Cornered [3]

Xiajun's wiped his bloodied hand on his suit before hearing someone behind him flick the safety off their gun.

"Damn," he muttered as he turned around, barely missing the bullet aimed at his chest. The bullet went and accidentally pierced the arm of another attacker, who was reloading his gun. He cried in pain and his gun fell to the gravel.

Briefly confused by this turn of events, the first man looked towards his comrade as he cried for help and didn't notice Xiajun as he chuckled and lifted his gun before pulling the trigger. With his other pistol he did the same, managing to take down two people at once.

"Sh*t, I'm out of ammo!" cried someone in the distant and Xiajun didn't hesitate to take him down as well. By now the street was just one huge puddle of blood topped with a corpse here and there. Xiajun allowed himself a laugh as he raked his hand through his hair which was, too, matted with another man's blood.

He looked around himself at the attackers who were left. Some of them cowered in the corner, paralyzed by fear, their guns already on the ground before them and their hands raised in the air as a sign of surrender.

They must be new recruits, Xiajun thought to himself hazily and turned his face towards the other few, who had their aims at him, but were unable to shoot. Xiajun lifted both his pistols towards them, but when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. Sighing, he threw his pistols on the floor, knowing that he had exhausted his rounds.

"Get out of my sight," he hissed two the few young men that had somehow managed to survive. They scurried away before Xiajun could repeat himself.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he started to feel the penetrating pain in his shoulder. Xiajun had lost a lot of blood. Slowly, he walked himself to a patch of ground clean of all blood and slid down, clenching his shoulder in pain.

"Arghh. . ." he groaned. Every movement made his body ache. Xiajun pulled out his phone from his pocket and dialed Qi Lei's number before putting the phone on the ground; his fingers had no strength to hold on to it.

". . . Hello? Xiajun?"

Xiajun smiled weakly, his vision already fogging up. "Hey."

"Is something wrong? What happened?" The worry in Qi Lei's voice was evident.

"No, everything's fine, asides from the fact that I was suddenly attacked by a mob of armed thugs and got shot in the shoulder." Xiajun knew he was slowly drifting off, but he needed to hold on to his conscience as long as he could.

"WHAT!? Where are you right now??"

Xiajun tried hard to remember. "Uhh. . . Give me a second. . ." he fished for the piece of paper in his coat pocket and narrowed his eyes to read it. Before his eyes the words started warping into irregular shapes till he couldn't make any sense of them. "I- It's a street seven or eight blocks from. . . Běijíxīng Hospital." He took a deep breath. "Last thing I remember seeing was a roadside sign saying 'Do Not Litter'."

"I'm on my way."

The call ended and Xiajun leaned his head back against the cool concrete wall before passing out.