“Hands over your head.”
Daniel stiffened and turned slowly with his hands over his head. damn. The woman sat propped against the wall, knees bent up and arms outstretched, gun unwavering and pointed between his eyes. Her eyes were steely and tired, as if she had seen worse than this and wished that everyone could just leave her alone. Blood trickled slowly from the top of her head, where he had hit her, and she took a hand off the gun to wipe it away, hissing as her sleeve came in contact with the wound, his body tensed ready to make a run of it while she was distracted, but as soon as he had the thought she looked up sharply, her arm still pressed to her head.
“Don’t even think about it, I can shoot just as well with one hand as I can two. The moment you make a move I’ll put a bullet in your brain.” He gulped and nodded. She gestured with the gun for him to sit against the opposite wall. He did so. She leaned back against the wall, arm pressed tight to her head, gun hand clunking to the ground; her eyes closed and she released a breath in an explosive sigh. She stayed in the exact same position for so long that he started to think she had fallen asleep or passed out. Or dead he thought hopefully. He waited a few more moments and then got slowly to his feet. Or tried to. As soon as he had risen to his knees she had the gun up and three bullets in the wooden floor in front of him. He shrieked manfully and fell back against the wall. The woman peeled an eye open to give him a look that could peel paint. Then she heaved herself to her feet, leaning against the wall with a moan. she walked up to him standing closer than he thought was smart, but he wasn’t going to complain, she grabbed a roll of duct tape that was conveniently placed on the dresser to his right. She bent closer to him, peeling a long strip of the tape as she did so. “Don’t try anything you hear? You try  and do anything, I will hit you. Now stand up.”
He slowly got to his feet eyes locked on her face.
“Give me your hands.” He did so. And as she bent to tape his hands he snapped his fist upwards toward her face. It never got there. She caught his fist and spun out of the way stopping in front of him a foot back. She just looked at him for a minute, and then she hit him. He’d never been pistol whipped before, and it was a new, if not pleasant experience for him. He fell back against the wall and slumped down it to a sitting position on the floor, too dazed to do anything as she taped his hands behind his back. When his head finally cleared she was back against the far wall, her steely gray eyes fixed on him with unnerving intensity. As soon as she was sure he was there enough to understand her, she got right to the point. “Here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to walk away from here and think about your life choices a little. Then I’m going to call the police, and tell them a strange man broke into my apartment so don’t even think about going to the police with some bull story about how I attacked you, and try to get me arrested. And you are not ever going to come back here again. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”
He nodded and she stood, walked over to him and unceremoniously ripped the tape from his hands then pointed to the window. “Go.”
He did so.