Still, he had every reason to be late. With the crank calls he received after midnight, he could not remember the last time he had a good sleep. He tried changing his numbers several times, but the calls kept coming in.
As he reached his parked SUV, he fumbled with his keys to get the door opened. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain at his side. On reflex, he dropped his briefcase and clutched his side. He was dumbfounded to see his hand covered in blood. His blood. Why? Who?
Hotch reached into his jacket pocket and took out his mobile phone. Hit a speed dial at random, he heard a woman's voice telling him that the queen of knowledge was at his service. If he was not in so much pain, he would have smiled.
He dropped to the ground beside the vehicle. It was hard to stay conscious and he found it difficult to keep his eyes open. He knew that he was in shock and must tell Garcia what had happened.
"Garcia...help," he whispered into the phone.
"Sir?. What happened?"
"Shots fired. Need help...help," said Hotch as he was struggling to stay awake.
Garcia ran out from the room so fast that she nearly collided with Morgan around a corner.
"Whoaa..baby girl. Where's the fire?" he asked and when he saw the wild look in her eyes, Morgan immediately knew something was wrong.
"Take a deep breath and tell me now..."
Garcia tried desperately to compose herself and told Morgan what had happened. He was stunned and asked her where was Hotch.
"I manage to trace his location using his mobile, he's at home. Hurry. He doesn't sound good Morgan. Please hurry."
Her words sent shivers down his spine and immediately ran to where Reid, Prentiss and Rossi were having their morning coffee.
Rossi saw Morgan's bewildered look and he knew that the young man was spooked about something and
Morgan's face said it all that something was terribly wrong.
He told them what had happened and the team was stunned into silence. Once they got over their shock, all of them started to talk all at once. Rossi immediately called the FBI director on his mobile as they ran to their vehicles.
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Hotch tried to stay awake and held on to his government-issued sig sauer. Several more shots were fired and they hit the windshield which shattered it to pieces. After determining roughly where the shots came from, Hotch fired few rounds.
The shooter returned fire and pinned down the profiler behind the vehicle.
Hotch started to shiver and knew that he lost too much blood. He prayed that help would come sooner than later.
Then he heard tires screeched to a stop beside his vehicle. A second later, Morgan was at his side followed by Dave.
Both of the federal agents had their guns out and the worried look on their faces told him that he was in a bad shape.
"Hotch, are you hit anywhere else?" asked Dave as he started to examine the gunshot wound. Gently lifted the blood-soaked shirt, he saw that there was no exit hole. Hotch moaned softly when Dave started to clean the wound using the antiseptics he took out from a first aid kit bag he had with him.
Morgan kept a look-out for the shooter and occassionally glanced at his boss who was leaning against the SUV as Rossi carefully cleaned the wound.
