Rafi didn't sleep that night. Neither did the braid girl. The boy drifted in and out, feverish whimpers caught behind his tongue like fish snagged in a net.
Above them, the cracked ceiling groaned with every gust of city wind. Pipes hissed and rattled behind the drywall, whispering nonsense the hush twisted into threats when his eyelids drooped too low.
The braid girl sat with her back to the peeling wall, knees hugged to her chest. Her braid hung limp against her throat, ragged where he'd once tried to cut it free from a nail in the crawlspace. She didn't blink much. Rafi hated how still she could be. She looked like she'd already been buried and was waiting for the hush to admit it.
He paced the cramped room in socks worn thin at the heel, mumbling promises the hush pretended not to hear.
When dawn bled gray through the boarded windows, the hush spoke again — not in words but in the restless scratching that rose up from the crawlspace, like hundreds of tiny jaws worrying the foundation stones.
He crouched by the boy, who clutched a filthy stuffed bear Rafi didn't remember bringing here. The bear's button eyes glinted, black beads embedded with dust and something wet that smelled like old leaves. Rafi pulled it gently from the boy's grip, but the hush didn't like that. The scratching grew louder.
The braid girl lifted her head at last. Her mouth twitched — an almost smile, or the ghost of her last word. She reached out and pressed her palm to the floorboards. They hummed under her skin.
Rafi understood: the hush wanted him back below. It always did. But now it wanted more — not just him, but the boy, the girl, their fear simmered slow until it flavored the whole street.
He crawled over to her. His knees popped. He hated how small his voice felt near her silence. "We can't stay. If we stay—"
She didn't answer, but her hand slid from the floor to his wrist, brushing the bruise the hush left behind. Her fingers trembled. He realized then how thin she'd become — wrists like sticks, collarbones sharp enough to cut.
A door slammed somewhere below them, then the hush filled that silence with a sudden, muffled laugh — a noise like a dog choking on a bone.
Rafi scrambled to the hatch. He lifted the rotting board. Beneath it, the crawlspace no longer looked like dirt and roots but a mouth — the walls slick, the roots like veins pulsing in shallow breath.
Behind him, the braid girl's pulse faltered against his skin. He could feel her deciding — run or sink forever. He couldn't do this without her, but he wouldn't drag her deeper, not again.
He turned to her. "We have to leave tonight. We don't wait anymore. We take the boy. We burn this place down if we have to."
Her eyes flicked to the boy, then back to the hush's mouth yawning below. She squeezed his wrist once, hard enough to leave a mark, then let go.
Outside, Hollow Street shivered awake under a false sunrise. Inside, the hush scraped its quiet teeth along the foundation, waiting for them to open the door again.