Sophia never wanted to hear another rat again in her life. While she was glad she wasn't drugged, her night, or day, or whatever time it was, was not exactly restful. The scuttles and squeaks all around her, the constant rumbling and shaking from the subway, and the ever-present fear of being murdered kept her wide awake.

So she used the time to try to come up with a plan. Graham was who knows where at the moment, but without him there, she could try and wiggle her way out of her bindings.

After what was probably a couple of hours, no luck. Apparently, he was very good at tying people up, a fact that did nothing to calm Sophia's panic-flooded brain.

She needed to calm down. She wasn't thinking straight and only wasting her energy on useless attempts to escape. It was when she could feel something warm dripping down her wrists, blood from the rope cutting into her skin, that she forced herself to be Nurse Sophia Shelby.

Nurse Sophia Shelby, who was excellent in a crisis and looked at problems with a level head, using logic to come up with solutions. Sophia purposefully slowed her breathing and closed her eyes, taking in ten deep breaths before opening them again.

She couldn't get out of the chair. It was bolted to the floor, and Sophia had realized that her ankles weren't tied to the chair legs, they had handcuffs around them. She could move them a little bit, but there wasn't getting out of them without a key.

So, she needed to figure out a way that she could get Graham to let her use her legs, and then make sure that she had found a way to get her hands free. Right now, even if she did have free use of her hands, it wouldn't matter. Her legs would still be stuck.

The only thing Sophia could think of was that Graham would have to let her go to use the bathroom. That's what the bucket in the corner must be used for. That would be her next step.

And she had to go, anyway. Like, she really, really had to go. She was determined not to pee herself, but she found herself constantly shifting around in her chair, trying to get more comfortable as the pressure on her bladder became almost unbearable.

She was also pretty sure she had started her period. Just to add insult to injury.

Having a plan, even if it was an underwhelming one, helped Sophia keep her nerve when she heard the locks shift again as Graham came back. That was another thing she noted: he locked her in when he left, but not when he was in the room with her. So if she got the chance to escape her bindings and somehow overpower him, she would be able to get out.

There was definitely a chance that she would be immediately run over by a subway train, but that was a risk she was willing to take. She would take death by subway over whatever Graham had planned for her, any day.

"You look better."

Sophia wondered if he was just trying to be pleasant, or if by some delusion she actually thought she looked better.

"Graham," she said, keeping an air of demureness to her voice, "I, um, I need to go to the bathroom."

He gave her a soft smile that only creeped her out more. He liked it when she asked him for things. "You'll let me help you?"

She nodded. If it let her figure out a way to escape, it would all be worth it.

And she had been right. Graham pulled out a set of keys from his pocket and undid the restraints around her ankles. He kept her arms tied behind her back, though.

Sophia's legs screamed as she stood. She had no idea how long she had been down here, stuck in the chair, and her muscles weren't used to moving. And, once again, the drugs probably hadn't helped. But she got what she wanted, and she knew that the period of time when Graham moved her from her chair to the bucket in the corner would be her window.

The whole process was humiliating. She wanted to rip his eyes out at the way he stared at her as she did her business, but she kept her façade up. Sophia looked down from his prying eyes in what she hoped was a passible performance of mild embarrassment instead of the intense disgust that she was actually feeling.

He rechained her ankles to the chair once she was done, and Sophia took a chance as he brought his chair back over to her.

"Graham, what was life like for you after you left L.A.?" Her voice was soft, a hint of curiosity the only emotion she allowed in.

Graham regarded her with wary eyes as he sat down. He was dying to tell her everything, Sophia could see that. So she risked another small nudge. "I just, I'm just curious," she said. "It couldn't have been easy, for you." She kept sympathy and understanding just at the edge of her words, enough for him to notice them but not so much as to cause suspicion.

And it was enough. He sighed and shook his head. "No, it wasn't easy," he said. "Like I told you yesterday, I thought about you all the time and I never stopped loving you. But there were some things that made it a little easier."

"That's good."

"And it is of those comforts, in some ways, that I want to tell you about. Because it's what eventually brought me back to you."

"What comfort is that?"

"Elizabeth Findlay."

Sophia's name prickled at the sound of the dead woman's name—Graham's first victim. But she just gave a small nod. "I've heard of her. You ended up in Florida?"

"As good as place as any." Debatable. "But yes, I ended up there and met Elizabeth soon after I arrived. She was beautiful and kind, not too bright but got by working as a dental hygienist. She just reminded me of you so much. I thought that maybe I could live without you if I had her.

"It worked for a while. For years, actually. We first met in a bar, I only approached her because she looked like you and I wanted sex, needed a release. But she was so willing to follow me, it just made sense to keep her around. And it was nice, I'm not going to lie to you. Our relationship was nice."

Sophia swallowed hard. Poor Elizabeth Findlay, maybe not the smartest woman in the world, but she deserved to have happiness in her life. And however Graham was describing the relationship, for whatever reason Elizabeth decided to stay with him, she doubted it was as idyllic as Graham was making it out to be.

"So, what happened?"

Graham's lips pinched together. "She wanted to make a change. Suddenly had all these ideas of going back to school and getting an MBA, not that she was smart enough to get one. Said she wasn't happy with her job. We fought. We had fought before, of course, but she always came back to me. But this time, she said she was going to leave me, that she was done with me. And I couldn't go through that again, Sophia. You hurt me so much when you left me.

"I didn't mean to kill her, I swear. I just wanted her to know how much I wanted her to stay with me. But I kept my hands around her throat just a little too long, and well, it happened faster than I thought it would. One minute she was there, and the next she was gone."

Sophia trembled but held back her tears. "That must have been horrible for you," she choked out.

"In a lot of ways, yes. I couldn't believe what I had done, so much so that I considered killing myself. I mean, after all, if I did that then she and I could be together forever."

Sophia's eyes briefly narrowed. She hadn't known Graham to be particularly religious or a believer in the afterlife, but maybe that was something else that had changed.

"But once the initial shock of it wore off, I realized two things," Graham continued. "The first was that the killing part wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. That feeling of power, of control." He got up and started pacing in front of her. "I've never felt anything like that. And that's the only thing I've ever wanted, Sophia. To be able to perfectly control everything around me. Take out all the chaos in life and leave it perfectly balanced."

Jesus Christ, okay Thanos. "And what was the second thing?"

"That there was someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with," Graham said, turning around to face her, his eyes blazing. "But it wasn't Elizabeth Findlay."

Sophia swallowed hard. She already knew Graham wanted to kill her, but this, the actual sentiment coming from him even if he didn't say so in as many words, sent a new shiver of terror through her. That's what this was all about, them somehow being together for the rest of eternity in death. "So, that's why you came to me?" she guessed. "I was the person you wanted to be with?"

Graham retook his seat and leaned forward, gripping her thighs with his hands. "Of course, Sophia, I've always wanted to be with you," he replied in earnest. "I remember seeing you for the very first time in high school. You were so beautiful, so perfect in every way. People loved you, but I loved you the most. And then you became mine, and I thought I had everything I would ever want. Even though we had our ups and downs, look at us now. Together again."

Sophia took in a breath. "I remember you in high school, too," she said. She wasn't quite sure why she was joining him down memory lane, but at the very least it would allow her to stall. "You were everything I could have wanted."

Graham smiled at her. "So you understand, then? Why I had to come back to you even though you almost destroyed me with your accusations? With the horrible things you said about me?"

"I guess I do, a little bit," Sophia said, playing along. "But I don't understand everything. I get why you killed Elizabeth Findlay, but what about the others? Why continue killing if you already knew who your final target was?"

Graham's smile widened, the yellow light making his teeth glint and casting sharp shadows over his face. "Because I wanted to."