They waited until the boy's breathing steadied into an uneasy rhythm — mouth open, hands fisted into the ragged blanket. Rafi counted each exhale like a prayer against the hush's grin. The braid girl watched the boarded window, her ear pressed to a crack where the dawn's first blue had begun to seep through.
Neither spoke when they moved. Words were flimsy armor now; the hush always knew how to slip between them. Instead, they packed in silence: three stale biscuits, a bruised apple, a plastic bottle half full of rainwater they'd caught in an old paint can.
The boy stirred when Rafi lifted him. He didn't cry, just buried his face in the side of Rafi's neck, breath warm and damp. The braid girl shouldered her share of the burden — a dirty duffel stuffed with their single blanket and the bear, which had reappeared in the boy's grip like it never left.
At the door, Rafi paused. His eyes fell to the hatch in the floor — cracked slightly open, as if the hush had pried it that way while they slept. Roots coiled there in the dark, shifting softly, tasting the air for their scent.
He spat down the hole. A childish gesture, but he felt a flicker of victory when the hush flinched in the back of his skull. He pressed the door shut behind them without looking back.
Hollow Street seemed half-frozen under the dawn. Trash cans toppled but didn't roll. A dog barked once, then vanished behind a fence. No cars. No city hum. As if the hush had stretched its skin far enough to muffle the world itself.
The braid girl tugged his sleeve, urging him forward. She never liked waiting in open spaces. Too easy for the hush to breathe on her neck.
They cut through the alley behind the old storehouse — past graffiti that bled down the brick like veins, past a busted delivery truck that never moved but sometimes rumbled when no one touched it. The boy whimpered once when they crossed a patch of shadow where an old billboard leaned over them like a hungry jaw. Rafi squeezed his shoulder and kept moving.
At the edge of the neighborhood, the street ended in a chain-link fence wrapped in dead vines. Beyond it: the commuter rail line, tracks rusted and slick with dew. If they crossed before the hush noticed, maybe they could find a bus stop, blend with other runaways, disappear into the city's softer noises.
Rafi pressed his forehead to the fence. Cold metal bit his skin. He could feel the hush pressing closer behind them, every rustle of weeds whispering his name in that voice that sounded too much like his mother's — the one he remembered only in fragments: soap, cigarettes, the low laugh that never meant anything good.
The braid girl's hand slid into his. No words. Just pressure. Her silence said, Don't listen. We go.
He looped the boy's legs tighter around his waist. Hooked his free hand through the fence. Began to climb.
Halfway up, the hush struck. Not with claws or teeth — but with memory: his mother's voice at the kitchen table, telling him to hush, hush, hush while she scraped out another pill bottle for the man passed out on the sofa. A warmth that smelled like burnt sugar and stale sweat. A promise she never kept: I won't leave you. Hush now.
His foot slipped. Wire bit his calf. He nearly dropped the boy but caught him by the armpits, hauling him up with a grunt that tasted like blood. The braid girl was already over, hand reaching back, eyes bright with terror she refused to speak.
Rafi let the hush's lie slide past his ribs like a cold needle. He heaved himself over the fence, landed hard on the other side, knees screaming. The boy wailed — just once — then buried it in Rafi's jacket.
Behind them, the hush rattled the fence like a giant shaking a cage. The chain links sang an ugly lullaby, promising them it would find another way under their skin.
Rafi stood. He glanced at the braid girl — her breath steaming in the first sunlight.
"Run," he mouthed. And this time, she did.
Together, they fled down the tracks, deeper into a city that no longer belonged to any god but hunger and rust — and the hush, always whispering behind the walls.