A private investigator stumbles upon one of Vought's deep secrets and crosses the path of notorious superhero/psychopath Black Noir. Will her skillset be enough to keep herself safe, or will she end up crossing a line?
In a bid to delve further into...
She remained on the move, but couldn't quite build up the strength to leave. Chrissy was healing, Phil had checked into rehab and Vought had moved on to business as usual.
Despite a flurry of calls following the incident, The Agency had ceased all contact. It took Reggie a while to give up, but the phone eventually stopped ringing.
With each location change, Jess threw away a large chunk of what little belongings she had. It started with clothes, she didn't want to be recognised anyway. Then, as she cut ties with The Agency, she destroyed old case notes that no longer served a purpose.
And as she packed her belongings to move once more, the Homelander corkboard found its way to the cutting room floor. A stack of polaroids, post-it notes and old newspaper cuttings lay dormant. Jess couldn't face them. She'd caused enough trouble trying to avenge Samourn already.
The dilapidated board was a shadow of its former glory. The connection strings were tangled and most of the drawing pins were lost during previous relocation efforts. Notes had fallen out of place, crumpling into a pile of things awaiting evaluation.
Jess was ready to burn it all.
But if that was the case, why was she still there?
Out of the polaroids, one stuck out: Russell Lennox. He didn't fit on the board. It was only ever a side quest, some sort of distraction to take her off course. Holding the glossy paper in her hand, Jess couldn't help but feel that not all of her time in New York was a waste.
Each jigsaw piece was laid out on the king-sized bed. Jess hovered over the mess, struggling to let go.
The stress carried her hands through her hair. Her fingertips grazed over the almost healed gash on her head. To avoid being found by The Agency - or Vought - she chose to remove the stitches herself. Now the pain was just a memory, a reminder of unfinished business.
The hotel suite TV provided a monotonous backing track to her afternoon of decluttering. Jess had almost tuned out to the 24hr news cycle, but every now and then, something would catch her eye.
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The face of her hero. The face of her attacker.
Vought activities usually made it to the top of the news read, but Black Noir had been far more active than usual. Jess had not seen him since she blacked out on Phil Madison's kitchen floor, not in person at least. Visually, she struggled to escape him. Every newspaper, online clickbait, TV report, featured the masked Supe.
It was starting to feel purposeful.
In the wake of quitting The Agency and healing from her own assault, Jess had taken a back seat on her usual freelance cases. She scrolled through forums for new opportunities, but her head still wasn't in the right frame of mind to take on a new job.
