Near

"Does the news station agree to give its full cooperation tomorrow?" He queried, stacking building blocks.

"Yes, sir. They won't interfere no matter what happens. The same goes for the local police station." Rester replied.

"Good. And the decoy?" Near looked up at the larger man.

Rester swallowed. This was the part of the plan that bothered him. He understood it was to catch a criminal, but to endanger someone's life- "She understands what may happen."

Near nodded and grabbed an animal cracker. It was an elephant with a rather deformed looking trunk. He frowned at the likeness of the nose of a proboscis monkey and bit it off. He chewed slowly before popping the rest of it in his mouth.

"Very well then. We will monitor everything from here. Hopefully, everything will go according to plan. There is a ninety percent chance that Inclementia will walk right into our trap."

"And the other ten percent?"

Near took that time to pop several more animal crackers into his mouth. He liked their taste and savored it. Rester waited patiently for his superior.

"He will take his anger out on authors and perhaps even Leroux herself as substitutes for us."

"Great." Halle and Rester both grumbled under their breaths.

Sam

She was still mulling over her paper, the whole page covered with cross outs, added sentences and words when the news station announced that there was going to be a global broadcast about Inclementia. Interested, Sam looked up from her paper and watched.

A young woman was sitting behind a desk, hands folded neatly in front of her. Her auburn hair curled into ringlets and she had amethyst colored eyes. Sam was surprised by the uncanny resemblance between herself and the woman. Then, she looked at the name tag in front of the woman. It said "Saxon Leroux."

Sam's eyes widened as she choked out, "W-what? Is that some kind of a joke? Who the hell is that woman?"

"I am the author Inclementia has been killing authors for. I assure the public, I have nothing to do with him, nor do I condone what he is doing. Inclementia, you obviously have some sort of obsession with me and I do not approve of you killing my fellow writers just because they are better than me. I am happy just to be considered 'one of the world's best', but I don't want to be the only author left because of what you are doing." The woman said, her face relaxed despite the inflaming words she uttered.

Sam's phone began to ring and she picked it up. "Hello?"

"What the heck is going on? Are you watching the news? There's some woman on there-" Tanya was ranting.

"Y-yeah, I know, I'm watching it. Well...now the world knows who Inclementia is obsessed with. I'm really creeped out." Sam replied, looking back at the TV.

"That being said, however, I would like to meet with you, Inclementia. While I am uncertain of how exactly you kill these authors without being in the same room with them, but I trust you will not harm with me. I want you to meet me in LABB on the sixteenth; four days from now. Please send a video response to this news station within two days." The woman declared with finality.

The camera cut and Sam exhaled sharply. Her heart was pounding as she tried to figure out what exactly was going on. It was painstakingly obvious it was Near who was behind this and just that fact was enough to irritate her more than the whole situation did.

"This is really serious. Who do you think set up that woman?" Tanya asked.

"I don't know. But he is so dead when I get my hands on him!" Sam growled.

Inclementia had responded to the video within the day. It disturbed her how eager he seemed to be in the video, immediately agreeing to it, but setting up certain terms. For one thing, he would not approach "Saxon" immediately, but he would be nearby watching until he was certain she was alone. Next, he would check her for wires and taps. Of course, if Near was truly behind this trick, he would find some sort of way around Inclementia's conditions.

The publishing company called Sam and told them that they were postponing her poetry. She was relieved, but now she felt like public enemy number one. Authors continued to die, now at an alarming rate, and everyone was blaming her.

"I wish he would just kill her and then this whole mess would stop!" A talk show host declared.

"You shouldn't wish anyone's death! There is no negotiating with psychotic killers." Another argued.

Sam shut her TV off, bringing her knees up to her chest. She sighed and buried her face in them. Ever since people began to blame her, poetry became easy. It turned out she did need some sort of negativity to really let the angst come out. It was her birthday and Tanya had wished her a happy one, but otherwise didn't come by to see how the poor seventeen year old was holding up.

There was a knock on her door and she warily walked over to it. She looked through the peephole. To her surprise, Near was standing on the other side, a bouquet of roses in his hand. Hissing, she opened the door and dragged him in.

"Bastard, bastard, bastard!" She began to hit him, angrily cursing at him.

He seemed taken aback and pushed her gently away from him, cringing when she hit him in the jaw.

"What did I do?" His words made her freeze.

"What did you...WHAT DID YOU DO? I'll tell you what you did! You let some poor woman impersonate me and now that damned psycho thinks she's me! Now he's expecting to meet the real Saxon! Just what if he finds out she isn't the real one? AND YOU DID ALL THIS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!" She screamed at him.

Near blinked, remaining as passive as usual. "...Are you done?"

"Fuck you!"

He sighed and shot her an irritated glare, "There is no need for such vulgar language. It's not like the decoy doesn't understand the risks. If I had asked for your permission, I knew you would have said no anyway, so I chose to disregard your opinion. 'Better to ask forgiveness than permission.' Besides, the fact is I am that much closer to finding him. Soon, all authors will be safe."

"But now people think that I am in cahoots with this guy! And that I should be killed! I'll be lucky if I don't get fired by the publishing company!" Tears began to sting her eyes as she spoke from frustration, her voice cracking.

Near took a step back. He didn't know how to deal with crying women. He held up the roses. "...Happy birthday. I brought you some roses."

He shoved them into her arms. Momentarily distracted, she buried her nose in the sweet smelling petals of velvet garnet. "T-thank you."

He nodded and looked around her penthouse. "Quite a copacetic apartment you have; very spacious."

"What do you want, Near?"

"You already gave me what I want." He wandered over to her couch, running his hand over a blanket she had thrown over it.

She looked puzzled and he continued, "I came here to interrogate you. I had a small suspicion that either you were Inclementia, or you were in league with him. But, after witnessing him so zealously agree to meet with the fake and seeing your reaction, neither is true. Unless you two are exceptional actors, which I doubt."

"Oh..." She looked down and set her roses down. She realized some of them were crushed from her hitting him earlier.

"I need to go." He turned and grabbed the door knob, but paused. Without turning around, he said, "Keep safe, Sam."

She rubbed her eyes and looked at her roses. Numbly, she went to get a vase, filled it with water, and placed the flowers in it. She went upstairs and crawled under the covers. She stared up at her ceiling, the unfamiliar heavy sensation on her eyelids appearing.

"Well, Near, I hope you know what you're getting yourself into. I sure as hell can't figure out what's going on in your head." She said aloud.

She fisted her quilt, suddenly longing for something to pet. "When this is all over, I'm making that bastard buy me a kitten."

She laid like that for hours, sleep ignoring her and words evading her.

Near

He didn't understand himself anymore. Why did he insist on endangering not only himself, but her, by going out and visiting her at her apartment? He liked the apartment. She still had some luxuries, but kept it practical. He appreciated practical.

He had refused a car; an unusual thing for him to do. He hated walking, or moving for that matter, but he was trying to get himself to be more independent. He was twenty and still needed someone to book a flight for him. He felt pathetic. Besides, walking gave him a better chance to observe normal human beings in their habitat. It never ceased to amaze him how truly self-centered humans were, only concerned with their problems. He was no different, but after seeing average people acting like that, it disgusted him. Part of him wondered if being self-centered made people happy. For that matter, he wondered if ignorance truly was bliss. He was starting to consider developing a theory about the correlation between intelligence and happiness. He was certain there was a connection there.

Maybe after this case, he thought. Near arrived back at his headquarters, oddly out of breath, though he had only walked several blocks. Rester was staring at one of the monitors, turning his head slightly to acknowledge he had hear Near come in.

"I trust Halle is with our decoy going over the plan?" He asked.

Rester nodded and hesitated for a moment before inquiring, "Sir, just how exactly is our decoy going to be able to tell it's Inclementia before he approaches her?"

Near smirked, a disturbing, almost frightening, expression on his face. He had been hoping Rester would ask him that.

"I had her touch a piece of the Shinigami's notebook from the Kira case."