He leaned back, his legs pinning her arms by her sides, then threw a fist into her stomach, sapping any remaining defence she was trying to muster. He stood up and grabbed her hair in his hand, began to drag her away. She writhed and kicked and filled her lungs to try and scream. Before she could manage it he wrapped an arm around her throat. He squeezed hard, choking her attempt to raise the alarm.

The skin on her back and side scraped painfully on the pockmarked surface as he dragged her over a step, through a garden gate, behind a thick bush.

‘You shouldn’t have run,’ he said, his voice now calm, almost warm.

Horrific thoughts crashed through her mind as she heard his voice echoing in her mind. All of the things he’d said he’d do to her. She had to fight. She had to give it everything she had.

She kicked and she bucked. She tried to reach up to dig her fingernails into his face, but he blocked her every move.

She heard a noise.

He heard it too. She could tell because of the flinch in his eyes. Someone was coming. A far-off car? A pedestrian on the street?

He thrust his hand towards her. She jolted, her chest constricted sharply. She couldn’t catch her breath at all. Looking down, she could just make out the glint of metal, sticking out from her gut.

He withdrew the knife, slowly, assuredly. Then slid it back into her flesh a second time. The razor-sharp blade glided into her abdomen effortlessly. Looking up, she saw him staring down at her with morbid interest.

‘You shouldn’t have run,’ he said again.

Then she heard another unexpected sound. Closer now. A banging noise. A door opening? Her eyes darted off to the side. A light flashed on, so bright it burned into her retinas and she squinted and looked away until the throbbing in her head subsided.

She heard shouting, but her confused and drifting brain couldn’t decipher where the noise came from or what the words were.

After a few seconds she finally felt able to open her eyelids again. The light was still on, but was no longer glaring. For a moment she wondered if she was back in that place. But no, it felt – and smelled – different here. She was still outside. It wasn’t that same blinding light that now tormented her thoughts, but a security light at the front of someone’s house, just a few yards away. She was lying in the small front garden. She looked up at the man standing over her. Not him.

He’d gone.

‘My god,’ the man said. ‘Don’t move. I’m going to get help.’

He turned away.

‘No!’ she managed to cry out. ‘Don’t… leave me.’