Crook | K.th

prologue

SUMMER OF 89' , DOWNTOWN CHICAGO

The sound of the summer rainfall hitting the battered and timeless streets of downtown Chicago creates a blurry backdrop for the few people sitting in the cafe. Raindrops slide down the foggy windows as the red neon "OPEN" sign flashes with the threat of going out at any given second - desperately seeking to alert pedestrians of the slow business going on inside.

The funky sound of Eveylyn King's "Love Come Down" plays from the old juke box resting in the far right corner so that teenagers had something to listen to while they slurped obnoxiously on their milk shakes and dined on their fries and burgers.

A gorgeous, typical downtown Saturday night it was.

Outside of the infamous downtown teen hotspot known as Frank's Kitchen , behind the building near the two hefty green dumpsters and under the hood, close to the small creek in front of the trees - stood a teenage boy in a sea of predators.

His chest heaved up and down as he looked at each individual face before him. Seeing nothing but malicious intent behind their dark, soulless gazes and slitted eyes. He noticed how each of them had a distinctive figure on their face. Wether it be a scar or a tattoo, all of them had been branded by the unfortunate events of their time and had the marks to show for it.

"Times up, pretty boy. You got our shit or not?" One has a thick accent. A foreign drawl to his slurred words. He looked like one of the people that he and his friends usually made jokes about. By lifting the corners of their eyes up  and pretending to speak in an Asian language by making jumbled up sounds with their mouths. Funny how one minute these people were being mocked, and now they had 17 year old Danny posted up against the brick wall of Frank's.

"I-I don't... I mean I do! I d-do! I just didn't...I didn't b-bring it." Danny stutters. It is easy to determine wether or not he is fearful of what these men could do to him. What they should do to him. And what, eventually, they will do to him.

"You don't have it." Another one of the men said. Danny shook his head instantly. "Th-that's not true. I do I just don't have it right now. I promise I'll—"

"No promises."

Another voice steps up, inserting their person into the conversation. His voice is ghostly. The heavy baritone holding the same chill as death and eeriness. Despair even. He sounded like he had mastered the English language, despite looking like the rest of these foreign men. With him he carried the heavy smell of cigarette smoke. Danny felt fear creep up on him. It was being forced on him, he had no other choice but to fear these men.

"We gave you a task. And with that task came a price, and a deadline. You already had it all Danny. Why get involved in the fast life when you knew you had it all?"

He asked all of the right questions. None of which, the shaken up teen had the answers to. His back was against a wall here and his heart was beating in his ears. His once pale white skin was now flushed with red and blue, damn near turning purple from the anxiety running through his veins. He worked up a sweat, the beads of human perspiration dripping down his forehead.

"No answer?" The man raised his eyebrow, a teasing pout on his pink lips as he leaned in.

"Well, let me tell you something." He said. "I was never one for talking so this entire meet up has been a drag. I was bitching about the money but now that I look at the situation I realize that your life has more value then a couple of hundreds. A family would grieve more over the loss of their precious son than a junkie would over his precious fix. See the logic?"

Danny nodded his head. Like a puppet on strings, he does what the controller wants him to do. Or atleast what he thinks this man wants him to do. He wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing, following the right track.

"Words."

"I d-do." Danny says presumptuously. He wasn't quite sure if he seen the logic. He wasn't quite sure if this man meant what he said. A junkies love for his fix was a lot of love. An obsession, if you will. Danny wasn't sure that his life - to these men - was worth more than the money lost. But for the sake of the possibility of being free, being able to make it out alive, he would force himself to agree.

"That'a boy." The man murmured, slapping Danny's clammy cheek with his hand. "You're a good kid."

There was a bone chilling, unsatisfying sensation that flushed Danny's body. His head was light on his shoulders and his body was 20 pounds heavier. His eyes closed and opened slowly until they just closed completely. And just as a loud clap of thunder struck throughout the sky, the seventeen year old passed out against the wall.

A dry scoff leaves the mouth of the English speaking foreigner. Or atleast, that's how Danny would've addressed him. He had never seen that man before and yet he scared him more than the others did.

"Have his body in the creek before 10." He mumbled, taking a lone cigarette from the pocket of his brown leather jacket. The gas sparker comes along with it. He peels back the cap and pressed down to generate the small flame that lights his nicotine stick in no time. Bringing the cigarette up to his lips, he takes a hit before scrunching his eyes. He didn't smoke much for this exact reason. It was disgusting. But he had developed the habit while under stress, and just couldn't fucking stop.

The smoke comes out in a thin grey cloud. The warm summer breeze breaks apart the limp chains, and the once grey cloud pushes down into waves of smoke.

"And be careful. I've gotta get a move on."

"We're always careful, V."

"Not what the news reports say."

"The news reports need to mind their own Fuckin' business." The man snarled, flicking his blade and waving his hand. "C'mon boys, you heard the man."

V looked towards the ground as the first sound of a knife being stabbed into the boy's flesh could be heard. They did not let up, and he did not want them to. He meant what he said about the news reports. If they weren't careful, he would deal with them next. But it would be best to see how they handled this mess on their own.

As he made it in front of the building, appearing to be a common person taking a nightly stroll, the neon sign is still flickering and the teens are still laughing the night away. V drags his tongue over his bottom lip, ensuring that it remained smooth as he pulled the left sleeve up to his brown leather coat.

Bringing down the cigarette, he smushes the burning end down on his skin. In a line of cigarette burns, it now fills up the ninth place. V didn't have much of a reaction. Nine bodies down, no telling how many were left to go.

He flicks the cigarette bud into the trash can before tucking his hands into his pockets and crossing over to walk through the parking lot, and towards the sidewalk. Nonchalantly disregarding the tiny raindrops that fell in his hair and on his coat. The picture being painted behind Frank's Kitchen now being a distant memory, dust in the wind.

Another skeleton in his chest.

CROOK