James' plea was met only with static. "Damn it." he swore under his breath. Guess I'll have to get myself out of this. The attackers formed a quarter circle around the corner of roof that he occupied. The edge of the roof had no railing, which would make it a wonderful exit point if the closest solid surface wasn't God knows how many stories down. Maybe not James thought, and suddenly he had his plan.
He stood still for a moment, breathing heavily and contemplating how he was going to go about it. Then, suddenly, he spun around, both throwing his hostage off the roof and dropping to one knee as he did so. By the time his 360 was complete, he was on his left knee. He continued his spin, and as each man fell within his sights, the pistol unleashed a blast of energy, all of which struck their targets square in the chest. He managed to kill 3 of the men in this fashion before the other 2 where able to react. James had anticipated this and rolled to his right, directly off the side of the building.
James was able to catch himself with his left hand while his right held on to his weapon, just as he had intended. He immediately began searching for a window, but found none on his level. He then looked below and saw a window with a small ridge just above it on the story below him. Perfect he thought, and holster his gun and dropped. He caught himself on the ridge with both hands. Before he could take out his gun to shoot open the window, the two attackers began shooting downwards towards James. He put as much of his body beneath the ridge as possible, but still felt a few jolts of pain from his back. He jerked in pain from each, but held on. Eventually the shooting ceased as the men above reloaded their guns, and James took this chance to shoot the window open and climb into the building.
Once inside he took a moment to assess his wounds. He stuck a hand beneath his coat and up his back, and it came back soaked in blood. "Oh, fuck" James mumbled in surprise. He needed medical attention before he blacked out from blood loss. But the men with the shotguns still needed to be dealt with. All ready James could hear them thundering down a nearby stairway. James readied his pocket knife and gun and positioned himself just to the right of the doorway to the stairs. When the men came through, single file, James did a 180 towards them, stabbing the front man in the throat. He pointed his pistol over the front mans shoulder and shot the other in the face, reducing it to ash.
James took a shaky breath and stepped away from the carnage. The man he had shot had died instantly, but the stabbed one was still clinging to life. James hunched over him where he now lay on the floor. In the last moments of his life, the mans eyes looked into James' not with hate or even fear, but with a plea for help, a plea that James could do nothing to answer. The man loosed one final, shaky breath, and died.
James looked at the man for a moment longer. He had never had any connection to him, but he was still a human being, just like James himself. He had had hopes, ambitions, memories, dreams that would go unfulfilled. He had had friends, maybe a family. He had cared for people, and people had cared for him.
And now he was dead. Because of what James had done.
