At the depth of it all

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Shadows dance away from flickering lights cast long against the street. Sirens scream by chasing flames rising above a distant half-burnt house. Her face does not attempt to hide the intent of the meeting. Vulnerable to curious eyes she is thrown into a small alleyway nearby. Beauty lies between her lips going well with the deceit beneath her eyelashes. On any other occasion this woman is confident with her body. Her neck would stand strong flaunting her heart shaped face and smooth complexion accented with dark lipstick and blue eyes hidden by lashes lacking color, darker than cosmetics could attempt.With any other audience, this lady would wreak havoc with her words, putting a man with little discipline into a state of strong lustful urges. Tonight, however, this woman can no longer use her breasts to escape her vulnerability. Her desperate attire cannot affect the man that now stands just three feet away hiding in shadow. No, this man is a large concrete wall, invincible to her pleads, This man does not know the softness of a woman’s touch, therefore cannot understand how misleading it can be. As he steps out from the shadows, the withered face of a scarred man reveals no mercy.

His ability to hide all emotion is something that keeps his phone ringing. When asked to clean up a messy situation where a young woman kills a crime-lord out of self-defense, he doesn’t flinch. The fact that she is only nineteen does not add to the level of difficulty in the mark.  She now stands a few feet in front of the bulldog of a man.
            What happens next is expected but not hoped for. The lady is no longer worried about her fashioned look, Her primped attire. Tears smear her makeup, condensation soak her dress. Right then God himself sets the mood for this night. Rain begins to fall. It takes only a moment for the tall man to reach inside his coat to find his only treasure. Her knees bruise as they hit the ground, the attire that clung to her skin now more wretched than desirable. Her eyes are washed of seduction; her age begins to show through the paint that was once lathered on her face. Lust is no longer her most notable outfit. Weakness wraps itself around her body puling like gravity to the wet cement.

The sharp steel of guilt stabs itself into the scarred man’s rib cage. He has felt the cold feel of foreign metal before beneath his skin, but this was far worse. As if awoken from a dream, the faces of his past victims, both young and old, come screaming back to plead for the life of the teenager before him. The guilt acts as a poison. It works its way through his blood-pumping organ, spreading through his chest before crawling down his limbs. His weapon, now feels like a dead weight pulling his arms away from the girl, the man needs both hands to keep it steady. He has more than enough money to make her invisible; no one would ever find her.

The hammer clicks back into place.

Scarlet red mixes well with the ever-falling water as it streams down the sidewalk and into a gutter where the sewer rats enjoy the added sweetness in their drink. The flash of remorse on his face will go unremembered; no one alive will ever see this moment of restrain. To the world he never makes a mistake, he never regrets a target. Yet as he walks away from the alley, her soul joins the rest to plead for the life of his next victim.  He will never forget her face.

 The sirens ring on.