Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Riverside DistrictBlake stared at her, the name echoing in the hollow chambers of his mind. Riverside District.
Thirty acres of prime lakefront property. Six months ago, his company had won the municipal eviction and demolition tender for a dense, working-class neighborhood known locally as the Ironwood Blocks. It was an area choked with aging brick apartment complexes, rusted ironworks, and tight-knit families who had fought tooth and nail against the city's eminent domain declarations.
Blake had signed the final clearance orders just yesterday.
"The Ironwood Blocks," Blake said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "You lived there?"
"We lived at 414 Elm Street," Maya said, her bottom lip quivering. "In the brown brick building with the green door. My mom worked two jobs at the diner on 4th, and my dad... my dad helped fix cars in the alley. Until the orange notices came on the doors. They said we had three days to leave because the great developer, Mr. Harrington, bought the land to build the glass towers."
A heavy silence fell over the garage, broken only by the distant hum of traffic above. Blake remembered the acquisition file. Vacant industrial and residential zone. Low structural integrity. Zero legal opposition of significant merit. That was what his legal team had told him. They had assured him every tenant had been relocated, compensated, and processed through municipal housing channels.
Nobody had mentioned a little girl named Maya.
May you like
"Where are your parents, Maya?" Blake asked, a cold knot forming in his stomach.
Maya looked down at the plastic-wrapped notebook in her lap, and a tear finally cut a clean path through the soot on her cheek. "They went back to get my little brother’s asthma machine when the big yellow machines came early. They wouldn't let them out. The security guards... they pushed my dad. And then the dust came. Everything fell down."
