Jayden had always been good at waiting. Years of foster homes, lockdowns, and padded cells had trained him in the art of patience — the kind that sits still while your mind maps escape routes behind calm eyes.
But this time, waiting felt different. It had weight. It had meaning.
Because now, waiting wasn't about survival. It was about her.
---
The Map in His Mind
St. Bridge wasn't the kind of place you broke out of with brute force. The walls were old but strong, built from the same stubborn stone that had outlasted riots and fires. The guards rotated in patterns that almost looked random — until Jayden spent weeks watching, memorizing, tracing their routes in his head.
He learned when the lights dimmed two minutes longer than usual. When the cafeteria doors clicked open half a second before the buzzer. When one of the guards, a tired man with nicotine-stained fingers, cut corners to sneak smokes by the laundry gate.
Every flaw in the system was a thread, and Jayden was patient enough to weave them into something bigger.
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Dre's Voice in the Dark
Some nights, Jayden still spoke to Dre like he was there — whispering to the darkness between bunks.
"You'd like this, old man," he said softly. "You'd tell me I'm crazy. You'd tell me control ain't just what you hold back, but what you aim forward."
Silence answered him, but he felt it anyway — the same grounding voice that had once taught him how to fight without losing himself.
Jayden turned the pencil over in his hand, pressing it to the wall above his bunk. He began sketching tiny lines — not art this time, but blueprints.
He didn't draw people. He drew the world around them: doors, vents, wires, paths. He drew freedom as geometry.
---
The Counselor
The next morning, his counselor — Ms. Hale — called him in for "check-in."
"You've been quiet lately," she said, flipping through his file. "That usually means one of two things. Either you've found peace… or you're planning something."
Jayden smirked. "Maybe both."
Her eyes narrowed. "You've been here long enough to know where that kind of thinking gets you."
"I've been here long enough to know thinking's all I've got."
She sighed, leaning back in her chair. "You ever think about what comes after this, Jayden? You're almost out. Two years left, maybe less if you keep clean."
Jayden looked her dead in the eye. "And go where?"
That silenced her. They both knew the truth — the world didn't make space for boys like him when the doors opened.
When he left her office, he didn't look back.
---
The Fire Reignites
That night, a storm rolled in. Rain hit the bars hard, thunder cracking like the world was trying to shake loose its chains.
Jayden sat on the floor, eyes locked on the leak dripping through the ceiling — counting the rhythm, memorizing the sound. Every drop a reminder that even steel and concrete could erode, given enough time.
He pulled out his sketchbook again. This time, the drawing came fast — frantic but precise.
He drew St. Bridge in full detail, every hallway and blind corner, every route he'd memorized, every guard rotation that repeated too perfectly. At the bottom, he wrote one word: Bridge.
Not the building. The act.
---
The Reflection
When the lights went out, Jayden lay on his bunk, eyes open to the dark.
He thought about Layla — her laugh when they were kids, the way she'd hide behind him when their parents fought, the last time he'd seen her face through the rain-soaked window of a police cruiser.
He'd failed her then. Failed to keep her out of the system that ate them both.
But now, there was a chance — the smallest flicker of one — to find her again.
He whispered her name into the dark, the same way he had for years, but this time it didn't sound like grief. It sounded like a vow.
---
The Sketch
He turned the page one last time that night.
He drew two flames, tall and steady, facing each other across a broken chain.
Between them, he drew a narrow line — not a cage this time, not a wall, but a path.
Underneath, he wrote: Freedom starts when fire finds purpose.
And as thunder rolled over the compound, Jayden smiled for the first time in months.
The blueprint was set. The fire was awake.
And this time, it wasn't just going to burn — it was going to build.