The streetlamp at the corner sputtered above them, buzzing with flies that should have been dead in the winter air. Rafi stood beneath its sickly glow with the two children tucked close, half hidden in the folds of his hoodie. To any driver drifting past, they'd look like a tired older brother watching over strays he didn't know how to feed.
But up close, the wrongness in their eyes showed. They stared too long at the dark between buildings. They flinched when a bus grumbled by, exhaling steam and exhaust. They didn't speak — not even to each other. The boy's hand clamped so tightly to Rafi's hoodie pocket that it numbed the fabric against his side.
He tried to remember if he'd ever been like them. He must have been. Small, feral, hiding behind bigger kids who promised to share stolen sandwiches. Long before the hush pulled him into its throat. Long before he learned how to run from the roots.
The girl — older by a year or two, Rafi guessed — broke her gaze from the shadows just long enough to look at him. Her eyes were milk-glass gray, unblinking. He wondered if she saw the same pulse under the concrete that sometimes beat beneath his feet.
"You hungry?" he asked. He didn't expect an answer.
The boy sucked in a thin breath. A soft whimper slipped out, not words but close enough to break something inside Rafi's ribs.
"Yeah. Me too."
He dug in his pocket, came up with a crumpled bill — just enough for a candy bar, maybe stale bread. No way to feed three ghosts on city scraps.
A voice startled him: sharp, adult, from the end of the block.
"Hey! You there!"
Rafi stiffened, pivoting, shoulders bent to hide the kids. A security guard, squat and broad-chested, approached with heavy steps that cracked ice along the curb. The guard's flashlight beam bobbed, landing right on Rafi's hoodie.
"What you doing out here with kids this time of night, huh?" the man barked, more curious than angry but ready to drag trouble to the nearest badge if needed.
Rafi's mind spun useless excuses — cousin, babysitting, lost. The hush pulsed in his head: Lie. Lie well.
"Heading home," he said. His tongue felt wrong in his mouth, thick with the memory of moss.
The guard swung the beam onto the girl. She didn't flinch; she simply stared right through him. Something in that stare unnerved the man more than Rafi's stammering.
"You deaf, kid?"
No answer. The boy pressed his face into Rafi's side, nails digging into his ribs now. Rafi felt the air bend — a memory, or maybe something real: branches clattering in an invisible wind.
The guard shifted his weight, suddenly impatient. He didn't want this. He wanted the warm booth and the stale coffee back by the pharmacy doors.
"You lot run along. And don't let me catch you creeping near the trucks again. You hear?"
Rafi nodded fast. "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." He tugged the girl's sleeve, nudged the boy's elbow. The guard waited just long enough to see them shuffle off toward the next streetlamp, then spat on the ground and trudged back to his post.
As soon as the man turned the corner, Rafi pulled them into the darkness between two shuttered laundries. He knelt, chest heaving.
"Okay. Listen. You gotta help me, yeah?"
The boy blinked, snot and tears bright on his cheeks. The girl did not blink at all.
"I can't do this alone. If you stay quiet, if you stick with me, I'll keep you safe. Best I can. But you gotta — you gotta—"
A sound cut him off: a scraping, dry and hollow, from deeper in the alley. Rafi whipped around.
There was nothing there. Nothing but dripping gutters, a broken shopping cart wedged against a brick wall, and the glint of something on the concrete — something wet and dark.
He forced himself to step closer, squinting. A shoe. Tiny, like the boy's, but empty. A single shoelace, frayed at the end, curled like a worm on the asphalt.
Behind him, the girl finally made a sound. A small, rattling gasp that might once have been laughter if it hadn't carried that note of distant hunger.
The hush wasn't finished with him. He'd thought the city could drown it. He'd been wrong.
He turned to them, his mouth dry, and said what felt true:
"We can't stay here. Not tonight."
The girl nodded once. The boy didn't let go of his pocket.
Rafi lifted the shoe, feeling the hush pulse warm through his fingertips. It beat in time with the fear that never left him.
Then he led them back out into the halo of the streetlamp, toward whatever hole the city had left for kids like them.
Whatever waited in the dark — it would have to wait until they were ready to face it.