I angle the bar into place and apply pressure. The wood resists because of course it does. Nothing about this place gives easily.
I adjust my stance, bracing my foot more firmly against the floor, leaning into it with controlled force until the board finally gives with a low crack.
The sound echoes down the hall and Rook startles. I pull the loosened section free and set it aside, already reaching for the next.
“You’ve done this before,” Holt says.
Not a question.
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“No.”
That gets his attention, and I glance up to see he’s watching me more closely now.
“Where?” he says.
I shift back onto my heels, pushing hair out of my face with the back of my wrist.
“Everywhere,” I answer. “With my dad.”
The words come more easily today, which surprises me.
“He took jobs like this,” I continue, gesturing vaguely around us. “Places people thought were too far gone. Places no one else wanted to touch.”
Holt leans one shoulder against the wall, listening.
“He said the worse it looked, the more it meant someone had given up on it too soon,” I add.
“That why you’re here?”
I meet his gaze.
“Yes.”
There’s more to it than that. There always is. But that’s enough for now.
He nods once like he understands more than I said out loud.
We fall into a rhythm after that. He handles the heavier pulls, the sections of damaged wood that require more force than leverage. I move ahead of him, marking what needs to come next, stripping back layers that hide deeper problems, making quick decisions about what stays and what goes.
We don’t talk much. We don’t need to. The space fills with sound instead—wood splitting, tools scraping, boots shifting against the floor, Rook pacing in uneven loops that get wider the longer we work.
The sun moves across the hall in slow increments, light shifting from one wall to the other, catching on dust we haven’t cleared yet.
Eventually, Holt straightens, dragging a hand across the back of his neck, his shirt clinging slightly from the heat.
“You need a break,” he says.
“No I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I don’t need—”
“Lark.”
