"Now listen to me. Miss Go. You've seen the stories in the news. You know what happened to the other women I've encountered. But for you I may make an exception. I may let you live.... if you do what I say. Will you?"
An exception. Then there was a chance. A hope. If she would do what he said. Well, of course she would. She would do whatever he wanted. Even let him molest her, rape her. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except staying alive.
Everything was clear, vivid. Terror had sharpened her senses, heightened her awareness, slowed time to a spider crawl. The smallest details around her stood out sharply like photographic close-ups. She saw the light glinting on the brass doorknob a foot away, saw the blurred, contorted, upside-down images of herself and the man behind her cupped in the knob, two indistinct shadowy shapes backlit by the lamps on her end tables.
