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The damp air of the basement smelled of rusting pipes and cold dust.
Olivia was kneeling, wrapping a clean bandage around Marcus’s scraped knuckle. The boy had gotten into another fight at the train station, trying to shield Tommy from a group of older boys.
"You can't keep doing this, Marc," she whispered, her voice a soft anchor in the cavernous quiet. "If the police get involved, they’ll separate all of you. You know how the system works."
"They were looking at Tommy," Marcus muttered, his jaw clenched tight. "I won't let anyone touch him."