The woman held hostage at an Auckland mall on Friday has revealed the promise she made to the attacker to defuse the terrifying situation.
Laura Wheeler feared she'd never see her children again. A terrifying, random ordeal that happened while she waited for breakfast at Burger King in Westfield Manukau.
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"There were times when I felt scared, and there were times when I felt in control because I was able to talk to him," Ms Wheeler explained.
"But it really depended on what he was doing with the knife at the time, because sometimes he was waving it around at everyone else, and sometimes he was digging it into my neck," said Ms Wheeler.
Throughout it, her 14-year-old daughter Jessica watched, fearing her mother could die.
"I could see a knife and then I yelled out 'Mum' and she yelled out 'Don't worry, it's okay'," said Jessica.
Although Jessica was taken away by mall security staff, she could see the ordeal from outside.
"There were times when I thought, 'I don't know what is going to happen here, and I'm not sure if I'm going to see my kids again'," said Ms Wheeler.
"I just kept talking to him about why and what he needed, because he was trying to get his sister to come and she couldn't. He did tell me that he didn't trust anyone else."
Armed police eventually surrounded the pair, but it was a promise by Ms Wheeler that saw her set free after the longest 40 minutes of her life.
"He was worried about them shooting him if he let me go, so I told him I would stand with him until they had the handcuffs on him so that he wouldn't get shot while I was still there," she said.
And that's exactly how it played out. The man is now in police custody, facing a kidnapping charge.
As a mother-of-two and foster-carer-of-four, Ms Wheeler has a big heart - a heart which has extended to the man who held her hostage.
"My only anger around him is around what he's done to my daughter, but as far as the rest of it, he needed somebody to help him," Ms Wheeler said.
"I don't know what was going on in his life, but in every situation there's something behind that - so obviously something terrible was happening for him," she said.
The mother and daughter had travelled to Auckland from Christchurch to see Taylor Swift, a belated birthday gift for Jessica.
And once again, Ms Wheeler didn't let her daughter down, carrying on with her day.
"We just went to Rainbows End, had a shower, then went to Taylor Swift - it was a great concert. Shame about the rain, but that's Auckland for you," she said.
As for Jessica, it was a day she'll never forget, for the right and wrong reasons.
"I'm just really glad we got to keep going and go to the concert," she said.
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