Within a few minutes, Simon is unrecognisable. That’s when I first see the gun. R is holding it, pointing it directly in Simon’s face. I can’t help but let out a sob and he cuffs me across the face with his other hand.

I see the fear go from Simon, a look of acceptance on his face. I recognise that face – I have worn it enough times.

R lets out a belly laugh and then raises the arm that’s holding the gun, allowing it to spin in his hand so that he is holding the barrel. He strikes at Simon, hitting him with the butt until Simon collapses on the floor, bleeding. His hand reaches out to me, either asking me to intervene, or just a final attempt to run away together – a delusion of hope.

My face is soaked with tears. I call R a bastard and he smiles. I tell him if he doesn’t let Simon go that I will run again; if he does, I will stay. R tells me that he’s done with me. That I am more trouble than I am worth. That I just don’t listen. That I belong to him.

I spit in his face and he slaps me again. He tells me he has to go, but that neither Simon nor I will ever get the chance to betray him again. He uses his fist this time when he hits me and I fall to the ground.

R turns to the men and tells them to take us both to the site on the business park and put us in the foundations. I listen helplessly. I am not sure if I hear R correctly, but he takes one of the men to the side and tells him that he wants Simon to suffer when we reach our destination. He wants him to make Simon his bitch before he kills him. I know R well enough to know what this means.

Simon is looking at me and I see him mouth the word sorry, as if he has anything to be sorry about. I am the one who should be sorry. I caused all this.

Reece leaves and we are dragged to the back of a van and bundled inside. After a while the van slows and I realise we must be on residential streets judging by our speed. I can hear them saying they are bringing us to the building site. The foundations for the community rock garden are being laid in the week and they can put us there. We need to get away. I watch Simon drift in and out of consciousness, his face swollen and disfigured, gashes where the metal of the gun hit his temple and jaw and tore through the skin.