There’s a certain staccato to late night city if you listen. An electric rhythm of buzzing streetlights, beeping reverse lights, dripping sewers and wailing sirens that build layers until a voice sings out; a cry for help. If I keep walking, I’ll make it home on time for once. But, if I heal this poor screaming bastard, then I’m working off the clock. At a salary of a hundred bucks a day with no overtime pay, I’m leaning towards letting him rot.
I groan and follow the sound down an alleyway.
Two thugs stand over a man in a priest collar. One gives a rib-cracking kick to the priest, and I run straight at them ’cause these thugs don’t care that it will take me all day to fill out the paperwork for a 503c if they end up killing him. Feet pound pavement and fists pound faces until it’s just me and the priest.
There’s a certain vibrato that resonates as angels singing when the light pours from my hands and resets bones and heals bruises and I think, only two more heals until a promotion.
Brooke Reynolds is a veterinarian from Charlotte, North Carolina. Her stories have appeared at such markets as The Scarlet Leaf Review, Massacre Magazine, Fantasia Divinity, The Airgonaut, The Literary Hatchet and Ghost Parachute. Her story ‘Dr. Google’ won 2nd place in the 2016 Short Story Contest for Channillo. Follow her on Twitter @psubamit.
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