He was pulling at her underwear, but he couldn’t be. This couldn’t be happening. She must be able to fight, but it was like a dream where her body wouldn’t work. Nothing worked.

‘Hey!’ It was another voice. A deeper one. One that was full of a different sort of threat. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

The tugging at her underwear had stopped, and the weight that was on her eased momentarily, though there was a sharp pain in her left arm still. She could feel his hand pressing down on it.

‘Get – the fuck – out of here,’ the man who was on top of her said. ‘I’m not fucking around.’ Louise managed to free a hand and pulled the hair out of her eyes enough to see something. She twisted to see the face of this man pinning her down. The smile had gone, because he was wearing a balaclava now. He’d become faceless. Awful.

There was a tall figure standing a little further away, one that loomed over them both.

‘I don’t care who you are or what you think you’re doing. You need to get off her. Right now.’

‘Mate, I told you to go.’ There was such coldness in that cheerful northern voice. ‘This has nothing to do with you.’

‘Please,’ Louise sobbed. ‘Please don’t go.’

There was a brief silence, and then the tall figure strode forwards. The weight on her arm lifted abruptly as the figure above her was hauled away. And then there was a sickening noise as her attacker swung a fist at the tall stranger.

She heard a noise of pain and then a roar. The taller man brought his fist up so quickly that there was no time for the balaclava-clad man to dodge. It connected with a crunch, and then the taller one was kicking and shoving her attacker away, so that he was scrambling backwards. He was fleeing and trying to shield himself all at once.

It was quiet for a moment after that. He’d gone. The awful man in the balaclava had gone.

She could hear the tall man breathing, and then he said, ‘Are you OK?’

And then suddenly she was crumpling in on herself and sobbing. Sobbing so hard that she couldn’t breathe.

‘Shhh,’ he said, and he was sitting next to her. ‘Shhh. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.’

He helped her to her feet, and once she was in front of him she saw that there was something sticking out of his abdomen. She reached out. She touched his dark-stained T-shirt just below it, and when her hand came away, it was warm and sticky.

‘You’re hurt,’ she said. ‘You’re hurt. He hurt you.’

He gave a laugh, but it ended in a groan.