Vigilante. Kady Cross

put up my hand before I could stop myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to be helpful, but that I was hoping to have the chance to punch her in the face. Not a particularly sane thought, but I was just so angry. Angry that Magda was gone. Angry that Jason Bentley hadn’t known who I was. Angry that everybody was just going about their regular lives like nothing terrible had happened. My best friend was dead, and she had been for months. My life hadn’t been the same since she was attacked, and it never would be. I was always going to wonder what Magda could’ve been, what she could’ve achieved, and about the fact that four assholes had made certain she’d never do any of it.

      So yeah, the chance to unload a little violence—with no ramifications—on one of the people who had let Magda down was too tempting to pass up.

      And maybe she’d land a couple of strikes on me, and I could let the pain inside me go somewhere else. Take the punishment I deserved.

      Detective Davies met my gaze as I approached the front of the dojo. When we stood face-to-face she smiled at me, and said, “I know you. It’s Hadley, right?”

      So she did remember. “Yes.”

      Her smile faded a little. Good. I hope she remembered Magda, and that she felt at least a little guilt standing there with me.

      “First I want you to come at me,” she instructed. “I’ll defend myself against you, then we’ll break down the moves, and then you’ll use them on me.”

      I shrugged. “Sure.”

      She moved a few feet away from me. “Whenever you’re ready.”

      I didn’t run toward her, or lunge. But I quickly closed the distance between us and aimed a kick I had learned in tae kwon do at her sternum. She was fast, way faster than I anticipated. She grabbed my leg, using my momentum to throw me off balance and facedown on the floor.

      I sucked in a deep breath to replace what had been knocked out of me, and pushed myself to my feet. She was good. And I was pissed at myself for not being at least as good.

      The detective addressed the class. “You all know that aikido is about displacing the energy of an attack. I didn’t have to strike out, and I avoided being hit simply by using Hadley’s momentum to my own advantage and against her. Now, Hadley, would you mind helping me break the moves down so that everyone can see before you use it against me?”

      I walked back to the center of the mat with her. We went through the movements again, this time in slow motion. I paid close attention to how she grabbed my leg and twisted her own body. This time when I hit the mat it was with barely any force at all, and I was able to catch myself.

      “Now,” Diane said. “I will attack you.”

      Obviously she knew other martial arts as well, because she came at me fast with a confident kick aimed at my midsection. Remembering her moves, I grabbed her leg and with a sharp pivot of my body, brought her crashing to the mat. I hoped she found it as hard to breathe as I had.

      I offered her my hand to help her to her feet. She took it. As she rose to her feet she gave me an odd look, like she knew what was going on in my head. It made me uncomfortable.

      “Very good,” she told me. “Why don’t the rest of you pair off and take turns practicing on your partners?”

      Not everyone had shown up for class that night, so I was left without a partner. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, because it would’ve meant I got to spar with José. This time, however, it left me with the cop.

      “You’re very good,” she told me. “Though I don’t believe aikido is meant to be used with such anger.” She actually smiled when she said it.

      I wanted to tell her off, but even I wasn’t that ballsy. “Sorry.”

      She laughed. “Don’t apologize. If you’re ever attacked, I want you to be angry about it.”

      I looked her in the eyes. “I’m angry if any woman gets attacked.”

      Her smile slid from her face. “That’s where I know you from. You were Magda Torres’s friend.”

      “I still am her friend. The fact that she’s dead doesn’t change that.”

      “No,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t think that it did.” She watched me like I was something potentially dangerous, as though she wasn’t quite sure that I was safe to be around.

      “Sorry,” I said, even though I didn’t mean it. “Today was the first day of senior year. Magda and I had a lot of plans, and today I realized that none of them were ever going to happen.” Saying that out loud made my throat tight and my eyes burn. I blinked fast to clear them. This woman was not going to see me cry.

      “I wish I could say I don’t know what you’re going through. But unfortunately I have too good an idea. When I was in college, a good friend of mine was raped on campus. She didn’t take her own life, but she carried the trauma with her for years afterward. She still does. They never caught the guy who did it. She’s the reason I became a cop.”

      “Do you know who he was?”

      She shook her head. “No.”

      “Everyone knows who raped Magda.” Maybe I was just stupid, or maybe I just didn’t care what the consequences were, but I stepped close to her and stared directly into her eyes. “And you weren’t able to catch them, either. Maybe you should consider another career choice.”

      She didn’t even blink. “Believe me, I considered it. But I have to believe that I can make more of a difference as a police officer than I could outside the law.”

      “Good luck with that.” I turned away from her and walked over to where José stood going over some paperwork. “Will you spar with me?” I asked.

      He looked up, his friendly face looking bewildered. “I thought you’d want to learn from Detective Davies.”

      “I don’t think she can teach me anything helpful.”

      I used to think that some girl rolling her eyes at me, or sneering at me, was the worst expression in the world. Contempt—even hatred—those are things I don’t mind seeing in somebody’s face anymore. What I hate is pity—that moment when someone looks at you and you can see it in their eyes, that they feel so badly for you, like you’re a puppy that just got kicked.

      “Give her a chance,” he suggested. “I think the two of you might be able to help each other.”

      I knew better than to argue. José didn’t get angry; he never raised his voice. Once you were in his class for a couple of sessions, you realized that he meant whatever came out of his mouth, and no amount of urging, begging or even threats could persuade him otherwise.

      I stepped back to where Diane Davies stood. She was checking her phone.

      “José made you come back, did he?” She didn’t even glance up from her screen.

      “Yes.” I said it through clenched teeth.

      She looked me in the eye. “I’m very aware of how much I let Magda Torres and her loved ones down. How much the system let them down. I would give just about anything to go back and change that, but I think you and I both know you can’t go back.”

      “No, you can’t. If we could, I would have never let her out of my sight at that party. I would’ve stopped her from taking those pills.”

      “But you can’t do either of those things. No one can. I know something you can do.”

      “What?” I could practically taste the bitterness and mockery in my tone.

      “José and I have been talking about starting a self-defense course for girls. I would like for you to be a part of it if you’re interested. Help us teach other girls to protect themselves, so that what happened to Magda maybe won’t happen to one of them.”

      I stared at her. Was