Rhea woke. A homeless man was clawing at the bread in her pocket. Her scream muffled into the damp of his dirty clothes but it scared him off. She untangled herself from the straw and made her way back across Alameda. She walked east on Cesar Chavez, up a little hill and over an old gothic bridge. The only sound was the numbing whoosh of cars on the freeways below and the sputtering hiss of an old neon sign on a shuttered, rundown bar across the street called Domingos. As she started to cross Pleasant Street, a sudden, loud THWAP! startled her and the air around her moved. She turned, looking out over the City. The lights glittered under a starless sky. The thwap! had disturbed the mist and it moved and fluttered like a thousand wings. The beauty of it stunned her.
“Aggie?” she whispered though she didn’t know why. She remembered this was The City of Angels. She hoped like hell that Aggie wasn’t one of them and that she was alive.
“Aggie!” she screamed as loud as she could. It echoed out over the warehouses and train tracks below the bridge where she stood. It echoed out over the cars on the freeways, hurrying home and it echoed out over the glittering city as the mist settled back down and a chill settled in.
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