Sara tried to fight. She wasn’t about to give up that easily. She kicked out at him, catching him in the thigh.
He struck back at her, and Sara managed to avoid the first blow, but a second caught her in the stomach. Sara fought back through the pain, slamming her forehead into his face. She might work in an office now, but she remembered how to fight.
It bought her a moment of space, but only a moment. Adam was on her in an instant, grappling, trying to use his size and weight advantage. The two of them slammed into the desk, knocking it aside.
Sara went for Adam’s eyes with outstretched fingers, but he dodged aside from that, picking her up and slamming her to the floor. That knocked the breath from Sara, but still she tried to turn and struggle to her feet.
Adam didn’t need another opportunity. His weight was on her then, holding her in place while he wrenched Sara's hands behind her back and cuffed them in place. His weight held her there, even as she tried to break free from him.
"You know exactly what you did," Adam said. "You thought that you could just throw me away, like I was nothing to you. But I'm not just going to forget all that you did to me. All the pain that you put me through, you're going to get it in return."
"It wasn't like that," Sara said.
"It's exactly like that," Adam said. "You thought you were better than me, and youthrew me aside like I was a piece of garbage."
That wasn't how Sara remembered any of it. She remembered a dangerous young man who had frightened her until she hadn’t been able to stay close to him any longer. She tried to struggle as Adam started to take things from his bag: lengths of rope, a knife that gleamed by the office light. He just grabbed her and held her in place.
"That's not what happened, Adam," Sara said, trying to reason with him, while at the same time trying to find a way out of the bonds that held her. She tried to keep the fear out of her voice and failed utterly. "We drifted apart. It wasn't my fault, and it wasn't your fault. It just happened."
"It wasn't my fault?" Adam said. "No, you're the only one who's to blame for all of this."
Sara wanted to head for the door. She wanted to fight her way out of there. But Adam was holding her too tightly for her to get her feet under her.
“We just... Things weren't working out between us."
"That's not how I remember it," Adam said. "I remember you telling me that you were sick of me. You told me that I didn't care about you, and you were right. I didn't care. I didn't care about you being with him. I didn't care about you leaving me. I didn't care about what you did."
"Adam, please-"
"Shut up," Adam said. "You don't get to tell me what to do. You're not my girlfriend anymore. You're not my anything. You aren’t special anymore, Sara."
Sara knew in that moment that she was going to die, but she had to try something. She had to try to find some way to get through to Adam.
"I've read about the things you did," she said. "You were killing people right after you were with me, but you didn't come for me before. You didn't try to hurt me back then."
"That was a mistake," Adam said. He started to work with the ropes from the bag, wrenching Sara's body this way and that as he tied her in a position that seemed impossible to hold. That hurt her just being there. Her arms were wrenched high behind her, the pressure on her shoulders making it an effort to breathe.
"I don't think it was a mistake," Sara said. "I think you didn't hurt me because some part of you still loved me. I think you still love me now. I don't think you want to do this. I just think you want to be close to me."
Adam laughed then, and there was something cruel about the emptiness of that laugh.
"That might even have been true, once," he said. "There was a time when you were my whole world. I longed to be close to you, to touch you. I would have done anything for you."
"Then do something for me now," Sara begged. "Let me go."
"No."
There was a finality to that word that made Sara shiver.
"I've found someone new," Adam said. "Someone better. Someone who deserves my attention. You... I'm going to stand here and watch until you run out of the strength to hold that posture. Until your body starts to suffocate itself. Can you feel it, Sara?"
Sara could, each breath taking more effort than the last.
"Please, Adam," she begged, as if that might make some kind of difference.
Adam just stood there, watching her coldly as she grew weaker, little by little...
"And to speed things along, a little," Adam said. "Let's give you some incentive to move."
He had a knife in his hand then. Sara wanted to get away from him, wanted to struggle and fight, but she couldn't do anything as he brought it up to make the first cut...