The rain hadn't stopped for three days. It crawled down the windows of St. Briar like the building itself was crying.
Layla sat by the cracked glass, her fingers pressed to the cold, watching lightning shatter the horizon. The other girls huddled in their bunks, whispering about transfers and lockdown rumors, but she barely heard them.
She'd always loved storms. They made noise for her when she couldn't. But tonight, the air felt different — not wild, but awake.
---
The Pulse of Something
She couldn't explain it, but she felt it before it happened — like a thread pulled tight inside her chest. Every thunderclap made her heart beat in rhythm, faster and faster.
Reese noticed first. "You look like you're waiting on something," she said, sitting on the edge of her bunk, cigarette unlit between her fingers.
Layla kept her eyes on the window. "Maybe I am."
Reese smirked. "Expecting company?"
"Maybe."
"From where?"
Layla shrugged. "Far enough that he shouldn't be able to reach me. But I think he's trying."
Reese's smile faded. She'd seen the same look on other girls — the half-haunted hope that someone, somewhere, still remembered them. But Layla's gaze wasn't the desperate kind. It was focused. Sharp. Like she knew something the rest of the world didn't.
---
The Rumor
It started just before lights out. A counselor sprinted through the hall, radio crackling in bursts. Two staff whispered by the main door, voices low but frantic. Words floated down the corridor like ghosts: St. Bridge. Escape. Three missing.
The dorm went quiet. The kind of quiet that eats through walls.
Reese and Layla shared a look. Reese raised an eyebrow. "That sound familiar to you?"
Layla's throat tightened. St. Bridge. The name tore through her like a match to oil.
Her hands started shaking before her mind even caught up. The photocopy — Jayden's file — had said St. Bridge Rehabilitation Unit.
She whispered, "No way."
Reese leaned closer. "What?"
Layla shook her head, voice trembling. "It's him. It has to be."
---
The Lightning
That night the power went out. The storm killed the lights, plunging the building into a blue-black blur of emergency glow. The guards scrambled, flashlights cutting through the hallways like blades.
Layla stood by the window again, breathing fog onto the glass. The rain was heavier now, drumming so hard it drowned everything else.
She pressed her hand flat against the pane, palm to the world.
Somewhere out there — in that storm, in that same rain — Jayden was running.
She didn't need proof. Didn't need news or names. Her bones told her. Her blood told her. The fire in her chest, the one that never died, told her.
It burned bright now, so bright it almost hurt.
---
Reese's Warning
"You're shaking," Reese said behind her.
Layla turned. "He's out."
Reese frowned. "You sure?"
"I can feel it."
Reese stared for a long second, then nodded once. "Then listen close. If he's really out, that means the system's bleeding. They'll lock this place down hard. Cameras, dogs, transfers. You need to keep your head low, Layla. If they think you're connected—"
"I don't care."
Reese's voice hardened. "Then you better learn to."
Layla didn't answer. She just looked back out the window, lightning flickering across her reflection — a girl who looked older than sixteen, her eyes two small fires refusing to dim.
---
The Sketch
When the lights flickered back to life, Layla reached for her notebook. The pages were worn soft now, corners bent, the edges tattooed with rain from nights spent staring out like this one.
She flipped to a blank page and drew the storm — thick lines of rain slashing the sky, a truck swallowed in mud, three figures running beneath a bridge of lightning.
She didn't know if she was remembering, imagining, or dreaming. She just knew.
Underneath, she wrote: Freedom doesn't whisper. It roars.
Then she tore the page out and folded it into the pocket with the photocopy of Jayden's name.
The two papers crackled together like static.
---
The Dawn After
By morning, St. Briar was a hornet's nest. Every hallway buzzed with orders and speculation. "Three inmates still missing." "Cross-state alert." "High-risk category."
The girls whispered theories between chores. Some said the escapees were dead already. Some said they'd hijacked a truck. Some said they'd made it to the river and vanished.
Layla didn't speak. She didn't need to. Her silence said everything.
Reese caught her by the stairs, eyes serious. "If you're right, he's got about forty-eight hours before they tighten every border and checkpoint between here and hell. Whatever fire you think connects you two, make sure it doesn't burn you first."
Layla met her gaze. "I've lived in fire my whole life. I'm still here."
Reese almost smiled. "Then maybe you're the one who's dangerous."
---
The Closing Line
That night, when the dorm finally went quiet, Layla whispered into the dark the same promise Jayden was making miles away:
"I'm coming."
The storm had stopped, but thunder still echoed somewhere far off.
She closed her eyes and saw him — mud, blood, and rain on his face — and for the first time since childhood, she didn't feel alone.
Two flames, the same storm, one direction.
The bridge was real now.
And it was burning.