CHAPTER 199: CHAPTER 198. THE CHESHIRE CAT IS A PUPPY

"Get your hands up!"

"Hicc!"

"Whoa, whoa--that’s unfair," Noah held up his hand while stepping in front of Andrew, covering the idol with his bigger build. "You can’t bring a gun to a fist fight."

The gangster rattled the gun in his hand. "Shut your pretty mouth!"

"Uhh...thanks?"

Hicc--Andrew clasped his mouth again. In a situation where he wanted to both laugh and cry, all he could do was pray with his never-ending hiccup. He really didn’t sign for this--he really didn’t sign for this!

"Stay behind me," Noah said calmly--as if there was anywhere else Andrew could choose to be at that moment. "Don’t worry, we already promised you won’t be harmed."

"S-senior--hicc!"

Andrew hiccuped again, but that was pretty cool of Noah. Andrew had no idea if Noah could protect him from a gun, but it did somewhat calm him down. At least he didn’t cry, but...

That gangsters waving the gun carelessly was truly worrying, and the man seemed to be getting angrier.

"Hey, I told you to stop talk--"

"Gahh!"

Just when Andrew blinked, something flew across the parking lot and hit the other gangster, sending the person crashing into the side of a car. The one holding the gun turned his head back to see his partner groaning while a metal garbage can rolled on the side with a dent in two places.

"What--" the gangster with the gun widened his eyes, distracted enough not to see a leg kicking his arm so fiercely his body got flung to the wall and the gun clattered to the floor. "Urk!"

It wasn’t Noah, though.

"I thought firearms were illegal in this country," a man with a deep voice and a black alphabet necklace around his neck picked up the gun and took the bullets out. "Why does everyone and their grandma have one?"

Andrew blinked, peeking behind Noah as he recognized the man as Lee Sarah’s scary bodyguard. What surprised him even more, however, was Noah’s reaction.

"Teach?" the actor widened his eyes. He knew someone would be waiting for them to pick them up--since the car they used was in another parking lot--but he never thought it would be Hajin.

"Go," Hajin threw a car key nonchalantly, pointing at a grey car in the corner. "Quickly."

Noah caught the car key and nodded, pulling the dazed Andrew as if it was a habit already. "Let’s go, junior."

"H-huh?"

"Hurry!"

"As if I’ll let you!" the gangster who got hit by the trash can got up and reached into his car’s door--the one he crashed into--only for his hand to get hit by another thrown object.

Their gun.

"Aaargh!"

"Here, I’ll return it to you," Hajin said with a smile. Of course, he had already damaged it enough to be unusable, even if they put more bullets inside.

The owner of the gun sprang from the ground and lunged toward Hajin with a roar. "You son of a bitch!"

The grey eyes flashed coldly as he dodged and kicked the rushing bull’s stomach, following it with a fatal rotating kick to the back of the guy’s head. "How dare you call my mother that?" he remarked coldly as the man fell to the ground again with a sinister cracking sound.

"You fucker!"

The one near the car shouted angrily, but took a more careful approach by taking out a knife--or perhaps a dagger? Sarah couldn’t see it very well from her position inside the car, but it didn’t seem like Hajin was struggling at all. She shifted her gaze to the side, where the grey car she drove to this place was quickly driving away with its spies and cameras.

"Alice is running out of the rabbit hole now," Sarah told the phone fitted on the dashboard, which had been connected to the ’command room’ since the start of the operation.

[Roger that] Sua replied from the other side. [Are you still in the building, Queen?]

"Yeah, J is taking care of the guards first since they had a gun."

[The fuck? Gangsters have guns now?] asked Sua, who was working for a man whose wealth came from selling weapons.

Sarah chuckled. "I know, right? Please clear the exit for five more minutes. I think it’s about to en--"

Bang!

Sarah flinched and turned her head toward the fight, which looked like a frozen picture. Hajin was grabbing the collar of the gangster he had been fighting, elbow out and up in a punching motion. But his eyes were on someone standing at the hidden exit door--the guard Ahn Noah knocked down for a few seconds earlier--whose hands were clutched on a still-smoking gun, pointing at Hajin.

[...Was that a gunshot?]

Sarah froze, eyes trailing the line of shot--and her stomach dropped when Hajin looked down at his stomach.

"Ah, fuck."

She could hear Hajin curse and saw him drop the groaning man in his hand, before pulling his gloved hand to his stomach.

That was when Sarah knew for sure that the fired bullet found its way to Hajin. "Jin!" she shouted in reflex, but her voice was drowned out by the shooter’s howl.

"Eat that, you son of a--"

The shooter’s words were met not by ears, but a hard gloved fist. He had no time to question how someone who had just gotten shot could move like a thunder because his mind was busy registering the pain assaulting his whole body from various kicks and punches. The gun had dropped from the second hit that broke his wrist, and its bullets were left scattering and rolling around before the gun itself was used like a bat against the shooter. By the time the shooter was twitching on the ground, the gun was no longer usable.

All Sarah could see, however, was not Hajin’s triumph.

It was the blood trickling from his abdomen.

[What happened?!]

[M-miss Diamond?]

Urgent voices kept coming from the phone, but Sarah couldn’t hear them at all. Her shaking eyes could only see red, as if the world was painted in blood. The image of her mother lying on the cold ground, telling her everything would be fine before Sarah lost consciousness flickered in her mind, overlapping with the parking lot.

Gritting her teeth, Sarah climbed to the driver’s seat.

"Fuck--how could I miss this," Hajin cursed while pressing his hand over his gunwound. How funny, when he never got shot when he was still in the States, where owning guns was legal. Never thought he would get one outside of Aegis’s mission, honestly. "Do I get rusty or something? Ugh--"

Hajin winced, the consequences of moving vigorously when he had a burning metal lodged in his stomach were catching up to him. He clutched his stomach and bent over slightly, catching his breath and managing his heartbeat to control the blood flow.

This was when the gangster he had beaten up when he got shot earlier stood up wobbly and grabbed his knife again, rushing toward Hajin. "You fucker!"

Slam!

The man never reached Hajin, thrown by the bumper of the car running toward him. "Gaah!" he rolled on the ground a few times from the impact, but before he even had the time to groan, the car was already coming toward him again, running him over mercilessly.

"Aaargh!" he screamed out as the tire crushed his leg, but all he could hear in return was a harsh order.

"Just stay on the ground!" Sarah spat out angrily.

Hajin blinked at the black car stopping right in front of him--and on top of the one with the knife--patting his lips in marvel. "Whoa..."

With the same tone of anger she used at the gangster beneath the car, Sarah barked at Hajin while opening the passenger car. "Hurry and get in!"

With an amused smile, Hajin walked toward the car in a light step, as if he had only been punched instead of shot. If it wasn’t for the blood trickling to the seat as he scooted inside, Sarah would have thought what she saw was an illusion.

"Oof--ah, sorry for the stain," Hajin grimaced at the dark spot on his seat, mumbling about cleaning the whole car after this and whatnot.

"Stop talking and press this against your wound," Sarah shoved her bundled scarf to Hajin, even grabbed the man’s hand and placed it above the scarf, pressing slightly.

"I’m fine," Hajin said gently, trying to calm his trembling princess. "It’s not my first--"

"Shut up and press it!"

"Yes, Ma’am."

With a vicious glare, Sarah stepped on the gas and drove the car away, ignoring another painful scream as the gangster was once again crushed by the tire. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, eyes focusing on the street as she drove away from the area swarmed by police cars.

And finally, she could register the voices coming from the phone.

[What happened, Noona?] Suoh’s tensed but calm voice came out this time.

"J got shot. Where should I go?" Sarah asked. Thankfully, she managed to stay calm enough for her voice to come out articulately, despite the slight shaking within it.

[What?!] Sua shouted in the background, but her twin brother replied calmly.

[You can’t go to a hospital, so I’ll ring the clinic for Aegis members] Suoh said, clicking away on his device. "It’s a bit far from where you are, though."

"H-how far?" Sarah bit her trembling lips.

"I’ll be fine, so just send the navigation," Hajin told the phone.

[Alright] a blinking spot appeared on the navigation screen, along with a line connected to their car. [We’ll send someone to clear the basement of J’s blood, so just drive carefully, Noona]

"Okay," Sarah said, more to herself than anyone. She swallowed the hard lump in her throat, gripping the steering wheel even tighter as she stepped on the gas. "Okay."

"There’s no need to worry, Princess--"

"I told you to shut up!"

Hajin pressed his lips, suppressing a smile that for sure would enrage his agitated princess. Rather than himself, Hajin was more worried about those two, wondering if the Alices were escaping well.

But...well, since one of them was someone he once taught how to fight and drive, it should be fine.