CHAPTER 1.

　　ZERO.

　　"Please, don't kill me, please!" Greg pleaded, lying down there in the pull of his own blood.

　　I popped my gun and pointed it to his head. Mentally, I calculated the distance between the cold metal in my hand and his brain.

　　Should I shoot his medulla oblongata or his cerebellum?

　　"Please! Please! Why do you want to kill me, you motherfucker!? I am your boss!"

　　His forehead, I concluded.

　　"Not anymore." I pulled the trigger and watched his brain splutter everywhere, most part of it took up a residence on the wall.

　　I turned and started out, walking straight to the door.

　　"So, what now?" Morris asked following up behind me.

　　"Now, you clean up. I won't be coming in today. Tell the boss I'll be in tomorrow morning. He can call if there's an emergency."

　　"You going to the house?"

　　"No."

　　"You going to fuck some pussy?" I heard the amusement in his voice.

　　"Fuck you, Morris."

　　His laughter trailed behind me as I got to my car and entered it. I faced the cheeky bastard, "Clean up here, keep your eyes open. Call me if there's anything."

　　"You're holding out on me, Zero. Have a heart, man and invite this cock."

　　I drove off, having one destination on mind.

　　*************

　　I packed in my usual spot beneath a broken streetlight. I car passed, blocking my view and I waited it out, until finally, the stupid car sped up.

　　Her flower shop came into view. LANI'S SPECIAL WISHES is the name of her flower shop.

　　The glow from the windows reflected on the wet, black pavement. The flowers in the window promised romance to anyone who ventured inside to buy them.

　　Then, she came into view.

　　Leilani Daniel...Lani, for short.

　　She stood behind her counter, her dark hair curling around her shoulders as she fussed with a ribbon on a vase of pink and yellow roses.

　　She cocked her head to the side and stepped back to study her handiwork. Not satisfied, she pulled the bow free and cut along the lengths of satiny ribbon.

　　Then she ran her scissors down the strips. They snapped back, the tendrils curling against each other until they looked like a wild white bloom.

　　Her fingers worked with delicate precision, each movement focused on creating beauty from nothing.

　　When she surveyed her work again, her lips stretched into that beautiful smile that always leave me fucking entranced.

　　I've seen smiles before, all fucking kinds. But I've never seen one as beautiful as hers.

　　There is this blatant innocent that clings to her so strong, it might as well be written in bold letters and engraved on her forehead.

　　The first time I saw her down the streets, I was driving away after doing a job to see her buying things from a store. I was fascinated.

　　I've never been fascinated in a long damn time.

　　Every damn man in this fucking town has an interest in her. Even damn man must stare whenever she passes, and why won't they?

　　She is easily the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of bitches.

　　Beauty, and that fucking innocence she radiates at the slightest gesture, makes her so....... I drew a blank, not finding the damn adjective I was searching for.

　　Never been good with words. Just give me a gun or any torture device and I'll show you how I invented the word "Pro".

　　I'm not a good man or anything of that sort. No, I'm the worst kind of bad, and I fucking want that woman in the flower shop.

　　Staring at the beauty, I want to fucking own her. I want to dirty her up.

　　I want to lay her flat on her back and fuck her raw and hard until she is raw from it. I want to pump her full with my cum and watch it drip down her leg as she stands on shaky heads, that angelic face of hers glazed with desire or pain. Anyone.

　　I fucking love pleasure. But I feed off pain. Shove the both together and it's called heaven.

　　That light that clings to her almost like that innocence wrapped around her is beckoning to me.

　　It's as if her light is fucking drawing my darkness.

　　I catalogued every move she made, from the way she pulled her hair over one shoulder to the slight jut of her hips when she favored her left foot.

　　My need to possess her thrummed along with the steady beat of my heart, but I counseled patience.

　　I have been watching her for the past two months but time couldn’t stop my growing obsession.

　　I wanted to devour her. I want to eat her whole, and snuff out her innocence and light until she has become one with me. One with the darkness inside me.

　　And I will do that.

　　I will get her, but not now.

　　Soon.

　　I started my car and drove away.