Ben scoops his pile up and heads into the room with his name on the door that isn’t his room because he does not belong here. This is a mistake. They think he’s something special, somebody who can do incredible things. Ben Ryder. He’s not Ben Ryder. He is Ben Calshott, who was going to get married to Steph but Steph was having an affair. The thought of her sends his mood plummeting into a state of despair that grips his insides and sends a rush of nihilism coursing through his body with a deep longing to be surrounded by things he knows. He doesn’t care about what happened when he was seventeen. He had years of psychological treatment but in truth, the fact he killed never really bothered him. He could justify it in his head. They would have killed him, that woman and her child, so therefore the actions he took were right. What did bother him was the fact that killing did not bother him. Everyone told him he should be upset and traumatised, but he wasn’t. He was upset that it happened in the first place, and he felt awful that the woman and her child had such a thing happen to them. In the end he faked it, as it was the only way he could end the treatment. He told the therapists he felt bad and let them convince him that he should not feel bad. The same with Holborn, even though it only happened a few days ago. The fact that it happened is awful. The fact that people died is terrible and he feels every emotional reaction one should feel to such a thing. The lives he took, though? No. Nothing. Again it was justified. They would have killed him and many others. What is fact is that neither of those things he did makes him a hero in his mind. Harry and Safa are heroes because they dedicated their lives to protecting and defending others. He didn’t do that. He only reacted to a threat in front of him and that was it.

He goes back into the middle room with a feeling of panic starting to rise in his chest as Harry finishes tying the laces on his old boots and stands straight, fingering the black material of his trousers then his top. ‘Good stuff,’ he mutters.

‘I can’t do it,’ Ben says quietly.

‘Both ready?’ Safa strides out, looking and feeling entirely comfortable in the new clothes. ‘Ben? You’re not dressed.’

‘I can’t do it.’

‘Can you rip this for me?’ she says, handing her grey tracksuit top to Harry. ‘Need a hair-band about this thick,’ she says, holding her thumb and forefinger slightly apart. ‘Get dressed,’ she says to Ben gently.

‘Safa, I can’t. I can’t do what you do—’

‘I’ll train you,’ she says, cutting him off. ‘You’ll be okay, I promise.’