Trouble on the Late Shift

The metallic scrape of a crowbar against steel cut through the low hum of the parking lot lights. Rebecca dropped her rag into the sanitizer bucket and leaned over the diner glass. Outside, two men in dark hoodies crouched beside a vintage motorcycle parked under the lone sodium bulb.

She snatched the tire iron from under the register—a heavy, grease-blackened tool Phil kept by the counter. Her wrists throbbed. She was ten hours into a double shift, her pocket held forty-two dollars, and her six-year-old son, Leo, was asleep on a pile of aprons in the back booth. If someone wrecked a customer’s ride on her watch, Sam would cut her hours. She couldn’t lose this job; her rent was eight hundred dollars behind.