Friendly Fire

CHAPTER 2 : PRESTON

Preston sat in the dark waiting for his assignment to arrive. it could have been easier to just deal with the pest back at the bar, but he had a few words to exchange with the creep, and knowing he would come back to his home, made it easy to capture and deal with the filthy human specimen. He had been following the creeper who liked preying on s*x workers, luring them to his car, and attacking them in the name of "cleansing the city". it was time to cleanse him. Upon hearing the car dive up he positioned himself behind the door. of course, he had removed all lightbulbs on the living room floor so when Mr. creepy the cleanse turned on the lights, there was nothing but darkness. it took seconds to subdue him and render him unconscious so he could tie him up and cleanse the world of his existence. Two hours later, he had plastered the wall with police reports and medical notes of all victims that the creep had assaulted and called the police as he fled the scene. it wasn't a pretty scene but he did what had to be done.

Preston went back to his hideout, a dingy motel that had both the E & L neon sign off so it was just an MOT. Going through his emails and messages after he had ridden himself of filth, he found out a new assignment. He did his usual background searches to confirm his hits but, nothing came up. He reached out to other sources but still got nothing. all he could find about his target was a current address, a state away. This was not going to be possible with the limited number of days. Reaching out to the client to discuss the terms was rather unsuccessful. There was too much going on, the time limit was one, and the target was another. He was either good at hiding his identity or this was a shady hit-job. There was only one way to handle the situation, follow his target.

Two days later, Pres was looking out his window as he drove past a woman who seemed done with the airport as he was. There was nothing fun about traveling in the middle of a hot day. Once again, looking through the rearview mirror, he spotted the woman draping her bag over her shoulders and putting on her sunglasses. He couldn't help but admire her form and how her sweatpants fitted her waist perfectly revealing just a peek of what seemed like wings tattooed on her hip bone - “beep! beep!”, a loud honking brought him back to his senses as he realized he had slowed down to stare at the woman. There was something about her that felt familiar, he was not sure what drew him to her. Preston finally arrived at his apartment parking lot and took the elevator up to his room which he had booked on the plane and was lucky enough to get one just across the building where he would be watching his current target from. Unlocking his door, he sighed in relief as the cool air hit him. With a smile on his face, he headed straight for the refrigerator, opened the top compartment, and pulled out his favorite tub of ice cream, passion & mint-choco. He continued undressing all the way to his bedroom and threw himself on the bed, his fluffy bed. He turned on his bedroom projector and continued his True Crime Series. This was how he loved to spend his evenings. Always said he had late-night meetings whenever he was invited to drinks by his peers. They always took it as some s****l innuendo or whatever it was their perverted minds conjured. He had no luck in dating, “funny. I am Bi but still single. I guess am Bi-myself” he laughed out in disbelief at his bad joke. At thirty-two, he was not really lucky in finding a partner. He did have his random hookups with people he found on these dating apps. He never brought any of them to his place of course. Half of the time he was staying in hotels or wherever his job required him to be. He kept his life as private as he could, after all, he was a hit-man, assassin, or the take-out guy. Whatever kids called it nowadays. His line of work revolved around taking out his client’s competitors, doing some “top secret, “we -never- had- this – conversation” kind of contracts for the government, or basically doing the world a favor by eradicating the pests that are criminals.

It was already hard for him to keep a low profile anywhere given his stature as a 6’4'' man, he was always noticeable and unforgettable. He had gotten an assignment that had him asking questions which his client did not seem too keen to answer. It was not every day he got the kind of hits that made him question himself. Often, his targets deserved what they got. But his latest target was not as easy to read. The target did not “meet the conditions'' he always mentally checked before pulling the trigger or whatever means he chose. What got him concerned was the constant nagging from his client that he had to do the job before it was too late. It was starting to get really suspicious and so he canceled the contract. Knowing it was a dangerous move, he also went off-grid. if it was a regular job, one could say he took a leave of absence and decided to dig up as much as he could so that if he or another person had to do the job, at least his conscience would be clear.“I gotta know what I almost got myself into”, he kept telling himself as he dug up more information on his ex-target. He had a gut feeling he would be in for a surprise.