DEADEYE

Chapter 1

A 16-year-old boy with medium brown skin and long black dreads hanging from his head walks through an apartment lobby, nonchalantly whistling. He wears a simple gray hoodie and jeans. Over his shoulder is a strap connected to a 50-inch case. The boy heads directly to the stairs, walking up all the way to the top of the building. When he gets to the door to the roof, he finds it locked. He kneels down, carefully examines the lock, and starts to pick it. Within moments, the door is open. He walks to the edge of the building and looks out over a park.

"1.8 miles," the boy says to himself as he puts the case down, opening it up and pulling out a sniper scope. He looks through it, focusing on a press conference being held by one of the candidates for mayor, "one Warren Blackwell," the boy says, pulling out a piece of paper. "Organized crime, blackmail, murder, and the facilitation of distributing drugs," he reads aloud.

The boy turns back to the case he brought, pulling out a Barrett M107 and carefully setting it down before attaching a suppressor. He screws it onto the sniper rifle, opens the bipod that's attached to it, and sets it up on the edge of the roof. He takes a magazine out of the case, loads it into the gun, and chambers a round. He takes a hair tie off of his wrist, tying his dreads up in a ponytail to keep them out of his way. That's when he realizes he's still wearing his eye patch. He pulls it off slightly annoyed, revealing a completely cloudy white iris and pupil—the eye was completely dead.

The boy looks through the scope on the gun, aiming for Warren's forehead before readjusting. The wind blows. The boy holds his gun, patiently waiting for the wind to stop. As soon as it does, he fires two shots. The first one hits Warren directly in the eye, and the second hits the man standing next to him, Victor Langston, Warren's right-hand man. These two ran one of the largest crime syndicate in the city.

The boy figured that the people guarding Warren and Victor were already looking for him and could probably guess where he was. Carefully, he took the magazine out of the sniper rifle, cleared the chamber, and put the bullet back in the magazine before storing it. He took out a rag and started to unscrew the suppressor, using it to protect his hand from the heat of the two shots that had just fired. He carefully put it away along with the Barrett M107, closed the case, and threw it over his shoulder. Pulling out a hidden suppressed Walther P99, he walked down one floor and then headed for the elevator.

He put his back against the side of the elevator, hiding the gun behind his leg, and looked out of the glass backing into the lobby. When he saw armed men in suits entering the building, he muttered to himself, "They're faster than I thought they would be."

He stepped off the elevator a few floors down from where he originally got on and made his way down the building, avoiding his pursuers and quickly changing directions when he noticed them before they could notice him. Eventually, he made it out of the back of the building, thinking he had gotten away when two of the men stopped him, pointing their guns at him.

He slowly put his gun down on the ground and turned around with his hands up. Suddenly, he stepped to the left as the two men were hit by a car. A woman opened the passenger side door and yelled, "Get in!"

He picked up his gun and quickly hopped into the car before she backed out of the alleyway. As the boy, Lamar Davis, put the case in the back seat, the woman screamed at him, "Lamar, why weren't you at the designated area? I almost wasn't able to find you!"

Lamar sighed, a little annoyed. "It was too close to the target. The shot was too easy."

The woman's face scrunched up in anger, and just as she was about to say something, he spoke again. "Plus, if I was at the spot you guys picked, they would have found me a lot quicker. I wouldn't have been able to even make it off the roof."

The woman sighed, letting it go. She knew he knew what he was doing and trusted his judgment. "You want me to drive you to the same place as last time?"

"Yep," he said, untying his hair, putting the hair tie back on his wrist, and securing his eye patch over his eye.

As the woman stopped at a diner, Lamar reached into the back for the case, but the woman stopped him. "Don't worry about it. We'll take care of it."

He nodded and got out of the car. She noticed that he forgot his Walther P99 and called him back, handing him his gun. "Don't forget this," she said in a sweet tone, smiling at him.

"Thanks," he said, making sure the safety was on and putting it away. As Lamar walked into the diner, he greeted the diner's owner and waitress. "Afternoon, Miss Z. Can I get the usual?"

Miss Z, a middle-aged woman with a warm smile, looked up from behind the counter. "Sure thing, Lamar. One cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate shake coming right up. Take a seat, hun."

Lamar nodded and found a booth near the window, glancing outside to make sure he hadn't been followed. He relaxed slightly, knowing he was in a safe place.