Butcher shoved Becca into the passenger seat, floored the accelerator, and disappeared down the highway, following the route he had mapped out during his days lurking here.
Under the same starry sky, two other parties lay awake.
Victoria Neuman sat on a leather sofa in her campaign office. Several monitors flickered on the desk, and headlines across the internet played her speech at that day's protest rally on a loop.
"Homelander must be regulated! We will never bow to someone who slaughters innocents!"
In the video, she waved her fist, her features all the more compelling for her "anger." The comments below had erupted, and fervent internet users had firmly crowned her the leading figure of the anti-Supe movement.
Someone knocked on the office's mahogany door.
Neuman did not even look up. "I told you, no visitors tonight. Reschedule everything for tomorrow..."
"What if your visitor could nail Vought to the pillar of shame for good?"
A short-haired woman in a gray jacket stepped into the light, her posture straight.
Neuman's gaze lingered on the woman's weathered face for two seconds before she sat upright.
"Ms. Mallory. Former deputy director of the CIA. To what do I owe the honor?"
Mallory pulled out a chair and sat, folding her hands on the desk. "Your standing is very high right now, Congresswoman Neuman. The public sees you as their savior. They believe you dare to challenge the Supes flying overhead."
"I only do what's right." Neuman sounded sincere, without a single fault to pick at.
"Save the pretty words for the media. I have direct evidence that Vought secretly supplied Compound V to terrorists. I also have the real, top-secret figures for civilian casualties caused by their operations in Nicaragua and the Middle East. Even the complete file on former member