A blast of red enveloped my vision as I flinched at the loud bang.
"Good job." I heard a soft voice beside me. "You actually shot him."
I stared at the gun in my sweaty fingers. It was heavy enough to make me think that it was real. I looked up at Jenna, the Vigilantes' leader. She was smiling at me with a trace of melancholy.
"You pass," she told me, her voice saying otherwise. Her sky blue eyes stared at me with a burning curiosity that made me feel like ants were crawling on my skin, marching and tickling along with her gaze.
I looked away, and found myself looking at the tied-up man on the chair. His face was covered in red confetti strips. Alive and well.
"… What the hell is this supposed to be?" I asked in a tiny voice, staring at the man who was already straightening himself up on the chair, his eyes observing me patiently.
"That was the final test," the girl answered. "We had to know how deep your motivations were. Now we know."
My vision blurred and my hands shook. I dropped the fake gun onto the hard floor. Soon enough, I was kneeling beside the gun, breathing shakily into my hands.
'I didn't kill him,' I thought. 'I didn't kill him.'
"No, you didn't." I flinched as I heard a deep, male voice. I hadn't realized I had spoken out loud. I looked up to see the man I tried to murder, already released from his gags. Jenna was kneeling to remove the ties around his feet, her pastel dress surely dirtied from the dust on the floor. The man stared at my shaking form. "It was just a test. But you really went for it. I haven't seen anyone decide to pull the trigger so quickly and so decisively."
As the last of the ties was removed, he bowed his thanks to the girl in the dress. He stood and came closer towards me. He looked incredibly large, no longer weak and vulnerable, as he stood tall in front of my collapsed body. "… Do you perhaps know me? You seemed to have really wanted to kill me there."
Looking up at him, with a few strings of red paper still stuck on his hair, I realized he looked nothing like the cops who killed Jesta. But at that moment, I seemed so sure that it was him… sure enough that I could pull the trigger.
"No," I told him shakily. "I don't know you."
"That's what I thought," he looked at me drily. "I wouldn't forgive myself if I had forgotten about knowing such a pretty girl who had a vendetta against me."
'Vendetta,' I thought, relishing at its sound. The man probably didn't use that word because he knew that it was indeed what had driven me to shoot him.
I found myself biting at my lips. I tasted blood.
I wasn't aware my anger was that strong. I didn't know I could be so cruel. I've grown so frustrated that if I was driven into a corner, I could easily steal away a life.
"I could've killed you," I muttered at the floor. "If that was a real gun, I would've been a murderer."
I was replied with a heavy silence. The two conspirators said nothing; no words of comfort nor gratification.
~~
I hated confetti and party poppers. But, as though to cruelly remind me of what had happened on the weekend, the Alpha Club members released the little explosions right in front of me, just as I had gone through the rusting door. Perhaps it would have been better if they had trained on me their real guns instead.
"CONGRATULATIONS!" they screamed together, the mixture of different voices forming a dissonance that only served to strengthen my headache.
I had received a text just as I had arrived home right after my initiation. It seems like I could finally partake in the actual "club" activities today. I had passed the initiation, after all.
They whisked me off to the impromptu party. The hideout was decorated crudely with some cheap balloons and a few banderitas. There were pizza and soda and booze. They seemed to be having fun.
Looking around, I realized that not all the members of the Alpha Club were Vigilantes. Inside the hideout, there were only eight of us: Zero, Jenna, Tanner, Imelda, Roy, the twins, Greta and Blue, and me.
'So this is us,' I thought as I stared at the people drinking and laughing around me. 'These are the people who make up the Vigilantes.'
Imelda found me looking at her. She was talking with Jenna, who was still wearing a fancy skirt and frilly blouse. The brown-skinned girl glared at me fiercely. Although I was too far away to hear them, I knew Jenna was chiding her because she suddenly decreased the intensity of her glare. I smiled at Jenna to tell her my thanks, and she smiled back in return.
"You don't seem to be enjoying the party," I heard someone say to me. Zero had arrived with two cups, and gracefully jumped to sit next to me on the hard boxes. He handed me a cup.
I stared at it, thinking back on the Freshman Orientation from months ago. It all started from there. I met Jesta. I noticed Zero. And I heard about the Vigilantes. I took the cup, swirling the bubbling contents inside.
"Will there be a code hidden under this too?" I muttered in wonder, almost sighing in weariness.
Instead, Zero beat me to it. "You know, Jesta used to mention you to us a lot. Maybe that's why it was so easy for me to bring you here."
I paused for a while, thinking. Then, I said, "You must have been sad when she died."
"Yeah." I stared at him as he drank from his cup with dark eyes. "It's stupid and devastating. She always was the strongest of us, but I guess I didn't really know her that well."
"That makes two of us," I told him. I stared at the now deeply inebriated upperclassmen. Roy was screaming at a cowering Tanner to force him into an arm wrestling match. The twins were creeping around the room and throwing confetti on the heads of poor victims. Imelda was already dancing on top of the tables while Jenna cheered her on.
"Zero…" I started. "Was your initiation like mine as well? Was it also so fucked up?"
I was already regretting joining the Vigilantes. I've always looked at the organization as an undercover group of heroes, out to reveal the corruption within the rotting system. I had no choice but to look at them like that, especially after I knew that Jesta was one. But, now, after going through the initiation, I wasn't so sure who the good guys and the bad guys were.
I turned towards the boy beside me to see him staring at me with confusion. "… What did she have you do?"
I grew confused at that as well, but I decided to just tell him. His face grew pale when I reached the part where I had to pull the trigger.
"Jenna… made you do that?" he uttered in disbelief.
"I thought all of you held a meeting to decide what my initiation will be like?" I asked him.
He nodded slightly. "I mean, I know of the stupid thing with the pasta, and Mel fighting you, but usually… the last test is decided by Jenna herself."
I turned to look at the overdressed girl. She looked like an immaculate doll with her light brown hair and her large, azure eyes. I wondered how someone who looked so angelic could make such evil tests.
"But, anyway," Zero said. "You passed, so that's it. Your loyalties were proven as well."
I could only nod at that. Little did they know that my act of pulling the trigger had little to do with my wanting to join the Vigilantes and more to do with getting petty revenge on the cops who murdered my best friend.
I wanted to tell Zero about how Jesta really died. I know they were close enough that he should know that at least she didn't die by her own hands. I owe it to him, and to her.
"My initiation was easier," Zero interrupted my thoughts. "You see, the Vigilantes were formed almost at the same time as the creation of the Club. It's been here for a long, long time. It's known for being a silent organization though; always seeking to change things from the inside out. But, when I finally had to go through my test, I decided to spice things up. I told Bender, our last leader before Jenna, that I could change the government with my own initiation... And I have to admit. I did cause quite a ruckus."
I looked at him with curious eyes. "What did you do?"
He smiled at me with a smile just as mischievous as Jesta's. "Do you remember the very first attack of the Vigilantes?"
My eyes grew wide. "Wait… You started all of this?"
He laughed softly. "Yep… I'd say 'Operation Spray-Paint' was my idea."
I shook my head. He was only a few years older than me but he had already done so many things. I found him looking at my face quietly, so I did the same.
I've never actually studied his face as long as I was doing now. He had dark brown hair and mysterious eyes. His face was chiseled and made me think that I was looking at a Roman god. His green eyes were glazed from the alcohol. I fought the urge to fix his messy hair.
"That's amazing," I told him instead. "Your initiation actually held some meaning, while mine… only served to prove my own wretchedness."
"Or your loyalty and determination," Zero reminded me. "The way you described it, I'd say you didn't exactly have a choice. You just had to shoot him."
I couldn't reply at first. After all, I doubted that I didn't have a choice. People always have a choice. That time, I simply chose to pull the trigger.
"Do you know him?" I asked. "The man looked old to be a college student. He had shaggy, dirty blond hair. Tall, too."
He thought for a while. "If I'm imagining him right, I think I do know him. He's probably one of the alumni from the Club. By your description, I think he's Ralf Bender."
I recognized the name. "Bender? Like the leader before Jenna?"
He nodded. "The very one. He usually helps out from time to time. Got stuck in the Uni for years before he finally graduated. They say it's because he grew too attached to the Club."
I imagined myself in the man's shoes. For years, he had stayed loyal to an activist group, always seeking for change. And then, a recruit comes: a flimsy, little girl. A girl who pointed a gun at him, and actually tried to shoot.
I wondered if Bender had come to dislike me. No sane person would actually like someone who honestly tried to kill him, even if it was all an act.
I sighed. "I have to apologize to him properly."
Zero shrugged. "I don't know. I never really understood that guy. He probably doesn't even care."
Then, he brought his halfway empty cup closer to mine.
"Anyway, let's not think too much." He clinked his cup against mine. "This is your party. Let's try to enjoy it."
I smiled at him, and he leaned in to whisper loudly, "Welcome to the Vigilantes, Yassi Anne."
I drank to that, wondering if Jesta would be proud to have me here too.
~~
In the next following days, I grew to know more about the Vigilantes, and the people who formed it.
The organization appeared publicly just last year (with Zero's own flashy initiation), but they have always done covert operations against corruption since long ago. Very few students could even enter the organization, and most have to be accepted first into the Alpha Club, the front of the Vigilantes. It was harder to join the Club about 10 years ago, when MU still accepted having fraternities/sororities. Now, however, they were forced to become an open club, which meant it got filled with more people than they wanted. Hence, the rules became stricter when they had to recruit people into the real organization. Intensive background checks were needed to be done on each applicant, and most of the time, the candidates were just hand-picked. My case was a rare one because I got recruited without even knowing the true face of the Club.
Alumni also played a great role in the 'club' activities. Truthfully, they were the real funders and planners behind the success of the Vigilantes. Even with Tanner's supposed skills in hacking and the twins' penchant for information gathering, the Club probably couldn't go through with half of their "taggings" without outside help from allied corporations and powerful adults.
The taggings referred to the main activities the Vigilantes were known for in the news. When the Vigilantes have gathered enough evidence against a certain powerful person or group, they target a well-known site of this entity (a shop, a landmark, or even their own houses) and wreak havoc. They leave behind a plastic envelope of evidences, and of course, a spray-painted picture of the organization's symbol.
'Alpha…' I looked at the symbol on the pieces of paper piled on the table. 'It looks more like a fish to me.'
Just like the Greek letter alpha, the Vigilantes' symbol was similar, but with an eye drawn in between the closed space. It was simple, but it held meaning. 'We're always watching' or something like that. It worked well with the activist principles of most of the students in the MU, anyway.
"What are you thinking?" Blue whispered, making me jump out from my thoughts and back into reality.
We were inside the hideout. I was supposed to be writing the Pro-Vigilante piece for my blog, but I was spaced out instead.
"Sorry," I muttered, massaging my temples in hopes of activating my brain. "I'll get this done by tonight, I promise."
"Flimsy promises from a do-gooder like you, Yassi Anne," Imelda called out from across the room, where she was crouching on the ground, smoking. "You probably already wimped out just from me battering your ass."
I glared at her. She never quit reminding me about her stupid victory, and it's not like my body has stopped aching from the bruises she gave me. But, I always stubbornly thought that if I hadn't been weighed down by the huge plate of pasta I had gorged down, I would've beaten her up instead. True, my endurance may suck, but I can land some nasty punches in my prime.
"Fuck off, Mel." I called out to her. "I keep inviting you to a rematch, but you just keep spouting out one excuse after another."
That made her stand up and throw her cigarette into the ground. She stormed towards me, and I saw Blue back away from us from the corner of my eyes. I wasn't too scared. I really did want to pay her back.
"You really want to fight me, Mel? You seem to desperately want to be colored by bruises." I smiled at her, standing up from my seat and planting my feet steadily on the ground.
Almost stupidly as expected, she grabbed at my collar and brought me closer to her. I let her, but I wasn't prepared for what she was about to say. "Are you gonna betray us now, you little shit? I heard you were a freaking psycho, shooting at Bender like you kill for fun. I have no doubt you're gonna double cross on us, you crazy bitch."
I flinched, and pushed her away. "What-"
"Don't act coy with me." She glared at me with anger, but there was also a trace of fear… "I mean, why would such a clueless model citizen even want to join the Vigilantes, huh? Did you grow so bored when Quisling died, leaving you alone? What do you even think we do here, huh? Murder people?"
I froze at her words. My mind was filled with the hazy feeling I felt when I held the gun. I could still feel the cold, metal barrel. The crazed, desperate eyes of the man. And the sound as I pulled the trigger. Red. Red. Red.
'I really was capable of murder…'
"So, what are you gonna do, Yassi Anne?" she spat at me, her face inches from mine. "You're so freaking clueless. I bet you don't even know what we're doing here."
I grew so affected by her words that I didn't even see the slap coming. My cheeks stung and tears welled up in my eyes. I had gripped onto the table instinctively.
"Speak up!" I heard Imelda scream at me. "You were so brave before. Say something, you clueless puta!"
I couldn't reply. I really didn't know much of anything about the Vigilantes or their cause. I didn't care two shits about politics. So why was I even here? What reason do I write for?
If I did all this to avenge Jesta, then was I really a psychopath like Imelda said? Did I really just come here to kill? As far as I knew, I never wanted to shoot anyone again.
"I'm sorr-" I mumbled.
"Imelda dela Cruz!" Zero shouted. He had just gotten out from Tanner's special room. He was glaring at us. I've never seen him so angry. "Enough already."
Imelda did back away when she heard him, but she still glared daggers at me. "You want to protect this sheltered do-gooder? How'd she even get here with that kind of attitude."
Zero had arrived between us, staring at us both. "She got here the same way we all did. She passed her initiation. Anyway, I think she's already aware that she's… sheltered than most people. That's how we all start to grow."
He looked at me with cold, green eyes, as though deciding if I was worth his time. ��Am I right, Yassi Anne?"
"… I know I'm apathetic, if that's what you mean," I said, and continued when I saw Imelda opening her mouth, "But I'm going to change. I know I'm clueless about the Vigilantes. Frankly, I never really bothered to care. But, after Jesta… After she-"
I gulped, thinking of the blood and the sound of the gunshot. "I'm going to change. I have no choice but to change."
Imelda glared at me still, but Zero seemed to approve of my firm expression. He smiled widely, and stood up straighter, announcing to the rest of the Vigilantes with a clear voice, "On that note, I'm having this sheltered girl go on the job with me."
The club was confused at first, but then simultaneously shouted their disapproval.
"No!" screamed Imelda. "She can't!"
"Do you mean the job for tomorrow?" Blue asked in a mellow voice.
"Don't you think it's too sssoon?" Greta asked as well, peeking up from her laptop.
I realized that Zero meant for me to go with him to a tagging session. I felt a tingle of nervousness and excitement in my fingertips. But, even I thought it was too soon…
"I think I should sit this one out and observe for now," I told Zero, with a tinge of regret. "Besides, I need to finish writing for the blog. That's first priority, right?"
Zero nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, it's needed ASAP. But, it's not like you can write anything now, right?"
"Yeah, 'cuz she's clueless about everything." Imelda sneered at me. "She's useless. We should just kick her out."
Feeling a great annoyance from her smug look, especially because I knew that she knew she got it right, I made a firm decision. "Fine. I'll do the job with you tomorrow."
"What?" Imelda sputtered, but I kept my gaze on Zero's green eyes.
"I think that if I go, I'll find the information I need to write, especially if I experience it myself," I said, justifying my sudden change of opinion. "… Anyway, I'll make sure to learn from the job tomorrow. I can't just be clueless all the time."
Zero stared at me in a short silence, before his lips slowly curled into a smile.
"Good. You're coming with me tomorrow then," he said, and then started to walk towards the boxes in the corners of the hideout. "Besides you can't just not use these."
He held up a black jacket still wrapped in plastic. My eyes grew in recognition.
"I have a jacket?" I mumbled as I approached, taking the package from his hands.
"Well, duh." I heard his merry laughter. "We did welcome you properly into the club, right?"
I chuckled at that, remembering the chaotic party. I observed the pack in my hands before I ripped it from the plastic coverings. It was made of a really smooth and thick material. It was just a regular, plain jacket with high collars and long sleeves. But, if you looked really hard, just by the area where the heart would lie, there was an imprinted black symbol: The Vigilantes' symbol.
I held it in front of me almost in a daze. I put it on and found out that it fit me perfectly. A little loose on the shoulders, maybe, but still perfect.
Zero guided me until I was in front of the barred window, where I could see a blurry picture of my reflection. With my black jeans on, I really looked like a Vigilante. Only…
"Here." Greta had arrived and had placed a mask of a grotesquely smiling face on my head. "Perfect."
Frankly, I looked scary enough to be one of the murderers in a serial killer movie. I loved it.
I realized everyone else in the room was staring at me. I looked at Zero through the clothed out eye holes. "I guess I look the part now."
He nodded. "You definitely do, little Vigilante."
I smiled at him, though I knew he couldn't see it through my mask.
Yassi Anne P. Sorento, the Vigilante.
It definitely had a nice ring to it.