A train rattled along the tracks beside my apartment building. Normally the noise didn’t bother me, but today it was unusually loud. When I listened closer I could hear the sounds of the city rising up to meet my ears; dogs barking, car horns blaring, police sirens wailing. And all of it was obnoxiously loud.

With a groan I rolled over onto my back and-

“Fucking hell!”

Oh shit, that was a mistake. Pain erupted through my right shoulder, and my head fell back against the pillows, breath hissing through my teeth in agony. What the hell? I looked down to see that the upper right side of my chest was covered in thick gauze and bandages, a few specks of red had appeared in the middle of the white expanse. Blood...How-?

And it all came flooding back. The strange man in the shop last night. The beautiful man who- wait... did he have a gun? Holy shit. He was shooting at the other man and then-

No way.

That didn’t-

I did not get shot... did I?

I looked back down at the bandages. The red dots had
expanded and melded into one another, forming a small scarlet circle.

Fuck.

Me.

Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever sworn so much after just waking up. This is new. Usually I’m a lot more eloquent than this. Must be something to do with getting shot. Yeah that must be it.

Now that I’ve discovered the source of the pain, I try once more to sit up. I’m somewhat successful this time, managing to prop myself up in bed with pillows, careful not to move my right arm too much. As I sit up, I notice a breeze whistling through the apartment, rustling papers and brushing against my skin. Only then do I realize that the door to the fire escape has been left open.

That’s... unusual. No, actually. It’s wrong, very wrong. You don’t leave doors or windows open in New York City. Not unless you wanted robbed or murdered. I never left that door open. The fact that I preferred to use the fire escape to leave the building rather than using my own front door, meant that I always locked it behind myself. I’d been doing it ever since I moved in and discovered some mooch had installed a standard lock on it instead of an emergency bar-lock.

And I never forgot to lock it, never mind close it. So
what –

Wait. How did I even get home last night? Last thing I remember was heading home , going into the shop with Wes, meeting Beautiful, getting sh- gulp- getting shot, and then... nothing. What happened? How did I get here?

Now I feel more confused than ever. I reached a hand up to drag through my hair, only to discover that it was still caked in gel. Oh, great. That’s just perfect. Day old gel is a pain to get out. May as well get up now that I’m awake I think as I through back the duvet, still careful not to jostle my right-side too much. The pain seems to tolerable, so long as I don’t make any sudden movements.

I shuffle my way into the small kitchen, trying to remember if I have any food in the house, and suddenly I feel wave of dizziness travel through my body. I grab onto the table edge in an attempt to steady myself. Oh right, blood loss. Of course you’re going to be dizzy, idiot.

When I no longer feel like I’m going to collapse in a heap on the floor, I pull myself up straight, and lift my head slowly. Okay, that’s better. That’s when I notice it. Right in the middle of the table.

A note.

A plain piece of folded white paper with a single word written in neat script on the front : Blaine
Intrigued, I reach out and pull it out from under coffee mug that had been set on top of it. Inside was more of the same handwriting:

I’ve left some extra bandages and tape in your bathroom, you’ll need to change the dressing at least twice daily.

There is a tube of special ointment sitting on your bathroom sink, call it ‘Grandma’s magic recipe’. Apply it generously to the wound as you change the dressing, and the wound should heal in a few days.

Take care gorgeous,

Xx

Well, that didn’t really solve the mystery of last night. It didn’t solve anything really. Except... this meant someone had brought me home, dressed my wound, and put me to bed, all while I was unconscious. Why go through all that trouble? Why not just take me to a hospital? Shrugging it off, I turned back to the cupboards in search of food. As I did so, the still-open fire escape caught my eye.

Hold the fucking phone.

Whoever wrote that note, whoever brought me home had dragged my unconscious dead-weight body up three flights on a freaking fire escape...

I push the heel of my left hand into my eyes. Ugh, it is too early in the morning to think about all this. So I force myself to turn back around, search out some cereal, a bowl, some orange juice, and convince myself that I will be better able to process this once I’ve properly woken up.

After breakfast I decide to attempt a shower (I do still need to get that gel out after all, ugh what a mess). All of the necessary bandages and such had been left on the bathroom counter, just as the note had said.
***

Half an hour later, I came out of the bathroom refreshed, gel-free and with a clean dressing. Whatever ‘Grandma’s magic recipe’ was, it burned like hell, but after a while the pain I felt before had definitely dulled, and I felt slightly more like me for the first time that morning.

I glanced up at the clock. I had half an hour to get work. Oh, yes, you heard correctly. Even gunshot I am still going to work. Not because I love my job or anything positive like that. Fuck no. I hate my job. I hate the people I work with. I hate my boss. But if I don’t go to work, Schue will fire my ass, and how many other banks do you know that would be willing to take on a down-and-out ex-foster-home kid with a violent background who never even graduated high-school and, quite frankly, needed an attitude adjustment?

Answer: none.

The only reason I had a job as an executive assistant at McKinley was because I made for good eye candy outside Schue’s office. Of course, he didn’t say that, at the time it was all "We at McKinley are all about development and helping the unfortunate". So he’d given me a job as his assistant, with a decent wage and all I had to do was bring him coffee, make his appointments, do some filing and photocopying, and answer phones. Hardly rocket science.

But I’d caught him the act a few times. And I’m not just talking about staring at my ass, which he does on a regular basis. No, I’m talking about the fact that he is stealing from innocent people. He’s been steadily pinching from people’s savings for years, and god forbid any takes his investment advice. That’s his newest scheme, I think. He advises people to invest in certain (and I’m pretty sure fake) companies, which gives them a great return value, so they sell their shares for a profit. He then encourages them to invest again, with a greater amount, and this happens several more times before suddenly the market collapses and the investors lose all of their money, and amounts matching their losses soon appear in Schue’s own account.

Maybe that’s another reason he hired me, he thought I’d be too dumb to figure it out. But I can’t say anything. If I do I’ll lose my job, and like I said it’s the only one I’m ever likely to get.
***

Twenty minutes later I was walking into McKinley, Wes nattering away at my side. I didn’t really care what he was saying, I was just too focused on not bumping into anyone with my bad shoulder.

I made my way over to my desk, which was just to the side of the teller’s counters. Schue was already in his office. I saw him leering through the glass door as I removed my suit jacket. Rolling my eyes, I moved back to the staff kitchen to get my morning coffee.

When I came back out, I heard raised voices and fearful gasps. One woman screamed. As the front of the bank came into view, I saw three men with ski masks on their faces, pointing guns at the tellers as they ordered them to fill bags with money.

Could these guys be any more of a cliché?

I ducked back under my desk, as one of the men fired a warning shot in the air when one of the customer’s attempted to make a break for the door.

“Nobody moves ‘til we get our money! Understood?”

Without waiting for an answer he fired another shot into the air. Another woman screamed, and I saw a woman close to the gunmen hunched over a pram. I let my eyes pan across the room, and saw that there were about a dozen customers in total dotted all over the main floor, and around ten or so staff members.

The only phones in the building were internal, so there was no chance of contacting the police. The tellers were too scared for their lives to even think about pressing the alarm buttons under their desks.

I ducked back behind my desk rubbed my hands over my face in silent frustration. Dammit. There wasn’t anything I could do, we were all trapped in here with (possibly homicidal) criminals. We were sitting ducks.

As I sat there thinking the situation was hopeless, I heard even more of a commotion out front, and then there was another gunshot. That was no warning shot. Oh, shit. They’ve shot someone.

I chanced a peek around my desk. What I saw was not at all what I had expected.

Not. At. All.

The woman with the pram now stood straight, holding a
handgun and aiming it at the two remaining thieves. The third was laying on the ground, still, blood slowly pooling around him. I took a closer look at the woman. She was tall, slender, ebony-haired, with tanned skin, hair pulled straight back into a tight pony-tail. She was the very picture of a badass bitch. I almost jumped when she spoke.

“Get the other one. He’s in the back.”

As she spoke, another figure got up and moved towards where I was. I was gripped with fear for a split second before I realised he had walked past me and into Schue’s office. I watched the man’s back as he pulled my boss up from where he had been crouched on the floor. He pulled him close for a second, as if whispering something in his ear, then shoved him backwards onto the floor. Tears were streaming down Schue’s face and he looked like he was pleading.

The man then lifted a gun that I hadn’t realised he’d been holding, and shot Schue in the head.

“Holy shit!” I couldn’t help but exclaim.

Uh-oh.

The man whipped around at the sound of my voice and-

Oh, shit. I knew that face. Our eyes met and I was trapped in those beautiful glasz orbs.
It felt like a century passed before he started to move towards where I was crouched. I was frozen in place. I couldn’t have moved even if I had wanted to. As he came closer, my eyes travelled up an down his body. A tight shirt and dark skinny jeans left little to the imagination and revealed his toned, muscular figure.

Even thought I was scared shitless, my dick still twitched at the sight of him. Damn he was beautiful. I thought back to the first time I saw him in that shop. Then, his clothes were simple and his eyes full of innocence. Now, I could see the lethal ferocity and strength hidden behind that gentle expression.

I blinked.

And suddenly he was crouched in front of me.

“Well, look what we have here.” He reached out and dragged his knuckles across my cheek. “You’re just everywhere aren’t you?” He mumbled the last part, and I was unsure if he’d even meant me to hear it.

A shout came from out front, “Porcelain, move it! We gotta haul it outta here!”

“Coming, Satan!” He- Porcelain called back. “Come on”.

He pulled me up by the elbow (the left, thank god) and dragged me with him out to the front.

“We’re bringing this one with us.”

The dark-haired woman -Satan- rolled her eyes, “Hurry up, then. Specs is out front.”

As I was pulled outside, I noticed the other two thieves tied up and gagged in the corner. Outside there was a black van, the side doors slid open as we approached, and I was bundled in roughly, quickly followed by Porcelain and Satan.

As the engine fired up, I thought about what I had just witnessed. Oh shit.

I am so dead.