2019.

Kevin took a sip from his water bottle. The deep breath he took told Gracie that he had spent plenty of time asking himself the same question. Somewhere he had found enough of an answer to give him a reason to continue the mission of the Crimson Wraith.

Maybe his reason would work for her too.

“Most people think of the criminal justice system as something impersonal, like some kind of machine. Maybe they see it as a filtration system, removing bad people from society. Or, if they are feeling generous, they might consider it a waste processing plant for human beings, transforming dangerous individuals into law-abiding citizens. 

“But it’s not a machine. All of its moving parts — its gears, its pistons — those are just people. And that’s a problem.”

“Wait, what? That’s… Are you saying that would be a good thing? I mean, you may not get out much, but you gotta know there’s, like, so many sci-fi movies about machines hunting people down. And I’m pretty sure that doesn’t go so good for the flesh-and-blood folks fleeing from soulless kill-bots.”

“Think of it this way, though: do those machines discriminate between rich and poor? Can they be bribed? Do they disproportionately impact those of certain ethnic backgrounds? Or care about someone’s gender or sexuality?”

She had to think for a moment. “I mean, not really. You kind of see them just mowing everybody down.”

Kevin nodded. “Equally. Without prejudice.”

“Damn, Kev, I didn’t realize kill-bots were woke as fuck.”

“Unless they were owned by those who built them not to be. You see those in movies too, don’t you? They slaughter at the whim of some mad scientist or enforce the order of an elite ruling class.

“And that’s where the fiction moves closer to fact. Those with the resources at their disposal can enjoy all the justice money can buy. It isn’t even a matter of corruption. Yes, witnesses, district attorneys, judges, law enforcement, and those who write the laws may be susceptible to bribery, but bribery is a crime in itself. If you are capable of hiring the most expensive lawyers and private investigators, even private security, the way is pretty much paved for you. Charges get dropped, and powerful people walk free.”

“Unless the Crimson Wraith kicks their ass?”

Kevin shook his head. “That didn’t work so well with Zack, did it?”

Gracie felt her cheeks flush a little. “Not really.”

“We rely on violence when the situation calls. Most of the time, though, that’s the least effective tool in our arsenal. Usually, it’s better to place the right piece of evidence into the hands of someone with authority who takes their role seriously. 

“And what we do doesn’t end with the sound of a gavel. There’s following up with the convicted after their release and helping guide them toward resources to build a new life for themselves, so that returning toward a life of crime appears less alluring.”

Gracie realized her situation fit into that scenario too. “Or you take them into your house, train them to be a superhero, and give them a day job?”

There was no way Kevin could keep from smiling at that. “Only in very special cases.”

“Special? Wow. Special, he calls me. You really know how to butter up a girl.”

“Gracie, you know that you’re not like most people.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I kinda wish I was sometimes.”

Kevin nodded. “The things that point people like us toward a life like this are usually particularly unpleasant.” 

There was a flash of something across his eyes, like the memory of a wince, pain remembered. Gracie realized she hadn’t ever asked Kevin what had brought him down this path himself. His life seemed so full of ease and comfort. 

“You know, Kev,” said Gracie, “when I first got here, you told me that you’re here now because the Crimson Wraith helped you out, once upon a time. But, like, we haven’t ever really gone into…” She gestured in his direction rather than finishing her sentence with words.

He turned toward her with a sad smile, one that echoed with betrayal and regret. It looked strange on his chiseled, magazine model features. 

“Another time,” he said. “But I think you know that no one tries to take justice into their own hands unless they experienced a personal injustice first hand.”

“Math seems pretty straightforward there.”

“But it’s not the injustice itself that makes a person want to right the wrongs in the world. No, there has to be something else, or really, some-one else — a person who reaches out to us after the fall. And it’s that person who makes us see that it’s possible to do the same for others.”

As his words sank in for Gracie, she thought of what they had shown her in the Crypt — a legacy passed from one costumed crimefighter to the next, each dedicating themselves to a mission straight out of comic books, and now she was invited to take part. On the surface, it looked kind of ridiculous. But if what defined them wasn’t masks and capes but a chain of trauma and rescue and hope, then these really were her people after all.

“So, that’s why we do this,” he continued. “We do it because the help we received calls us to give that help to others. We do it because justice does not happen all on its own. And we do it because there are those who cannot do it for themselves.” 

Gracie found herself saying, “Defending the defenseless.” 

How unbearably cheesy was that? Like invoking the slogan of a Kronos-Kola ad campaign. Yet, the words came out of her without a lick of irony. 

Again Kevin nodded. “That’s the mission. And it isn’t ours alone. Those who volunteer their time at soup kitchens or deliver meals to the elderly or take part in public protests are all a part of the same mission. In a more perfect world, it would be everyone’s mission, because justice doesn’t happen unless we make it.”

That sounded good. Definitely, it sounded like a mission Gracie wanted to take part in. There was still one problem though.

“But, Betsy…” Gracie remembered the manic conviction she had seen in Betsy’s eyes — eyes that shone more starkly against the dark of her blue body paint.

“I wish we could have helped her,” said Kevin. “Because that’s what can happen when someone doesn’t have an arm reached out to them after a fall.”

“Guess Hank wasn’t exactly there for her after her parents were killed,” said Gracie.

“He was not. Maybe he didn’t know how to be. Maybe he was too overwhelmed by his own grief after Jasmine was killed too,” said Kevin. “Regardless, instead of Betsy focusing her anger at the murderer, she turned it toward him, toward the Crimson Wraith, and Edward paid the price for a sin he never committed.”

“That…” Gracie felt the tears coming again. “That just fucking sucks. And now… Fuck, man. Now, that’s all there is. We chased the clues. We ran her down. And now…” 

She remembered the sound of the pistol firing — more pop than bang.

“Now, nothing! Edward isn’t any less dead because she is! Hell, no one else even knows he was murdered! And it’s not like she gets to pay for her crimes with some kind of community service or figuring out in fucking therapy that she’s a goddamn psychopath because she’s just… she’s just…”

The manor grounds around them began to blur in her vision as tears welled in Gracie’s eyes.

Kevin said, very softly, “Do you feel we failed?”

“I… no…” 

They had worked so hard. Kevin had nearly died too. If Gracie hadn’t been with him, he probably would. And looking at what they had to show for the risks they took, if that wasn’t a failure, it sure as hell didn’t look like success.

“But maybe… Yeah?”

Kevin nodded. “Maybe we did. And we don’t have to feel okay about that. But that doesn’t mean we never should have tried. And that definitely doesn’t mean we should stop trying. At least, I don’t feel ready to stop trying.” He looked at her. “Are you? Ready to stop, I mean? It’s okay if you do.”

“No,” she said. “I’m not ready to stop.”

“Good,” he said. “Because I think you are good at this.”

“And because you’d miss my sparkling personality, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Gracie wiped the wetness from her face. She was real damned tired of how much she’d been crying lately. But maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Maybe it was better than not having anything worth crying over, which was where she was before the Crimson Wraith found her.

“Hey, Kevin?”

“Yeah, Gracie?”

“Would you be okay if, like, I put my head on your shoulder or something?”

“I would.”

Looking out over the Finn Manor lawn, feeling the Autumn chill creep back into her flesh as she continued to cool from their run, Gracie watched the subtle wave of branches that became more and more bare each day. 

The season was completing its change. And soon it would change again. Life would just keep going. She could too. Today, Gracie felt sad. Tomorrow, she might not. And in the meantime, there at stately Finn Manor, above the Crypt of the Crimson Wraith, Gracie had Kevin with her, and Danny and Stephen. 

She was part of something, and they were a part of it with her. Whatever came next, Gracie didn’t have to face it alone. The former teenage runaway had found home.

Elsewhere…

Receiving his message gave Kristen the first night in weeks that she managed to get to bed without sobbing herself to sleep. 

In online groups like endthewraith and crimsonfraud, she had grieved over the loss of Zack in post after post that said some version of the following:

How is this fair? How can one man be allowed to do this? Who is he? 

I made the mistake of inviting this crazy woman to live with us. Never again! After she nearly killed my boyfriend, we called the cops on her. She is a dangerous, violent criminal who needed to be put away FOREVER. 

But the Crimson Wraith held him off the top of a building and said he would KILL my boyfriend if he didn’t change his story. The Crimson Wraith forced him to LIE to the judge to say he started the fight. My life is ruined!

She was far from the only one who had suffered a broken heart or worse from the masked vigilante’s interference. It felt good to hear from others who felt as she did: 

My man served 3 years for something he didn’t do! He didn’t never do any of what he got arrested for! And that self righteous somebody just handed him over to the cops for the third time, not like nobody asked!

Of course, it being the internet, there were also the sort of responses that tried to draw her personal pain into their crackpot theories:

What they don’t want you to know is having a man run around in a mask like that is part of a government program to keep you afraid! Wake up, sheeple! Zero Hour was an inside job!

But none of these comments took away the powerlessness Kristen felt. No one seemed ready to actually do anything about the Crimson Wraith — no one, that is, until she received a message that read:

Your grief is real. Your pain is valid. You have been harmed in a way that should not be ignored. Some of us meet in private to grow and heal together. Nothing but LOVE can make right the things he has done to us. Maybe you can find us some day. 

Maybe she could. There was a thought. It was a thought that brought peace.

It took a few more days of messages back and forth before Kristen was told she could be trusted with the location of their meeting place. She was a little surprised to hear they didn’t get together in some church basement or community center, but in an old tobacco shop in Easttown, just off of Pier 38. 

Her instructions were to go around the side of the building to the door that still had the words “Howard Brothers Fine Cigars” painted above it. She was to knock three times, pause, and then knock four more.

There was no light in the alleyway where Kristen found the door. Perhaps before she knocked, Kristen ought to have heard a little voice inside her ask if the invitation was real. What if the Crimson Wraith had set this up to silence critics? 

But carefully considered caution had never been Kristen’s strong-suit. A dark alley, late at night, to meet someone whose name or face she didn’t know, and with no one else aware of her whereabouts was pretty much on par with how Kristen led every other aspect of her life. So, once she had the door found, she knocked in the rhythm she had been told.

It opened. The light within poured out to greet her.

A tall man with kind eyes stood before Kristen. His reddish beard was flecked with white, and his hair had been styled upward in a boyish spike. He wore a well-fitting three-piece suit, definitely expensive. The way it hung on his body showed a toned physique underneath. 

He gave a smile that told her she was cared for, that she was good, and that everything would turn out just fine. “You must be Kristen.”

“That’s me,” she said.

“Come inside.”

Kristen followed him into what had once been the shop’s backroom. Its storage shelves were empty except for a layer of dust, but still the smell of cigars and pipe tobacco remained strong, even over the musty rot of age. A bare bulb hung from the center of the room, illuminating a staircase that he gestured for her to follow him down.

As they descended, Kristen asked, “Are you the one I was messaging with?”

“That, I am. I’ve been working for a while at putting together our little group in the hopes that, together, we might bring each other the peace of receiving our due restitution for how we have been harmed.”

“Oh,” she said. “Good. So, what do I call you?”

“My name is Oliver James. I’m a psychiatrist. And I too want to find the closure that will only come once the Crimson Wraith is no more. This is why I have chosen to name myself after one of his villains — Doctor Oblivion.” 

At the bottom of the stairs, Oliver gestured toward a circle of chairs where men and women of different ages and ethnicities, all dressed in everyday streetwear, had gathered in the cigar-shop basement. They turned toward her with welcoming smiles, but it seemed to Kristen as if each face wore some variation of the same weary sadness that had been haunting her.

Oliver continued, “My compatriots have chosen similar roles for themselves. And, together, we offer you the healing power of love.”

“Love?” she asked.

“Yes, love,” he said. “L-O-V-E. The League of Vengeance Eternal.” Oliver put an arm around Kristen. “And we are just so happy to have you as our newest member.”

Those gathered there rose and encircled Kristen. As their arms collectively embraced her, she wept. Tears spilled down the biggest smile she may have ever smiled, a smile she thought she would never know again. 

It felt like family. And deep down in her soul, Kristen had no doubt that these warm and welcoming people were going to make sure both Gracie and the Crimson Wraith suffered in every way they deserved.

The End.