00:20
‘Please,’ he whispers. ‘Don’t do this.’
His words leave him in a breathless sigh, his tears heavy on his cheeks, fear freezing him to the spot. But something else begins to stir inside him.
Hope.
She is hesitating. Her hand is shaking as it grips the gun, her eyes dancing from him to the man and then around the room before flying back to him. She hasn’t simply pulled the trigger. Which means she is thinking, no longer acting on blind anger-fuelled adrenalin.
She isn’t going to do it.
And the clock is running down.
00:10
‘Why?’ she cries.
Ryan’s whole body is pounding, his pulse vibrating through him. This feeling – this feeling is like nothing else. So close to death and yet so far. Because … she won’t do it. Emilia won’t do it. In just the short time he has known her, he has seen who she truly is. And she isn’t a killer.
So when the time runs out – she’ll die, and he’ll be set free. He’ll be the survivor. And nobody will ever know his connection to Sophie. Nobody will ever know.
‘I swear it isn’t true,’ he says again.
Keep talking. Keep her frantically wondering. Wind down the clock. Be the survivor.
‘I would never do something like that. I swear on my life!’
00:05
He meets her eye, and frowns. There’s something there – something has shifted in her face. A look in her eye that wasn’t there before.
Resolve.
She knows.
00:02
She has finally realized the truth.
But it wasn’t his fault! It was her fault. Fiona. Sophie.
00:01
If she had just agreed to love him, she could have lived.