I Can't Do It

I sigh to myself, already bracing for my partner’s reaction. He’s taken me turning down far less critical clients horribly, there’s no way this isn’t going to crush him and me as collateral. And the gun cocks.

“I- I’m sorry, man. I- This is not a good idea. I know that it’s gonna be difficult for us to lose something like this but-”

“Jay,” he grumbles, cutting me off.

“Yeah?”

“You can’t fucking do this to me, man. I mean, if you wanna fuck shit up for you and your life like this, fine, but I have shit on the line, too! Rent’s not fuckin cheap, man, and you know it, just as well as I do. You can’t be this fucking sel-”

“Look,” I interject, cutting him off. I keep my voice even and low, trying to keep the situation from escalating any further. “If you want to finally put on your agent hat and take this job, go for it, but I’m not gonna do it. And as the person keeping this business afloat and actually doing the legwork, you need to fucking respect that, alright?” My partner doesn’t respond verbally, just huffs into the phone, searching for words. “I’m gonna hang up now. I’ll be here when you decide to give a shit about my opinion, alright?”

I hang up before he gets the chance to say anything else. All the air pushes out of my body with a sigh, as I reach for my phone, wallet, and keys and start to head out the door. Streetlights illuminate the otherwise pitch black street in front of me. I start to head towards my car, when I hear something moving behind me. My head whips around, trying to see what it is.

I don’t see anything and quickly chalk it up to just being wind. I turn forward again and keep walking to my car. I hear the same strange sound a few more times, but just ignore it, assuming it’s wind, too.

In an instant, before I get the chance to process anything, I feel someone’s arms wrapping around my waist, pulling me back against them. Just as the contact registers with me, I feel something jabbing into my neck, before I black out completely.

My brain spins in my skull as I feel myself floating back into consciousness. Emptiness fills out most of my body, like a popped balloon; limp and just barely hanging on to being three dimensional. Half of my body feels strangely sore, not enough for me to question it, but definitely enough to stand out, to be noticed.

The red tinging the insides of my eyelids is the only indication I have of anything happening in the world around me. After a moment, I drag my eyelids open, nearly burning my eyes with the admittedly gentle light flooding the world around me.

I stare up at the, thankfully light-less, ceiling for a moment in an attempt to re-orient myself. My gaze starts wandering not long after, taking in everything I can say from my position on my back - at least, as well as I can with my unusually blurred vision. The sight of heavily curtained windows, some pillows, and a lamp on a small table next to me clearly paint the space as a bedroom. _What the fuck happened to me?_

Tiredness weighs down on me, pushing my thoughts out of my head and nudging me back to unconsciousness, any energy I would’ve had to fight back completely gone. My attention floats back to the ceiling before my eyes drift shut again.

As strange as the situation is, there isn’t much I can do about it, especially since I can hardly move anything below my neck. I resign myself to sleep again, when I feel the bed under me shift with someone’s weight.

My eyes fly open again and I turn to face the movement as fast as I can in my state. The combination of my blurred vision and my head starting to spin from the movement obscures the figure sitting on the bed next to me. I blink a few times, letting my mind settle and starting to clear everything up. Even still, the cloud on my vision doesn’t clear enough to be able to put a name to them. Out of near desperation, I start running through their features in my head, searching for anything I can grab onto.

_Short-ish dark hair, pretty light skin, blue and green eyes._

That last part stops me in my tracks. It feels general enough that I shouldn’t get hung up on it, but so specific I can’t just drop it. There aren’t that many people with eyes like this - it can’t be that hard to pin it down to someone, right?

“I wouldn’t think so,” an unnerving familiar voice says, answering the question that I didn’t really ask. Oh shit.

My mind goes blank at that, just spinning in circles, trying to find something to say or do to get myself out of here, or at least find some kind of answers.

“You know, I didn’t think you’d be up this soon. They normally aren’t - not when I drain ‘em like that. It’s honestly pretty impressive on your end - good work.” I can’t tell whether or not his tone is condescending or not, but it doesn’t matter - his words alone are more than enough to send me spiraling.

_“No,”_ I whisper to myself, unable to wrap my head around any of what’s happening.

“No what,” he asks, leaning down closer to me. I don’t respond, just keep repeating _‘no’_ to myself, over and over and over again. My eyes stay fixed on Tom in near horror, just trying to wrap my mind around whatever the hell happened while I was ****. It doesn’t take long for frustration to cover his face, completely replacing any fascination or pity that was there before.

Tom sighs to himself, before opening his mouth to say something.