The Little Black Book

One night. One night of standing guard over a little black notebook. 8 hours for 20,000 credits. Garen would be a fool to have turned it down, and of course, he was suspicious, but they had paid upfront and in full. Really, he had nothing to complain about with his bank account several digits higher. This was by far the easiest bounty he had been hired for, but for the life of him, he could not fathom why anyone would pay a high-profile hunter like himself for a teeny tiny book.

'Maybe it is a copy of the Trade Federation's tax records,' he joked to himself, 'certainly small enough for it.'

He smiled absently as he stood at attention in front of the far too large glass display case that held the small notebook. His orders had been simple: get to the warehouse at 22:00 standard, make sure nothing touches it, and at 06:00 standard a man by the name of Tyro would relieve him of his duties. Simple really.

The entire thing was sketchy from the warehouse to his hires, but he had worked for worse and for less so his concerns lay with the bed he would happily meet in 7 hours 15 minutes and 39 seconds. ..38 ..37..36. But now was the time for focus, not daydreams of far off sleep. He needed to maintain focus. But even as he thought it, his mind continued to drift. How was his sister? Was she well? The man who had spoken to him earlier had an earring, such a bad fashion choice honestly. Who let him do that? Did his friends really not care enough to tell him it looked bad, he almost felt sorry for him. And just what was in that book? He stole one more glance before forcing his head forward and straightening his spine. Focus.

He probably should have assumed something was going to go wrong. But after 5 hours 36 minutes and 25 seconds 26..27..28….., it was getting hard to stay alert. So it was much more of a surprise than it would have been when a shadow pulled itself from the wall and started stalking towards him, not that corporal shadows are terribly common but that is beside the point.

"Are you Tyro?" He shifted uncomfortably, as the silhouette stopped a short 10 feet away. It didn't respond, and Garen began to speculate that his constant sleep deprivation was catching up to him when the urge to grab the book overtook his senses. Turning his back on the figure, Garen rushed to the case and started pending on the glass, desperately hoping for it to break. Grasping his rifle, he showered the case in several rounds. To his absolute delight, the glass shattered. The desire to hold the book, to open it, to read it sharp and to a painful need. He scrabbled in what was left of the stand, rushing to get the book in his hands completely disregarding the glass now stuck in his palms dripping blood.

Oh the relief to hold the only thing that now mattered to him in his shaking hands. When as soon as it came the need left him, gasping from the pain and reeling as he realized what he had done. He turned and paled at the manic grin that spread far too wide over the shadowy visage.

"Shit." The curse falling unbidden from his lips.

The world spun and the floor came up to meet him. His last view being two shadowed feet, and a cold dark hand coming up to caress his face.