I kidnapped them now they own me

The rain at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday night wasn't just falling; it was performing. It drove sideways off the asphalt, heavy and spiteful, turning the sodium glow of the strip mall parking lot into a smeared watercolor mess.

Water had already soaked through the denim of my jeans, heavy and freezing against my thighs, and my sneakers squeaked a pathetic rhythm with every step. To top it all off, someone had stolen my umbrella right out of the employee breakroom. Not that it would have mattered much against this gale, but the principle of the thing made my jaw ache from clenching it so hard. Eight hours of scanning bruised tomatoes and listening to fluorescent lights hum, capped off with a three-mile trudge home because the late bus never showed. I was soaked, exhausted, and vibrating with a very specific, low-level fury at the universe.

I shoved my hands deeper into the pockets of my canvas jacket, head down, staring stubbornly at the slick gray pavement.

Click.

It wasn't the sound of thunder. It was the sharp, metallic snip of reality cutting through the storm.

The cold, heavy circle of steel pressed right between my shoulder blades.

"Don't turn around. Keep walking," a voice hissed, tight and breathless, right behind my ear.

Every drop of blood in my body rushed to my ears. For a second, my brain short-circuited this isn't happening, not tonight, not after the shift I just had and then pure, unfiltered adrenaline took over. I froze, my boots locked to the sidewalk.

"I said keep—"

"I can't go any faster, the curb's right there," I snapped, my voice shaking more with anger than fear. I didn't wait for permission. I wrenched my shoulder away from the pressure and spun around, my wet hair whipping across my face.

There were two of them. They stepped out from the shadow of a boarded-up dry cleaner, half-blinded by the sheets of water.

In the dim amber wash of the streetlamp, I saw the gun a heavy-looking black semi-automatic, held by a guy clutching his side, his knuckles smeared with dark streaks that looked entirely too much like blood even in the rain. Beside him, the second man was limping heavily, leaning against a brick wall, his breath coming in ragged, whistling gasps. They both looked like hell bruised, scraped raw, and shivering harder than I was.

The guy with the gun blinked hard against the downpour. A strange, frantic light flashed in his eyes not malice, just pure, cornered panic.

"Safety," the gunman choked out, his chest heaving. A strobe of police lights flickered against the wet clouds a few blocks over, muted by the rain. "The light is... it's flashing. They're looking for us."

He lowered the barrel an inch, not out of kindness, but because his arm was trembling so badly he could barely keep it level.

I looked at the gun, then up at his pale, rain-streaked face, and finally down the empty, flooded street where distant sirens were starting to wail. A strange, reckless calm settled over me. Another ruined Tuesday. What was one more disaster?

I let out a long, exhausted breath that plumed in the cold air.

"If you bleed on my carpet, I'm throwing you out the window," I said flatly. I turned back around, hooking my thumb over my shoulder. "Well? Are you coming or what? Follow me."

The walk to my building felt twice as long with a tail. Every time a distant set of headlights swept across the slick asphalt, my heart slammed against my ribs, waiting for the red-and-blue flash to pin us against a brick wall. But luck, for once, seemed to be dragging its feet right along with us.

When we finally reached the battered metal door of my apartment complex, I jammed my key into the sticky lock with a muttered curse. Inside, the hallway smelled faintly of stale floor wax and someone's burnt cabbage, but to us, it was a fortress.

I pushed my door open, stepping aside to let them stumble in.

"Shoes off," I snapped on instinct, my voice echoing in the cramped space before I could stop myself.

The apartment was tiny a single box containing a miniature kitchen, a sagging secondhand couch, and a square of scuffed hardwood floor anchored by a threadbare, faded geometric rug. Water immediately began pooling in dark circles around their boots.

The wounded one the gunman, whose grip on the weapon had finally gone slack collapsed onto the couch with a wet grunt. His buddy dropped down beside him, his breathing still ragged.

I slammed the door shut, threw the deadbolt, and flipped the safety latch. With trembling fingers, I reached for the plastic wand on the window blinds, cranking them shut before pressing my face against the narrow slit to scan the empty street below.

Nothing. Just rain chewing up the puddles.

I whipped around, leaning back hard against the door, the adrenaline finally starting to curdle into something sharp and ugly in my stomach.

"Who's coming after you?" I demanded, my voice rising. "What the hell am I in danger of letting you in here for?"

The gunman winced, pressing a bloody hand to his side. He didn't answer right away. He just stared at me with dark, bloodshot eyes that looked entirely too sharp for someone who had just been bleeding onto my floor.

Before either of them could speak, a familiar, terrifying drop in my chest hit me.

The adrenaline crash, combined with eight hours without food and a three-mile walk in the freezing rain, was taking its toll. A sudden, clammy sweat broke out across the back of my neck, instantly mixing with the rain chill still trapped in my hair.

My vision blurred at the edges, a patch of gray static creeping into my peripheral sight, and my hands started to shake with a violent, involuntary tremor.

No. Not now. Low blood sugar.

My hand flew to the pocket of my canvas jacket, my fingers clawing frantically until they hit the small, hard plastic tube. I popped the flip-top with my thumb, shaking out the last two chalky orange glucose tablets into my palm. I shoved them into my mouth, chewing aggressively and swallowing past my dry, tight throat.

I leaned my head back against the door, eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the sugar to hit my bloodstream and praying it would be enough to stop my brain from starving before my knees gave out completely.

When the dizziness didn't fade fast enough, the raw physiological panic mixed with the absolute absurdity of the night, and something inside me broke.

A choked sob tore out of my throat. I slid down the back of the door until I hit the floor, pulling my knees up to my chest and burying my face in my hands. The tears came hot and fast, mixing with the rainwater still dripping from my hair. It wasn't just the two armed strangers bleeding on my couch. It was the rent due in three days. It was the broken bus. It was the empty tube in my hand and the terrifying reality that I couldn't afford another box of test strips or insulin refills, let alone a doctor, let alone whatever kind of nightmare had just walked through my front door.

"Hey," a voice cut through the ringing in my ears. It was rough, deeper than before.

I wiped a furious hand across my face, gasping for breath. I looked up to find both of them staring at me. The panic in their eyes had shifted into something else something assessing, almost stunned, as if they had expected a hostage to scream or fight, not completely fall apart on the linoleum.

"I'm sorry," I spat out, my voice cracking with humiliation and exhaustion. I shoved myself back up to my feet, glaring at them through a fresh blur of tears. "I'm sorry I'm not handling being held at gunpoint very well, I've just had a really long day."

I didn't wait for them to process it. I turned on my heel and marched down the narrow hall into my tiny bedroom, stripping off the freezing, heavy denim and the soaked jacket as fast as my shaking fingers would allow. I yanked on an oversized fleece sweatshirt and a pair of worn flannel pajama pants, pulling my damp hair up into a messy knot.

When I came back out into the living room, I was holding a battered metal first-aid box and an armful of faded bath towels.

I dropped the towels onto the coffee table right in front of them.

"Sorry I don't have any extra clothes for you," I said flatly, crossing my arms over my chest as I looked down at their blood-smeared jackets. "I live alone, and unless you want to squeeze into a pair of fleece pants with cartoon cats on them, you're stuck drying off with these. Here."

I tossed the first-aid kit onto the cushion next to the gunman's thigh.

"Let me see the side," I muttered, kneeling down despite my aching legs. "And you—stop leaning like that before you pass out on my rug."