Patrol Preparations

The diner's hum wrapped around Mia like static—a muffled cocoon of silverware clinks and quiet conversation. She sat at the far end booth, eyes narrowed at a faded chalkboard mounted above the register. Names and times were scrawled across its surface, under a heading hastily chalked: Community Safety Patrol Sign-Up.

Her coffee had long gone cold.

She hadn't intended to overhear the conversation. But when two men in windbreakers at the counter began discussing patrol routes—mentioning streets she knew Sarah frequented—it had hooked her attention like barbed wire.

"Thomas is taking Oak Avenue," one said, tapping the paper sign-up sheet taped beneath the board. "We'll need someone for Willow and Main."

Mia's gaze flicked back to the list. She strained to read it through the reflection in the napkin dispenser. Names bled together in quick cursive, but she caught a few: Carmen, L. Doyle, Sarah—

Her fingers clenched around the ceramic mug.

Sarah's name.

The chalk had arced sharply as if whoever wrote it had hesitated. But there it was, unmistakable. Not a pseudonym. Not a placeholder. Sarah. In real letters, on a real list, beside a real patrol schedule.

Mia's throat tightened. She hadn't anticipated this. Not Sarah joining. Not without her knowing.

From the kitchen, a bell rang. Plates clattered onto the pass-through. A waitress passed by with a notepad, murmuring apologies to the booth next door. The world around Mia moved with its usual inertia, unaware that something had shifted entirely.

She looked back at the chalkboard, mind racing.

A patrol sounded harmless. Noble, even. A grassroots show of unity against rising break-ins. But night patrols were vulnerable. Volunteers wore badges, carried flashlights. They walked in pairs. They were seen.

And Sarah—bright, well-meaning, still learning to navigate her own shadows—would now be exposed.

Mia's pulse pounded. She forced herself to breathe evenly.

A folded paper schedule sat beside the register. She watched as the woman behind the counter handed one to a teenager in a varsity jacket. The paper flapped once in the boy's hand, then disappeared into his backpack.

Mia stood.

She walked past the chalkboard slowly, feigning a glance at the posted diner specials. Her shoulder brushed the sign-up clipboard. A breath, then another.

She noted everything.

Names. Shifts. The layout of routes. Who was covering what block. Who wasn't.

Her hands itched to cross Sarah's name off.

Instead, she turned and exited through the side door.

⸻

The alley outside smelled like rain and overripe bananas from the dumpster. Mia leaned against the brick wall and closed her eyes.

This wasn't the first time Sarah had stepped forward without her. But this felt different. Not just riskier, but closer to something irreversible—Sarah choosing to stand up publicly. Voluntarily.

Mia ran through the possibilities. She couldn't erase Sarah's name now—it would draw attention. She couldn't dissuade her outright—it would undermine her growth.

But she could prepare her.

She could equip her.

She opened her notebook with trembling fingers and scribbled a list beneath today's date:

Patrol supplies Fake badge (design sketch?) Route overlap with Carmen or Doyle? Backup signal—walkie channel? Gloves, light, vest

Each line hardened into strategy. Beneath the worry, resolve solidified. She would not let Sarah walk those streets unguarded—not truly.

The diner's front window buzzed softly behind her. Through the glass, she could still see the chalkboard. Still read Sarah's name.

It no longer surprised her how quickly pride could bleed into fear.

She tucked the notebook into her coat and melted into the city shadows.

⸻

That evening, Mia found herself in the basement of an old hardware store, its shelves half-stocked and humming with dust. She spoke with the clerk in a low voice, choosing items with deliberation—a small flashlight, elastic reflective bands, a whistle with a lanyard. Everything ordinary, almost benign.

But assembled correctly, they were armor.

She tucked the items into a canvas pouch, labeled the kit in pencil: S.W. 1. Then placed it in her coat pocket.

⸻

Back in her apartment, Mia spread out a map of the neighborhood. She circled key intersections, marked where lights often went out, where corners turned dark quickly, where people didn't answer knocks. Then she laid a second sheet over it—transparent—where she sketched her own overlapping route.

A patrol shadowing a patrol.

She would be near, but not seen.

She jotted a final note in the corner of the page:

— Intervene only if contact is made.

She underlined it twice.

And paused.

Then wrote beneath it:

— Unless instinct overrides.

The pen hung in the air, then fell beside the paper.

She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. The quiet around her wasn't peace—it was readiness.

⸻

Midnight approached. The first official patrol night for Sarah was listed as the following Thursday. Mia still had days to calibrate. To prepare redundancies. To walk the route herself.

But something inside her had already shifted. Not just in worry, but in awe.

Sarah had signed up.

No one asked her to.

She had seen the danger. And still, she had put her name down.

Mia stood. She turned off the desk light. She stepped out into the cold, and walked the route as if the stars above marked each breath Sarah would take.

And in each dark window, she imagined a reflection of Sarah's courage staring back.

On a corner near the edge of the patrol grid, Mia paused beneath a flickering streetlight. Her breath fogged in the crisp night air. Across the street, a pile of discarded flyers rustled in the wind—one of them listing the same patrol notice, half-faded now, as if the city itself were forgetting its promises.

She crossed to it, picked up the paper, and folded it into her coat. Not as a keepsake, but as a reminder.

She would need to be sharper. More alert. These weren't theoretical risks anymore. Sarah's name was in ink.

And ink, Mia knew, had a way of becoming permanent.

She walked again, feet swift and silent. Each intersection she passed, she timed her steps, noted shadow lines, remembered angles. Her mind mapped contingency into rhythm—if Sarah turned left here, if her partner lagged behind, if an unknown figure stepped out—

Every possibility had to be pre-felt. Pre-seen.

Not to interfere. But to ensure.

She returned home near dawn. The sky just beginning to lighten behind the buildings. She placed the folded flyer next to her notebook and stood at the window as the city stirred below.

In the quiet, she allowed herself one whisper.

"Let her be ready."