2019.

He sat at the breakfast table, wearing a casual outfit once again from the autumn collection of the douchebag department — burgundy cardigan over eggshell henley and crisp chinos. Every inch of fabric appeared so soft that it simply whispered “money” without having to shout.

The sun room’s brightness bathed him in a heavenly glow, like an ad from a lifestyle magazine come to life, one that insinuated, Ladies, your day could start like this too, if your husband truly cared about your happiness…

His aftershave wafted lazily across the waves of deliciousness coming from the bacon, eggs, and coffee, and Gracie suddenly became acutely aware of her own armpits.

“It’s you,” said Gracie. “Nights of Justice. Good book, but you’ve already got it.”

“It is,” he said. “And I do. Care to sit down? Help yourself.”

She didn’t. The coincidence was not sitting well with her. “And so you… met a man at midnight, and all that?”

He nodded. “I’ve met the Crimson Wraith. You can say his name here. It’s a safe space.”

“Is it? Oh, good.” Gracie did not feel safe. And still she did not sit.

“You seem like you’d like some explanations,” he said.

“More than I’d like bacon and eggs right now, yeah.”

“Why don’t I start by telling you my name? I’m Kevin Snyder.” He let silence follow the last syllable with an ease that suggested he’d done this plenty of times before and was used to allowing new acquaintances a minute after he name-dropped himself. 

As far as Titan City went, his name held a lot of weight — Kevin Snyder, the young CEO of the Snyder-Finn Corporation, a multi-million dollar corporate powerhouse formed by the acquisition of Finn Industries by SnyTECH Global when Kevin’s late father, Benjamin Snyder, was CEO. It now owned the renamed Snyder-Finn Building, which towered over downtown Titan City, the historic Finn Manor, where Gracie had apparently just spent the night, and the humanitarian-oriented Snyder-Finn Foundation, which had been paying for Gracie to go to school.

She imagined this got Kevin Snyder laid a hell of a lot. Even she couldn’t help being a little staggered by the impact of his name, but she pressed on.

“Hi, Kevin,” she said.

“Hi, Gracie,” he said.

“Kevin, just to help me get the full picture here, in addition to owning about half the city, you are friends with its very own superhero?”

“The Crimson Wraith isn’t a superhero,” said Kevin.

“He isn’t what now?”

“He isn’t a superhero.”

“He dresses up in a mask and fights crime. The guy belongs in a comic book. Most people would call that a superhero.”

“Does he have any superpowers?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten to that part of Nights of Justice yet.”

Kevin answered his own question, “He has been said to appear and disappear at will, see in the dark, throw his voice, seem to be at two places at once, summon fog, and throw smoke, but most of these could be attributed to skill or trickery. We live in the real world. There aren’t any superheroes here.”

And that was Gracie’s limit. She half-shouted, “Thank you for man-splaining your weirdo pal in a cape to me, but that doesn’t help me feel any better about finding out you are the dude offering me all this hospitality after randomly showing up in my store just a few days ago. That kind of coincidence comes off as creepy as fuck.” 

“Coincidence happens.”

“Does it, Kevin? Does it really?”

“From time to time.”

“From time to time? Okay, great. Well, at this particular time, coincidence seem a whole lot like it is fucking with me because right after you turn up at my shop, my little life got way fucking fucked up. And now here you are again, pulling me out of the mess that just happened to hit right after I just happened to meet you. You see what I’m getting at here? Can you understand how it might look pretty damn weird to the casual observer?”

“Are you suggesting I had something to do with the charges that got you arrested?”

Gracie wanted to say “yes,” that somehow he had engineered the entire thing to make her feel indebted to him, creating a problem from which he could rescue her and then force her to wear a closet full of Victorian dresses. 

But she couldn’t bring herself to say that. It was way too far of a reach. The fact was, Gracie knew Zack had been a piece of shit and wanted to tear him a new one since she first met him. Their fight had been a long time coming.

She took it down a notch. “Let’s just say that I would really appreciate hearing what your angle is here. You and the Crimson Wraith, what exactly is your deal?”

Kevin nodded. “My deal. Me and the Crimson Wraith. Sure.” He took a breath. “A few years back, I was in kind of a bad spot. It’s personal, and you and I don’t really know each other, so please excuse me being private about it for the time being. This wasn’t the kind of trouble that ends up in the papers, and it wasn’t something I thought I could get help from the police for. I didn’t know where else to turn and started to think there wasn’t anything that could be done. 

“Then I met him. And he helped me. When you get helped by the Crimson Wraith, he expects you to give that help to someone else. So, now I’m helping you. But if you don’t want that help, you don’t have to take it. You don’t have to stay here. Stephen can drive you back into the city and drop you off wherever you like. You don’t owe me the money I paid to bail you out of jail. I think you ought to try to make your court date, but that’s your choice. Whatever you do with what’s given you is your choice.”

Her bullshit detector wasn’t registering anything. Everything in Gracie’s gut told her that Kevin was dealing straight, at least in spirit. There were things he wasn’t saying, but he said that there were things he wasn’t saying. He didn’t owe her his life story.

“Cool,” she said and sat.

Stephen, who had remained in the room during their exchange, said, “I shall leave you to your breakfast then.”

“Thank you, Stephen,” said Kevin.

“Yeah, thanks, Stephen,” said Gracie. She started putting food on her plate and then poured herself some coffee. Kevin took a few pieces of bacon from another plate before offering it wordlessly to her. She accepted. The sounds of utensils on plates were the only ones in that little room for a moment.  Gracie let Kevin pour her a glass of orange juice and then asked, “So, what’s it like being a millionaire?”

“It’s nice,” he said and handed her the glass.

“Yeah, was thinking it might be.”

They started to eat. After a few bites, Kevin asked her, “How was getting arrested?”

“Not good, Kevin. I do not recommend it.”

He nodded. “That makes sense.”

Gracie ate a bit more and then sighed. “What am I supposed to do here?”

“Well, I can show you around. Feel free to make yourself at home…”

She waved her coffee cup angrily. “No, I don’t mean, like, here, in this space, in your house, or mansion — whatever. I mean ‘here’ as in… arrested and released and waiting and…” Gracie growled out a cry of frustration. 

It did not appear to disturb her host. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Not fucking be waiting for trial?”

“Fair,” he said, “Yeah, I can see that.”

“But that isn’t an option though, is it?” she asked.

“Not really, no.”

She thoughtfully sipped at her coffee. “I heard you might maybe have some work for me.”

“If you want. I understand sometimes that can be good, having something to do, something to occupy you.”

“Probably. What kind of work were you thinking?”

“There’s some odds and ends that I could find for you to handle at Snyder-Finn–carrying documents around town, maybe picking up coffee, nothing too demanding.”

“You mean like a secretary?”

“Not exactly. I’ve already got those as well as a personal assistant who handles a whole lot. Besides, I don’t know how good you are at taking dictation.”

“Me either, since I never have.”

“Don’t worry about it then. No, what I was thinking of was finding you space in the courier pool.”

She ate a bit more and then said, “Yeah, that sounds all right. I’d like to keep working at Sprang & Sons too, if I can. And going to class. At least until… Do you know how long until I have to go to court?”

“That’s a question for your attorney.”

“Right. But do you think I’m going to have time to finish the semester? It would be nice to get those credits in before… Jesus, am I really going to jail?”

“Jail is where you wait until your trial, which you don’t have to worry about now that your bond is paid. Prison is where you get sentenced to stay after trial, if you’re found guilty.”

“Great. Prison, then.” And suddenly Gracie thought she might start to cry. She didn’t want to. She fought it back. Scrambled eggs started to quake on her fork. 

“Oh, Mr. Hancock delivered a bag of your things this morning,” said Kevin, either not noticing or not wanting to address the shimmer rising in Gracie’s eyes. “Is there anything else you want to get from your apartment? A few extra changes of clothes perhaps?”

She nodded, set down the fork, and wiped at her eyes with her napkin. “I guess. Can I? He said I should keep my distance from Kristen.”

“It’s worth asking about. And if you need to go into town to buy a few things, Stephen could take you.”

“Yeah, if I’m going to come work for you, I don’t know that I have, like, business clothes, not for, you know, your kind of business.”

“Stephen could probably help you there too, take you shopping.”

“I don’t know if I could afford those kinds of clothes.”

He nodded. “Maybe if you let Stephen know your measurements, he could see if there is something in your size just lying around.”

Grace flashed again to the idea of being stuffed into a strange, frilly Victorian dress and realized she had absolutely no appetite anymore. She set down her fork. 

It really was too much, being taken care of this way, all of these needs anticipated by someone else, handled for her before she even thought to ask. It felt so strange, so wrong. 

Would it be better to be sitting in a jail cell? She would be wearing clothes that someone else provided there too, a striped jumpsuit courtesy of Titan County. She would be eating someone else’s food and sleeping in someone else’s bed, all way less nice than what Finn Manor offered. But maybe that lack of luxury would make it easier to take.

“Are you finished?” Kevin asked.

Gracie nodded.

“Come on. Let me show you around the manor then. Do you like bowling?”