He utters each syllable slowly, as if he is talking to someone who doesn’t speak the same language. The hand on my stomach is shaking violently now and I worry about his state of mind.

Tom’s eyes meet mine.

‘Don’t!’ I shout at him. ‘Whatever you do, he’ll kill us both!’

I can feel the blood enter my mouth and I gag, the metallic tang almost making me vomit.

‘Erika, I’m sorry,’ he says.

At the sight of him giving in, all the fight left in my body leaves. I relax against Ed’s frame, ready to have my throat torn open, to receive my fate. Tom bends down slowly, the gun extended in front of him with one hand raised in a sign of submission. Ed’s body relaxes slightly and then Tom pulls the trigger.

The noise of the gunshot explodes through my ears and into my brain, rendering me incapacitated.

A pleasant warmth spreads though the top of my leg and it takes me a moment to realise that it must be blood. Ed’s grip around my torso loosens though I’m still dragged to the floor, landing on top of him. My hand immediately jumps to my thigh, searching for the injury that is causing the blood loss. Though unable to find a bullet wound, my hand comes away slick with blood.

I can feel myself being pulled from Ed’s slack grip and as I’m delivered to a standing position, I brace myself for the pain to really hit. It doesn’t come.

After a minute of disorientation, the scene reveals itself; Ed is still lying on the ground, screaming in pain and clutching his leg whilst Tom has removed the bullets from the gun and made it safe, content that the threat to life has been subdued.

As I pull my phone out to call the ambulance, Tom drops to his knees and attempts to stem the blood flow from Ed’s leg by tearing a strip of material from the sleeve of his t-shirt and using it as a form of tourniquet.

Once Tom is convinced that the first-aid he has provided to Ed is enough to keep him alive until the ambulance arrives, he turns him onto his back and I cuff his skeletal wrists.

Tom wraps me in his arms and we sink to the floor, to the soundtrack of sirens in the distance.

I wince as the anaesthetic begins to wear off and I can feel the pain flare in the area under my eye. The doctor has closed the gash with a number of stitches and after a thorough assessment, was happy that no lasting damage has been done to my throat by Ed’s vice-like grip.

Whilst waiting for the doctor to finish giving Tom the once over, I open the email Angela has sent through and re-watch the CCTV footage of Ed waiting at the bus stop outside Limas. Once the bus arrives, he steps on and when the bus leaves the frame, so does he. I open up the new file that Angela has managed to source at short notice. It is CCTV footage from the bus stop approximately 300 metres along the road.