Chapter Twenty-Two: Break the Window

By midday the hospital buzzed like a wasp nest kicked open. Nurses whispered behind clipboards. Orderlies wheeled the smallest boy's empty bed down the corridor under a blanket, pretending no one noticed the shape beneath it.

Rafi noticed. So did the braid girl.

They sat in his room, knees pressed together on the same narrow bed. Outside the window, rain turned to mist that clung to the glass in greasy smears. Below, the parking lot steamed.

No words left between them — none big enough to hold the knot in Rafi's gut or the iron taste in his mouth every time he thought of the counselor's dying rattle. He didn't know if the man was still alive. He didn't know if it mattered anymore.

All he knew was the braid girl's hand gripping his so tight her knuckles burned white. Her braid lay over his shoulder like a black snake, warm against his neck. She smelled faintly of the cheap soap they made her use here, but under it he still caught the forest: pine pitch, cold dirt, sweat in the hollow of her throat.

He knew if they didn't move now, they'd be split into neat files — "foster placements," the social worker called it, with a smile that never reached her eyes.

A knock rattled the door. A nurse's voice, too sweet, promising him a visit from the investigator soon. Maybe a psychiatrist after lunch. So much care. So much adult warmth.

The braid girl squeezed his fingers once. Then she pushed off the bed and flicked the lock behind her like she'd done it a hundred times. She turned back to him with eyes that said she'd rather be feral and lost than safe and caged.

Rafi didn't even nod. He just grabbed the thin fleece blanket off his bed and wrapped it tight around his shoulders like armor. Together they pressed to the window, breath fogging the glass.

Three floors down, the garden ringed the building in clipped hedges and benches damp from rain. No fences. Just security cameras blind to what mattered.

Rafi braced his elbow and slammed it into the glass. Once. Twice. It cracked like dry ice, a white web blooming under his bone. He didn't feel the pain until the braid girl hissed and wrapped her arms around his waist to steady him.

On the third hit, the window gave up. A sliver of wind cut his cheek open. Rain and garden air flooded the sterile room, washing out the stench of antiseptic and fear.

Somewhere down the hall, the nurse's voice rose in alarm. A button beeped an alert. Shoes squeaked closer.

The braid girl didn't wait. She swung one leg over the sill, braid whipping behind her like a flag in the wind. Rafi followed her out without thinking.

For one split second his feet dangled over the small drop — wet grass and concrete waiting below, soft enough if he landed right. A nurse's hand lunged for his ankle, too slow.

He let go.

The grass hit his back so hard the breath tore out of him in a bark. Then the braid girl's knees dug into his ribs as she fell beside him, laughing a sound that was half a sob.

Above them, a pale face pressed to the shattered window, mouth wide in a silent scold that Rafi couldn't hear over his own heartbeat.

He scrambled up, dragging the braid girl by the elbow. They pelted through the bushes, leaves slapping their cheeks, rain streaking dirt down their arms.

Behind them, a security guard shouted. Radios crackled. Doors slammed.

But ahead — past the hedges, past the last neat gravel path — the hills loomed dark and blurry in the rain, the tree line waiting with its mouth wide open.

Rafi didn't care if it meant dying or living or something in between. He would not be boxed up and told to forget.

Neither would she. Her fingers found his in the wet green dusk, squeezing once before they plunged into the woods together — deeper than any map, deeper than any truth the grown-ups could sterilize.