Making her way down an empty street near downtown Napa Valley, Jia Crawford considers why she’s wasting her time out here. She signed up to be a vigilante after the passing of the Vigilantes Making Us Safe (VMUS) Act because she thought she’d feel some sense of purpose. The act gives her the authority to do whatever she needs to in order to keep the public safe. Laws literally don’t apply to her if she decides they don’t. Yet for the third night this week she’s spent three hours wandering around without finding anything to get involved in.

Whatever she expected, it wasn’t this. Two weeks of being a vigilante haven’t provided a single story she wants to remember. She broke up a couple bar fights. She got in the middle of an argument between a husband and wife. She’s wearing sunglasses long after the sun went down to hide the black eye she got when the wife sucker punched her as she turned around. She literally helped a kid get their cat out of a tree. The kid was grateful but the cat certainly wasn’t. She has the scratches to prove it.

It’s not like she expected excitement every night. She knew being a vigilante in Napa Valley wouldn’t have her taking on bank robbers or serial killers like in the big city. There is crime here though. There’s robbery, assault, rape, there’s a wide variety of crime she wants to protect people from.

The challenge is finding those crimes while they’re in progress. Nobody calls her and the valley’s so spread out that she never knows when anything’s happening. Walking or biking through town hasn’t turned up results. The bars get hectic on the weekend and there’s usually a few drunks you can count on to make a scene. Nobody ever went broke counting on drunks in Napa. If all she’s doing is separating drunks though she isn’t a vigilante. She’s an unpaid bouncer.

Nothing more exciting than that happens downtown. There’s nothing in the area other than bars, wineries and restaurants. She’s tried walking random neighborhoods but what are the odds some random area is going to need her? All she can do is hope to hear a commotion.

Trying to work with the police department hasn’t yielded better results. They aren’t remotely interested in her help. Detective Florence is the only person who could give the okay for her to get involved officially so it might not have been a good idea to antagonize him when registering. He begged her not to sign up for the act but she ignored his pleas. When she stopped in to discuss working together he wouldn’t even speak to her except to say, “Get out.” Legally there’s nothing he can do to keep her from being a vigilante but he certainly isn’t going to help her. She’s on her own.

With so much downtime, Jia’s been forced to think about what she’s really doing. It hurts to admit but Florence might have been right. Napa doesn’t seem to need a vigilante. Often her thoughts drift to San Francisco. Jia’s always preferred a more peaceful, small town feel but she knows she’d find people who need help there. Her first trip to the city since moving home from college led to excitement. She stumbled into a couple men being held up in an abandoned building. She didn’t need to be a vigilante to save them. She wanted to help and she did so. That’s more exciting than anything she’s ever seen happen here.

Making the city even more enticing, Jia’s college roommate Carly was just offered a job in San Francisco and she’s leaning toward taking it. They managed to live together through four years of college without growing to hate each other. If they can get through that, Jia’s pretty sure they’ll be friends for life. She’s excited to have her friend only an hour away but she’d love to be closer. Her lack of a job or money makes things more complicated considering how expensive the city is but if Carly and her boyfriend Hank move to town she could always crash on their couch until she finds a job.

She’s never going to get a setup quite like she has here though. She’s the only vigilante in Napa. Nobody else seems interested. Everybody else might be right but she loves the idea of proving them wrong.

As she walks Jia rubs her shoulder. Her mother recently started training her in their family’s brand of martial arts. When she was young she was a great martial artist and a vigilante in a time when it was a lot more dangerous. Jia’s learned a lot but her mother keeps hinting she has bigger secrets to reveal. She won’t consider leaving until their training’s complete. Despite the bruises, she can feel her confidence growing by the day. That’s worth a little pain.

Checking her phone, she’s surprised to see it’s already after midnight. Another boring night seems to be coming to an end. Deciding to make another run by the bars and call it a night, she hopes to make it home by two.

Her father isn’t a fan of her being a vigilante and since she still lives with her parents she doesn’t like to worry them. She doesn’t have to be home by a set time but she tries to be reasonable. When she begged her mother to train her, the only reason her father supported it was her insistence that she had no plans to sign up as a vigilante. She insisted that wouldn’t change even if Richard Hughes somehow won the election and passed his vigilante act. She never meant to lie to her dad. She meant what she said when she said it. She just changed her mind.

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At least her mother supports her. She knows what it’s like to want to use your abilities to help others. Despite that she’s been urging her daughter to take things slow. There’s a reason she left that life. There’s a part of Jia that wonders how much of that support will continue if she decides to move to the city.

Since graduating from college and moving home Jia’s felt lost. Her degree seems worthless and she doesn’t know what comes next in her life. This was supposed to be a solution but so far all she’s found is trouble getting up in the morning. She’s still working at her family’s winery every day during the week and squeezing in training sessions with her mother. The winery is mainly her father’s business on a day to day basis and her oversleeping and missing work hasn’t made him any happier about how she’s spending her nights.

Jia has a legacy to consider. Her mother was a vigilante and her grandfather was one of the most famous vigilantes in the country’s history. She never knew her grandpa was Serenity, one of the five allies who helped win World War II. She wants to honor what he means. Every day she accomplishes nothing feels like a waste. If things don’t pick up she’s not sure how she can even justify losing sleep for this.

Downtown is dead tonight so Jia heads to the tree where she locked her bike. Biking’s pretty common around here. A common way to avoid drinking and driving. She’s always wondered if drinking and biking is safer. She can only think of one way to find out.

Her car lasted less than a week after she got home from school and she’s been biking ever since. It’s not so bad during the day but she feels stupid doing it at night. Something about a vigilante on a bike doesn’t strike fear into people. She asked her parents to lend her their car but her dad shot her down before her mom could get a word in.

The night air’s warm but it’s mostly peaceful. That’s shattered by a loud scream in the distance as she passes a small neighborhood she never goes into. Her first thought is to call the cops before realizing that not only can she get there faster, but handling stuff like this is what she does now. She peddles toward the noise, trying to locate the source.

It doesn’t take long to find it. The screams are met by shouts so all she has to do is follow her ears. A small house at the end of the lane has it’s front lights on and an odd couple are going at it on the front porch. The screams are coming from a young woman in a torn sun dress and a funny hat while an older man with a big, bushy, white beard supplies the shouts. The light from their porch is dim and she has to get close before she can see them well.

“Get in the house,” the older man says. The woman doesn’t pay attention. Climbing off the porch into their yard, she grabs for rocks and dirt to throw at him. He moves to cover his face but doesn’t stop. “I said get in the house!”

“Go to hell. I’m done with you. You get away from my house.”

“Your house? Your house? I put the food on that table and paid for most of it. I’m not going anywhere. If anyone’s leaving it’s going to be you but we both know you aren’t going anywhere. Now get in the house.” He moves forward and grabs her shoulders. She responds with a slap across his face. He pays this back in kind and starts flailing his arms in her direction. She backs away, trying to put some space between them.

Jia decides it’s definitely time to make herself known. Emerging from the darkness she says, “That’s enough out of both of you. What’s going on here?”

The man sizes Jia up and doesn’t look impressed. He does release the woman’s shoulders. “Mind your own business girl. Me and my wife are having some words. If you don’t like it, I don’t really give two shits.”

Fighting the urge to slap the man herself, Jia takes a deep breath. “I don’t like it and this actually is my business. I’m a registered vigilante and my job is to keep people safe. If you don’t stop, you’re going to hurt your wife and allowing that would mean I’m not doing my job. You’re also going to wake up the entire neighborhood. It’s after midnight.” She turns to the woman. “Are you okay ma’am? Would you like to get out of here?”

The woman sizes Jia up herself. “Get out of here in what? Am I supposed to hop on the back of your little bicycle there and ride bitch? No thanks. I can take care of myself. Get out of here.”

This certainly isn’t the reception Jia was expecting. If the woman won’t accept her help though she’s not sure what else she can do. Just as she’s considering doing as they say she sees flashing red and blue lights coming down the street. One of the neighbors must have called the police.

As the car pulls up Jia stands her ground as a pair of officers get out. One is an older looking man with a fade and a huge mustache. He looks like he can barely stay awake. His partner’s a much younger blond with a few extra pounds on her, though she carries it well. In contrast to her partner she looks like she’s been guzzling espresso. The man eyes her with suspicion but the woman smiles. Jia approaches and says, “Evening officers. I’m Jia Crawford, an authorized---”

Before she can finish her thought, the older officer puts a hand up and interrupts her. “We know who you are. Not a lot of vigilantes around here. We’ll take this from here.” He pauses and when Jia doesn’t move says, “Thanks for the help. Get out of here.”

She considers protesting but her relationship with the police is already bad enough and she was about to leave anyway. She gives a nod and says, “Goodnight.” With that she hops back on her bike and rides away as the officers start to question the couple. She can hear voices start to rise in the night behind her.