Nights in the shelter grew brittle. The staff didn't say so, but their eyes twitched when they checked the dorm room where Rafi and the braid girl slept. They whispered in break rooms that maybe the forest had done something to these kids — too quiet, too watchful, too other.
On the third night, the radiator clanked itself hoarse. Frost fingered the windows from the outside while something older than ice scratched at the glass inside Rafi's skull. He curled tighter under his blanket but found no warmth. Across the narrow aisle, the braid girl whispered without sound — a sigh brushing through the hush that pooled under her bed like a tame shadow.
By day, they were good children. They nodded at questions, spooned up soup, filed into group sessions where other kids confessed nightmares of bad men, bad homes, bad touches. Rafi had none of that to confess — only a hush that hummed under his ribs, telling him you are still mine.
He tried to bury it. He tried to pretend he wanted the nice family with the picket fence they promised in hushed tones down the hallway. He even smiled when Mrs. Pilar, the case worker with kind eyes and a gold cross at her throat, said, We found a foster placement, sweetheart.
He smiled, but inside, something with bark for skin and teeth made of roots bit the lie in half.
That night, the braid girl found him standing by the back door. The exit alarm was taped over — the staff trusted locks more than vigilance. She slipped her palm into his without a word. He felt her question: Are we leaving?
He didn't nod. He didn't have to.
Behind them, the shelter creaked and sighed — old bones settling. Children dreamed in neat rows of beds, believing walls and keys could keep the world out. Rafi knew better. So did she.
He pressed his ear to the door seam. On the other side, the wind hissed through bare trees. He smelled damp earth — the hush's breath curling toward him like a mother's lullaby.
One twist of the latch. One push.
Behind him, the braid girl smiled, feral and soft all at once. Between them pulsed a promise older than any lock: Roots grow through stone. Teeth split iron. There are no doors that can keep the wild at bay forever.
They slipped into the night together, barefoot on brittle frost. The hush waited somewhere in the dark, patient and open-mouthed.
The door swung behind them, sighing shut on an empty room that would smell of them for weeks — moss and sweat and secrets too old for children to carry.