Before long Jia finds herself peddling past the winery and toward their house behind it. Sneaking inside, she’s thrilled to find neither of her parents are awake. A glance at the clock reveals it’s almost four in the morning. Her mom would never be awake this late but she knows her dad’s worrying about her constantly. She’s already come home a couple of nights to find him waiting up.

She promised her mom she wouldn’t let him know she was a vigilante. That lasted about five minutes before he figured it out. Now both of her parents are mad at her. Tonight’s not going to help put her dad at ease.

Checking Shin’s room, she finds no sign that anyone’s disturbed it. He hasn’t lived here in four years but their parents still haven’t gotten rid of his room. The last time she asked her dad about it he said something about making sure he always knew he was welcome. Hopefully his not being here means she beat him home. She walks back outside and sits on the porch to wait.

It doesn’t take long. It’s dark out but in about ten minutes she can see a dark figure at the end of the driveway cautiously making their way up the path. When Shin finally gets to the house he won’t even look his sister in the eye. “I’m really sorry about this.”

“You should be. You’re lucky. The cops bought the story and they won’t look that closely into it since nothing was actually taken.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Lucky, right. You do know I’m going to get the shit kicked out of me again now, right?”

Smiling, she walks toward him. “Maybe when you tell them a vigilante already did it they’ll go easy. Seriously though, we’ll figure that out together. I promise. Hang around here a few days. I’ll tell mom and dad I found you in one of the bars downtown when I was patrolling and I stepped in to keep you from getting your ass kicked in a bar fight. It’ll explain why you’re here and why we both look like shit. If dad knows me being a vigilante saved you he might even lighten up on the whole vigilante thing.”

Shin’s jaw drops. “You mean you’re not going to tell them about me?”

“Why would I do that? If I was going to tell them about you, I wouldn’t have let you go. You think mom and dad would be okay with me not turning you into the cops tonight? You know them better than that. They’d have wanted you to get what you had coming. You’re lucky I’m the one who found you. Now come on, let’s get some sleep. I have to be up for work in like three hours. You’re coming with me to help explain this whole mess. Tomorrow’s supposed to rain, it’ll probably be slow. You can hang around and help me while we figure this whole thing out.”

Shin steps forward and gives his sister a hug. She considers squeezing him back but with how much of a beating he took earlier, that’s probably not a good idea. Instead she just lets him hug her for a minute before they both make their way inside and call it a night.