Page 65 of 59 Minutes

FRANKIE

‘I need your help!’ The man’s voice through the door is loud, desperate and familiar.

‘Oh no,’ Frankie whispers, crouching as if he can see her. ‘It’s Ashley.’

‘Ashley?’

‘He … he and his brothers grabbed me, they hurt me and they took another girl too.’

‘Ashley? Ashley Curtiss ?’

‘He’s out for blood, his brothers are dead and he’ll blame Otis, he’ll blame me!’

‘Please,’ Ashley shouts again. ‘I’m begging you, I need shelter.’

‘His brothers are dead ?’ Janet says, raising a hand to her mouth but flicking her eyes at the door. ‘What happened to—’

‘Never mind that – he can’t come in here and see me.’ Frankie lifts the gun and points it towards the woman’s birdlike chest as she stiffens. It feels like play-acting.

‘Tell him it was all a false alarm,’ Frankie says, quietly, her voice steelier than her insides. ‘Say that he doesn’t need to shelter anymore.’

‘You’re not going to shoot me.’

‘He’s dangerous,’ Frankie says. ‘Properly, actually dangerous. And if you try to let him in, I will shoot you.’

‘I know he’s from rough stock, believe me, I know all about him. But we’re not animals.’

Janet walks towards the front door. Frankie follows, her legs shaking and her head banging. The gauze prickly on her head.

‘I mean it,’ Frankie hisses. ‘That man will hurt us both.’

Janet steps forward, slower this time. Ashley must hear her footsteps because he starts to cry out. ‘Let me in, please! I need help, my brothers … my brothers …’ The rest is lost to tears. A gruesome, gargling sound. The woman’s nimble fingers reach for the bolt.

‘Don’t you dare!’ Frankie whispers, pushing her own finger into the crook of the gun, the trigger vibrating slightly as she trembles.

The bolt is pulled back, just a little. Frankie steps closer, gun still rattling in her hands. ‘Please,’ she hisses. ‘Please don’t do this.’

But Janet has already opened the door, and Frankie was never going to be able to stop her. Ashley stumbles into the hallway as Frankie cocks the gun. ‘You,’ he says, his voice slurred with pain. ‘What are you doing with my brother’s gun?’

‘Ashley,’ Janet says, calmly, ‘you need to sit down, you’re in a terrible state and you need looking at—’

‘We don’t have time for that,’ he says. ‘A missile is coming, I need to get to HQ. My … my …’

He sits heavily on the wooden stairs, his head in his hands. ‘Ah there’s no fucking point,’ he says. ‘It was them that cared about all that.’

Frankie points the gun uselessly at him.

‘Ashley,’ Janet says, carefully. ‘You need to know that there is no missile.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘It’s been called off. Honestly. Love, give him your phone.’

Frankie shakes her head. ‘I’m not giving him anything. He’s the reason my boyfriend is bleeding to death out there.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ Ashley roars. ‘The prick that smashed into us?’

‘Because you fucking kidnapped me!’

‘We saved you!’

Ashley stands up, staggering a little but stepping heavily towards her.

The gun shakes in Frankie’s hands. Minutes ago, she had stood outside this cottage prepared to shoot her way inside.

Janet not yet a person to her, just a barrier to safety, a gatekeeper.

Minutes before that, she had been willing to leave Ashley to die in his truck.

Hopeful, even, that he would die. Willing to leave Otis, to her deep shame.

When there were minutes on the clock, what did any of it matter?

But the clock has been rewound, the clean slate smeared dirty again.

She looks at the gun and wills herself to be that Frankie again.

The Frankie that was capable of pulling the trigger.

But it’s too late, Ashley has snatched it.

And now he’s pointing it at her.