But it does when two men in ski masks throw open the door and come into the room. The scream ends when one of them bends down and slaps him across the cheek with a gloved hand so hard that his lip bursts and blood runs down his face and onto the dirty mattress. The scream ends when the other man pushes a big white rag into his mouth so no sound can come out.

One of the men grabs his shoulders and forces him into a seated position. Then he pulls Jacob forward until he’s kneeling on the floor. Hands behind his back. Rag in his mouth. Blood flowing down his chin. The man leans over to him, and Jacob can smell his acrid breath.

‘Be quiet,’ he says in heavily accented English. ‘Not a sound.’

He takes a step back and pulls a small gun from the waistband of his cargoes. He puts it against Jacob’s forehead, and Jacob feels tears flowing down his cheeks.

Then he pulls the trigger.

The gun clicks and Jacob collapses onto his side on the mattress again, his whole body shaking.

‘Exactly,’ the man says, laughing quietly. ‘Keep your mouth shut.’

Jacob nods.

The two men turn around and disappear out the door. He can hear them locking it behind them.

*

It’s impossible to say how long he’s been there when he hears someone outside the door again. Maybe an hour. Maybe twelve. The cold is a part of him now. Like frost has buried itself in his brain and spine. He’s so hungry. And unfathomably, indescribably afraid.

Slowly the door is pushed open. In the dark he can’t see what’s happening other than a dark figure entering the room and crossing the floor towards him. It’s not until the figure steps into the dim, grey light falling from the small window, that he realizes who it is. And his heart stops.

There in the middle of the room stands Yassim.

*

Jacob tries to say something, but the rag just sinks deeper into his mouth, almost suffocating him. He manages to push himself up into a semi-seated position with his shoulder against the wall.

Yassim is here.

He’s here.

The two men in ski masks have stepped into the room, but they’re standing at the door. It may be the same men as before, impossible to say. Yassim is almost in front of him now and stops and stares at him calmly, without emotion, as if he’s never seen him before, as if Jacob didn’t mean anything at all.

When Yassim’s boots hit him a few inches beneath the ribs, it’s not the pain that paralyses him, but how surprising and inexplicable it is. He rolls into a ball on the mattress as best he can with his hands behind his back. He pulls up his knees, pain radiating in his abdomen.