Vigil: Part 1
Chapter 4
The adrenaline in Faith was already wearing off as she climbed in through her apartment window. Tearing off her Vigil mask, she ran to the washroom, rinsing her mouth of that horrid taste. It wasn’t just the taste of semen, but a constant, sticky reminder of her utter humiliation at the hands of a villain. Another defeat, just like the one barely four months ago before the Purge.
Weak. She glared at the mirror. Why am I so fucking weak? A memory flashed through her mind, of her, kneeling before the Mentalist, screaming in abandon as she rode his hard, beautiful—
“Stop!” she snapped, sweeping the toiletries on the floor, the plastic containers clattering noisily against the tiled floor. This is why the League suspended me. This is why Angie, Gordon, Mimosa were all pushing for me to ‘take a break’.
Angie. Her sister. Faith had come back here looking for Angie. When the Purge had come, it was Angie who had defended the headquarters, while Faith lied helplessly on the metal floor, bleeding out from a piece of rebar in her thigh. A so-called ‘hero’ who had to be rescued like a damsel in distress. And instead of rising up and helping her sister defend the very League she’d started, Faith had allowed herself to be carted away to the hospital, hiding under her alter-ego, as her mentor had mentally compelled her to.
She still remembered her will sucking away as she stared into Mindtwist’s purple eyes, dreading every word that left her mentor’s lips yet knowing she would be helpless to resist. And like the weak-willed idiot she was, she obeyed the order to stay away from Arctin City and never return.
Why did you do that, Mindtwist? Why force me away?
I should’ve been stronger. If I had been there, if I’d fought alongside them, maybe…
Faith groaned, sinking her face into her palms. Of all the heroes to survive the Purge, why her? Why the weak useless heroine who’d been idling in therapy since the Mentalist broke her? What was she supposed to do if he reappeared?
A part of her wished she’d given up earlier during the Purge, joined the enthralled ranks, and maybe another stronger hero would be here, better-equipped to fight this chaos.
“No.” Mindtwist appeared in her mind. No, not Mindtwist, but a memory of her. “Don’t give me that bullshit.”
Faith turned to face the figment of her imagination. She’d no idea where the real Mindtwist was. She could be in hiding, she could’ve been enthralled by the Bazaar, or she could be dead. Still, Faith remembered her lectures just as clearly as it was yesterday.
“Remember. Emotions, feelings, empathy...those are our weaknesses.” Mindtwist had said. “As psychics we don’t let them in, we don’t give in to them, we remain emotionless. Calm.”
Faith sighed at the figment of her imagination, nodding and breathing slowly. Fuck, I’m going insane, aren’t I? Talking to a bloody ghost…
“You’re all we’ve got, Faith...don’t you give up on me.”
Faith nodded as the apparition disappeared, feeling better. Not that much better, but enough to bend down and pick up the toothbrush she’d cast to the ground earlier.
She’d just finished putting on a clean set of clothing before there was a knock on the door. “Ma’am? You alright in there?”
Ensuring her uniform was out of sight, she hurried to the door, opening it before freezing. A man in a neatly pressed police uniform stood in front of her. She eyed the rank on his shoulder.
A sergeant.
They wouldn’t send a sergeant to arrest me. It’ll either be an entire SWAT team or a NovaSec squad.
“Uhh, miss?” the sergeant cleared his throat.
“Uhm, yes, officer, what’s...umm..up! What’s up?” she felt her face flushing. This is not going well.
“I, err, heard some crashing noises and screaming in there earlier before complete silence, so I’d thought I’d check it out...you know, as an officer of the law and a good neighbour.”
“Neighbour?”
The man nodded. “Oh, right, you just moved in...what, a week ago? I’m Kane, I live opposite you.”
“Faith,” she forced a smile. “And yeah, I dropped some stuff in the bathroom earlier. I’m fine. Thanks for checking up on me, though.”
“Ah,” he said. “That’s good to hear...that’s good to hear.”
An awkward silence followed. Faith tentatively prodded his mind, feeling...attraction? Heat rising to her cheeks, she cleared her throat.
The man blinked. “Right, sorry, I guess I’ll be going, then.”
“See you around, Kane.” she said, shutting the door quickly behind her.
He’s not bad-looking...Faith briefly entertained the thought, before shutting herself down immediately. Gordon literally died months ago, and you’re already thinking about moving on? Way to go, Faith.
She sighed, pushing her thoughts aside. It wasn’t that late yet, and she could probably get some investigative work done.
Sitting at her laptop, Faith reached for the notebook in her mental library, letting the words in her mind pour out onto her keyboard. She sighed. Of all the things she could’ve mastered...she mastered her own short-term memory. Instead of becoming better at resisting mental attacks, becoming better at controlling minds, she’d become better at remembering things better.
How bloody useful.
She looked over at her wallpaper on her desktop, an image of her and her sister. Angie… She could feel Angie was alive. No, Faith knew she was alive. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t...
“Emotions, feelings, empathy...” reminded the mental image of Mindtwist in her mind.
“I know, I know...weakness.” Faith said aloud, resuming her typing. It had only been a week since she’d managed to throw off Mindtwist’s mental compulsion to ‘stay the hell away from Arctin City’, but in the single week in the city she’d discovered far more rot than ever before. Gang leaders, drug traffickers and supervillains had banded together in the unholy alliance that called themselves the Pact.
Two months ago, they had won, systematically silencing and taking down every hero and heroine of the League of Protectors. That was the Purge. Since then, the Pact had solidified their place in Arctin City, seizing control of much of the city’s underworld. The new governor, in a bid to retain control, had called in a regional private security force with specialised anti-mutant capabilities — NovaSec, while signing into law stringent anti-mutant laws. It worked...to a small extent.
The rich now lived in relative comfort in District 42, safe from the Pact’s influence; while the poor lived scattered among the rest of the battered city, poorly defended by the overburdened police force and NovaSec’s auxiliary police program. The Pact was far from defeated. Instead, they dug in deeper and established the Bazaar, an underground black market with their prime good — broken, enslaved sex slaves.
Their method? Aphrodite’s Ambrosia, or double-A, a desire-enhancing aphrodisiac sold by Calypso Pharmaceuticals. In its commercial form, double-A was ineffective in creating the results the Pact hoped for. Someone in Calypso was siphoning the pure, undiluted concentrate from the source, selling it to the Bazaar.
I need to find out who that is. Cut off the supply, and the whole damn operation comes crashing down.