St. Bridge had always been quiet in the mornings—too quiet. The kind of quiet that wasn't peace but pressure, holding everything in place until it broke.
Jayden felt that pressure in the walls now. He'd started to notice the way the guards' radios clicked a little more often. The way conversations stopped when he walked by. The way Hendrix—his first weak link—looked at him with a hint of unease instead of boredom.
He wasn't sure if it meant he was doing something right… or if the fire was starting to leak through the cracks.
---
The Subtle Shift
The plan wasn't big yet. It wasn't even a plan—not to anyone else. It was just small things. Delays. Patterns.
Malik took an extra five minutes on his laundry rotation, long enough to notice that the back gate's lock had been changed but the hinges hadn't been replaced. Ortiz counted screws missing from the ventilation grate above workshop storage. Jayden took notes quietly, etching details into his sketches until every flaw became part of something bigger.
He told himself it wasn't escape yet. Not really. Just preparation. Just understanding the cage better than the people who built it.
But part of him knew better.
---
The Weight of Trust
During dinner, Malik leaned across the table, whispering low. "You sure about this, Carter? This ain't some small-time hustle. They catch you, it's solitary. They catch me—"
"They won't," Jayden said.
Ortiz grunted, chewing slow. "You keep saying that like you've seen the future."
"I have," Jayden replied. "It looks like this place burning behind me."
That got a laugh, but not a loud one. The kind that lives between disbelief and hope.
Hope was dangerous currency in a place like St. Bridge. Too much of it could get you killed.
---
Hendrix
Later that night, Jayden lingered by the laundry gate again. The storm from last week had passed, but the scent of wet asphalt still clung to the air.
Hendrix stood under the single yellow light, cigarette between his fingers, gaze fixed on the horizon like he could see a world that didn't want him either.
Jayden stepped closer. "You ever wonder what you'd do if these doors opened and you didn't have to come back?"
Hendrix scoffed. "Doors don't open. They get replaced."
"But if they did?"
The guard gave him a long, tired look. "You sound like a man who's planning to test it."
Jayden smiled faintly. "I sound like a man who still remembers how air feels."
Hendrix didn't answer. He just dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his boot. But he didn't report him either. And that silence was permission enough.
---
Pressure Rising
By the next week, the facility had shifted. Small things. Unspoken things. The guards whispered about "discipline tightening." The head counselor added random checks.
Jayden felt the fire tightening inside him too. He could sense the block watching him again, the way they had years ago in juvenile. But this time, it wasn't fear. It was something else—expectation.
They could feel the change coming, even if they didn't know what it was.
---
The Night of the Signal
Malik slipped a note into Jayden's hand during work detail.
"Delivery schedule changed. Wednesday. Two hours earlier. Only chance before new locks."
Jayden stared at the words until they blurred. Then he burned the paper over the workshop stove, watching the flame curl the edges into ash.
That night, he stood at the narrow window of his cell, looking out at the courtyard lights. The rain had started again, soft but steady, tapping against the glass like Morse code.
He pressed his hand against the pane and whispered, "Soon."
---
The Sketch
He opened his sketchbook to the blueprint page again. The lines were perfect now—every gate, vent, and blind spot accounted for.
This time, he drew himself not as a flame, but as smoke—rising, unseen, slipping through every crack in the system.
Underneath, he wrote: You can't cage what becomes air.
Then he closed the book, slid it beneath his mattress, and lay back in the dark.
The hum of the facility sounded different now—less like a machine, more like a living thing breathing unevenly.
Something was coming.
Something inevitable.
And for the first time, Jayden didn't fear it.
He welcomed it.