Layla had always been good at pretending.
Pretending to listen. Pretending to heal. Pretending to obey.
But after the lockdown, she learned that pretending could be more than survival — it could be strategy.
The staff at St. Briar wanted quiet. So she gave it to them — her eyes lowered, her tone even, her footsteps soft. She let them believe they'd broken her again.
Meanwhile, she was watching everything.
---
The Rhythm of the Cage
Every place had a rhythm. The trick was learning the beat.
St. Briar's morning shift started at 6:00 sharp, when the old pipes moaned awake. Breakfast was at 6:30, group therapy at 8:00, vocational sessions at 10:00, rec at 2:00.
The guards switched posts every two hours, like clockwork.
Layla memorized faces, patterns, voices.
The new night guard, Lacey, smoked behind the rec shed at 11:45.
The janitor always left his cart by the laundry room door when he clocked out.
And the north stairwell camera — the one above the art room — had a dead zone.
She didn't know what to do with all that yet. She just kept gathering. Information was currency. And she was getting rich.
---
The Spark
Reese noticed the shift before anyone else did.
"You've got that look again," she said one night, leaning on the railing above the common room.
"What look?"
"The one that got me two months in solitary."
Layla smiled faintly. "Maybe I'm just tired."
"Yeah," Reese said. "And maybe thunder's just rain with attitude."
Layla laughed under her breath. "You ever want out?"
Reese's eyes hardened. "Wanting and trying ain't the same thing, sweetheart."
"Maybe they could be."
Reese studied her for a long moment. Then she lit a cigarette and exhaled slow. "You're playing with matches again."
Layla's smile turned razor-thin. "Maybe it's time something burned."
---
The Theft
The first thing she took was small — a screwdriver head from the janitor's cart.
It wasn't much, but in her hand it felt like a promise.
She hid it under the loose tile beneath her bunk, along with a folded napkin and a broken lighter she'd scavenged weeks ago.
The second thing she took was information — the master key log. During group therapy, while the counselor wrote affirmations on the board, Layla palmed the clipboard and flipped two pages ahead.
Keys signed out: Basement Supply, North Storage, Maintenance Gate.
Times, initials, patterns. She didn't need all the details yet, just proof that patterns existed.
---
The Blood
By week's end, the tension in the building had grown sharp enough to cut skin.
Two girls fought in the laundry hall — one from fear, one from boredom. Layla didn't intervene, but she watched the guards rush in, timing their response: forty-five seconds from first shout to restraint.
She memorized the path they took.
Reese found her afterward, leaning against the dryer vents, breathing in heat.
"You're getting too close to something," Reese said. "I can see it in your eyes."
Layla didn't look up. "Close to what?"
"The line between surviving this place and starting a war with it."
Layla turned her gaze to the window, where rain streaked the glass like veins of silver. "Then I'll make sure I win the war."
---
The Midnight Test
That night, the storm came back. Heavy and electric.
While the rest of the dorm slept, Layla sat awake on her bunk, staring at the ceiling. Her pulse kept time with the rain. She slipped from bed without a sound and moved barefoot across the cold floor.
The hallway lights hummed faintly, the air thick with the smell of bleach and metal. She moved like a shadow through the corridor, pausing at the laundry room.
The lock was simple — mechanical, not digital. She fit the screwdriver head into the keyhole, turning slow. The sound was soft, satisfying — a click that meant possibility.
She didn't open it all the way. Just enough to prove to herself that she could. Then she shut it, pressed her ear to the door, and smiled when she heard nothing but silence.
The lock hadn't screamed.
Neither would she.
---
The Discovery
The next morning, during breakfast, a guard made an announcement.
"Someone tampered with the laundry room lock last night. If you know anything—"
Layla kept eating her oatmeal. Her hands didn't shake. Her pulse didn't race.
Reese, sitting across from her, watched quietly. Then, when the guard walked away, she said under her breath, "You?"
Layla didn't answer. She didn't have to.
Reese's mouth curled into something that wasn't quite approval but wasn't surprise either. "You're insane."
Layla's voice was soft. "You'll thank me when the door opens."
---
The Flame in the Mirror
Later that night, she found herself staring into the bathroom mirror. The fluorescent light flickered overhead, buzzing like a dying insect.
Her reflection didn't look like a victim anymore. Her hair was pulled back tight, eyes clear, jaw set. There was something familiar there — the same stillness she remembered from Jayden's eyes when he used to stand between her and chaos.
She reached up, touched her own reflection. "You made it out," she whispered to him. "Now it's my turn."
For the first time in years, she didn't feel small.
She felt dangerous.
---
The Sketch
When lights-out came, she pulled her notebook from under the pillow.
Tonight's page was different — sharper, darker.
She drew a girl sitting in a room full of cameras, all pointed at her.
One by one, she drew the cameras turning away.
Underneath, she wrote: Even light can be fooled.
She closed the book, slid it back into hiding, and lay on her bunk staring at the ceiling.
The storm outside had faded to a whisper, but inside her, thunder rolled steady and sure.