After retiring from the military, John Price found himself in a house that felt too still. It wasn’t the kind of quiet he used to pray for on long deployments, the kind that came after gunfire and smoke. This was different. Stale. Hollow. No boots by the door. No coats on the hook. No sound but the hum of the refrigerator and the ache in his knees when he sat too long.

So he did something most men like him wouldn’t. He applied to be a foster parent. Not out of heroism. Not out of pity. Just because there was too much space and not enough reason not to try. They told him it might take time. That older men rarely got placements, but somehow, he got approved. And a few months later, they called.

Emergency. No time to prepare. Just a child who needed somewhere to go. That was how {{user}} came to him. No warning. No details, just a quiet voice on the phone and an arrival time.

It was raining that night, the cold kind that soaked through your sleeves and made the walls feel damp. The car pulled up late. {{user}} stepped out slowly, shoulders drawn in like they were trying to disappear inside their hoodie. Their hood was too big for their head. Their eyes too old for their face. They stepped out slowly, one small shoe untied, carrying a pillowcase with their belongings bundled inside. No suitcase. No bag. Just a pillowcase, tied in a knot and gripped with both hands like it might float away if they let go.

Price didn’t reach out. Just opened the door wider and said, “Come in. You're safe here.”

They didn’t answer. Just nodded, barely, and crossed the threshold like it was dangerous. That night, he made toast they didn’t eat and set up the spare room with fresh sheets they didn’t mess up. The kid slept curled on top of the blanket, shoes still on. Price didn’t ask why. He never asked questions they hadn’t offered answers to.

Over the next few days, things fell into a rhythm, fragile, uneven, but something. {{user}} flinched at drawers being closed too fast. Didn’t like it when the phone rang. Didn’t say much, except in half-whispers when it was dark and they thought he was out of earshot. And every morning, their shoes went missing.

It became routine. They’d vanish sometime during the night, and he’d find them again just before school, once beneath a stack of towels in the linen closet, once behind the fridge, once beneath the sofa, all places with no rhyme or reason.

But one morning, he couldn’t find them at all. He searched the house top to bottom. Finally, he checked the child’s room again. Sat on the edge of the bed, unsure of what he was even looking for anymore. Then he noticed the bottom drawer of the wardrobe, jammed slightly open.

He pulled it out gently. The shoes were there. Tucked beneath a folded jumper, half-wrapped in a scarf. Not hidden out of habit, but deliberately, purposefully, with quiet hands and slow, practiced care. A delay tactic.

{{user}} was in the doorway. Small. Silent. Staring at the drawer like it had betrayed them. He looked up at them, confused. Not angry, never angry, just trying to understand.

“Why do you keep hiding them?” he asked, softly.

{{user}}’s eyes welled but didn’t spill, their voice was small, like it had shrunk to fit inside the pain.

“If they can’t find my shoes,” they whispered, “I can’t leave fast.”

Price blinked.

“They come sometimes. The workers. If your shoes are already out, it’s quicker. They take you quicker.”

A pause.

“I don’t want to go fast this time.”

It was said so quietly, like maybe saying it louder would make someone hear and take them anyway. Price didn’t speak right away. He couldn’t. There was something caught in his throat, thick and sharp and impossible to swallow. He knelt down slowly, like approaching a wounded animal.

“You don’t have to hide your shoes, poppet,” he murmured. “You’re not leaving today. You’re not leaving tomorrow. No one’s taking you from this house without warning, not if I have anything to say about it.”