Chapter 49 Joon-Gi

Chapter 49

?Joon-gi

Joon-gi came to on the prickly forest floor, the sharp pain in his collarbone from the second bullet intense but not fatal.

He rolled over carefully and touched the wound. The bleeding wasn't too bad; the bullet must have hit the bone of his clavicle and lodged, instead of penetrating his lung or heart.

He wondered fleetingly how rare that was, because he certainly knew how painful it was.

He lay there for a moment and listened to the sounds of the forest, and of the waves hitting the shore, and of the alarms blaring across the property. At a distance he heard the pop-pop s of gunshots.

He turned his head but the guard had long gone from behind the tree to his right.

He rose, the sound of a helicopter thundering overhead, and as he looked up, he could just make out the word on its underside. Police.

The pop of gunshots above ceased.

He wondered if they had made it out alive, Lucinda, the girl, and the local man.

He wondered what he should do now. How best to get the help he clearly needed. He listened to the sound of the helicopter landing high above on the cliff. He would need to make his way up there.

He looked down at his first gunshot wound. His thigh was still oozing blood into his cargo pants. He would need a doctor very soon; perhaps the others up there would too.

It was a long, hard, painful climb.

—

And when Joon-gi reached the summit of the stairs, he saw the carnage.

The house's vast windows milked white by gunshots. Police officers spilling from the helicopter into the house. More gunfire.

He saw the British woman from the basement pulled out by the police, wailing, gesticulating frantically toward the local man, his body lifeless on the grass.

Joon-gi raised his hands high above his head in surrender as, knees buckling, he called out to get someone, anyone's attention—and the rest was history.