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    There's something to be said about adrenaline. It can make you do stupid things and make you do shit you'd never normally do. It's the simple flight or fight response that makes a human feel heightened in their response to danger, or something like sports.

Since this whole heist thing began, I've thought it was a little different from a normal robbery. In a normal robbery, the gang would grab the money and go. This bunch of twats, though, didn't even ask for the money straight away. They picked me and Adelaide out, and now they have the money, they're not really asking to be let go. Well, until the negotiator phoned.

My first suspicion started when the knife guy called me Mr Writer – it's a well-known song by Stereophonics, sure, but there is only one person who calls me that. Could very well be a coincidence, but something is telling me that it's not. There's also a tinge of recognition when he was yelling at me to answer the phone.

I could be overreacting, but the way he's been reacting and how this is playing out so far, I'm pretty convinced. Then the way he keeps calling Adelaide pretty and gorgeous... yeah, she is, but there's only one person who would be that incessant.

That's why the gun is in my hands. I've never held a gun before, but I've watched so many shows that I swear it'll be easy enough: point and threaten. Pull the trigger if needed – which hopefully, I won't.

My suspicion isn't the only reason I'm holding this gun right now. The fact is, we need to get out of here. They have their money, so there is no reason for us to be here anymore. They won't get anything more, and if they're trying to bargain getting out of here without police hunting them, they'll be sorely disappointed. The idiots have broken the law, including killing someone now, so they will absolutely be hunted.

My chest is heaving at the resounding words I spoke to Adelaide just now – and I know she'll hate me for saying it. She hates me, and I... hate to love her? Love to hate her? I'm unsure how to define this feeling exactly, but there is love and hate in equal measures.

The problem is, I'm not lying to her. She's the one thing that's kept me going since the terror attack – and I betrayed her, and she betrayed me – and I will always love her. I just also hate her and her actions.

I suppose that's the point of love: to feel. If there was no love involved, then her actions and comments wouldn't hurt me so much. If I didn't feel love for her, then I wouldn't hate her.

It's a very... romantic notion in every aspect.

"What's he doing?"

"That's Fletcher Ward! With a gun?"

Every word and whisper about me holding a gun is going over my head, and I know the robbers are struggling to control them all, and my feet move me towards the guy with the knife as he strides down the corridor.

"Fletcher!" Adelaide's voice carries after me. "Fletcher, don't it's—" She stops. We both know who this is, then.

Well, shit.

I keep going, my eye on the prize. It's not really a prize, but it feels like it if I'm right. I'll have a bargaining chip to get us all out of here.

The room next to where they kept me and Ades earlier is where he walks into. It's a smaller room, but the same look to it.

The guy turns around as if he knows I've been following him this whole time. "What do you want, Mr Writer Lover Boy?"

"My nickname has changed, has it?" I demand.

His eyes move to the gun in my hand, which is by my side right now. I hate this thing almost as much as the burned image in my mind of Adelaide fucking my brother and his girlfriend at the time.

Almost, but not completely.

"You don't look comfortable with a gun. For a start, you need to point it at the person, with both hands, and the expression you have needs to be fiercer," the guy says. He's wearing a smirk as if this is a joke.

I suppose I must look like a joke. This shit doesn't suit me; I'm a writer and a celebrity. Girls, drinks, a copy of my book... they all look better in my hands than a fucking gun. I don't do robberies and crime.

But here we go.

"There's only one person who calls me Mr Writer, and I think you know who, huh?" I ask. "If you are my brother underneath there... Sam, I just... want to know why."

Nothing. The thing about balaclavas is they're designed to only give you someone's eyes and, in this instance, the mouth. There's no emotion, which is the very thing that makes someone human, and that's the point.

There's no emotion in this guy's face, and I can't tell if the hard brown eyes that look like my brothers are because he's been caught out or because he's so confused as I'm wrong.

I don't think I'm wrong, though, and I certainly wouldn't be holding a gun and doing this shit if I wasn't at least eighty per cent certain he's Sam Ward, my brother. The same fucker that had a threesome with Adelaide in her petty revenge plan.

Is it wrong that though I've just admitted to still loving her, the longer I spend in this fucking bank heist with her, the more I hurt and hate her more for doing it? Yet I still think about her lips on mine, her body underneath mine, or on top of mine.

"What's your plan, Fletcher Ward? Because we have one for you – we have one of the most famous people in the UK and pretty much the world right now as our hostage—"

He's definitely my brother. The very lighter version of my voice is there. Now I can envisage it, I can hear it too.

Clearly, though, he doesn't wanna admit it. But he also knows there's no way I'll hurt him, and in the same way, I know he won't kill me either. We're in this weird Mexican standoff, except he has a knife he's not aiming at me, and I'm not aiming my gun.

"You can keep me hostage as long as you want, but you know the facts. None of you will get out of this without the police involved. Keeping me hostage might seem like an advantage, but it makes the stakes even bigger to the people outside. Hostages do that. There's a dead body in that room over there, shot with one of your guns. Murder will be on the list of charges for you as well. This could easily be fixed if you let the hostages go."

"He was killed with a gun that looks like the one you're holding right now," he points out.

"One which wasn't fired, and one I'll be keeping on me and handing to the police when I'm out of here. What's the big plan, anyway? You have the money. What else is there for you? Kill me? Kill all of us? Blow up the bank? Stick it to the man and all that? It doesn't make sense."

His eyes roll. "It's not about the money; well, the money is needed. But it's not all about the money."

"So what is it about—"

Bang.

My eyes move to the gun in my hand, but nothing has come out of there. Thank god. But then that means something has happened out there...

Adelaide.

"You gonna go out there and check your girlfriend is okay?"

It's even more obvious who he is now.

Part of me is desperate to force him to admit it, but the gasps and screams are filling my ears, and I need to know if she's okay.

"Get off me!"

It's Adelaide, and she's close by.

"Oh, look, she's fine," the guy I'm pretty certain is my brother, says.

She's suddenly pushed into the room and forced into the chair beside me.

"She's proving to be a pain, Boss. You told us not to hurt—"

"Shut up."

They were told not to hurt her; that's what he was about to say. So, I wonder if I'm also being forced to stay alive – if they want her alive, there's no way it's for anything other than her association with me, and also Sam from when they fucked.

As the knife man's eyes meet mine, it becomes glaringly obvious as his eyes even out. Part of me wants to call him Sam, but I could still be very wrong. Not that I'm wrong often.

Fletcher, this is not the time for your ego.

"You two lovebirds can stay here. I have shit to do. And whatever the fuck you think you're planning, don't," he warns before rushing out of the door.

"Don't even—" Adelaide's voice stops after a second. She shakes her head. "They shot one guy in the arm. Like what the fuck is going on, Fletcher?"

I sigh. My mind is still churning with the images of her and Sam. Now I'm pretty sure it's my brother out there wielding a knife. But right now, she needs me.

"You know who that is?" she carries on.

"Sam." We whisper it at the same time.

She sighs. "I don't know for certain, but the way he's acting, I'm pretty sure."

I nod in agreement. "He hasn't admitted it, but he's the only one that calls me that. He just oozes Sam. Told me it wasn't all about the money. Also said he wasn't going to put the knife to me, which, you know, despite our differences, when it comes down to it, I don't think either of us would hurt each other."

"If it is him, he won't admit it because they wanna avoid getting caught. Whatever happens, we need to make sure we get out of here and let the police know. He might be your brother, but for god's sake, he's led this shit."

"What the fuck led him to this? I haven't spoken to him since I yelled at him down the phone for... well, the threesome."

She looks uncomfortable, but shrugs. "It doesn't matter, I guess. We're here now and someone else is probably dead now. If I make another wrong move, they'll kill me. Especially if it is Sam... so we just gotta sit here and await our opportunity. Yay!" Her last word comes out laced with the thick sarcasm she usually oozes.

I scoff. "He wouldn't kill you."

She rolls her eyes and mutters something under her breath. I can't make the words out.

We fall silent, but the echoes of yelling, panicking, and hurt cries ring out like a car alarm from down the hallway.

Adelaide's leg is bouncing, and she's sitting on her hands; she wants to run out there and help but knows she can't. Her anxiety is peaking.

Time to give her back what she gave to me all those years ago, and now.

"Ades," I whisper.

Her eyes dart to me as she bites her lip. "Yeah?"

"Tell me about Sophia, was it? Your girlfriend?" I ask.

She scowls. "Why?"

"Honestly, so that you have a distraction, but also because she clearly meant a lot to you, so just tell me about her," I insist.

She rolls her eyes. "Why, so you can hate on the fact I was in a same-sex relationship?"

I scoff. "Back then, I admit I was an idiot. But I've never hated your sexuality, Ades. You know that deep down. I'm a lot of things; egotistical, an arsehole, toxic, whatever, but I'm not homophobic, bi-phobic, any of that. I don't care whether you're straight, bisexual, pansexual... whatever."

"Harrison said the same thing about how he was sure you weren't homophobic towards me, more just annoyed you never knew," she says.

"You two still talk all the time?"

She nods. "I think he's been blowing my phone up in my pocket, but I don't wanna risk answering in this situation."

When she told me about her first and only other boyfriend before me, Harrison, I was initially a bit freaked out by it. She told me how they were on and off sweethearts from when they were thirteen till fifteen when they got together properly, were each other's firsts, and then only broke up because he left for Australia. They'd promised to be together when he got back, but he's stayed out there. It's a wonder he never returned for her. I met him a few times over FaceTime and whatever, and he seems like a nice guy.

"Did he ever meet Sophia virtually?" I ask.

She nods. "They got on like a house on fire. He's been talking about coming home for a bit."

"What was she like?" I ask again.

She takes a moment while tears build up in her eyes like a dam. The yelling is calming down out there, but there are still cries and sobs ringing out like a ringtone.

"She was amazing. A big fucking fan of yours, too. Fucking bitch," she jokes.

I laugh. "Tell me about her."

She nods before launching in.

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