IN THE HEART OF THE MORRIS
BLACK COMMUNITY HOUSING IN
CLEVELAND, OHIO, LIVED A
YOUNG GIRL NAMED JOY. AT ONLY
SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, SHE HAD
ALREADY FACED MORE
CHALLENGES THAN MOST
ADULTS. JOY WAS A SINGLE
PARENT, HAVING DROPPED OUT
OF SCHOOL TO CARE FOR HER
DAUGHTER, LILY, WHO WAS
DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM AT THE
TENDER AGE OF THREE life WAS TOUGH FOR JOY AND
LILY. THE DILAPIDATED HOUSING
PROJECTS OFFERED LITTLE HOPE
OR OPPORTUNITY. JOBS WERE
SCARCE, AND SURVIVAL WAS A
DAILY STRUGGLE. JOY’S DREAMS
SEEMED DISTANT AND
UNREACHABLE. BUT FATE HAD
SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY IN
STORE FOR HER.ONE DAY, DURING A MOMENT OF
DESPERATION, JOY DISCOVERED
SOMETHING REMARKABLE ABOUT
HERSELF SHE HAD
SUPERPOWERS. WITH A SIMPLE
THOUGHT, SHE COULD
MANIPULATE TIME, STOPPING IT,
REVERSING IT, OR PROPELLING IT
FORWARD. AT FIRST, SHE SAW
THIS NEWFOUND ABILITY AS A
WAY TO ESCAPE HER DIFFICULT
CIRCUMSTANCES. JOY USED HER
POWERS TO ACQUIRE MONEY AND POSSESSIONS SHE AND LILY
DESPERATELY NEEDED. SHE
EFFORTLESSLY ROBBED BANKS,
ALWAYS STAYING A STEP AHEADOF THE AUTHORITIES. THE
ALLURE OF MATERIAL WEALTH
CLOUDED HER JUDGMENT, AND
SHE FELL INTO THE GRIP OF
GREED.BUT JOY’S LIFE TOOK A TRAGIC
TURN WHEN HER CLOSEST
FRIEND, TAY, LOST HIS BATTLE
WITH ADDICTION AND DIED FROM
AN OVERDOSE. IT WAS A WAKE-
UP CALL THAT SHATTERED HER
ILLUSIONS OF INVINCIBILITY. THE
GUILT OVERWHELMED HER AS
SHE REALIZED THAT THE MONEY
SHE HAD ACQUIRED THROUGH HER POWERS HAD
INADVERTENTLY ENABLED TAY’S
DOWNFALL.CAUGHT IN THE CLUTCHES OF
REMORSE, JOY’S POWERS
SEEMED TO LOSE THEIR LUSTER.
NO LONGER INTERESTED IN
PERSONAL GAIN, SHE RESOLVED
TO USE HER ABILITIES FOR THE
GREATER GOOD. BUT BEFORE SHE
COULD REDEEM HERSELF, THE
CONSEQUENCES OF HER ACTIONS CAUGHT UP WITH HER.JOY WAS APPREHENDED AND
SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR HER
CRIMES. LILY, HER DAUGHTER,
WAS PLACED IN FOSTER CARE,
FURTHER AMPLIFYING JOY’S
GUILT AND PAIN. FIVE LONG
YEARS PASSED, DURING WHICH
JOY REFLECTED ON THE CHOICES
SHE HAD MADE AND THE PEOPLE
SHE HAD HURT.UPON HER RELEASE, JOY VOWED
TO MAKE AMENDS AND REUNITE
WITH LILY. DETERMINED TO GIVE
HER DAUGHTER THE LIFE SHE
DESERVED, SHE CHANNELED HER
REMORSE INTO SOMETHING
PRODUCTIVE. DRAWING UPON
HER EXPERIENCES, SHE DECIDED
TO OPEN A PRIVATE
INVESTIGATION COMPANY, BRICK
CITY INVESTIGATORS.JOY AND LILY, NOW A YOUNG
TEENAGER, DEDICATED
THEMSELVES TO SOLVING
MYSTERIES AND HELPING THOSE
IN NEED. THEIR SHARED
EXPERIENCES AND DEEP BOND
FUELED THEIR INVESTIGATIONS,
MAKING THEM AN UNSTOPPABLE
TEAM. JOY’S POWERS, ONCE
USED FOR PERSONAL GAIN, NOW
BECAME A TOOL FOR JUSTICE.AS BRICK CITY INVESTIGATORS,
JOY AND LILY UNCOVERED
HIDDEN TRUTHS, BROUGHT
CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE, AND
OFFERED SOLACE TO THOSE WHO
HAD LOST HOPE. THEIR PAST
STRUGGLES GAVE THEM A UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE AND A DRIVE TO
MAKE A DIFFERENCE. TOGETHER,
THEY NOT ONLY MENDED THEIR
FRACTURED RELATIONSHIP BUT
ALSO BUILT A THRIVING
BUSINESS THAT BROUGHT LIGHT
INTO THE DARKEST CORNERS OF
THEIR COMMUNITY.JOY’S JOURNEY FROM
SELFISHNESS TO SELFLESSNESS
SERVED AS A POWERFUL
REMINDER THAT EVEN IN THE
FACE OF ADVERSITY,
REDEMPTION AND SECOND
CHANCES ARE POSSIBLE. AND SO,
IN THE HEART OF CLEVELAND,
OHIO, THE WORST HOUSING
PROJECTS BECAME THE
BACKDROP FOR A STORY OF
RESILIENCE, FORGIVENESS, AND
THE EXTRAORDINARY POWER OF
A MOTHER’S LOVE.
CHAPTER 2
THE NIGHT TAY DIED, NOT EVEN THE WIND STIRRED. SILENCE HELD THE CITY LIKE BREATH BEFORE A
SCREAM.Joy stood stiff, just beyond the
reach of flashing ambulance lights,
arms locked around Lily. All that
power time at her fingertips
and still, she’d never felt more
useless.What haunted her wasn’t what
she’d done. It was what she
hadn’t.
She quit cold. No more time tricks,
no more stolen moments. She even
put back what she could,
rewinding in pieces, trying to
mend fractures that refused to
close. But Tay? Tay was gone. And
no power could bring him back.
She owed Lily better than this.
In Morris Black, the air shifted.
People started looking at Joy
differently. Not just the girl
dragging a stroller with tired eyes
anymore. She moved different.
Watched different. And slowly,
things around her did too.Groceries appeared where none
had been. Stolen bikes reappeared
like nothing happened. Around
Joy, time didn’t just pass it
leaned into justice.
But the ones who thrived on
chaos? They noticed too.
The Crown ran most of the
neighborhood. Taxed the broke.
Fed poison to the hopeless. Tay
had been a casualty of their
kingdom.
Now someone was cutting into
their profits. And they knew
exactly who.
Rain whispered across pavement
that night. Joy felt the shift before
it came. That hush before the
world tips sideways.Turning the corner with Lily
asleep in the stroller, she met them
two Crown enforcers, posture
heavy with threat.
“You think you’re some kind of
savior?” one spat, hand slipping to
his waistband.
Joy didn’t flinch. Just breathed.
Froze time.
The street locked in a moment.
Raindrops hovered. Neon
shimmered, caught mid glow.
She knelt beside Lily. Peaceful,
untouched.
Then she moved behind him, quiet
as memory. Took the gun. Emptied
the clip. Snapped his face with her
phone. And whispered low:
“No one’s invisible. Not even
you.”Time returned.
Click. Click. The gun failed.
Confusion twisted his face. By the
time he turned, she was gone.
A few days later, flyers blanketed
the block: Joy Against The
Machine: Protecting The Block.
Kids started calling her
“Clockwork.”
But Joy knew the truth. This
wasn’t some origin story. The rent
was late. The ceiling leaked. Lily
still cried in her sleep.
And The Crown? They were just
getting started.
Power has a price. And Joy was
starting to understand the debt.
Because when you bend time too
far… it snaps back.CHAPTER 3
Brick City Baby Part 3: “The Watchtower”Joy never planned on becoming a
private investigator. She was just
trying to survive.
It started with favors. A missing
check here, a runaway cousin
there. People came to her
because she listened really
listened. And because things
around her had a way of…
working out. Quietly. Precisely.
Like time folded just enough to
make things right.
The apartment became the office.
Files replaced food on the
counter. A battered laptop
hummed beside Lily’s therapy
worksheets. Above the couch, a
small plaque read:
Brick City Investigations. In
memory of Tay.She didn’t charge much.
Sometimes nothing at all. Just
asked folks to pay it forward or
bring her information if trouble
stirred.
Trouble had a name now:
Cowboy.
He rolled through the blocks like
a devil in denim gold teeth,
snakeskin boots, and a gun he
called “Mercy.” Claimed it was
just business, but everyone knew
Cowboy was building something
ruthless. Filling the cracks The
Crown left behind. Pressing in
harder.
Joy watched him move slow,
polite, always smiling. But his
violence came soft. Like a
lullaby before a nightmare.And he knew exactly who Joy
was.
Some days, being a mother took
everything.
Lily didn’t speak much. Her
world was texture and sound
certain colors made her flinch,
certain songs made her breathe.
Crowds were too loud. Strangers,
too close.
Joy learned to read silences. To
notice the things no one else did.
Lily loved clocks. Not the
glowing numbers real ones.
The kind that ticked. Moved.
Measured the world in something
steady.That’s why Joy never touched the
old wall clock above Tay’s name.
It stayed frozen at 3:17.
It made Lily smile.
The first time Cowboy showed
up on Joy’s floor, he didn’t
knock.
He just taped a flower to her
door.
White. Clean. Innocent.
But Joy knew better.
In Brick City, nothing bloomed
without blood.CHAPTER 4
Brick City Baby Part 4: “The Weight”Joy didn’t black out when she
rewound time but something
inside her always stayed behind.
The more she used it, the heavier it
felt. Like dragging the past
through molasses. Memories
twisted. Smiles turned into
screams. Time fought back now,
quiet but cruel.
The last time she rewound more
than a few minutes, she woke up
in the hallway with blood in her
nose and Lily screaming in the
next room.
She swore she’d stop again.
But this city didn’t let her.
Lily had her routines
soundtracks that soothed her,
colors that didn’t. She hated whenher cereal touched the milk. She
needed Joy to sing the same three
songs at bedtime. Not close, not
almost the same.
But the days were getting harder.
Lily was stimming more
rocking, humming, covering her
ears from sounds Joy couldn’t
hear. Her therapist said her brain
was sensitive to change. But what
if that change was happening
underneath time itself?
What if Joy’s powers were
bending more than just seconds
what if they were bending Lily?
She couldn’t shake it. Every time
she slowed the world, it felt like
Lily knew. Like her eyes tracked
something invisible. Like the air
changed for her too.
One morning, Joy rewound a
moment.
Just two minutes.
She’d dropped her coffee and
cursed out loud scared Lily. So
she pulled the time back, caught
the cup, and kept her cool.
But Lily still covered her ears. Still
rocked. Still whispered, “Again.
Again. Again.”
Joy’s stomach turned.
She started writing things down.
Every time she used her gift, no
matter how small. Tracked Lily’s
reactions. Her sleep. Her silence.
Patterns started to form.
And so did guilt.
That night, Joy stared at the
ceiling. Clock frozen at 3:17. Lily
asleep beside her, one hand fisted
in her mother’s shirt like a tether.
Joy whispered to the dark:
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
And the dark whispered nothing
back.
The call came just past midnight.
Teen girl gone missing. Fifteen.
Last seen outside the corner store
on 138th. Mama pacing the project
courtyard in slippers, no jacket,
fear thick in her throat.
“Her name’s Kiya,” the woman
said. “She ain’t never just not
come home.”
Joy didn’t ask for payment.
She just grabbed her coat.
By sunrise, she had a name.
Somebody saw Cowboy’s crew
posted up by the liquor store
around the time Kiya vanished.
Word was, they were recruiting
aggressively. Joy didn’t need a
map to know where girls like Kiya
ended up.
And she didn’t need a badge to
care.
But time… time could help her
undo.
Lily was quiet that morning.
Quieter than usual.
She wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t look
Joy in the eye. Just sat on the
couch, tapping the same spot on
her thigh like a metronome. Tap.
Tap. Tap.Joy bent down. Brushed her
daughter’s curls from her face.
“You okay, baby?”
Lily didn’t answer.
Just whispered: “Don’t go.”
Joy told herself she’d just look.
Just ask around. Just gather
enough to pass to someone else.
No rewinds. No freezes. Just
regular time, ticking forward.
But then she found Kiya’s bracelet
in an alley broken, blood at the
clasp.
And time cracked open.
It didn’t feel like power anymore.
Slipping through seconds, Joy’s
head rang like a bell. Her nose
bled instantly. Her breath cameshallow. But she found him
Cowboy’s lookout, leaning against
the wall an hour before the girl
went missing.
She watched his face. Memorized
every twitch.
Then she let time snap forward
again and almost collapsed from
the pain.
Back at the apartment, Lily was
screaming.
Fists tight. Rocking violently.
Sound looping from her lips: “No
no no no no no no
Joy held her, heart breaking, the
cost of power carved into her
daughter’s voice.
This was no longer just a gift.
It was a curse.And the city would make her use it
again.
Brick City Baby Part 4 (cont.):
“The Weight”
Cowboy wasn’t just some corner
thug. He moved like mist
everywhere and nowhere.
By the time Joy traced the bracelet
back to one of his stash spots, the
place was empty. No Kiya. No
crew. Just a fresh cigar still
burning in a coffee can by the fire
escape.
And a note, folded clean on the
windowsill.
“You’re burning daylight,
Clockwork.”
Signed with a spade drawn in ink.
No name. No threat. Just a
reminder: he was watching.
Joy didn’t panic.
She planned.
Maps of the block. Patterns of
movement. Names whispered in
laundromats, in back alleys, at the
bodega counter when no one else
was listening. She wrote it all
down, piece by piece, like building
a time bomb backwards.
She didn’t have a team. Didn’t
have tech. Just a beat-up burner
phone, a notepad, and a city full of
ghosts.
And a child who needed her home
by dinner.
Lily was still quiet. Still unsettled.
Her therapist called it a spike. Joy
just called it too much.She adjusted their routines.
Calmed her with soft lights.
Repeated bedtime stories until her
voice cracked.
But every time she even thought
about rewinding again, Lily
seemed to flinch like her soul
could feel the time stretching.
So Joy stayed present. Sharp.
Grounded.
Until she found the warehouse.
It was on the edge of the district
half-condemned, graffiti
swallowing its brick face, but
trucks came and went after dark.
And Cowboy?
He was there.
Leaning on the hood of a Cadillac.
Laughing with two of his boys.Dressed like Sunday service and
smelling like trouble.
Joy watched from the rooftop
across the street, hands trembling
just enough to make her grip the
ledge.
She could see the door. One guard.
One light. One shot.
She could do this.
She had to.
But time was already unraveling.
And she could feel it in her bones.CHAPTER 5
Brick City Baby Part 5: “The Break-In”
The warehouse smelled like diesel and
secrets.Joy crouched in the shadows, hoodie
pulled low, pulse steady but heavy. One
hand on the cold steel of the fence, the
other on the pocketwatch she kept for
emergencies real emergencies. She
hadn’t touched it in weeks. Not since Lily
started reacting.
But tonight, there was no choice.
Kiya was in there. She could feel it.
She moved like mist. Silent. Intentional.
Slipping through the fence gap she
mapped three nights ago, crossing into
enemy territory with nothing but instinct
and a quiet promise to the dead.Inside: crates stacked to the ceiling.
Smoke in the air. Voices echoing off the
steel beams laughing, loud, careless.
And then… music.
That slow, soul-sick melody Cowboy
always played from his car speakers. The
same one Tay used to hum under his
breath when things got bad.
Joy’s stomach clenched.
She followed the sound.
She found Kiya in a storage room tied,
eyes swollen but sharp. Still fighting.The girl saw Joy and flinched.
“Ssh,” Joy whispered, kneeling down.
“I’m here.”
Kiya stared. “You’re Clockwork.”
Joy’s hand hovered over the knots. “Not
tonight. Just Joy.”
But the second she cut the ropes, the
alarm shrieked.
Everything snapped into motion.
Cowboy’s voice boomed over the
intercom, lazy and sharp:
“Look what the time witch dragged in.”
She grabbed Kiya’s hand and ran.
Through the maze. Through the dark.
Through history trying to repeat itself.
But Cowboy was waiting at the exit.
Boots gleaming. Smile wide.
“Didn’t think I’d let you walk away
twice.”
Joy stepped in front of Kiya.
Time slowed.Her nose bled.
Lily’s scream echoed in her mind.
She clenched her fists. Looked Cowboy
dead in the eye.And whispered: “I’m not walking.”
Then she stepped forward into the
storm.
CHAPTER 6
Brick City Baby Part 6: “The Comeback
Cost”
Joy’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
The morning after the rescue, she sat on
the edge of her bed, body wrapped in
aches time couldn’t rewind. Her palms
burned. Eyes blurred. Blood still crusted
in her nose. She touched her temples and
felt heat like her mind was still
stretching beyond its limits.Lily watched her from the hallway, silent.
She hadn’t spoken since Joy came home.
The doctor said her vitals were “off.” Like
she’d run a marathon in her sleep. Heart
rate erratic. MRI clean but something
was off. Too fast. Too slow. Like her body
hadn’t caught up to itself yet.
She laughed in the exam room, bitter.
Time finally catching me.
At home, she tried to act normal.Poured cereal. Cleaned up the bloodstains
on her jacket. Watered the plant Tay gave
her the year before he died dead already,
but the ritual mattered.
But she couldn’t hide the cracks.
Lily flinched every time Joy reached for
her.
It wasn’t fear. It was something deeper.
Like Lily could feel the ripples.
Like Joy had become a glitch in their
world.
That broke her more than the pain ever
could.
That night, Joy sat by the window,
watching the streetlights blink through the
grime on the glass. The mural of Tay was
just barely visible through the alley haze.
She whispered into the dark:
“I can’t keep doing this.”
The city didn’t answer.
But the silence felt like truth.
Brick City Baby Part 6 (cont.): “The Comeback Cost”
Joy woke to a sound she couldn’t place.Not a scream. Not crying. Just…
humming. Soft. Familiar.
She blinked against the morning light and
realized she was on the couch. Must’ve
passed out mid-thought. Her body still
hurt like she was wearing time itself like a
coat of bricks.
Then she saw Lily in the middle of the
living room.
Headphones on. Rocking slowly.
Eyes closed.
And around her…
The air shimmered.
Joy sat up too fast, pain spiking behind
her eyes.
A spoon floated, slow and smooth,
circling Lily like a planet.
Then a toy.
A crumpled drawing.
A cracked pocketwatch ticking again.
They hovered in a lazy orbit. No effort.
No strain.
Joy didn’t breathe.Lily’s voice broke the silence, soft as
breath:
“Time’s not scary when it sings.”
Then everything dropped.
Clink. Thud. Silence.
Lily opened her eyes.
Looked at Joy.
And smiled.
Like she’d been waiting for her to see.
Joy couldn’t speak. Her body frozen like
that old clock.And deep in her bones… she felt it:
This wasn’t the end of her power.
It was the beginning of theirs.
CHAPTER 7Brick City Baby Part 7: “The Heist
Before the Storm”
Cowboy wasn’t dead.
He was reborn.
The bullet Joy stopped midair never
touched him but something else did. The
way time bent around her, the way it
broke the air when she caught it… it
changed him. Shook something loose in
his head.
And what he saw in that moment wasn’t
fear.
It was potential.
Two weeks gone. He moved in silence.
No Crown. No Cadillac.
Just whispers in trap houses and back
alleys. Picking off small-time dealers.
Robbing them clean. No trace. No
witnesses.
Just clocks.
Broken ones.
Left at every scene.
See, Cowboy wasn’t just robbing for
revenge.
He was training.
Mapping how the block moved. How time
stretched in certain places. Following the
rhythm Joy never realized she leaked
when she used her power. And in the
silence between seconds, he found
something even bigger:
Lily.
She wasn’t just her mother’s daughter.
She was something else. Untouched.
Unshaped. And raw with power.
He watched from across the street.
Lily on the playground, Joy sipping tea on
the bench, head on a swivel like always.
But even mothers blink.
And Cowboy?
He never did.
He leaned against the wall, hidden in
shadow, gold tooth flashing when Lily’s
eyes met his.
Just for a second.And in that second…
The swing she sat on rose without wind.
Joy didn’t see it.
But she felt it later.
The air in their apartment was off.
The clocks ticked weird again.
Lily had drawn something strange: a man
in a hat… with no face.
And underneath it, in red crayon:
“Mercy is coming.”CHAPTER 8
Brick City Baby – Part 8: “The Eye of the
Storm”
It happened fast.One blink too long. One second where Joy
turned her head to grab Lily’s juice.
When she looked back
The swing was empty.
Just spinning.
The air stilled.
And Joy knew.
A note taped to the jungle gym:
“Mercy keeps what time forgets.”No phone number. No address. Just a
pocketwatch, ticking wrong.
Joy’s hands shook. Then her whole body
stopped.
She felt it in her chest the pull.
Time cracked.
And something else cracked with it.
The sky.
She tracked them through the rhythm.Cowboy moved like smoke, but Joy had
learned to listen between the seconds.
Every place he touched left echoes:
stuttering clocks, slowed heartbeats,
broken weather reports. She followed the
static through the city’s veins.
Until it led her to an abandoned church on
St. James and Vine. Crown territory.
Rain hammered the roof as she
approached. Wind howled between the
bricks like it had teeth.
Joy didn’t knock.
She entered eyes glowing. Rain
following her like a shadow.
Inside, Cowboy stood in the sanctuary.
Lily sat in the front pew, headphones on,
eyes distant but alive.
“I ain’t hurt her,” Cowboy said, palms
open. “She’s special. Better than you ever
were. Imagine what she could do if she
stopped being afraid.”
Joy stepped forward, soaked, trembling.
“You made her afraid.”
Cowboy smirked. “No. You did. With
your half-power, half-prayers. I’m giving
her purpose.”
The storm cracked above them.Joy raised her hands light flickering in
her palms.
“You wanted a storm?” she whispered. “I
am the storm.”
Then time stopped.
Raindrops hung in air like frozen bullets.
Cowboy pulled “Mercy” but the gun
jammed in the stillness.
Joy stepped forward, every inch of her
humming like thunder.
And then she did something new.She snapped her fingers.
And the air shifted.
Wind roared through the building inside.
Lightning cracked through windows that
didn’t break. The whole church shook like
it was held in a hurricane only she
controlled.
She reached for Lily.
The girl floated to her mother like the eye
of the storm itself.
Cowboy screamed but the sound bent
away from them.Joy turned back, eyes white-hot.
“You don’t touch what time protects.”
Then she vanished her and Lily both
gone in a gust of wind and silence.
Back in Apartment 4B, the clock ticked.
Lily slept.
And outside, the rain stopped like
someone flipped a switch.
But Joy knew better.
She hadn’t stopped the storm.
She’d just learned how to aim it.CHAPTER 9
Brick City Baby – Part 9: “Clockchild”
It started with a juice run.Joy was upstairs folding laundry, finally
breathing again after the storm. Lily
wanted to help. Wanted to go by herself.
“Just the corner store, Mama,” she said. “I
remember the steps.”
Joy hesitated. Then nodded. “You
remember the rules too?”
Lily tapped her temple. “Stay aware. Eyes
open. Time don’t wait.”
Joy smiled. “That’s my girl.”
—The store was half-lit, half-stocked. Mr.
Ramon waved from behind the counter. A
regular afternoon.
Then the door slammed open.
Two men. Hooded. Guns drawn.
One shouted: “On the ground!”
Ramon froze. A kid—Trey, Lily’s
neighbor from 3C—stood near the fridge,
wide-eyed, clutching a bag of chips.
Lily’s headphones were still around her
neck. But she heard everything.
She didn’t scream.
Didn’t cry.She stepped behind a shelf.
Closed her eyes.
And listened to the seconds.
They slowed.
—
The world bent—not in a snap, but like
soft glass.
The robbers’ voices stretched.
The bullets in their pockets rattled.
Even her heartbeat echoed like footsteps
in a hallway.
Lily walked through it.She reached Trey first, tapped his
shoulder.
He turned—and gasped, like waking from
a dream.
“I got you,” she said. “Don’t move.”
She pulled him by the sleeve, gently, like
guiding a kite through wind. Every step
careful, every second borrowed.
Then time snapped forward.
They were outside. Safe.
Inside the store—glass shattered. Sirens
wailed.But no one saw them leave.
—
Later that night, Joy found the note under
Lily’s pillow.
“I saved him. I used the gift. I didn’t
break.”
And beneath that, in small letters:
“Time listened to me too.”
Joy sat in the hallway, hand on her chest,
tears quiet.Lily wasn’t just protected anymore.
She was becoming the protector.
CHAPTER 10
Brick City Baby – Part 10: “The
Language of Power”Joy didn’t sleep that night.
She sat on the couch with the note in her
lap, replaying every moment from the
store, every second Lily was gone. Proud.
Terrified. In awe.
But also… uncertain.
Because this wasn’t like before.
Lily’s power wasn’t a reflection of Joy’s.
It was something else. Sharper. Softer.
Stranger.
And beautiful.—
Training started the next morning.
Not with time jumps or lightning.
With breakfast.
Joy poured the cereal just how Lily liked
—dry, in a blue bowl. Sat across from her
and asked:
“How do you feel it?”
Lily didn’t look up. Just stirred her spoon
in slow circles.“It’s like… sounds stretch.”
Joy blinked. “Stretch?”
Lily nodded. “Like a rubber band. And
colors go quiet before time moves.”
Joy scribbled it down. She didn’t
understand it. But Lily did.
—
They practiced after school.
Lily sat on the rooftop with Joy beside
her. Stopwatch between them. A pile of
small objects—leaves, pebbles, bottle
caps.Joy tried to guide.
But it didn’t work.
Lily got overwhelmed. Stopped. Started to
rock.
Joy reached out, but gently this time. No
push. No correction.
Just asked: “What would help you feel
safe?”
Lily pointed at her headphones.
Joy put them on her.
And suddenly—everything shifted.Lily moved her hands in a soft spiral,
humming.
The bottle caps floated.
Time slowed.
The wind circled like it knew her name.
—
Joy didn’t teach her daughter how to be
powerful.
She learned how to witness it.
On Lily’s terms.
In Lily’s rhythm.That was the real training.
Not to be a copy of her mother…
But to become something the world had
never seen before.
