Layla always hated the smell of bleach. Hospitals, shelters, group homes—they all carried it. A smell that didn't clean, just burned the dirt deeper into her memory.
Now, at sixteen, she smelled it every night in the group home that wasn't home. The staff sprayed it across the floors, across the counters, trying to keep the chaos sterile. But bleach couldn't hide the shouting. It couldn't cover the fear.
And it couldn't erase the truth: she was still lost.
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The Ghost of Jayden
She thought of her brother more than she admitted. Jayden. Always fire, always fists, always trying to protect something in a world that kept ripping things away. She'd seen him last before the system swallowed him whole—juvenile detention, rumors, transfers. No letters. No visits. Just silence, like he'd been erased.
Some nights she convinced herself he was gone. Other nights she felt him close, like the fire she'd grown up with was still burning somewhere.
It made her restless. Angry.
Because if Jayden's fire was alive, why wasn't it burning for her?
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The Group Home
The other girls didn't trust her. Layla didn't blame them. Trust got you hurt in places like this. So she stayed quiet, sharp-eyed, always ready.
The staff labeled her "defiant." Too many write-ups. Too many curfews broken. Too many times caught sneaking out.
But Layla didn't sneak for fun. She snuck to breathe. To feel the city air at night, heavy with smoke and neon, reminding her she wasn't just a case file.
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The Pull of the Streets
The streets were dangerous, sure, but they felt honest. People wanted something from you out there, but at least they said it. In the home, everyone smiled while sharpening knives behind their backs.
She'd started hanging around with a girl named Marcy, sharp as glass and twice as dangerous. Marcy knew corners where you could disappear, rooftops where you could see the whole city spread like a broken promise. She laughed at danger, and Layla clung to that laugh like a lifeline.
But Layla also knew danger clung back.
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The Secret Fire
One night, lying awake on her thin mattress, bleach heavy in her nose, Layla pressed her hand to her chest. The fire was there too—not like Jayden's, not explosive. Quieter. A slow burn that refused to die.
She wondered if he felt it too, wherever he was. If their fires were still connected, even after years of silence.
Because deep down, Layla believed something no staff, no file, no social worker could shake: she and Jayden were not finished. Their stories weren't separate.
Not forever.
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The Sketch
She pulled a notebook from under her mattress—a tattered spiral, half the pages missing. Inside, she sketched a flame. Small, shaky, but steady. On the opposite page, she drew another flame, bigger, wilder.
Between them, she left space.
Underneath she scrawled: Not gone. Just waiting.
---
The bleach couldn't erase it. The silence couldn't kill it. Somewhere, her brother's fire was still burning.
And Layla was going to find it again—even if she had to burn the world to get there.