The man looked her in the eyes, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Thank you… angel,” he murmured. “You remind me… of someone I lost.”

Tasha blinked.

Then the doors shut, and the ambulance disappeared into the night.

The next morning, nothing was different.

Tasha still packed lunch scraps for home. Still walked her brother to daycare. Still sat quietly in the back row of class, doodling in the margins of her notebook.

She didn’t tell anyone. Why would she? Nobody would believe her anyway.

But that weekend, the news did.

There he was—the man from the alley—on TV.