Foster Home number one smelled like bleach and baby powder. The couple who ran it smiled too much, like they were trying to win some invisible prize. They spoke in high, syrupy voices and said things like "sweetie" and "champ," but Russ could see through it, even as a kid. Their hands lingered too long when they tucked him in at night. He didn't know why yet, not exactly. But he knew it felt wrong.
Foster Home number two was stricter. A pale man with thinning hair and his wife, who wore sweaters with crosses on them, ran it. They gave Russ cold hot dogs and canned beans, and when he asked where the other kids were, they told him not to ask questions. When he asked again, they said Jesus would forgive him if he just kept his mouth shut. He learned to eat quickly, quietly, and never look anyone in the eye.
Foster Home number three was a blur. Short. He barely remembered it.
Foster Home number four was worse. Mr. Klein had a belt that he kept on a hook near the kitchen. It was always clean, polished. Mrs. Klein didn't yell. She smiled while she held the knife and made him cut vegetables for dinner. Their own kids never talked to Russ. They looked at him like he was diseased, like a mutt that wandered in from the rain. He wasn't allowed to sit with them during dinner. He ate in the garage.
He ran. Once. Just once.
They found him a day later, soaked and shivering in a ditch near the gas station. He had taken an apple and a bottle of water. Mr. Klein beat him until he passed out. After that, he stopped trying to run.
It wasn't until Foster Home number seven that anything changed.
That was where he met Kayla.
She was quiet, almost ghostlike. Always sketching on napkins or scrap paper with broken pencils. She didn't talk, not to the adults, not to the other kids. She wasn't mute, Russ knew that. She just didn't want to talk. There was a difference.
They were both ten.
She had mismatched eyes—one blue, one hazel. It made her drawings look even more unreal, like they were being pulled from two worlds at once. She only ever drew wings. Broken wings, burning wings, clipped wings.
They weren't allowed to talk after lights out, so they made up their own language. They tapped on the bed frame beneath them. One tap for yes. Two for no. Three meant, Are you still alive?
She was the first friend he ever had.
They made plans together. Plans that weren't real at first. Silly stuff. Run to a circus, join the army, fly to space. But one day, Kayla brought out a sock full of crumpled dollar bills. She'd been stealing. Hoarding. Preparing.
They were going to escape.
The plan was simple. They'd wait until the adults were distracted, then sneak out through the back. They'd go to the library, hide in the basement. Eat from dumpsters. Kayla said she had an aunt in another state. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. It didn't matter.
What mattered was that they believed it could work.
It rained the night they ran.
The sky was a blanket of thunder, and the streets shimmered like glass. Their jackets weren't warm enough. Russ held Kayla's hand the entire time. They ran through alleys, dodged puddles, climbed fences.
They made it five blocks.
Mr. Barker caught up fast. He was strong for someone so thin. His breath smelled like whiskey and bile. He grabbed Russ first, yanked him by the collar, and hit him hard across the face.
Kayla didn't run. She fought.
She bit his hand, kicked at his shins, clawed at his face. She screamed, a sound that didn't sound like a child at all.
Then she fell.
Pushed or slipped—Russ never knew. But her head hit the curb with a crack that echoed through the rain. Blood spilled into the water, mixing with the storm runoff until it looked like paint.
Russ screamed. He held her. He begged her to wake up. He cried harder than he ever had.
Barker lied. He said she tripped. He said Russ was unstable, disturbed. The adults nodded. Wrote things down. Moved Russ to a different place.
They never went to a funeral.
That was the moment something broke in Russ.
They sent him to Dr. Caleb Mercer's facility. A rehabilitation center for troubled youth, they called it.
It looked clean. Too clean. The kind of clean that made your skin itch.
Dr. Mercer smiled a lot. Too much. His teeth were perfect, and his voice was soft, slow. He always wore a sweater and sat with one leg crossed over the other like he had nowhere else to be.
He taught Russ how to sit straight. How to smile on command. How to breathe deeply when angry. How to speak only when spoken to. He said it was healing.
Sometimes, if Russ made a mistake, they shocked him. A little jolt. A warning.
"You're healing, Russ," Dr. Mercer would say. "Smile for me."
The nurses tied Russ's hands at night. The lights never went off. Sometimes music played on loop. Lullabies. Other times it was screaming. Mixed tracks. They said it was therapy.
Russ stopped speaking. He didn't see the point. He stopped blinking too much. He stopped asking questions. He nodded when they asked if he was doing better. He said yes when they wanted him to.
But every night, when he lay on the stiff cot under buzzing fluorescent lights, he whispered her name into the pillow.
Kayla.
Just once. Every night.
He remembered her mismatched eyes. The fire in her voice. The way she fought when no one else did.
By the time he was sixteen, Russ could smile like a saint. He could pass every evaluation. He could trick every test.
But inside, deep where no one could reach, he made a decision.
No one who smiles at me means well.