Prologue
The hiding place was perfect. Rough, jagged criss-crosses of metal wires obscured his bodyline perfectly, while keeping his line of vision straight ahead of him. The lights above him reflected away from the crevice he was squatted in, shadowing his every move, whilst making the room around him glow with a dead shine as the objects sat still, unmoving and unobserved. The soft shine of the brush strokes in the paintings on the smudged cream walls obstructed his view from whatever scene was displayed upon the wall. He knew what was in the painting though; it was the one thing in the room he felt deserved to be on show in the small, derelict museum, the only thing worth paying a few dollars to come see, observe and protect.
Then, his prey sauntered into the room. The prey was cocky even in his work, and he had to hold bad a snarl in order to keep hidden. His time would come.
His prey was busy whistling a lullaby that he recognised, and was throwing his torch around constantly. Once, he missed judged his throw, and the torch crashed upon the cold, dusty floor beneath his feet. He bent down, revealing a security-radio on the back of his belt, along with a tazer. He would have to be careful about this one. His prey picked up the torch, examined its condition, and returned to whistling his tired lullaby.
Watching his prey like this was agonising. What use was there for him? He watched and guarded ancient town relics that only gave the elderly the sense of pride and joy this town once had, but no one ever came to visit. The painting he so admired should have been sold to a bigger museum, to a bigger audience where everyone could see the town's name, but they insisted on keeping it dusty and forgotten. Soon, no buyers would take it. Instead, it would be stolen and sold on black market, or ripped to be used as cocaine rolls. That's how all the other paintings ended up, because they couldn't do their job properly. Well, now they would all pay for their laziness.
What was this guard supposed to be doing? Surely if he did his job, he would have found his hunter hiding only a few yards away from him, and he would have dragged him out of the building and to the police station. If he did his job, maybe the other paintings wouldn't have been stolen. Maybe the town would want to come and see the works that held value, because they hadn't been stolen.
The hunter sighed as the guard sat down upon a plastic chair reserved for him in the corner of the room, in front of the heavy lighting. Soon, soon, soon, the hunter repeated.
The guard kept on whistling; almost sending the hunter into his dreams, but this wasn't the time for dreams. This was time for revenge. They would all pay for turning a blind eye to everyone who broke the law. They wouldn't even be able to ignore him, for what he was about to do. If they cared, maybe he could get caught before anything drastic happened. He highly doubted they would, though. They never did before, why should the future be different?
The whistle faltered, and the hunter's ears pricked up. Falling asleep, are you? He thought snidely. I thought security guards never slept on the job. His prey's eyelids drooped, and succumbed to his own lullaby. The hunter growled. This was why everything of value was taken away from the town and was never recovered.
He straightened his legs, and revealed his frame to the world. The hunter was much taller than his prey, and much thinner. His prey looked overweight compared to the slight build of his hunter, but it put no more odds in his favour as his hunter raised a baton to his head... and smashed down hard.
The hunter gasped. "I-I did it. I actually did it!" He gasped, ruffling his dark hair with his hands. He returned the baton to its holding place inside his thick jacket, and got to work dragging the guard away from the museum, away from the scene, away from detection. If the law cared, maybe they would notice the blood on the floor, how the chair was turned over and how dirt was smeared along the floor. Maybe they'd see the note discarded in the crevice where the hunter had hidden. Yet, deep down in the hunter's heart, he knew they wouldn't. And they didn't.
They didn't notice until the second kidnapping had come to pass