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“I don’t know them that well, just friends of friends of friends,” Gabbi said. “All I know is that Brad looks like he’s going to do coke in the bathroom while he’s clerking for a Supreme Court justice. And Benny seems to fit the mold for weirdo high school shooter.”

She made a face. “Sorry, sometimes I use dark humor as a coping method to weather the shitstorm of terribleness in the world, and it doesn’t always come out right.”

A feeling Delaney knew well. “I don’t disagree.”

Gabbi’s face lit up. But she just shrugged again. “Yeah, well.”

Delaney needed to direct the conversation into a certain place, only she wasn’t always very smooth at doing so in person.

“What have you tried?” Delaney asked, probably a little inelegantly, given the immediate confusion on Gabbi’s face.

“What?”

“You said you’ve tried to do something, about Benny and Brad,” Delaney said. “The other night. What have you tried?”

Gabbi’s eyes narrowed as she studied Delaney’s face. “Just stuff like I mentioned. We have DDs—not for driving, just for one of us to be clearheaded if we need to rescue someone.”

“Nothing else?” Delaney asked.

“Like what?”

Delaney pressed a frustrated sound behind her lips. Gabbi wasn’t going to come out and say anything damning to a stranger with just a few soft questions thrown her way. “Like going to the cops.”

Gabbi full-on laughed in disbelief. “They don’t even take on actual rape cases, let alone someone just saying that a couple of dudes make her uncomfortable.”

That was true enough. Even when women showed up with bruises, at most they’d get a worthless piece of paper they could wave at their attacker right before they were killed.

“Sometimes I wish we lived in a comic book,” Delaney said, and Gabbi leaned forward, arms on the table.

Intrigued.

“Why?”

“Vigilantes aren’t actually cool in reality,” Delaney said. “We have a justice system for a reason. But, god, wouldn’t it feel nice just to have someone taking care of these assholes for us?”

“It would scare a bunch of other predators straight, too,” Gabbi said, sitting back in her seat once more. “What kind of powers would you have? If this was a comic book.”

For her, it was a no-brainer. It would be the power of invisibility. She’d wanted that from the time Isabel had them hiding in their childhood attic from Alex and his “attacks.” She wouldn’t do anything terrible or salacious with the power; she would simply be allowed to exist without having to constantly bend to someone else’s wishes.

She thought of her apartment back in Seattle, the one where she’d begun to hang up posters and pictures and put books on the shelves. Then she thought about the eyes on the back of her neck when someone had found her hideaway.

Yeah. Invisibility would be nice.

But asKate?Kate, who clearly had a background where she or a loved one had been a victim of sexual assault or some other unspeakable trauma? People like Kate didn’t simply dream of disappearing.

“Laser eyes,” Delaney said. “So I could burn the bad guys up and leave not a single trace behind.”

Gabbi grinned and finished the last of her muffin. “Girl, you don’t need superpowers for that.”

Excerpt of Ted Talk by Malik Bakir: “True Crime Obsession and Ethical Boundaries”

Most people know the big serial killers—Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy.

The aficionados among us can even spout off some of their victims’ names. Lisa Levy, Margaret Bowman. Steven Hicks, Anthony Sears. Kenneth Parker.

But violence isn’t limited to the perpetrator and victim. Think of it instead as a rock dropped into a lake. The worst of the ripples, of course, are right around the point of impact, but then they flow out.

Those outside ripples? They’re the secondary victims of violent crime. They’re the loved ones, the family, the friends, the coworkers, even acquaintances who suffer the traumatic loss.

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