For Nims Dias-angelovdarkness who sent me the base for this story. I hope you like it! And I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to it, especially now that I put it on hold and am now rewriting the whole thing.

Grah. This chapter is very realistic right now. It's so bloody hot here. It's a million degrees in the shade. It's sweaty sitting still, especially with the hot laptop on my lap. So I am suffering to type this chapter out for you all. I expect some reviews!

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Anyway, I have MOVED this story COMPLETELY to another site. You can find this STORY and all its subsequent UPDATES here, just remove the spaces and asterisks (*): h*t*t*p :/ archiveofourown. o*r*g /works/1144925/chapters/2317881

I have the same penname there as I do here: ParadiseAvenger

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It was ungodly hot outside, even for the middle of July. The temperature was soaring over one hundred degrees and had been for the past four days. It was humid and muggy and buggy. You could break a sweat sitting still indoors with the lights out and the fan on. Some people were lucky enough to have air conditioning, others not so much.

Sakura Kinomoto was one of the "not so much." She was sitting on the beat-up beige sofa in the living room of her blocky redbrick apartment complex. She had all the fans whirring at top speed, her feet in a bucket of ice water, and a paper fan in her hand with which to fan herself. Even with all that, she was still sticky with sweat and uncomfortable. Lying across some threadbare throw pillows, she reached for the remote and turned on the television, hoping that some brain cell killing TV would distract her from the horrendous heat wave.

"The Fang-Killer strikes again!" The anchorwoman, a peppy pretty blonde in a low-cut red silk blouse, was saying in her false-grievous voice. "Two more bodies have been discovered in an alley in the center of the city. They have been mutilated and tortured beyond recognition. Nothing is known about their identities at this time. The police are investigating fiercely. Anyone with information on the Fang-Killer is asked to contact the police immediately."

Feeling nauseous, Sakura changed the channel to violent Tom and Jerry cartoons, but her mind refused to leave the horrendous thoughts of this loose murderer.

The Fang-Killer had left behind only two survivors, a man and a woman. They had quivered dangerously on the edge of death in the hospital for three days before the man came around. He woke up screaming, screaming about the scars on his face, the scars that looked like fangs! Then, he fought the nurse that tried to restrain him, promptly reopened an internal injury, and died. The woman was much more lucid upon awakening, but her throat had been cut by the Fang-Killer. She had no voice to tell authorities what she had seen. When she finally took up a pencil with her shaking hands she was only able to write two words: the fangs.

Sakura stopped fanning herself because suddenly her skin was icy with fear-sweat.

The people had been tortured, mutilated, damaged beyond repair. Cause of death was always a single bullet directly to the forehead, blowing apart the entire back of the head. These victims had been alive, surviving each and every torture this Fanged-Killer bestowed upon them until he put that gun to their heads and blew them away. Parts of them had been skinned to the bone, beaten black and blue and raw, bloody to a pulp. Ribs were cracked. Fingers snipped off at each joint and then cauterized closed to keep them alive. The bones in their faces had been crushed, shattered. Burning poison. Thick horrible oozing burns in the most tender parts of the flesh: genitals, eyes, mouth, tongue, feet, and stomach. Closer to death, vital organs had been punctured, lungs deflated, stomach acid let into the chest cavity. But they always survived to the end, survived until that gun was put to their heads.

By then, surely, these people begged for death.

Her brother, Fai, was a detective and he was working closely with his best friend Kurogane on this case. They had one suspect, but it was only a small chance. Syaoran Li had been involved in an old case. His parents and twin brother had been murdered one night. Syaoran was the only survivor, but it was unsure whether he had killed them or had simply been beaten and then left alive with the latter being less likely. After his conviction and the charges of murdering his family were placed on his young shoulders, Syaoran had gone insane. He was twenty-five now, having been only a child when the murders had happened.

Fai had shown her a picture of him and she saw that Syaoran had fang-like scars around his mouth. Syaoran Li had recently escaped from the prison asylum he had been held in. That troubled the police greatly. It was a secret right now that Syaoran was a suspect while the asylum conducted their search for him silently and efficiently. If Syaoran wasn't the killer, then they didn't want the real one knowing he had a doppelganger suitable for framing. After all, they had no proof other than the scars on his mouth.

Sakura splashed her face with cold water and tried to get her emotions back under her control.

Yes, this guy was clearly a crazed and unstable killer who must have enjoyed torturing his victims for how careful and long he tormented them, but he had nothing to do with her. Fai and Kurogane would catch the Fang-Killer and that would be that. Smiling to herself, she turned off the TV and went to put on clean clothes.

She worked as a waitress at the little diner down the street from her apartment: Paradise Falls. There was nothing particularly exciting about working as a waitress. Customers were assholes, fellow waitresses were exhausted and bored, and the boss was a dick who was only capable of thinking with his dick. She thought the name was fitting. Paradise did Fall in the stupid little diner.

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It was so hot outside that the sweat dried on her skin within seconds, only to be replaced by more. She had to hoof it six blocks to the diner in this heat. Grumbling to herself, she shouldered her purse and scraped her short caramel hair off of her neck with a butterfly clip.

No one was about on the street. It was far too hot for any activity whatsoever.

"Hey, Sakura! Wait up!"

Sakura turned to see Tomoyo jogging up behind her, black hair pulled up into a tight bun high on her head. How that girl managed to have any energy whatsoever in this heat was a mystery that Sakura desperately wanted solved.

"Hey, Tomoyo, isn't it a little hot to be running?" Sakura asked.

Tomoyo looked up into the burning bright sky, squinting and shading her eyes with her hand. Then, she wiped her brow with a handkerchief and said, "Yeah I guess so."

Sakura chuckled and held the door open for her friend. Paradise Falls was a crappy little eighties diner with a black and white checkered floor, maraschino-poison-cherry-red booths, old chrome jukebox, and blessed air-conditioning. The air-conditioning kissed Sakura's skin beautifully, chilling the sweat on her skin and making her shiver. Right now, she would have sold her soul to sleep on the grungy floor just to be in the air-conditioning.

Beside her, Tomoyo stretched and yawned. "Another day, another dollar," she said with a smile and bounced off to fetch her apron. Tomoyo only worked at Paradise Falls to supplement the pay she was earning as a nurse. Sakura was a little jealous of Tomoyo's bright future.

"Yay," Sakura said sarcastically and meandered over to her first customer of the night. "Hi, welcome to Paradise Falls. My name is Sakura and I'll be your server tonight. Can I start you off with a drink?"

"I'll have whatever is making those jade eyes of yours so shiny, sugar," the man said and licked his lips.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Sorry, I'm taken," she muttered though it wasn't true. Tomoyo wore a wedding ring just to keep the boys off her.

"I could be twice the man he is," the guy continued, not getting the hint.

Sakura leaned down, allowing his eyes to wander at her cleavage. "Listen up, bub, hit on me one more time and I'll get Arai," she paused to point at the burly man who tended bar every night, "to kick your ass. Got it?"

He glanced from her to Arai and then nodded. Apparently, having it out with the ex-bouncer wasn't worth a little pussy. Sakura smiled cheekily to herself.

Maybe tonight wouldn't be too bad.

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Please read this story and all its updates in its intended content on the new site, Archive of Our Own.

Questions, comments, concerns?