The neon sign flickered in the distance like a dying heartbeat.
ASH MOTEL — VACANCY.
Half the letters were gone, the rest hummed with faint blue light that bled into the mist.
Jayden stopped first, scanning the cracked parking lot. An overturned shopping cart lay near a dead vending machine. Two cars sat rusting under the trees, vines coiled through shattered windows.
Layla shivered. "You sure it's safe?"
Jayden looked around. "Safe's not real, remember? But dry is."
The wind carried the smell of rain, oil, and something faintly metallic — old blood or rust. He couldn't tell anymore.
They crossed the lot slowly, their footsteps echoing. The lobby door hung half-open, creaking when Jayden pushed it wider.
---
The Lobby
Inside, the air was thick with dust and mildew. Wallpaper peeled like burnt paper. A front desk sat crooked against the far wall, a jar of old key tags scattered across it — each tagged with fading numbers in red ink.
Layla brushed her hand along the counter. "Feels like nobody's been here in years."
Jayden found a flashlight behind the desk. The battery blinked weakly but held.
He checked the logbook out of habit — names scrawled across yellowed pages: Henderson, Calloway, J. Carter.
He froze at that one — same initials, same handwriting style. Coincidence, but it hit like a ghost's whisper.
"Jay?"
He shut the book. "Nothing. Let's find a room."
---
Room 7
They took the first room with a door that still locked.
Inside, the air was cold and stale. The carpet was damp, the bedsheets gray with dust. The bathroom door hung on one hinge. But the roof didn't leak, and that was enough.
Layla dropped her bag and collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Feels like the kind of place people vanish from."
Jayden checked the window. "Good. Means no one looks here."
He pushed a chair under the knob for good measure, then sat by the window with his sketchbook.
The silence was heavy, too big for two people. Layla watched him from the bed.
"You ever stop moving in your head?" she asked.
He didn't look up. "No. That's how you get caught."
---
The Night
Sometime after midnight, the wind changed. The motel walls groaned, the sign outside sputtered to life again — faint, then strong, then faint.
Jayden couldn't sleep. His instincts wouldn't let him. Every creak sounded like a footstep. Every shift of wind felt like breath on the back of his neck.
He got up quietly, checked the hallway. Empty. The wallpaper was torn where something — maybe someone — had clawed at it years ago.
He turned to go back inside, but something caught his eye — faint light flickering under the door two rooms down.
Room 9.
He moved closer. Listened. A low hum. Maybe a TV. Maybe a generator. But the air smelled wrong — like smoke.
Then, faintly, he heard it: a voice. A man's.
"…I told you, they'll come through here. It's only a matter of time."
Jayden froze.
---
The Eavesdrop
He pressed closer to the door.
Another voice — rougher, impatient. "And what if they already did?"
"They're just kids. If they show, we can trade them for a reward. That bounty's still good money."
Jayden's pulse quickened. Layla.
He stepped back, quiet as he could, and slipped down the hall.
Back inside Room 7, Layla was sitting up, eyes wide. "What's wrong?"
"People. Two rooms over."
"Cops?"
"No. Worse. Locals."
She stood, pulling her shoes on fast. "What do we do?"
He thought fast — every instinct screaming. "We move. Through the window."
He pried it open, shards of glass crunching under his hands. The cold air rushed in, smelling of ash and rain.
Layla climbed out first, landing on the muddy ground outside. Jayden followed, pulling the window shut behind them.
Inside, he heard a door open. Voices. A flashlight beam sweeping the hall.
They ran.
---
The Yard
The grass was high and wet. Their shoes sank into mud. The back lot stretched toward a tree line where an old billboard leaned sideways.
Jayden grabbed Layla's arm. "This way."
Behind them, the motel lights flicked on — one by one, like eyes opening. A figure stepped out, flashlight beam cutting through the dark.
"Hey!"
Layla didn't look back. They ducked behind the billboard, crouching low. The beam passed over once, twice, then faded.
Layla's breath came in gasps. "You think they saw us?"
"Doesn't matter. We're not staying to find out."
He checked the horizon — faint light rising to the east. Dawn.
They'd made it through another night.
---
The Memory
When they finally stopped running, Jayden dropped against a fallen log. Layla sank beside him, head on her knees.
For a long time, neither spoke. The world was quiet again, the kind of quiet that comes after barely escaping.
Layla finally said, "I dreamed of Mom last night. In the room."
Jayden looked over, surprised. "Yeah?"
"She was sitting on the bed. Smoking. Just staring at me."
He swallowed hard. "What'd she say?"
"Nothing." Layla's voice trembled. "That's the part that scared me."
Jayden rubbed his hands together, staring at the dirt. "Sometimes silence says enough."
---
The Firelight
As dawn broke, Jayden struck a small fire under the shelter of a rusted guardrail.
Layla sat across from him, hair damp from the mist, face pale in the new light.
"You think we'll ever stop running?" she asked.
He thought about it — about the motel, the men's voices, the ghosts that waited in every shadow.
"No," he said finally. "But maybe we'll learn to stop being chased."
She looked up. "By them?"
He shook his head. "By what's inside."
Layla stared into the fire. "Then maybe we start by forgiving ourselves."
Jayden said nothing, but for the first time since St. Briar, something in his chest loosened — just enough to breathe.
He opened his sketchbook again and drew the motel — the cracked walls, the neon letters flickering against rain. And two silhouettes walking away from it, small but unbroken.
Underneath, he wrote:
Not every ghost wants you dead. Some just want to see if you'll keep going.