Chapter Text
"I'll get out."
The words don't echo. They don't carry. They fall flat against the ceiling like everything else in this room—dead on arrival. I say them anyway, because the ceiling is the only thing in here that doesn't talk back, doesn't watch, doesn't wait for me to slip. It just sits there, cracked open from corner to corner, a thin fracture splitting the plaster like something once tried to escape and only made it halfway before giving up. I've been watching that line for weeks. Or longer. Time doesn't behave properly here—it folds in on itself, loops, vanishes. Days don't pass; they smear.
The crack wasn't always there, or maybe it was, and I just didn't see it.
That's how it works in this place. Nothing changes all at once. It creeps in like a fog rolling through. Quiet. Patient. If you're not paying enough attention, it rewrites the room around you without asking.
So I pay attention.
I catalogue everything—the shifts in light, the rhythm of footsteps, the weight of silence between them. So when the door down the hall opens, I know immediately that it isn't ours. It's too clean. There's no hesitation in the hinge, no dragging complaint of rust. Just a quick, controlled movement.
Then the unmistakable jingle of keys. Not many. Two, maybe three. Held lightly in the hand. Careful.
Not Tommy.
Tommy carries a full ring and always makes a point of it, lets it swing like a second pair of bollocks between his legs, lets it speak before he does. He likes you to hear him coming. Likes the warning. Obnoxious prick
But this isn't him, this is quieter. Newer.
Heavy footsteps follow—measured, deliberate, each one placed like it matters. Not rushed, not careless. Controlled. The kind of walking that doesn't need to hurry because it already knows where it's going.
Then a pause.
A voice, low enough that the walls swallow it before it reaches me. I can't make out the words, not a single one, but I don't need to. What I've learnt is that tone carries more than language or words ever could.
The voice isn't angry. Which is worse because anger is noise. Anger is cracks in the surface—raised voices, sharp movements, things slipping out of control. Angry people make mistakes. They leave openings.
Quiet means there are no openings.
Quiet means it's already decided.
I don't move. Not even a shift in breath. Stillness is its own kind of camouflage in a place like this, and over the last fifteen years I'd say I've mastered the art to wear it well.
Across the room the young girl is awake and perched stiffly on the edge of her bunk. I don't have to look to know—it's in the way her breathing stutters, catches halfway like she's trying to swallow it down and doesn't quite remember how. She's new. She hasn't learned yet. Still thinks silence is something you can use to hide.
It is. Just not in the way she thinks.
The footsteps pass our door without slowing.
Keep going. Please, just keep going. Not today
A door further down the hall opens—same clean movement, same lack of resistance. Closes just as neatly. Then the click of a lock turning, precise and final. I never dare to let a breath of relief out because it never lasts long.
Silence
Not the soft kind. No. Not the nice empty quiet you get before sleep or after a storm. This kind of silence has weight. It settles into the walls, into the floor, into the space between breaths. It lingers, listening and always waiting—like the house itself is holding still, holding it's own breath.
And silence is always worse than noise ever is.
I count to thirty in my head, slow and even, each number placed carefully, like if I rush them they'll collapse into each other and take everything else with them. Not because it matters—it doesn't—but because it keeps the edges of things where they're supposed to be. Order, even if it's only in here. When I reach twenty-seven, I start again. I don't like the way thirty sits in my chest. Too final. Too much like an ending I didn't choose. I make sure to never get to thirty.
Beside the bed, the tray from last night hasn't moved. It never does unless someone else moves it. Metal cup, still half full, the surface of the water flat and untouched. Two pills folded neatly into a square of tissue, like they're something delicate. Something offered.
They leave them like that sometimes, not out of kindness, never out of kindness. Only routine.
I don't touch them. Not yet. In this place you don't take anything straight away—not food, not water, not anything passed to you like it's nothing. That's how you learn the hard way. That's how you disappear without anyone raising their voice.
You have to wait and you watch. You'll soon learn who's still here in the morning and who isn't.
Across the room, the girl moves, fidgeting and shifting inch by inch on her bunk, like the air might notice if she moves too quickly. She's being careful. Unnecessarily careful. But she hasn't worked out yet that being careful doesn't mean being safe.
Her eyes land on me. I can feel it before I see it, it's the weight of being chosen, of being looked at like I might have the answers she's looking for. I don't return her look. That's another rule. Not written down. One of the many unspoken rules here. Just a few other examples we have are you don't make yourself visible unless you have to, you don't give anyone something to hold onto especially hope. And above all....You don't become the answer to someone else's question.
She swings her legs over the side of the bed, slow, deliberate, like she's testing whether the world will let her. Her bare feet meet the concrete and she flinches—sharp, instinctive—before she can stop herself.
I know already it's cold. A lot colder than it was yesterday. It's because it's always colder when it's about to rain.
I tilt my head, just enough to listen, not enough to be seen doing it. You don't waste movement here. Even the smallest shift has weight.
Nothing on the roof yet. No soft tapping, no warning. But it's definitely coming.
Usually you can feel it before it arrives—the air thickens, pressing in, the damp settling into the walls like it belongs there. It seeps into everything. The bedsheets, what little clothing we're lucky to be allowed to wear if they're feeling generous, even seeps into our skin. It clings like a parasite. Makes the room feel smaller somehow, like the space between things is shrinking.
It changes the smell. Not that it ever smells clean. Just different. Stale, heavy—like something was left too long behind a closed door, something that should've been aired out but never was. It sits at the back of your throat, lingers there, no matter how shallow you breathe.
Sometimes they try to cover it with bleach. The industrial type bleach that's sharp enough to sting your nose and burn your eyes for a second if you're not ready for it. But it doesn't fix anything, just mixes together like a clean film layer over rot.
From the corner of my eye I notice the girl reaching for the cup. Her slim fingers hover just above it, not quite touching, like the metal might bite if she gets it wrong. Then she stops. Stills. Looks at me again. She's waiting. I don't look back. I'm not giving her anything.
That's the first mistake they all make. Thinking someone else in here has answers. That survival is something you can learn by watching, something that gets passed between people like a quiet warning. No sweetheart it doesn't work like that. No one saves you in a place like this. Not with words. Not with looks. Not with anything you can hold onto. I learnt that the hard way that's for sure.
After a second too long, long enough for doubt to settle in - she takes the cup anyway.
Starts drinking. Way too fast.
I can hear it, the quick swallows, the way her throat works harder than it should. Like she's trying to get it over with before she can think about it.
That's how you know she's new.
New enough to believe hunger and thirst still matter more than caution. New enough to think the danger will announce itself.
And that—yeah—that's how you know she won't last.
Either no one's told her yet or they have, and she's decided it doesn't apply to her. They all do that at the start. They all think they're the exception.
It's the ones who'll figure it out quick, the ones who won't make the same mistakes.
Those are the ones who'll get out.
I shift on the mattress, barely more than a breath of movement, testing the springs without letting them answer back. The left side dips deeper than the right—it always has. It remembers weight differently. I keep myself centred because of it, balanced on the part that doesn't give too much away.
Small things matter. They're the only things that do.
Everything matters, if you're paying attention—if you're willing to see what everyone else steps over, what they dismiss as nothing. It's the quiet details. The small patterns. The things that don't announce themselves.
Especially the things no one else sees and the things they think you don't.
Because that's where the truth lives. Not in the obvious. You'd be an idiot to think it lies there
The door at the end of the corridor opens again.
And this time I know it. Hard to explain how I know, it's not the sound of the handle, no. Not the hinge. Not even the space it leaves in the air.
Him.
Recognition settles in before the keys even follow, before the faint jingle confirms it. Some sounds don't need to be heard all the way through. You learn them early, or you don't last long enough to matter.
I sit up. Carefully measured. Not quick enough to draw attention. Not slow enough to look like I'm avoiding it. Just.....enough. Enough to show I'm awake. Enough to show I know. But not enough to give anything else away.
The girl freezes, the metal cup suspended halfway to her mouth, like time catches her by the throat and holds her there.
Footsteps. Getting closer now. Heavier than earlier. More confident, more deliberate.
It's Tommy.
As I said earlier he doesn't hide it. He never does. Lets the obnoxious sound of himself travel ahead, lets it settle into the room before he even arrives. The keys swing loose in his hand, careless in a way that isn't careless at all.
They hit the door once—metal on metal, sharp enough to land. Either a warning or a joke. Depends his mood depends which version of him you get. If we're lucky.....
The lock turns slowly and the door opens, and light from the corridor slices in low and narrow, stretching across the floorboards until it stops just short of the beds, like even it knows where it's not allowed to go.
Tommy leans into the frame, filling it without trying, one shoulder braced against the metal like he owns the space beyond it and everything inside. Cigarette smoke wafts in as it clings to him. Always stale like it's soaked into fabric maybe even his skin. And underneath it smells sour. Something that doesn't wash out no matter how many times you try or how hot the water is.
His eyes move across the room, not settling, not lingering, just passing over things like they're already accounted for. Role call...Counting. They all do it. Not because they care but because they like to keep track and they need to know what or who is missing.
I lower my gaze slowly before his can settle on me. Not too fast to show fear and not slow enough to be mistaken for defiance. Just the right speed because let me tell you that's the difference between rewards and punishments in this house.
"Up," he says flatly. He has the kind of voice that doesn't need volume because it already expects to be obeyed. If it doesn't then it soon will be.
Across from me, the young girl moves too quickly - scrambling and knocking the cup as she goes. It hits the tray with a sharp, hollow clang, metal against metal, the sound cutting through the room like it doesn't belong there.
Tommy's head shifts, just a fraction. That's all it takes.
I don't move. Not yet.
Silence again. Chosen this time. Controlled.
Then I swing my legs over the side of the bed, steady, deliberate, the mattress barely reacting beneath me. My bare feet meet the floor and the cold pushes straight through the soles, sharp enough to ground me, to keep everything where it should be.
I stand. No rush. No hesitation. I don't make a sound or wince against the cold floor.
He watches me a second longer than he should. Not long enough for anyone else to notice, but long enough to mean something.
It isn't with interest nor curiosity. It's recognition and use.
"C'mon, Angel," he says, like it's casual, like it's nothing, like the name belongs to me and not to him.
My stomach tightens before I can stop it, something small and involuntary pulling tight under my ribs. I don't let it reach my face. I don't give him that. For the love of god I can't give him that.
I step past him into the corridor, close enough to catch the stale smoke in his clothes, that sour edge underneath it that lingers too long.
Don't look back. You never fucking look back. Don't look at the room. Don't look at the people still in it if you value not wanting to get hurt.
For some reason the corridor feels different. Narrower somehow. The ceiling lower, pressing down in a way the room didn't. No cracks here. No lines to follow. No weak points to study. Nothing that suggests an exit. I've lost count the amount of times I've been escorted down this corridor. I keep my eyes forward. Tommy smirks as he slams the cold metal door behind me purposely trying to make the girls jump. I knew it was coming, he always does it.
Focus....Count the steps. One. Two. Three.
Order again. Control again. Something to hold onto that isn't him, isn't this damn place.
I'll get out.
I don't say it this time.
I don't need to.
Because this time...
I'm not asking.