Author note: I wrote this for myself to help me understand the backstory of the Night Herons, but I thought you might enjoy seeing how the team got started. It contains no spoilers for the series.
Emma Gallagher clinked glasses with the others lounging in club chairs and love seats, forever bonded to them through shared trauma and a gnawing sense of disorientation now that they’d triumphed over Remy Blaze.
Or, maybe triumph wasn’t the right word. Was “winning” even possible when naked images of her and thousands of others, taken without their permission, would forever be on the Internet, linked to their names, accessible to anyone who went looking?
But Remy had been punished. Stripped of his freedom, his ill-gotten wealth, and most importantly, his platform.
Now everyone in the room faced a crisis of how to move forward. After years of humiliation, fighting to be taken seriously, and legal maneuvering, some of them losing their families and jobs in the process, what did “going back to normal” look like?
She shouldn’t have been surprised that Gretchen Hawthorne—the dedicated woman who’d brought them together, given them hope, and worked tirelessly to destroy Blaze’s empire—had a plan.
After her daughter had been attacked and killed by one of the website’s depraved fans, Gretchen and her wife Laura had created a safe space here at their small used bookstore in Hermosa Beach for Blaze’s victims in the Los Angeles area to gather. What started as a group for emotional support, under Gretchen’s guidance, had quickly turned to action.
They’d contacted as many people on Blaze’s site as possible, offering them commiseration and community, and encouraging them to help the FBI make a case against the bastard who thought what he did was funny.
In the process, the local group had become a team, a family of sorts. But this victory was a double-edged sword. Now that the fight had ended, what did they do with themselves?
Emma could see her own anxiety mirrored on the faces of her friends. Would they slowly drift apart without the glue of a shared purpose?
Gretchen set her champagne glass on a coffee table and stood. She was a tall, striking Black woman with gray-streaked curls pulled back from her face into a pouf. “I know today is bittersweet. It’s both wonderful and not enough. You’ve all worked hard for this moment, but I can see the worry on your faces, the understanding that today means the end of something you’ve given years of your life to.”
Exactly. Emma’s chest ached as she watched the faces of the people she was closer to than her own sister. Dallas, Natalie, Hailey, and Ashley—dubbed the three Lees [make note of this in Character overview]—and Reese, Gretchen and Laura’s younger daughter.
At the head of the gathering space, Gretchen sent a soft smile to her wife, a pleasantly plump white woman with red curls and freckles. “However, I’d prefer to think of this as a beginning. Before I say more on that, Laura and I want to thank you for all the work you put in to bring a small measure of justice to those responsible for taking Parker from us, and for hurting you.” Her dark eyes glistened and Emma felt her throat tighten. Gretchen coughed lightly and seemed to give herself a little shake. “We can’t bring back our daughter, but we’re grateful for the new family we’ve gained.”
Laura crossed the room and took Gretchen’s hand, tears already spilling from her green eyes [make note in characters]. “The trial is over, but we don’t want it to be the end of our time together. Without a common goal, a strong motivator, it would be easy for us to drift apart.” She glanced up at her wife, who nodded. “To that end, Gretchen has a proposal for you.”
Emma swiped her wet cheeks and sat forward. Until an ex had posted naked photos of her—taken without her knowledge or permission—on Remy Blaze’s site, she’d been working as an investigative reporter for LA Today. Her dream job.
She learned about the photos via a lewd text message from an unknown sender. At first she thought it was a cruel joke or a hoax, or maybe a phishing scheme, but then she went to the site.
Not only were there shockingly explicit photos of her that she’d never consented to, but her name, address, and phone number were listed too.
Beneath the pictures was a long list of comments calling her ugly, nasty, and all kinds of horrible names, or asking her to contact them privately.
And then the creepy text messages and phone calls began in earnest. Propositions, vulgar suggestions…assault and death threats.
She started getting email and physical mail. Fan mail, hate mail.
And the worst part was that everyone in her life started to look at her differently. Her parents, her then-boyfriend, supposed friends, coworkers. Many of them didn’t believe she’d been hacked. Not that it should’ve mattered. Even if she’d taken the photos herself, her privacy had been violated and everyone blamed her. She’d never felt more alone.
Emma changed her phone number, deleted her social media accounts, and broke her lease to move into a new place. It was expensive and stressful and incredibly time-consuming.
She suspected every man who even looked at her twice of having seen her online. It didn’t help that a few of the men at work made snide or suggestive remarks directly to her face and HR did nothing.
She felt like she was walking around out in the world fully exposed, and for a while she got so depressed and scared, she quit leaving the house.
Unable to focus on work, she eventually lost her job.
Her ex and Remy Blaze had made her life a living hell, and maybe worse, they felt no remorse for all the pain they caused. Remy enjoyed his notoriety and his platform, and repeatedly told the media—who couldn’t get enough of his outrageous behavior—that he didn’t care about the repercussions of his actions.
Gretchen and Laura and everyone here had saved Emma from her downward spiral, giving her a sense of camaraderie, a group of people who understood her specific pain, and a reason to get out of bed every day.
She owed them her life.
Now, standing before them, Gretchen cleared her throat, bringing Emma back to the moment. “Right. So I was thinking about what we could do to not only keep the band together, so to speak,” she gave a little laugh, “but to utilize our combined experience to continue the work we started.”
Emma nodded, hope rising like the tide.
Gretchen placed her free hand on her heart. “How would you feel about creating a nonprofit funded by a portion of the damages we were awarded?”
Her idea was to support organizations helping victims of abuse, trafficking, and exploitation. It would be named The Parker Foundation in her daughter’s honor.
Everyone was on board, though Emma had been hoping for…something more.
She needn’t have worried. Gretchen was just getting them warmed up.
As the night progressed, she fed them the rest of her vision, easing them into it while Laura topped up their drinks. “This world is full of predators of all kinds, often hiding behind the veneer of money and an old-boy network that closes ranks whenever one of its own is threatened. I propose we make it our mission to expose them.”
The response from the group was enthusiastic. Every one of them was on board, no hesitation.
In honor of the bookstore that had become the team’s second home—fueled by determination, excitement, and possibly one too many drinks—they’d somewhat jokingly dubbed themselves the Night Herons.
The name stuck. The black-crowned night herons that hung around the local piers were nocturnal, and often escaped notice due to their unusual capability for stillness. A fitting moniker for the team’s new undercover lives.
Forming the Night Herons provided the sense of purpose everyone in the room that night had been seeking.
And even if they’d known the difficulties and danger that lay ahead, not one of them would’ve turned it down.
Haven’t read the Night Herons yet? Get started with LIE WITH ME!