Reaper didn’t laugh with the others. He watched the room. He watched the door. It was habit. It was survival.
Then, the bell above the door chimed.
It was a delicate, cheerful sound, completely out of place in the heavy atmosphere of the diner.
The laughter at the corner booth died instantly. It didn’t taper off; it was severed, like a cord cut with a blade.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the blinding afternoon light, was a child.
She couldn’t have been more than nine years old, maybe ten. She was small, frighteningly small, a fragility that seemed almost painful against the backdrop of grease and leather. Her brown hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail that was coming loose, stray strands falling across a face that was smudged with dirt.
But it was her clothes that told the story. They were the uniform of the forgotten. Her sneakers were pink, or they had been once; now they were gray with grime, and there were holes in the toes, the kind that come from walking miles because there is no money for a bus, let alone a car. Her jeans were high-waters, too short for her growing legs, revealing ankles that were bruised and scraped, blue and purple marks on pale skin.
Her jacket was a thin, nylon windbreaker, completely inadequate for the chill in the air. It was worn at the elbows, the fabric thinning to transparency. On the shoulder, someone—likely a mother trying to hold things together—had sewn a patch that didn’t quite match, a desperate attempt to mend what was broken.
She shivered, not just from the cold, but from a bone-deep tremor that seemed to start in her core.
Reaper’s eyes narrowed. He scanned the parking lot through the window behind her. No parents. No car. No one. She was alone.
