboards right past the threshold with my toes. The sound is wrong—more hollow than it should be. Wood on… not much.
I slide my weight very carefully onto that first board.
It sags under me, creaking in a long slow whine. The vibrations run up my leg and into my grip on the doorframe.
No sharp crack, no sudden drop. Not yet.
"Yeah, no," I mutter. "You get one of those."
I pull back and aim my next step a few inches to the right, closer to the inner wall. The sound is better there—deeper, more solid. The give is less.
Load-bearing walls. Again. Stay near the bones.
I move like I'm crossing a minefield, mapping safe patches one footprint at a time.
The living room—if you can call it that—is mostly empty. A couch died here at some point: its skeleton leans against one wall, springs showing through shredded fabric. A cheap pressboard cabinet lies on its side under the window, one door broken, the others crooked.
Glass litters the floor near the pane, glittering in the weak light. Somebody broke this from the outside, not the inside; the shards lie mostly inward.
I nudge some of the glass aside with my foot, not stepping on it. The last thing I need is a cut through my sock and infection I can't afford to treat. The crunch is knife-sharp in the quiet.
The air is cold enough that I see my breath in brief, impatient ghosts. It smells like dust that's been sitting there thinking about its choices.
I keep moving along the wall, testing before trusting.
In the corner, the ceiling's stained with old water damage—brown map lines branching out from some leak above. I don't hear dripping. Could be dry now. Could start again with the next bad storm.
Everything in me wants to catalog, tag, and fix every one of those problems. That's how I know I need to be careful. Fixing things for other people is one kind of trap. Fixing things for yourself is another.
You fix it, you own it. You own it, you care. You care, you can lose it.
I step into what used to be the kitchen.
The linoleum floor is cracked in long, curling strips. Cabinets hang open with their doors at wrong angles. The sink is stained a permanent gray-brown, a thin layer of grime like someone started cleaning once and stopped halfway through a lifetime.
The pipes under the sink smell faintly metallic and damp. I touch one; it's cold, no residual warmth. No hot water here. Maybe no water at all.
"I can work with that," I hear myself think.
Then I catch it and force my brain to correct: "If I have to."
The bathroom is a smaller version of the same story. Tiles on the floor, slick with invisible residue. I test with my foot and nearly skate across the doorway, catching myself on the frame.
Heart slam, again.
"Okay. Bath ice rink: no go."
I look down. The tub is ringed with mold; the toilet lid is up and empty, tank exposed. There's a cracked mirror above the sink. My face looks thinner in it than I expect. Eyes darker. Hood shadow eats half my features.
For a second, I just stare.
If I live here, this is where I'll see myself. In this broken glass. In this toomuch information.
Nope.
I turn away before my thoughts can spiral into questions I don't want: what I look like when I'm not exhausted, who I was supposed to be somewhere that isn't Gotham, who would even care.
Back in the main room, I edge toward the window.
The floor in the center gives too much for my liking. There's a spot that looks solid but makes a soft, wrong noise when I tap it with the screwdriver shaft. I don't test it with my body weight; I'm not curious enough to fall through into somebody else's ceiling.
Near the outer wall, though, the boards sound better. They have a deeper thud to them, a little more confidence.
I plant my feet there and look out.
From this height, through this filthy frame, the Marrow looks… smaller. The shelter's cross is just visible a few blocks away, its paint chipped, the light behind it flickering in daylight like it's practicing for night. The market street is a line of awnings and busted signage.
People move down there—little knots of motion, coats and hats and bags. All of them going somewhere, even if it's just around the corner to complain and come back.
Up here, no one's moving except me.
The quiet feels weird. Not shelter quiet, where it's just the eye of the storm between one fight and the next. Not alley quiet, where every sound translates to threat.
Just… absence.
Empty rooms. Empty walls. Empty space where somebody's life used to be.
And my chest does that thing again, the thing I hate. Tightens and stretches at the same time, like a rubber band being pulled too far. A part of me is already laying out where a mattress could go that's not directly under the worst part of the leak. Where I'd store tools. Which wall would take a map best.
I press my fingers against the cold window frame until they hurt.
"Don't," I tell myself quietly. "It's not yours. It's not safe. You're just looking."
The words don't land as hard as I want them to.
Above, somewhere higher, something creaks. Could be wind. Could be the building shifting its weight. Could be another person's footstep.
Either way, it's a reminder: I haven't checked the roof yet.
And if this place is going to work, the roof is non-negotiable.
Finding the access is easy. Buildings like this have patterns; once you've walked enough of them, they start to rhyme.
Back in the stairwell, I climb the last few steps to the top. The air gets colder the higher I go, the draft sharpening into real wind.
The door to the roof is a heavy metal slab with a wired-glass window, paint peeling in long, vertical strips. Someone chained it once, but the chain hangs loose now, padlock gone or broken.
I put my ear to it.
Nothing. No footsteps, no voices, no music from someone sneaking a smoke break up there.
I wrap my hand around the bar and push.
It doesn't like that.
The metal groans, grinding against a swollen frame. For a second I think it's going to shriek like the world's angriest hinge and blow my cover entirely.
I ease up, then push again in small, controlled bursts, giving it time between movements. The groan stretches out instead of peaking, turning into a long, low protest.
After a moment, it gives. The gap is just wide enough to squeeze through.
The roof hits me with its own scent—tar, gravel, cold air, a faint tang of something chemical that might be whatever they sealed patches with fifteen years ago.
The wind up here cuts more than it did earlier from the other building. It whips my hood, tries to pry fingers under the hem of my jacket. My eyes water in the gusts.
I stay low out of habit, scanning.
Tar paper blistered in places. Gravel drifted into mounds where the wind and rain herded it. A couple of rusted AC units crouch near the center like hunched animals. The parapet runs around the edge, cracked in more places than I like.
I pick a path that keeps me away from obviously sagging spots and move toward the side that faces the alley.
Halfway there, my hand lands on the top of the parapet for balance.
The brick under my palm feels wrong. The mortar is powdery, the edge too sharp where it should be worn smooth. I shift my weight and it… moves.
"Shit—"
I pull back just as a chunk the size of my forearm breaks loose and drops, taking old mortar and a spray of tiny stones with it. It thuds onto something hard below, then bounces into the unseen.
Silence, for a second. Then a dog starts barking its head off in the alley, offended by physics.
I flatten myself against the roof, heart hammering so loud it might as well be a drum solo.
If anyone's down there, that was a free, unplanned warning shot. Careless. Stupid.
The dog barks a few more times, then trails off. No human yelling. No footsteps storming toward the building.
I exhale carefully.
Add "parapet integrity" to the list of things to fix before I even think about trusting my body weight to this edge again.
I crawl the last few feet and peek over anyway, keeping most of me behind actual solid sections of wall.
The alley below is empty except for the dog—a mutt nosing at the fallen brick, sniffing like it might somehow be food. No one else seems interested in bits of masonry dropping from the sky.
Good. Lucky. Again, don't rely on that.
When I stand in the safer part of the roof and turn slowly, the view is almost the same as from the other building. Same cross. Same tracks. Same mess.
But the angle is different. Closer. More… centered.
From here, the path between St. Mary's and the market and this place looks less like three unconnected points and more like a loop. Shelter. Streets. Height. Back again.
If I set this up right, this roof could be not just a endpoint, but a junction. A place routes pass through instead of past.
The thought slides in, unwelcome but not wrong: Home base.
My chest tightens again.
I think about waking up here with no one on the bunk above me. No crowd noise. No one stealing my shoes while I sleep. I think about leaving tools spread out on the floor and knowing they'd still be there when I came back.
I also think about the first time someone kicks in that side door downstairs trying to find copper to strip. Or the way these floors groan and sag when I step wrong. Or that chunk of parapet bouncing into the alley and what it'll do if it lands on a person next time instead of empty concrete.
It's both things at once. Freedom and risk bundled together.
"Could be worse," I say to the empty air. My voice sounds small up here. "Could be better too."
The wind doesn't answer, but it shoves me a little like it wants me off its roof.
I take one last slow scan.
From this vantage, I can trace at least two clean escape paths across adjacent roofs. One direction toward the shelter. Another toward the market and the rest of the Marrow. Both doable with the right timing and the right shoes—which I have, for now.
Yeah. This works. In theory.
I head back down the stairs more carefully than I came up.
On the way back to the unit, I hesitate at the door, then reach up and press a small chip of paint loose near the top of the frame. It crumbles between my fingers, leaving a tiny, fresh mark the same color as the underlying wood.
If someone else opens this door later, the flake will fall in a different place. I'll know.
It's a stupid little trick. Not as good as a real sensor. But it's something.
At the side exit, I crack the door just enough to listen before I leave. The alley is quiet again, no dog in sight. The chunk of parapet that fell sits where it landed—a dirty red scar on gray concrete.
I step around it instead of over it.
On the sidewalk, the building looks the same as it did before I went in. Tired. Ignored. Tagged on the edges but not claimed outright. People pass it like they're used to pretending it isn't there.
I stop half a block away and glance back once.
From here, you'd never guess the stairs are rotting, the floor might drop out, the roof tried to throw me off, and the emptiness inside hit me harder than it should have.
It's just another broken stack of brick in a city made out of them.
"Someone's going to get hurt if this thing keeps falling apart," I think. "Or someone's going to fix it."
The fact that my brain immediately volunteers me as option two is… annoying.
I shove my hands deeper into my pockets and turn away, walking back toward the shelter like I didn't just mentally move furniture into an apartment I don't own, can't afford, and probably shouldn't trust.
You're not moving in, I remind myself again.
Not yet.
You're just… gathering data.
The word "yet" hangs there long after it should, heavy as that fallen brick.
I don't push it away this time.
I just keep walking.