Rafi didn't remember crawling backward. His body did it for him, scraping belly and elbows along the same tunnel that had swallowed him whole.
His mind lagged behind in a haze of muffled heartbeats and a sour taste like old metal on his tongue. The hush's laughter still danced in the hollows of his skull — but something else pushed it back, a thin strand of warmth tugging him up through the dirt like a root pulling water from a buried pipe.
He cracked his forehead against a beam. Sparks fizzed behind his eyes. He blinked hard. Above him: faint light seeping through broken floorboards. The old crawlspace's stink of mold and rotting insulation replaced the hush's cloying sweetness. He gagged, spit grit from between his teeth, then dragged himself forward another arm's length.
His arm throbbed where the root had gripped him. Faint marks, dark and spiraling like a bruise made by teeth, ringed his wrist. He couldn't feel his fingertips.
Halfway to the hatch, he heard her voice again — not words this time but the echo of that single "yes" she'd broken herself to speak. He knew, with a shudder that rattled his ribs, what it cost her.
He pressed his forehead to the cold dirt. "I'm sorry," he rasped. It was the first thing that wasn't meant for the hush in hours — maybe days. Maybe years. Time bent so easily down here.
A shiver of movement behind him. A sigh that brushed the soles of his boots. He didn't look back. He knew the hush would let him go only because it wanted something more precious in return. It always traded at a profit.
He pulled himself up to the hatch. The loose board scraped under his palm, edges splintering under his weight. Above, the mattress sagged where the braid girl sat. He could feel her there — bone still, her silence vibrating louder than the hush ever could.
One final shove. His shoulders cleared the hole. He dragged his legs free with a raw grunt and collapsed face-first onto the mattress. The boy whimpered awake, pressing sticky fingers to Rafi's cheek. The braid girl did not flinch when his head thudded into her thigh.
Her eyes — dark and wet and impossibly old for her narrow face — fixed on him. She did not speak. She would not need to again.
He knew what she'd given up so he could come crawling back.
Behind them, the hole gaped black in the floor. The hush did not follow yet. It watched, patient, bloated with secrets and bargains half-paid.
Rafi pressed his ear to the braid girl's knee. He felt her heartbeat against his skin, fierce and stubborn, refusing to be drowned.
He whispered into her jeans: "I won't let it keep you. I swear."
The hush shivered a chuckle through the floorboards — a reminder that swearing and keeping are never the same.
Outside, night thickened against the broken windows. The city beyond remained blind to the hush's hunger. Inside this room, only three hearts kept time: his, hers, and the boy's — for now.