“Ten, nine, eight...”
The laser was pointing at the man’s upper back. He didn’t notice it at all, and was still sitting at his coffee table on the balcony and casually eating his breakfast like anybody else would do on a warm Sunday morning. 
  My index finger lay on the trigger. The humming noise in my head was giving me a headache. The word ”bee” suddenly flew into my head. I remembered going to a beekeeping festival in town with him when I was little. There, I learned all these amazing facts about how bees work together as a group to collect pollen in order to build their hives and reproduce.
“Ha, look at those ignorant bees. They are working so hard for nothing! ” the man had laughed.
“But they can eat honey! I wish I would eat honey all day like the bees,” I had argued. 
“Oh, don’t be silly, their hives will be taken away after they’re made; the bees couldn’t get anything out of it,” he’d said. “I expect you to be the beekeeper, George. Not the bee, but the person who manipulates the bees in order to let them work for him.”
“Seven, six, five...”
I wiped my hands on my pants for the eighth time. It was really hot on this rooftop, I thought. The sun right above my head made me feel dizzy. To my left, a giant glass window on the ABC News Headquarters kept reflecting sunlight into my eyes; my vision became blurry…
Then, he walked into my sight again. This time he was on the phone, furiously arguing with someone. I laughed so hard in my heart, feeling the joy of revenge after all these years of torture and pain. He must had found out by now how I had tricked him into believing that I could take care of his money laundering company -- and later transferred all his money away. The old man should have anticipated this day when he first brought me home, put a gun in my hand, and took me to that stupid beekeeping festival the next day.
“Four...”
I wondered what would have happened to me if he hadn’t taken me home on that cold, winter night; maybe I would have frozen to death in my dream and then have become the street dogs’ supper. He had been my only hope, my life saver, but he was also the devil who had pushed me into hell. “You are born to be an assassin,” he had told me, and his words defined my future.
“Three...”
My attention was dragged back to the rooftop after he had kicked over the coffee table with his left foot, his back still facing me. “Turn around…” I murmured, “Your hideous face is the only thing that can make me happy right now.” I was surprised when I heard this voice coming out of my throat -- this deep, hoarse voice that created long echos in my hollow head.
“Two…”
It was that humming noise again. It started out from a far distance, then slowly traveled near my ears. I became the beekeeper, as you had told me to. You must be so proud of me now.
“One.”
One second before I pulled the trigger, he finally turned around. Yet it was a total stranger. The old man knew! He had known it since the beginning! The whole thing was a trap! Shocked and horrified, I started packing up as fast as I could. He must had started tracking me down, so I had to get out of this place as soon as possible.
Then I felt a cold metal gun barrel pointed against the back of my neck, and from the moment it touched my skin I knew it was a Desert Eagle .50, his favorite handgun. Slowly turning around, I saw the old man looking at me in disgust. I had never given such a close look at his gun barrel before because he carried it with him even when he was asleep. Yet this time I noticed there were engravings of little bumble bee both inside and outside the barrel. It was a hive! I laughed. This time I laughed out loud, hysterically. After all these years of planning and pretending, I was still one of the bees in his beekeeping factory!
“Zero.”
All of a sudden I widened my eyes -- the metal bees on the barrel all flew into my skin. Looking down, I saw those tiny creatures crawling in and out of a bloody hole in my chest. Was it sweetness that I was tasting right now? Yet why did it taste so different than what I had been imagining…
“You don’t even deserve to be my little bee,” he said, gazing down at me, “You are my hive, and now your time is up.”