Amanda hated this part….She fucking hated it,

Not only was she about to have to drug a man and, somehow, as inconspicuously as possible, move his unconscious body out of the apartment whenever he returned…...not that she actually believed anyone would really so much as bat an eye at the sight of anyone dragging an unconscious body out of a place like this, given the area it was in, but she was about to have to pull that off with someone who was starting to feel…...different from any of the other poor, pathetic souls that John had requested her to do this for.

Someone who, were it not for him completely fumbling what was most likely his one and only shot at attempting to flirt with her, was someone she just might've been able to connect with somehow…..maybe even humored for a concert or two,

Instead, on John's orders….whose word she would never actually question under any circumstances, he was just a guy who who was about to get injected...in the middle of the night….in his own home….and have the rest of his life changed forever.

Little did he know, when he had made the unfortunate decision to try and pick up on the cool, rockstar lookin chick he saw in the staircase that day.

—

She stood in place, in the now empty hallway, as she tried to shake the feeling.

"Pull yourself together, Amanda. It's just another job." She muttered to herself with a sigh.

—

She took another moment to collect herself and let out another sigh, as she adjusted the strap, to the bag she was carrying, more comfortably over her shoulder and began trudging her way down the long hallway until she found that poor, ill fated apartment number, and reached a hand in her pocket for some small tools she'd brought along with her, in order to help her pick the lock and get inside.

Bringing very little to no shock to her, given the clearly shitty, rundown state of the place, it wasn't long before she heard the lock click out of place, allowing her to easily let herself in and shut the door behind her.

She then turned a nearby light on and decided to explore, or rather, scope out, the place, as she'd justified to herself, to bide the rest of her time here, and also to figure out where she'd be hiding later and where she'd need to cut off his electricity at.

—
She couldn't believe it was possible, but the inside of the place was even shittier looking than the rest of the building generally looked.

Upon looking around some more, she could see that there was some clutter scattered around the floor and that most of the walls….that were even more worse for wear, were covered by posters that had also looked like they'd seen better days, some of various bands, others were protest posters.

—

—

The next room she came across was one that, upon entering it, was dimly lit by red light, and was surrounded by walls that were even more covered in photos he'd taken.

Photos he'd taken for himself, mostly concert shots and the occasional stray dog and cat, with considerable focus on one specific dog….a scruffy looking little thing, with tan fur that looked rough and somewhat dirty.

"Maybe a friend or relative's dog." She thought to herself.

Upon first glance at the place, she didn't recall seeing any pet bowls or leashes, nothing that would indicate that he had any pet of his own, nor had she ever spotted him walking with one on any of the other times she'd been keeping an eye on him.

She shrugged and continued nosing through some more shots, til she looked up and noticed that the ones that were hanging up right in front of her were of another man, who she was all too familiar with.

They were of the man called, Dr. Lawrence Gordon, who, if all was going well, was also currently being taken care of and brought to, what would become, John's latest game.

She couldn't help but notice how many more there were of him than most of his other clients or subjects.

Hell, some of these weren't even near any of the motels he was being paid to follow him around to.

"What do you see in him?" She whispered to herself about them, smirking a little at the implication.

—
Around that same area, she spotted a cheap little stereo that had a CD player….which had also seen better days, that she imagined he probably listened to, whenever he was in here working with his photos.

"What are you listening to, Rockstar?" She chuckled softly to herself, as she popped the CD compartment open, to see for herself, finding a Nirvana disc inside it when she did.

"Not bad." She thought to herself.

After a bit more nosing around, she let herself out of the small room, shutting the door behind her, as she left to check out the rest of the place.

Quite a few hours went by before she figured he would be home, according to the general schedule of his that she had previously observed.

Upon realizing such, she returned to where she had set down her bag and brought it into a closet she had decided on, in order to change into the robe and pig mask she would be disguising herself with.

—

—

It wasn't long after that, that, almost perfectly on cue, she heard the front door opening and shutting, signaling Adam's return, which was followed by some muttering to himself about how he must've forgotten to turn the lights off when he left.

Oops….

The next sound she heard was that of more distant footsteps, but not the sound of anymore doors opening or shutting, which indicated to her that he was probably stepping into the kitchen for something, followed by the sound of a woman's voice being played from an answering machine.

The woman, from what she could make of it from the other room, referred to herself as Mom and was letting him know that his father isn't mad anymore and that they just want to hear from him.

"Well, on the upside, I guess it won't come off as particularly concerning when he doesn't get back to them."

—-
He spent some more time in the kitchen, to Amanda's assumption, before she heard him open and shut another door…...likely the one to his little photo room.

She hoped to herself that she hadn't left anything too noticeably out of place in there, if at all, while she was in there. At least, nothing that would stand out to him as particular evidence that someone besides himself had been in there recently.

—

—

Meanwhile, inside said photo room, Adam had his headphones on and was listening to one of his rock playlists on shuffle, while he developed the photos he'd taken earlier that day.

He was humming along to Lithium by Nirvana, as he hung up at least a handful of more photos of Lawrence, just before sifting through the rest of them...a little smile creeping across his face when he got to the picture he'd taken of Amanda, out on the staircase. He thought briefly of offering her a copy of it, if he saw her again, and scribbled out a note of it on a nearby post-it.

—

—

He would spend another couple of hours with his prints, before eventually deciding to kick back for a while and take a break from it….and inadvertently fall asleep in there while doing so, allowing Amanda to have more freedom about the apartment, so she could set up an extra little…...surprise, which, in turn, would also serve as a good enough distraction to direct his focus on when everything went down and his guard was up.

When he eventually woke up, about a couple hours later, he was awakening into almost complete and total darkness, as there didn't appear to be any power throughout his apartment, something that had become evident to him when he eventually reached over to try and turn on a light.

Freaked out by the realization, and the sound of a nearby door opening, when Amanda snuck out of it.

He picked up a nearby flashlight, attempting to turn it on so that he could see through the pitch darkness...to no avail.

"Great." He muttered, scrambling for the next best source of light, eventually picking his camera back up.

He wasn't exactly thrilled about the film he was inevitably gonna waste, using the flash frequently enough to use as a light, but it was better than nothing.

—
He creaked the door open and began calling out, through the apartment.

"Is someone there?!" He snapped a picture, to see. "...I can hear you…"

As he ventured further away from the room, snapping more shots for light, as he went, he picked up the baseball bat he kept nearby, and continued yelling out to his intruder.

"Who is that?! Who's in there?!" He panicked.

….the kind of panic that, while Amanda was obviously used to and practically numb to, by now, just wasn't sitting with her the way it normally would.

Something about hearing the fear in his voice, was becoming increasingly unnerving to her, even making her sick.

It didn't matter to her at this point what Adam had done, or how important he was to the game that was being set up for Lawrence.

Adam didn't deserve this.

But rules are rules.

—

She sighed to herself, as she prepared the syringe anyway, listening as he continued to shout empty threats into the darkness.

"I'll kill you, you motherfucker!"

The last threat was followed by the eery, inhuman laughter that was now echoing throughout the place, coming from the puppet she had set up, also under the instructions given to her by John.

As planned, the distraction was just enough to keep Adam from noticing as she snuck up behind him, grabbing him, as she injected him with the syringe's contents and held onto him until he finally passed out, after which, she was finally able to remove the mask.

"I'm sorry…" She whispered to his, now, unconscious body. "I'm so sorry."