Consulting Sniper (Moran's Story)

Chapter 13: Madness, Murder, and MORIARTY

After that night, Jim didn't talk to me for a straight month and a half. It was living hell.

Is he angry with me? I wondered countless times. It probably wasn't a good way to be living, now that I think of it. But I was compelled to help Jim, for whatever reason.

Finally, Jim broke his silence.

After class one day, I was the last to leave. I'd walked outside to smoke a cigarette, and Jim met me outside. He looked as though he'd been searching for me. He grabbed my collar and pulled me close to him before I knew what was going on.

What the hell? I asked myself. Then I said it out loud after taking my cigarette out of my mouth. I think I almost accidentally burned Jim's face with the end of it, that's how close he was to me.

"I'll tell you; alright? Isn't that what you want?" He asked me. I stood in my place, dumbfounded.

"What I want? I just want you to talk to me. I don't care what about."

"I'm trying to build a crime ring. I need your skills. You'll be sort of a hit man for me, but we'll call you a sniper. That's what all the rest are. I want you for some of my more personal missions, ones that you can work alone on.

I'm a consulting criminal. People come to me when someone pisses them off and they want that person to die. They consult me to do the criminal job that they can't do themselves. I need a consulting sniper. Can you do that?"

"So that's it," I said, snapping out of my nicotine-induced haze. "I'd kind of thought so. But I didn't want to say anything."

"How did you deduce that?" Jim asked me. I flipped.

"I deduce nothing. I knew it," I said, throwing my cigarette to the ground like it was a dart to a dart board and stepped on it forcefully.

"Okay," Jim said. "Will you do it? Not much time left in the semester."

"You know what? Fuck it. I'll be part of your crime ring, Moriarty."

His face immediately changed from one somber and set in stone to a surprised and happy one.

"Thanks, Moran!" He exclaimed. "I almost thought for a second there that you wouldn't do it!"

"And what would you have done to me if I said no?"

"Killed you, obviously," Jim said, laughing loudly. He thought like me. I could absolutely live with that.

This couldn't possibly be as bad as it sounded. No way in hell.

"Have you got a cigarette?" I asked Jim, searching through my bag. "After your little attempt to make out with the end of my last one, I had to get rid of it. And I don't have another."

"Sorry to tell you that I can't give you that. But I can give you the universe through a world of theft, torture, and murder?"

"Rather have the cigarette," I admitted. Jim laughed and followed me down the stairs.

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My next mission for Jim was done on Christmas Eve.

I officially abandoned my studies at Oxford after only six months and a half on December 23rd, 2022. My degree was taking too long, and it wasn't going to be going anywhere as long as I was working in Moriarty's syndicate.