The bus comes to a halting stop, the whooshing sound filling my surroundings as I try to focus on anything but the hounding rain against my freshly washed hair.

I love you universe, but come on. Rain and this hair have always clashed, you know this!

The exhaust fumes hit me and I’m coughing up a lung before I can even find a seat. A glimpse of black catches my eye before I twist and slot down onto my seat, I look at the camera in front of me and see that I’m alone.

I squint my eyes when something catches them, a hooded figure sits with their head down, okay strange.

When my heart begins to pound I try and rationalise, okay the bus driver should have protocols and things in place to protect passengers. I should text aria just in case, though.

The bus sets into motion, my body jolting with each speed bump. I check my phone, ten forty five , ugh I have to stop doing the closes for Dale. The bar shuts at eleven but he promised I could get off for nine because he knows I don’t like travelling late. Every time I bring it up to him he changes the subject, and promises a pay rise for my extra work, and my loyalty.

I guess at this point, after two years of putting up with it, I only have myself to blame. I don’t want to look for something else though, I know that bar like the back of my hand, I could serve three people at once on two hours of sleep and still never make an error.

I check my battery, eight percent, shit. Today of all days, I forget my power bank.

My phone dings that I’m two stops away from home, great thank god, my aching body is screaming for my bed.

A tingling sensation begins in my spine, like static, unrelenting, chilling.

I push a strand of hair behind my left ear, and my peripheral alerts me to a black shape behind me. The figure. He’s moved.

Okay maybe he’s just getting ready for his stop, not everyone is out to get you chlo. I just wish he could’ve chosen different attire, how is he not aware how creepy he looks?

I lean forward, gripping the bar of the seat in front of me, closer to the driver, closer to safety. Am I overthinking? Or has my body calculated the risk already and responding just as it should be?

I chance a glance over my shoulder, just slightly to my left, discreetly pretending I’m looking through the window through the seats beside me.

Sat in the seat directly behind me, is him.

One more stop until home, just hold on chlo. There’s cctv, he surely wouldn’t try anything.

Despite my crippled feet, I decide to stand instead, feeling clawed at in this strangers presence.

But what if my suspicions are true, what it he gets off at my stop? Follows me? Then I’m truly alone, it’s late, who will be awake? It’s not like I could disturb Miss Taylor, banging on her door in distress at a quarter to eleven. Though there is Christy.

She’d given me quite the welcome when I first moved, and came tumbling over with a bear hug, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without a cigarette, loud and foul-mouthed, but I found that to be quite a comforting quality.

The light dings, alerting me that I’m now at my stop, fuck do I say something? But what would I say, that someone moved closer to me? Someone got off at the same stop as me? I’d sound ridiculous.

No, I can’t, okay I just need to speed walk, stay in the public view as much as possible.

I burst from the doors, clutching my bag to me with an iron-like grip, why do I not carry weapons?

I suppose my key will do, and I did hear that throat punching someone is debilitating, but please god do not let it come to that, please just say I’m delusional.

The flurry of car lights soothes me immediately, good. Witnesses.

I don’t dare to look back, I don’t want the confirmation. I take a sharp left onto a side street towards my apartment, and I hear a thumping, is it my heart or footsteps? Determined, I increase my pace and nearly scream with relief when my complex comes into view. Sweat forms on my skin, clinging to me like fear.

I sprint at an athlete's pace to my front door, the sound of my manic footsteps ricocheting off of the beige walls. I fumble for my keys and quickly jam it into the lock, it doesn’t turn and when I see that it’s circular, the bar key, I nearly scream in frustration. I grab the square-shaped one and quickly ram it into the keyhole, nearly spraining my wrist with the angle I’m turning it.

I swing my door open with a force that should’ve broken it off of its hinges and before I can slam it behind me it stops, I realise with a startling pace what is about to happen, I look behind me, and amongst my blurry vision, I see the figure, there at my front door. I open my mouth to scream but am met with a gloved hand placed across it.

His eyes are the only thing I can make out, I squeeze the tears out of my eyes and see that they’re a startling shade of silver. No. This only ends one way, and I refuse to be a news story.

I, by some miracle, manage to twist and jab my elbow into the general area of his face, hitting something so hard that if it wasn’t my elbow, i’d probably be in unspeakable pain. His following growl of anger tells me I did something useful, I sprint to my bathroom door, the only one with a lock.

My wrists are yanked backwards before I even manage to get my hand on the handle.

I’m in his grip once again, an intense expression I can only assume means I pissed him off. Both heads dart to the door when it begins to bang incessantly.

“Chlo? What’s the trouble girl? You hanging a frame, or do I need to show some fuckwit what’s good?”

I go to scream, but his hand is clamped to my mouth before the sound escapes.

He lifts his shirt, revealing his abdomen, I look at him in confusion, what is he showing me? I take a second glance and immediately recoil in his grip, my blood running cold when I set my eyes on it. A handgun sits in his jeans, powerful to even look at, daring someone to pull it’s trigger. He cocks his eyebrow as if questioning what I want the outcome to be. I nod in response, answering his question.

I have to be complicit. He looks at me a few moments longer, hesitant to trust me, but I suppose he hasn’t got much to lose, the CCTV in this place was appalling and by that, I mean non-existent. He could shoot me and then Christy and be out of the door in less than twenty seconds, and his disguise, alongside the lack of motivation from the police department here, means I have no choice.

He removes his hands steadily his grip around my back steel-like. I look over his shoulder to the door, okay breathe, you have to keep your voice calm or she’ll know something is up. God, I wish we could have a code or something, something that would signal danger to only her. But a part of me suspects he’d tack onto it straight away, he was observant, that much was obvious.

I steal a moment to catch my breath and calm my racing pulse, I can’t sound panicked, that woman is a hawk, god do I love her for it though.

“All good girl thanks for checking, fell over the bathtub whilst shaving. You know what I’m like, never without a bruise on my leg.” My laugh is breathy and a little awkward but her husky chuckle assures me it did the trick.

“God I don’t miss those days. Craig can take it or leave it these days. His idea of manscaping is changing his underwear more than once a week. Animal.” I hear the flick of a lighter, comforted by the fact she didn’t stop in a potential emergency to have one.

When I don’t respond she takes her leave,

”Well if you need anything honey, shout me. Shame, I was in the mood for a fight today.” She chuckles with her signature rasp, her feet beginning to echo away from the door.

“Will do!” I shout back, my voice strained.

My rapid breathing is the only thing to be heard in the space, he keeps me tight in his grip, and he takes a quick sweep of my apartment.

His eyes sweep to my coffee table, he seems to make a decision then. Moving me swiftly he sits me down on the metal chair next to it, damn him, that table is sealed into the floor, who would even think to do that?

He cuffs me to the leg of it, my wrist straining slightly with the angle but that was the least of my worries, he cuffs my ankle to the bottom end, leaving me helpless.

The sight of his gun keeps me silent, compliant, he doesn’t need duct tape, I’m not stupid.

I see the digital clock above the fridge reflecting the time eleven forty, has an hour passed already? The closer it got that people were more likely to be sleeping the more my anxiety ramped up. Fewer people to hear me. At least I’m still here, in my apartment, maybe he thinks I have jewellery. But his clothes look expensive, good quality, not just something he threw on, this was planned. Pre meditated. And that gun looked military-grade, upwards of 500 dollars. I’d been to a store with my idiot brother drew, seeing a similar-looking one that this guy had, they weren’t cheap. His shoes were steel-toe-capped, not cheap either. I was surprised at myself that I’d managed to observe him to such an extent. My pre-panic on the bus seemed to ready me for this.

His shoes barely tap against the hardwood floor, each step so precise, so placed, a mastery at the execution of whatever he is planning to do with me. I swallow my nerves, unable to hear anything above the pulse I can’t calm or contain. He pulls the bag from the floor from where he flung it, and confusion fills me, what does he want with it?

He places it on the table in front of me, my gaze moves from the bag and then back to him, he reads the confusion on my face,” Where the hell did you find this?” His voice rocks through me, its gravel only adding to the nausea settling in my stomach.

That is what this is about. My bag? I look at it again, my keychain glinting as cars drive by, illuminating it.

I swallow, gathering my nerves, ”What? This is _my_ bag.”

His eyes skin the length of my face, contemplative.

Been far too long since I’ve written! But somewhat getting back into it!:) This is unfinished, but progress nevertheless.🤍