Between the lines

Chapter 1

The rain in Llyndarren dripped in thin, grey sheets, soaking the cobblestones and the edges of Madison's jeans as she sprinted through the streets. Her bag thumped against her hip, threatening to spill pencils and sketchbooks onto the pavement with every hurried step.

Late. Again.

She reached the school gates, skidding to a stop just as the bell rang, echoing faintly through the damp morning air. Tugging her hood tighter, she darted inside, hoping no one would notice her wet trainers squeaking against the tile floor.

As she rounded the corner toward the stairwell, she collided with someone—hard.

"Sorry!" Madison gasped, stumbling back a step.

The boy she'd bumped into straightened up, his green eyes narrowing beneath a mop of damp, curly brown hair. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and looked half-annoyed, half-exhausted.

"No worries," he muttered, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.

"You late too?" she asked, trying to fill the awkward silence.

"Yeah. Again."

"Same." She gestured toward the stairwell door. "Bet it's locked."

The boy—his name was Ryan, she realised, recognising him vaguely from her year—shrugged and stepped forward. He gave the door a hard shove, then another, but it didn't budge.

"Stuck," he said simply.

Madison sighed and dropped onto the bottom step. "Typical." She dug into her bag, pulling out a pencil and an old receipt to doodle on. She wasn't working on anything serious, just aimless little shapes and squiggles—whatever kept her hands busy.

Ryan sat a few steps higher, silent but not unfriendly. He glanced at her sketches after a while, though, and tilted his head slightly.

"What're you drawing?" he asked.

"Nothing much." She held up the receipt. It was covered in tiny circles, stars, and swirls—stuff she always scribbled when she was bored.

Ryan gave a faint smile but didn't say anything more. Madison studied him for a moment out of the corner of her eye. He looked tough—hood up, shoulders tense, jaw set like he was ready to take on the world—but something in his posture seemed... off.

"Oi, who's in there?" a sharp voice called from the other side of the stairwell door.

Madison jumped, shoving the pencil and receipt back into her bag. Ryan stood quickly, pulling his hood further over his face as the door creaked open.

"Sorry, sir," Ryan muttered, his voice flat and defensive.

"It was locked," Madison added quickly, brushing her hair out of her face and flashing the teacher an innocent grin.

The teacher frowned at both of them. "Get to class. Now."

They parted ways in the hallway without another word. As Madison slipped into her lesson, her thoughts lingered on the boy with the green eyes and the guarded expression.

Later that night, Madison sat on her bedroom floor, cross-legged in the middle of a mess of papers and pens. She twirled a pencil in her fingers, thinking about the mural she'd seen under the old railway bridge last week.

A man falling through shattered glass, the shards reflecting flashes of anger and fear—it was impossible to forget. Whoever had painted it knew something about emotions she couldn't quite put into words.

She shook her head and reached for her sketchbook, flipping past the blank pages. The graffiti artist was a mystery, but one thing was clear: whoever they were, they had a story to tell.