Epilogue
EMMA
Four Years Later
“What’s your name, Sweetie?” I ask the little girl cradled in my lap. I know it already, Alyson Rivera, but the question is meant to distract her from what’s going on.
She’s shaking like a leaf, with snot trailing down her nose. Her brunette hair is coated in sweat, and one of the straps holding up her pink overalls is missing a button. I squeeze her tightly, giving her the love and support she needs to get through this nightmarish situation.
“Where’s my momma?” Alyson ignores my question. I don’t blame her. She’s in a stranger’s house and fearing the worst.
Luckily, we got here in the nick of time. The sick fuck in the room over hasn’t left his mark on her, yet. A few minutes later, it might’ve ended very differently.
The same way it did for me. I have deeply repressed thoughts and memories that come up at the worst of times. Griffin has told me about my dark past. He believed that sparing me my history would be a barrier to my understanding who I really am.
I agree with him.
I had the urge to side with the Vigilante, long before I knew it was Griffin, and now I understand why I felt that way. When I was young, I was stripped of any normalcy this life could have offered.
The news did not upset me. I use it as a tool, now, to continue this fight for those who can’t fend for themselves. The way I’m doing for Alyson now.
“We’re going to take you home soon,” I stroke the side of her head. The young girl warms to me the longer we sit together. From stiff and rigid, she starts easing up.
“My name’s Emma. What’s yours?”
“I’m Alyson,” she says, giving me a weak, toothy smile.
“How old are you, Alyson?”
“I’m four,” she says, holding four fingers in the air.
Luckily for Alyson, she’s got youth on her side. We saved her early enough for this memory to fade into obscurity. Hopefully, by her next birthday, this will feel like a distant nightmare, and by the birthday after that, she’ll have forgotten it altogether.
Hell, she looks exhausted enough to forget about this by morning. A bad nightmare she can tell her parents about when they wake up. If everything goes to plan, they’ll believe her too, since they don’t know she’s missing yet.
Before I can ask my next question, Griffin steps into the doorway. He’s tugging off a blood-soaked surgical glove, and his hooded, blue eyes let me know it’s done.
Another one bites the dust.
Good riddance.
“We’re going to take you home now, Alyson,” I say.
She nods, and a yawn follows it.
Alyson’s nodding off by the time we get back to Griffin’s car.
I lay her down on the backseat and we start to drive.
Her home is less than a block away. Griffin’s the one who takes her back inside, following the footsteps of the man who abducted her earlier.
He’s back and we’re on the road in minutes.
“You did good tonight,” Griffin says, taking my hand in his as we get back on the road.
“I had a good teacher,” I say, nuzzling into his side.
I chuckle at the thought. If you had asked me what I wanted to do with my life, on my eighteenth birthday, I’d probably have said that I wanted to be a teacher. Once upon a time, that was true. I wanted to inspire youth and future generations to do great things.
This isn’t the life I’d have ever pictured for myself. I was an innocent girl who lived in Whitefish, Montana, and who didn’t know what doors would open to her.
I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world, now.
The work Griffin Kennedy and I do is real. It makes an impact and deals with the true monsters in our world.
There’s nothing normal about the life we’ve built together, and I love it.
Because I love Griffin, my light in the darkness, my Vigilante, my Angel of Vengeance.
THE END.