Following the events in Santa Monica seven years ago, Amaya got herself together. She frequently speaks about her sobriety on her podcast and offers online Narcotics Anonymous meetings to help those isolated during the global pandemic. She’s also moved back to her old Puerto Rican neighborhood in the Bronx where she works as a community organizer. However, her favorite topic of conversation on her podcast is The Vagina Vigilante—an anonymous woman who stalks rapists and abusers and makes them disappear, never to be heard from again. It would be ridiculous if it weren’t true.
If they were playing Battleship, then Amaya has hit her destroyer more than once with terrifying accuracy. She’s begrudgingly impressed by the younger woman. Amaya has a methodical mind and a persistent spirit. But if her ship is going down, it’s going to be of her design and not because she failed to tie up loose ends. It’s time to return fire.
Ben Franklin posited there are three steps to turning an enemy into a friend, or in her case, an asset. First, ask for help in an area in which your enemy is strong. Second, make the offer easy to accept. Last, express gratitude—vengeance is its own reward.
Amaya is astute at gathering and analyzing information. Despite this, her mother’s murder is still unsolved. Amaya has long suspected a cover-up by the NYPD and their police chief, Benicio Morelli. The Morellis are tantamount to New York City royalty. They, along with the Constantines, own several city blocks and have political ties on both sides of the aisle. Their business dealings are international news. In fact, her company does business with them. Benicio Morelli is a distant, dubiously-related cousin, but the name is enough.
As luck would have it, the Constantines are throwing a masquerade ball in Bishop’s Landing in two weeks. She’s already accepted her invitation. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t get involved in this type of nefarious activity; she favors the perverts—like Paul—but the trifecta of a masquerade, filled with potential targets, and only a few hours from Amaya Perez is too good to pass up. The last time she helped Amaya, the young woman helped her get rid of a body. Perhaps history will repeat itself.
She opens her email and drafts a message to her assistant.
It’s time to become reacquainted with the one she let get away.
3
Constantine Mansion, 2020
Bishop’s Landing, New York
Hearing her name come out of Noelle’s mouth, Amaya’s body vibrates with adrenaline. Sweat bursts in beads across her forehead, neck, and back. Her emotions are amorphous, shifting between fear, excitement, horror, and glee. She’s here. Her savior is here. What does it mean? Is Noelle the Vagina Vigilante? Amaya can’t reconcile what she knows of both women into a singular person. Noelle is a monster, a pimp!
A firm hand rests on her bare shoulder—another command to be quiet and still. Amaya cannot comply. Her world is going dark at the edges. She needs more air than her outfit allows. She needs to get up. She needs to get out.
The hand on her shoulder drifts under her hair onto her nape. Amaya braces for violence. “Tranquila, Amaya. You’re safe with me,” says Noelle. Her words are like an echo in her skull, bridging the past and present. They bring her comfort she can’t afford to trust but she does anyway. Noelle’s touch is cool against the sweat-soaked heat of her flesh, her fingers inviting in their calculated pressure. Cool air caresses her neck as Noelle gathers Amaya’s hair in one hand to guide her closer. With little effort, Amaya finds herself tilted to one side with her head rested upon the arm of Noelle’s throne.
“How is this possible?” she can’t resist asking.
Noelle’s laugh is low-pitched. “You’ve been leaving me love letters for years. I thought it was about time I answered.”
Heat suffuses Amaya’s face, and she’s again grateful for the mask. Still, something is bothering her. “Are you her, Noelle?”
Noelle strokes her sweat-slick neck with her cool fingertips. “Amaya, por favor.” She manages to imbue her words with an audible eye-roll.
Amaya sucks in a breath filled with relief and pitiful excitement. “Who are you? Tell me, please.” Her hands grip the side of the throne and she leans into the touches on her neck. She’s waited years for answers; she won’t go another night without them.
“Tonight, I’m Noelle.” She withdraws her hand and leans back into her throne, once again looking out over the room. She’s droll when she adds, “I prefer it to The Vagina Vigilante.”
Amaya beams as her chest swells with pride. “You do listen to my podcast! It’s good, right? I did alotta research. I knew I would find you. Eventually it was gonna happen.” Though Noelle can’t see it, Amaya’s smile is wide enough to stretch her scar a glossy pale color.
“Well,” says Noelle. “You’re a lot smarter online than you are in real life.” Amaya can’t tell if she’s being playful or mean. “Why have you been looking for me so thoroughly?”
“To help you, of course! I fucking love you, woman—what you do—the way you don’t take any shit. You’re like a superhero.” She hopes she’s not laying it on too thick, but she can’t help herself. Amaya is obsessed with her angel, her vigilante. She has thought endlessly about the night they came face to face. Her recollection isn’t the best; she’d been high on a cocktail of psychedelics and roofies, but at least once a week, she sifts through the fragments of that night and tries to piece them together. It feels like viewing an edited photograph of a photograph—a manipulated recollection of a half-remembered event. Some things are crystal clear, some dark and murky, and others defy all rational explanation. She knows it’s impossible that she’d seen or heard her dead parents that night—absolutely outside the realm of possibility that they heard her prayers and sent an angel of death to protect her. But she remembers it happening, can’t get rid of the image of her angel swooping in from on high, a ring of light behind her casting her in shadow, as she doused Amaya in her attacker’s blood and God’s mercy. Logically it had to be the drugs, but Amaya prefers to believe it was Divine Intervention.
VV disappeared as swiftly as she’d appeared that fateful night, leaving Amaya on the beach with a patched-up lip and a long t-shirt. She left an indelible mark on Amaya. She’d been transformed in physical, fundamental, and irreversible ways. Every time she looks in the mirror she traces and fingers the shiny scar that disfigures her from the right side of her nostril to the left corner of her chin. A reminder of the evil VV is up against and a badge of honor she wears with pride.
She’d gotten clean and started looking for the woman who’d changed her life. She got involved in the vigilante’s mission by seeking out stories that would be of interest to her and speaking about them on her podcast. She dropped breadcrumbs about various cases she suspected could be attributed to her. Naturally, the Internet trolls were quick to label her a conspiracy theorist and her hero as a vagina vigilante. To their chagrin, Amaya loved the name, and The Vagina Vigilante was born. In her wildest fantasies, she liked to believe VV herself was among her visitors, waiting for the day to make Amaya her official sidekick.
Then, out of the clear blue, she received an encrypted email containing an offer she dared not refuse.