Dawson Henry

Present Day

He could curse his wretched sleep, curse it up and down the halls. Nightmares billowed out of him like a steamboat engine hurdling itself into a war. The pristine walls of the conference room turned into that blasted soulless gray walls of the prison almost immediately.

Seeing himself again as a child furling his fists to tug his mother's ash black dress to go out of this horrid place. And with that the dream fell into full swing.

Dawson saw the glass between him and his mother from his father.

His father didn't look like himself anymore. His tawny skin darkened in soot and bruises. His hair not combed or washed, dampened in grease and at least two inches longer making it fall down to nose-level. He didn't look like the man he'd respected all his life.

He looked like an animal.

Dawson had furled his hands closer into his mother's dress pleading with her to go.

She cried out in excruciating pain as she scolded him. "Your father killed your brother Dawson, you must see this. He must see what he's done to us before he goes back to Hell where he belongs." She sounded like a serpent hissing at him to inflict anguish.

Dawson let go of her dress and the executioner bellowed it would be his last minute.

He let his hands instinctively rub at his eyes to scrape the image of his father waiting away. But in the exact moment the poison entered his veins and he'd died, his mother shook away his hands to hold hers. And that's when Dawson saw him.

Foaming at the mouth, charcoal eyes catatonically glazed. But instead of looking peaceful like he'd imagined it to be (not that he could imagine it too much without getting scared) his father looked devoid of himself.

Next thing he knew he was dragged by his heels out of the room.

He was told later he'd never stopped crying and that a neighbor had taken him in for the night to give his poor dear mother some rest and silence but he could neither remember nor care.

Things happened so fast after that, the funeral, the wake, it was almost as if only his evil body had died and the good spirit of all he'd ever done had lived on. Although people had a hard time hearing all the good he'd done because of what had happened.

Even Grams, his mother, Dawson's grandmother, she sighed and gave a eulogy.

"He was all but my son..my only son, all I ever had. To see him go burns the life out of me it does. But I know as we all did that meeting his maker will do 'em some good. He wasn't my good Catholic son towards the end...he was an amazing man nonetheless, bless his heart."

At that "heart" syllable of her eulogy however he heard a thud. Waking with a start he saw Darls, Thomas and Wayne on standby waiting for him to gain complete competency before they shuddered a look of contempt at him for sleeping during the meeting.

Dawson straightened up, puffed out his chest in a quiet apologetic exhale. "Sorry guys."

Wayne continued. "I said...Roan Dawes' heart is captivated by this woman." He pointed to a woman in a photo with expressive jade eyes and raven spun hair.

Darls chuckled churlishly. "So our mission is to lead her back to the magazine catalog she fell off of. Grayson, taking that break has totally cracked you. Giving us missions that are this easy," she snorted again.

Dawson was tempted to laugh at her calling him Grayson. They nicknamed him "Wayne" after Bruce Wayne because he was rich and had a vigilante-like bone to pick with the rich and powerful doing whatever they damned well please.

Wayne rolled his eyes and continued.
"Daisy Halstead is the name she gave to Roan, but alike to her appearance, her name is likely a fake trying to use the politician for something evil. And so you are aware this group wears many hats, our plan is to kill her before she does anything to Roan."

Darls lit a heavy grin. "Ooooo let me do it, I've always wanted to kill a Raven haired Barbie."

Wayne's jaw ticked for a moment but then with conviction he slid a pistol down to Dawson.

"Why in the bloody Hell would you give that to me, Grayson?" He demanded in a weary tone.

Wayne faced him with his broad heavy shoulders and set hardened cobalt eyes. He pulled up his sleeves trying to convince Dawson. But he said nothing as he walked over to look him square in the eyes and loading the gun before him with live bullets, this wasn't up for argument.

"Kill this woman, the consort," Wayne threw the file and the woman's face down at his feet. "I don't care what you have to do, but it has to be done. This woman can't walk this earth laying in wait to control Roan and puppet him around. Cut the strings and the hands holding them."

Dawson nodded and knew what he would have to do. This was the test to stay in the group. All the others here have shredded a soul with a bullet, a knife or the brittle bone sinking poison that Darls specialized in. But just as he took in the order he was reminded of being an executioner.

Sure he hadn't killed a man, but he punished them. Inserted the heat-seeking needle.

Watched with a blank stare as those families looked exactly like him as a kid as he killed their mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters and sometimes friends.

But none of that was as personal as a bullet, even from far away he knew it caused suffering.

Though he knew inside of him there was a reason he became a clerk.

He was sick to his stomach of being told to kill innocent men and women.

All of these cases, the men and women were guilty, they knew it to the core and trusted Wayne enough to bring them truly inadmissible damned people to get out of the way so history can proceed how it ought to.

And that's why entering a courthouse with a gun to kill the consort was right.

This "Daisy" woman, with the name of a flower was corrupt, in some way or another she had shown her cards to Phillip "Wayne" Grayson and he found them to be unfortunate and evil wielding. Sort of like the burn of a glass scotch or a viper tongue of a venomous snake.

An inherent evil nature was what they were killing... what he was killing.

Dawson gulped and an acidic ring of fire burned at his throat in nerves. He assembled his weapon piece by piece and walked to the balcony of the courthouse. An air of justice cradled his shaky legs as he went to where the woman was sitting with her hands laid calmly on her legs.

He wore special glasses that transmitted what he was seeing and hearing to the other clerks.

Dawson took a deep breath in and Thomas exclaimed a muffled,  "well get on with it, I want to get to the kabooms if Lone Ranger has no balls to kill Barbie."

He immediately heard Darls kick Thomas in the balls and mutter over the coms, "who's the ball-less wonder now, huh?"

Dawson sighed and thanked Darls she replied, "Goodluck Henry and remember to put the moves on her so she'll follow you back to the bathroom. We will be waiting to dispose of her there."

"Will do," Dawson replied slowly as he sat down in the seat next to Daisy.

Okay now flirt with this possible murderer! He demanded himself to play it cool but unfortunately his version of tiptoe into flirting with a possible murderer was thundering about and pointing a gun straight at her without a formal introduction.

Daisy, who had been smiling at his slight entrance, now gave him not a fearful look but a quizzical one. "So this is your version of let's get the hell out of here, huh?" She asked sarcastically. Dawson pointed his gun more insistently at her now.

The both rose from the squeaky courthouse chairs and left their balcony side-seat to justice-making.

Now taking in the full figure of her, she was as pretty as the photos made her out to be. Her eyes even more expressively jade in person and her hair even more carefully spun in an unhelpful tonic of beauty he was trapped in. Dawson unconsciously held his breath when he saw her.

So, breathlessly he led her to the bathroom.

Her expression still had a questionable look but fear was nowhere near the root of her. He checked all the empty stalls and then locked the door. Adding a silencer to his weapon now he finally saw the double vision of himself and her in the bathroom room.

This courthouse bathroom was fanciful, a clatter of black and white tiles leapt up the walls and the echo of her laughter to his movements to kill her seared an anger and frustration he didn't think he was capable of until he had met her.

Once they had stood face-to-face with each other the consort churled a grin over her reckless visage.

"Look I'm feeling generous today, and you're cute if not a tad lost and lacking in the courage department. Let us skip the niceties and just throw your misguided bullets my way already."

Her impatience and callousness ran over him like a jagged wave. He gulped, pointed and pulled the trigger, hearing the bang from the base of his skull to the bottom of his pithless soul.

Dawson gave himself another soured breath as he mumbled to Thomas, "Alright Collin's, showtime." The end of that sentence sharpened on his tight jaw.

He heard Thomas holler at him, "well done, we'll let the explosives clean Barbie up for good."

Dawson heard a tear though and his eyes flew open to chain the vision of the consort still alive to his blasted brain.

The consort just tore her dress to make the bullet hole look like it was meant to be there. Dawson shuddered. "I shot a hole through your heart."

Her expressive jade eyes matched his confusion with a smirk. "Yes, you men are very original."

"But...you should be dead?" He stuttered out again,

She crossed her arms. "You act like me being alive has offended you. May I remind you that you were the one who tried to murder me? Shouldn't I be the one with more questions?"

"Yes...but..." His thought lingered in the thick air.

Daisy closed the distance between them. " All I want to know is why you wanted to kill me before I kill you in return."

"You can't..." Daisy suddenly had a gun pressed to his heart and he felt the weight of her smoldering eyes crush him into oblivion.

Before either of them could judge the implications of his gun being now pointed at his cowardice physique, a low rumble and screams erupted from outside.

Dawson's face flushed red. "Oh no, Collin's."

The building began crumbling around them. Daisy, finally not in the upper hand of the situation, looked to Dawson and aimed the gun sharper at him.

Something sparked in Dawson though. He threw the gun aside as if it were impertinent altogether. The bathroom walls and ceiling creaked as if they were going to come down in cluttered chunks.

"Collin's and his love of the Missouri Compromise." Dawson exclaimed with a shake of his head.

"What the hell does that mean?" Daisy barked out.

Dawson gritted his teeth and stiffened as he replied to Raven Barbie. "It means nothing will be left of this place and only I know the escape route."

Dawson quickly threaded his fingers through Daisy's and pulled her along with him to the white van where Darls and Collin's were..

The building bellowed destruction, yells and shouts flooded through the hallways. Dawson's loafers squeaked as he pulled Daisy along as if she were a red toy wagon he was racing down the sidewalk with.

Electrical wires smashed down and sparks glimmered by them as they narrowly escaped a torrent of red fire that Collin's constructed ingeniously.

Dawson had to admit Collin's was a wizard at making things blow to smithereens but it wasn't exactly helping him right now as he was narrowly tracing the escape route he'd memorized only moments before this.

Finally, Dawson dove through the air conditioning grate, pulling Daisy along every step of the way.

The sun smirked and stabbed a ray of brilliance through the turquoise melted clouds.

Soot chased the darkest lines around Daisy's emerald eyes. Dawson focused on them a beat too long as he finally unthreaded their fingers.

Confusion and danger sparkled on her features as Dawson's heart thrummed again for a moment longer than necessary.

Then, Darls yanked the side of the white van open and anger rolled off her shoulders and heart-shaped lips. "So you fucking save Barbie, Dawson?"

Dawson's brows furrowed as he finally put together the sequence of what had happened in his mind together. Like mismatched tiles, his actions made a beautiful pattern in his mind but a disaster in Darls.

He gulped and put additional distance between himself and the girl he reminded himself was just a mission. A thing to kill. He looked back to Daisy almost shell-shocked he had saved her.

Gritting his teeth, Dawson finally defended himself. "Wayne didn't exactly tell us everything about Barbie."

Collin's came out with his "boom goggles" on and his leather jacket of remote controllers. "Why aren't we on our way back to milkshakes and the standard Wayne debrief of 'what happened here had to happen here'"

Darls gave Collin's a forceful shove and Collin's stiffened. Collin's nose crinkled in anger and Dawson's shoulders sagged to the floor. They were right how the fuck could he explain keeping the mission around.

Stuttering Dawson began, "Well I—I"

Daisy cut him off with a glint of mischief dotting her expression at what she viewed as an opportunity.

"Look I will make you all a deal, you tell me who you are and why you were sent to kill me and I'll kill you in a merciful way," Dawson's gun from earlier laid squarely against his cheek.

Darls immediately performed her signature move at this. Pulling out a poison dart syringe from her pocket like it was a quiver and flicking it towards her in a swift motion with her middle finger the only thing left raised in the sky.

Daisy rolled her eyes and ripped the position dart out of her arm. "Well, your boss is right, he didn't tell you everything. I'm betting he didn't tell you I am immortal. So that means you hardly know anything about me...but that also means what your boss does know he was willing to kill me for."

Darls jaw dropped to the floor and Dawson's eyes flickered an air of mystique and entrancement.

The cold metal pressed closer to his skull but this time Dawson leaned into the steel.

"Dawes," Collin's explained, trying to dissuade crazy girl from slaying his best friend in front of him, "they told us you were going to poison him."

Daisy scoffed. "And that's so wrong? Roan Dawes is trafficking nazis into the United States under the guise that they're former diplomats... but sure poisoning a guy who does that is a bit crazy considering you nice fellows are handy with poison and bullets too."

A bead of silence drew out between them all.

Daisy crossed her arms. "In case you missed that, that was your own twisted hypocrisy slapped in your face, now that you guys are barely even a threat to me, really this is pathetic, I must be off. This is a waste of both of our times."

She twisted the gun away from Dawson's cheek and threw it down towards him like it was a rubber ducky hitting the bathtub with a bounce.

Darla looked at Dawson with insistent eyes as Daisy began to storm off. She said everything to Dawson with that look. You can't fuck this up Dawson, too much is on line after everything happened between you and Wayne.

The thought rattled his mind in mere seconds throwing his bones into a half baked plan that would likely end in full-blown misery.

Still, Dawson hitched his stride to meet Daisy's aimless jolt away from the Clerks and he grabbed her hand pulling her body towards him until they were chest to chest.

With no mercy Dawson kissed her, effectively stopping the consort in her tracks. Her arms reached up to tug his body even closer and he lingered there with her on the edge of knowing what a mistake this was.

The jade eyes that had captivated him before turned ashen realizing what she was doing finally. Daisy pulled away first letting her gaze waiver on him as a breath of sarcasm slipped under the weight of her impending words to his actions.

"I...didn't... think..." Daisy began.

Her hands were still wound at his waist and it looked like she was afraid to let them go to consider his motives for kissing her.

In a flash, however, the tightening sound of handcuffs gripped at all of their ears as Dawson tightened them around her petite hands.