Chapter 2: The Hit before the "Hit"

Trent sat on his porch enjoying the warm summer weather as he waited for his ride to arrive. He lived close to the middle of nowhere, with three houses down the road and then woods for miles but it suited Trent, it was peaceful, quiet and barely anyone came by to annoy him. One of his neighbors are an older couple, they rarely left the house so he knew nothing about them but he seen them once before, after coming home from "work". The other neighbor is a young female who goes by the name of Chasity, Trent and her aren't close but they're acquaintances and she once told him she worked at the local hospital as a doctor. He thought he should keep her somewhat close just in case he ever got hurt and needed immediate medical assistance, off record of course. Lastly, but not least, his neighbor Dwayne who lived furthest from him. Dwayne and Trent had problems before which led to a heated fist-fight between the two which, of course, Trent easily won, so needless to say they basically hated each other. Whenever Trent got an assignment he would always hope Dwayne's name and face would show up in the folder, but he was never that lucky.

Trent got lost in a daydream which quickly got interrupted by a "Honk!" followed by screaming, "Aye! This is no time to ponder about whether or not to whack your shit, you should've done that inside. Move ya ass, we got somewhere to be like YESTERDAY!" It was Trent's ride and best friend Derric Stainlus. Derric was also an assassin and very skilled, on par with Trent. He was tan and very fit, he had an afro he tied in a ponytail and always wore a fitted when he wasn't in uniform, he was 6' even and only 25, he wore contacts that were light blue. When he decided to get contacts and picked that color, Trent was surprised that he didn't look as crazy as he imagined he would, although he told him hazel would be a better match but Derric insisted that he didn't want to have the same eyes as Trent. Trent was African-American with natural hazel eyes, short black hair and he too was 6', two years younger than Derric, and equally built because they both worked out together. Trent got the nickname "Tex" for not only being Texan, but his initials were T and X, "T.X" or Tex.

"Ha ha" Trent said sarcastically, "hilarious, I see you traded your big wheel for a dumpster on wheel's, congrats bro."

"What?! You're crazy.... I would never sell my big wheel fool, how else am I supposed to bag all the ladies?" They did their handshake and drove to the usual meeting place, a bar halfway across town. On the way there, Trent was lost in thought once again but he was thinking about the dream, with a stream of questions flowing in his head. The two most important ones were, "what did that dream mean" and "why did I have it now, after years of doing what I do?" But little did Trent know that a sea of questions awaited him.

He was snapped out of it by Derric. "Everything fine man? You looked a little lost and confused."

"Huh? Oh, yeah yeah I'm fine. I was just thinking about this crazy dream I had, it was sort of disturbing..."

"Oh, you too? Mine took place in this castle." Derric said

"SO DID MINE! At first I was in this room right, and then I see this girl but-" Trent said but got interrupted by Derric

"THEN WHEN SHE TOOK OFF HER TOP, HER TITTIES TURNED INTO SNAKES AND BIT YOU RIGHT?!" Derric exclaimed and looked at Trent with a serious stare. Trent gave him a blank stare in return but couldn't help laughing at how serious Derric looked about a dream that was so foolish.

"Nah man, I'll let you know later after our meeting. Anyway, we playing some pool tonight, or are you afraid of getting beat for money AGAIN?"

"Well about that, I'm not SCARED of losing shi-"

"WATCH OU-" Trent yelled.

"BOOM!" And before he was able to finish his sentence, a car rammed into the side of theirs while crossing an intersection, a split second before the impact Trent noticed a female jump out of the car, and started dashing towards an abandoned building nearby. Derric's car slid a few feet before coming to a complete stop and both of them wasted no time getting out of the car to pursue the lady who intentionally crashed into them. In their line of work being paranoid and taking extra precautions could be the thing that saves you and Derric was always the "better-safe-than-sorry" kind of guy, so his car was triple reinforced with heavy duty steel. The crash did very little damage and only gave his passenger side a dent, with some broken windows. The ramming car wasn't as destroyed as you might expect either, the mystery lady knew what she was getting herself into.

She was just as fast as both of them, which made Trent even more curious as he and Derric raced after her, cutting cars off in the process but getting no closer. She had short blonde hair but that's all both of them could make out about her. She quickly jumped clean over the gate and dove through the broken window inside the building, the room was average sized and in the corner of it there was a hole in the ceiling that led to the second floor, she wall jumped and grabbed hold of the ledge, Trent and Derric followed suit but when they got inside the building, she was already halfway up. Derric and Trent gave each other one quick glance and knew they had to split up to have a chance of catching her, Derric followed her route, while Trent made his own.

Out another window, Trent seen there was about a 12' wall not too far from the window so he jumped on the windowsill, then wall jumped from the large wall, back to the house then to the wall again and was able to grab the top of it, he pulled himself up and turned to see a half broken fire escape and through a window, saw Derric still chasing after the lady, who looked as if she had a specific route to take, jumping over obstacles, making new ones for Derric to get trapped by, (but he was too skilled to be caught with any) jumping in holes from the second floor to get to the first, just to climb back up to the second but the whole time Derric moved just as swiftly as she did. At one obstacle Derric almost lost her, while they were running through the large apartment she went through a doorway, kicked something that was holding a large amount of rubble and everything came crashing down almost right on top of Derric. He had quickly dodged a large rock and a couple of metal pipes that came down, if he was a little further back he would have been trapped in that room or dead, but he wasn't and he never lost sight of her.

"Maybe it was planned?" Trent thought as he wasted no time jumping to the fire escape and going up a floor from both of them to see if he could cut her off. He went back inside and ran through the house looking for holes in the floor, he seen a couple of things that looked suspicious as he ran, almost like traps, so he decided to trigger them as he passed. One of the traps he triggered was by accident. He was darting through a room to get to the window that led to the fire escape because the route he was on lead to a dead end, and as he stepped in the middle of the room the whole floor collapsed, if he was still running straight he would have JUST had enough time to reach the other side of the room and avoid falling to his death. As that happened, Derric and the Lady had just got into the room below. If they were any slower both would have been crushed. Hearing the floor collapse, she knew exactly where Trent was and decided to jump out of the window and hope she could get across the wall fast enough to escape her pursuers, but what she didn't know; was that Trent was already there. She went out of the window and jumped onto the wall but before she could even try and pull herself up, Trent jumped on her back and they both fell down and hit the ground hard. There were a few rocks here and there but for the most part it was all grass so they weren't seriously hurt. Trent took a while to catch his breath since he took the full impact of the ground, plus another 120 pound body, not to mention the mystery lady had formed an elbow during their fall. During that time Tex was catching his breath, the lady was already up and running into a construction site nearby. Derric was next to Trent not even ten seconds after both of them fell, using the broken fire escape as a fast travel to the ground.

"Damn Tex, never thought I would see the day someone actually escaped you, and a chick at that. She was badass though I'll give her that." Derric said as he scratched his head and helped Trent to his feet.

"She's a hell of a lot cleverer than I would have guessed Lockpick, she set this whole thing up, us at the intersection, the abandoned building, and I bet that construction site she ran into was a "just in case" route and also booby trapped to the tee. What I want to know though, is who the hell sent her after us?" They used nicknames instead of real names just in case they were being overheard.

Derric got his nickname from, as you can guess, being a master lockpick. On one of his previous assignments, he was chasing a target through a mansion, they were running in a hallway that formed 3/4 of a square and in-between the hallways were three rooms; Lockpick decided to use the rooms hoping to cut him off. The first door was open, an art room with paintings, stone and wax sculptures, tapestries and fancy rugs on display. As he tried to open the next door he found it was locked, he quickly pulled out his lockpicking accessories, picked the lock in less than 3 seconds, left it and went into the next room which was filled with armor. The same situation happened and he picked that lock also. The next room was a weapon room, he picked up a spear, still running for the open door that led into the other side of the hallway and as he got to the door, his target appeared in his face and Lockpick spear-pushed him in the chest. Behind him was a window and as a result, he fell out of the window onto a moving bus. A fitting end for someone who raped and kidnapped little girls but could also get away with it.

"Hmm... well we do have A LOT of enemies but none of them know who we really are." Derric said and thought for a while. "You think Leslie did it? I mean she is one of the only people that knows the specific route we take to the bar."

"Nah, it couldn't be her. What's her motive? She gains nothing from offing us and we in turn make money for us AND her, so killing, or attempting to kill, a pair of her best workers would be plain out dumb on her part, plus she knows we would think of her first considering no one knows us well enough to know who we are, or what we do and how we get from point A to point B."

"Makes sense, but if not her than who?" Derric asked as Trent brushed himself off, while they started walking towards their destination and responded "That's what we're going to find out." Derric smiled and said "Ohhhhh shit, heartless Trent's out! This is going to be fun."

The bar was about 14 blocks away, so they had plenty of time to think of possible suspects, their motive for doing it (which was a no brainer), and a fitting death for that unlucky soul. After the incident earlier, Trent had a flashback of what guardsman Eric said in his dream, "Except for this new lady that comes by dressed in all black with a hood, so I've never seen her face." That one lined echoed in his head. No one said a word until about 3 blocks from the bar, it was Trent who broke the silence, "Did you think of anyone?" Derric was caught in a trance, walking but not paying attention. Trent tapped him out of it and repeated his question. Derric shrugged and shook his head no but said nothing.

"You good bro? Kind of unusual for you of all people to be this quiet."

"I was thinking about that dream I had man, it freaked me out."

"DAMN DERRIC I'M SERIOUS DUDE!" Trent yelled and stopped walking and in a quiet tone said "I'm not going to let some random chick get away with almost killing us! My curiosity is at its peak and now I NEED to find out who she is and who's behind it."

"I know, but staying mad is going to do nothing for us. She's gone but most likely she'll be back and when she DOES come back, we'll be ready and waiting so relax."

They got to the bar and went into their usual place in the corner where a lady in a blue blouse and a black skirt sat waiting for them. She was very stunning, a young white lady with long, silky black hair and an amazing figure. The lady was in her early 30's, but looked like she could pass for 23 easy. She had a mole on the upper-left side of her lip, but nothing like the nasty lunch ladies, it looked cute on her.

"Three beer's please." The lady asked the bartender and he nodded. "So what the hell took you guys so long? Derric, I sent you to pick him up over an hour ago, so mind explaining?"

Derric and Trent both sat down, Trent had no desire to speak so Derric started, "Well hi to you too Leslie, we're doing great thanks for asking. Anyway, as we were driving here we got hit by some lady while driving through the intersection. We chased after her in some abandoned building but she had it booby trapped all over. To make a long story short, she got away and we walked about 14 blocks to get here." As he finished, their drinks got delivered to the table and Trent took his before the waiter had a chance to put any down. He murmured a "Thanks" and proceeded to devour his beverage, Leslie watched him for a second and he looked up at her. "It almost looks like you want to kill someone Trent." She said with a small smile.

"I do, and I don't see what's so funny about almost being killed." Leslie raised an eyebrow and looked at Derric, "He's kind of mad that she got away, he'll be fine though."

"Ohhh, so Trent was closest to her when she escaped, I see why you're mad now. Well cheer up because I have some good news for you guys, someone wants a target taken care of and is willing to pay a lot of money for the job to be done."

"Now, when you say "a lot of money" how"- Leslie interrupted "Shut up Derric and listen to who it is and the condition."

Derric fake gasped "So rude."

Leslie continued "They want it done a specific way and if it's not done properly it doesn't matter how much they're offering."

"Makes sense, but you didn't have to hurt my feelings, there was a much nicer way of saying that you know."

With a small smile Leslie sighed and shook her head "Derric, I'm sorry. You're such a drama-queen sometimes you know that?"

"And you love it haha." Derric had a big smile on. Leslie went on, "Now the person that needs to get killed is out of state, well to be precise, he's out of the country."

"An out of country contract huh? Good cuz' I've needed a vacation and Trent here needs to get away also, just nowhere sandy cuz' he already has sand in his vagi-" Trent looked at him out the corner of his eyes and Derric laughed, "Never mind, so where's this person located?"

"I'm getting to that now; the target is a man named "Lo'Rang Codan". He's a Chinese smuggler, nothing specific, he'll smuggle anything IF the price is right and before you ask, no you're not going to China. Lo'Rang relocated to Africa a month ago because apparently, he's been making a lot of enemies in his homeland, but he's been making even more money and connections over in Africa. The condition? Make it look like a snake bite they made it quite clear that if it doesn't look like a snake did it, whoever finds him will know exactly who ordered it. Not only does it have to be a snake bite-" "Thank you" Leslie said as the waiter put three more beers on the table and continued. "Not only does it have to be a snake bite, you have to simulate the symptoms and use actual venom from a snake, it must be completely legit, no mistakes. If one thing is out of place the whole assignment goes up in flames."

Trent finished his second beer and decided to talk. "That's a lot just for one person isn't it? I mean I get that they don't want to get caught, but if this Lo'Rang character is as hated as you say, shouldn't multiple people want him dead? If we disposed of him using our normal methods, how would anyone know the exact person to blame? Odds are slim to none."

"I was thinking the same thing when I was told but they were very adamant about it being a snake bite, nothing else. So please, just do it this way, it'll save all of us headaches. I have a contact waiting for both of you when you arrive, you shou-" Derric and Trent both cut in and said at the same time "We both get to go!?" They had excitement in their voices because not only did they work best as a team, but they've only been on an assignment together twice out of hundred's.

"Yes" Leslie continued "You both get to go because it's going to be a hard task, and I need the best of the best to perfect this."

"Aww, you're too sweet I never knew you thought we were the best, I'm flattered." Trent said with a smile, pretending to be emotional. Leslie laughed, "You hang around Derric too much, he's starting to get to you."

"WHAT!?" Derric exclaimed "Hey, if you knew how he acted off the clock you would be saying the COMPLETE opposite. But I'll take what you just said as a compliment."

"Honestly, I can't see Trent as the fun one hehe, no offense or anything, it's just every time I see you, you're about business, which I have no problem with, I actually like that about you. You don't mess around." Leslie said.

"Well for this business, I find that you should be fun about making it serious, what I mean is, this job is dangerous, of course, so you need to keep a serious demeanor to protect your ass but that doesn't mean you can't throw some fun into it now and again, as long as you feel comfortable in your current situation." Trent explained.

"A bit confusing, but I get what you mean. Having fun keeps you unwound and your stress low." Leslie responded and went on, "But don't let it go to your heads. Now back to business, there's two contacts I've arranged for you to meet. You know one of them and the other is a personal friend of mine. When you guy's land, a chauffeur with a sign will be waiting for you to take you to the "Romadahn Hotel" where you will meet "Kong" in suite 7. He'll have more details waiting for you there. You're both set to leave two weeks from now. When you land, you'll only have about a week maybe a week and a half tops to complete what you need to complete. I expect excellent results from you four."

"Oh, Kong's joining in also?!" Derric exclaimed getting to his feet and started dancing a bit "This job is becoming more and more fun, I kind of can't wait. Hey Trent you ready for this boy?!" He slapped his arm with a smile, still dancing.

"Pssh, you should already know I'm ready for anything and everything the fact that I have you AND Kong joining me, means I'm going to have to go all out to one up you both."

They did their handshake as Derric said sarcastically, "Haaaaa, good luck bro, but EVERYONE knows I'm better though."

And all three of them laughed. Leslie knew the three of them always tried to best the others on assignments, killing styles, how fast it was done, and how creative you could get to lure or distract your target and it's been that way ever since they came into the business.

"So Leslie, when are you going to come out with us? We've known you for what, five maybe seven years now and you haven't come out to hang with us yet. It's like you avoid us like the plague, that's no bueno." Derric asked.

"So, when you say "us" you mean "you" right?" Leslie said. "Yeah, why not. Sorry Trent, I tried dude." Derric shrugged. "In that case never," Trent snickered as she continued "also I only avoid YOU like the plague, on the other hand I think it would be pretty nice to hang out with Trent."

Trent shot Derric a look and laughed, Derric didn't look the least bit phased by what she said, he just sighed and responded "Still playing hard to get." Leslie took the first sip of her beer "You have been barking up this tree for a while now, when are you going to quit?" Derric thought for a second and nudged Trent with his elbow "When this dog get aaaaaalllllllll up in that tree WOOF WOOF WOOF!" He said while doing a dance, Trent spit out the beer he was drinking and they all shared a laugh.