Ruthless Obsession

Chapter 1— Dull Burns My small studio apartment was flooded with the first light of dawn as I climbed out of my uncomfortably dark and dreamless sleep. I hadn’t had a real dream in so long, it felt like a lifetime, and I had almost forgotten what it was like to dream. I certainly remembered what it was like to not dream. And I was really good at not dreaming. It was my go-to at the moment. Illusions were what dreams were, held by people who had no real grasp on what reality was. Life didn't have to be lived behind these veils of nonsense, with all the fighting and the scrabbling to survive and the pretending and the false hope. Why not just give it up and join the real world where society has what it takes to be a society? I despised the very idea. Dreams? I mocked. People like me were not allowed to entertain that notion. It was too far removed from our reality. I sighed and got ready for the remainder of my day. Which included working in a rundown bar a fifteen minute walk from my almost shabby apartment. As soon as I opened the back door of the bar, the odor of old beer and low-grade whiskey met me. The bar wasn't as upscale as the ones you'd see in the movies, but it was what I expected. And right now, what I needed most was expectation. I needed to know for certain how everything could and would unfold, and this place served that particular purpose. For five years, I had been working at Joe's Tavern, minding my business and keeping my answers to prying customers and co-workers and short and uninformative. Joe, the owner, had never asked me much about my past. And he had never seemed to care much about it. As long as I showed up on time, served his drinks without fumbling, and kept the regulars happy, he was fine with me being the way I was. I cherished the mornings. They were the only times I couldn't hear the ruckus that was soon to come, couldn't hear the impending chaos of loud, drunken laughter. Mornings were when I had peace, the kind of silence that always seemed to fill the spaces just before the madness began. And drunken madness had a way of escalating, sometimes ending with a few people not being able to walk straight and ending up in the emergency room instead of their homes. I switched on the bar's circuit breakers, and the flickering fluorescent lights blinked to life, illuminating the once-hip, now-dingy dive I called a workplace. Joe was not ever going to renovate the place, not with the way he counted every penny and added up all the cents in between. It wasn't that Joe wasn't a nice guy, he just wasn't a nice guy in any way that counted. Grabbing a rag, I wiped down the counters, my hands moving on autopilot. The bar didn’t open until noon, but this ritual helped me settle my nerves. Mornings were quiet, predictable, and just long enough to remind me that the day could still go downhill. It gave me time to remember who I was now: Lila Hayes, a girl who knew how to make a mean whiskey sour and didn’t raise questions. I stocked the shelves with bottles, arranging them so they looked untouched, like everything in my life had been pristine, unbroken. The irony wasn’t lost on me. My past wasn’t something you could shelve neatly. It clung to me, you could sniff it out if you had the eye, the kind of scent that made you glance over your shoulder even when there was no one there. Drew, one of my co-workers had his quirks, but he never pried into my life or my choices. I liked that about him. In return, I kept my head down and my hands busy. He didn’t need to know about the mistakes I’d made, the fake names I’d used, or the trail of burned bridges I’d left behind me. He would only get into trouble. Besides, there was that stupid code of silence. And I was no snitch. I wiped a smudge off a bottle of rum and placed it back on the shelf. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, filling the silence with a low hum. Outside, the city stirred, muffled sounds of tires on wet pavement and distant chatter creeping through the cracks in the walls. But inside, it was still just me and the rhythm of my own thoughts. I didn’t expect much from the day ahead. That was the point of this place. No surprises, no big plans, just the comfort of knowing exactly how things would unfold. The bar would soon fill with noise, laughter, and drunken confessions that no one remembered the next day. I’d smile when I had to, pour drinks for people who were way past their limit, and keep my past locked away where it belonged. For now, though, I had the quiet. And I clung to it like it was all I had left. Suddenly the doorbell jingled, breaking the stillness. I turned, expecting to see Joe or the delivery guy with this week’s beer order. Instead, a man walked in, his trucker’s hat low over his face and a leather jacket hanging off his broad shoulders. He looked rough around the edges, the kind of guy who spent more time in places like this than anywhere respectable. “Hey,” I called out, masking my unease with a forced smile. “We’re not open yet.” “Didn’t come for a drink,” he said, his voice gravelly. His boots thudded against the worn floor as he walked toward the bar, each step unhurried. Something about him felt wrong. Too deliberate. Too precise. Too purposeful. Too dangerous. Too close to me. “Look, if you’re here for Joe, he’s not in yet. Try back later,” I said, keeping my tone steady. He didn’t stop. Instinctively, my hand reached under the bar, fumbling for the baseball bat Joe kept there. My fingers brushed the wood, but before I could grab it, I felt the cold, unmistakable press of a gun against my temple. “If you make a sound,” the man said, his voice low and venomous, “I’ll blast your head off.”