Stefuh : I too loved that flashback of Liz and Maria. There’s more on that Flashback soon. It will be interesting to see how you feel when she sees everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in that Flashback. Thanks for sticking by this story. I can’t wait for it to get more angsty. Oh and Adam….you’re about to find out.
Parker1947: Thanks for the review. I’m a big fan of your fics and love how you write Max and Liz. They have a special place in my fic too. After all, if it wasn’t for Max and Liz…would there have been a Michael and Maria?
keepsmiling7 : I love that you’re a dreamer, and to be honest Max and Liz are getting the justice they deserve in this fic. There was no sex with Tess, there’s no baby Zan (even though gosh darn it- he was an adorable baby!) it’s going to be Liz and Max’s turn for happiness. I’m glad you’re going to stick through the Maria and Michael parts too. I love them a lot, but yes- Adam. I highly disliked him for some reason when I saw him Season 3. I don’t know what it was, but I expanded on it and now, well….you’ll see in the next chapter
![Exclamation :!:](./images/smilies/icon_exclaim.gif)
(Warning this chapter could be triggering to some who have been assaulted)
Chapter 2
“Maria! Ready for some one-on-one,” he said a little too flirtatiously as he unknowingly licked his lips. He looked back down at his notes and stood up handing them over to Maria.
“What’s this?” Maria asked as she looked at the pad of paper with his scribbled writing. As she turned the pages of the pad she noticed many red marks and edits, over the song pages and lyrics.
“All the parts of the song where you screwed up,” Adam replied almost too immediately. “And we’re going to stay here late till you fix -every, -one, -of, -them,” he enunciated as he poked her nose. Maria annoyingly shook her head brushing his hand away from her face.
“This is going to take hours. It’s already late. How would any singer function like this?” Maria complained clearly upset.
“Well, that’s why I brought help!” Adam said coolly as he opened the fridge at the corner of the room. All this time Maria had been singing in the studio, and she never once noticed the fridge at the corner of the room. Walking back to her, Adam held two bottles of Heineken. Maria raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry I’m more of a Corona girl,” she replied sarcastically as she walked towards the hooks on the wall and began to take off her jacket and scarf.
Adam licked his lips again catching a glimpse of Maria’s back. He took in her alluring figure as her beautiful blonde hair cascaded in perfect waves midway of her back. Her jeans hugged her ass perfectly and just the sight of that was almost too sexy to hold back a moan. He saw the exposed skin of her abs as she raised her jacket and scarf to hang on the hook. She was a beauty.
He had been mesmerized by her ever since their first meeting in New Mexico. He remembered especially being thankful to hear that the song she had first written back then was about her ex-boyfriend, whom she had just broken up with. It meant she was available and he relished in the thought.
The Beauty was single, and that made Adam happy. Very happy. He stealthily walked over to her, quickly encircling her waist with his arms. Surprised and taken aback, Maria found herself unwillingly in Adam’s grasp. Looking down she saw two ice-cold Heineken were held in each of his hands.
“Let go of me,” Maria stated calmly as she daringly turned in his arms to face Adam. The action made Adam only gleam in pride more. He liked it when the girls he was interested in were playing hard to get or showed some assertiveness. Complete turn on.
“Come on love, pick a bottle,” he said as he brought the bottles up to her chest pressing the bottles against her bosom. The action made Maria both tense and cold all at once. She could feel her nipples harden from the cold temperature of the bottles, and she was sure her white tank top would expose major “headlights”. She pushed him a bit back only causing Adam to chuckle as his eyes froze at her chest. Yup. There were headlights.
Great! He’s totally going to get the wrong idea. I’m so not turned on!
Maria crossed her arms over her chest. “Can we just get this over with?” She was definitely annoyed and tired of his pathetic advances. Adam didn’t say anything. He threw the bottle she rejected on the couch, while he twisted the other open and took a big gulp.
“Ready whenever you are sweetheart,” he whispered wearily as he took a seat at the controls. Maria glared at Adam as she opened the glass door to the recording room. She was pissed. She had unfortunately gotten used to his pathetic attempts at flirting and even the unwanted tapping, groping, and pushing here and there. She didn’t like being harassed, but she felt so trapped in many ways. How could she fight back Adam Chase? That would ruin her career. A career she had fought for.
All the sacrifices she had made had begun to feel like it wasn't worth it. All of a sudden, an epiphany that brought on great remorse washed over her. To fight for her career, she left behind what mattered to her most. And now Maria was beating herself up for making such a devastating mistake.
But I can’t go back now. No one would take me as I am, let alone forgive me. I can’t even forgive me, she thought sadly to herself as she cupped the mic with both hands and closed her eyes.
“Ready?” Adam said a little rough in the intercom. Maria noticed the tone, but ignored it and simply nodded as she opened her eyes. As he put the music on, Maria’s started singing and it was mesmerizing. Out of all the singers Adam had ever worked with, none of them had a voice so full of feeling and passion like Maria’s. She was and always would be his magnum opus. His. He was never one for sharing. He hated that she never responded to his advances, and the truth was he was getting really tired of it. Especially today.
As she sang and sang, Adam sipped and sipped his beer. What Maria didn’t know was this was his fifth drink that day which made him tenser, bothered, and agitated than usual. Maria’s disinterest only added more fuel to the fire.
Putting his fingers to his head stroking his temples in a circular motion, he felt the angst from the compilation of Maria’s many rejections. Many months of moves, and not one reciprocated! His headache began to pound louder and louder with more fervor and pain. He was drunk, and when he was drunk- he was an angry drunk.
“Enough!” he roared as he flipped off the music.
Maria angrily took off her headphones letting them rest around her neck.
“What is it now?” she said glaring at Adam through the glass, agitated by the sudden disruption. She knew she was hitting the notes perfectly and with already being tired from working overtime Maria couldn’t hide her disdain.
Adam’s eyebrow raised at her disrespectful reaction.
With no more than a second’s notice, Adam was in the records room with Maria, and the door banged as it closed behind him.
“What is it now?” He exclaimed, repeating her phrase mockingly. He chuckled with a dark look causing Maria to apprehensively backup, unknowingly dropping her headphones to the floor.
“You need to back off Adam,” Maria started raising her hands slowly up. She was hoping the signal of surrender would calm him. “You’ve drunk too much,” Maria stated as she noted the Heineken still in his hand. He threw the bottle against the viewing window in a rage. The bottle caused a crack in the glass and in mere seconds the crack spread and got bigger and bigger, extending and extending. It was as if time had gone into slow motion and Maria’s eyes remained glued at the crack of the glass. Finally, the glass broke into thousands of pieces. The glittery storm crossed over to the studio controls room. The now exposed panel of the sound system dashboard was cascaded with broken glass. A sharp piece from the contact flew and nicked the side of Maria’s cheek. She quickly brought her hand to her face where there was tingling pain.
Danger. She was in danger. She was always good at sensing it from her escapades with Michael. She knew when danger was the real type of danger. This was real.
Maria quickly dodged for the door as she saw Adam preoccupied at the view of the exposed control panel and the mess he had made. Just as she was about to grab the knob, a hand grabbed her arm throwing her against the floor. Pain jolted from her tailbone to her neck, her headphones now flying across the room. She groaned and then groaned louder when Adam plopped himself on top of her. Finding it hard to breathe beneath his weight she screamed and heaved as she tried with all her might to push him off of her.
But to her dismay as much as she was trying to get him off, Adam’s persistence grew as well and he effortlessly clamped Maria’s arms down to her sides.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he sneered, his alcoholic breath causing Maria to wince. She turned her head to the side to avoid the putrid stench radiating from his breath. She tried to kick her legs up from under him hoping she could somehow kick his backside or any side for that matter so she could escape from under him!
“Stop struggling!” he exclaimed furiously as he grabbed her shoulders up then slammed them down. Simultaneously the back of her head hit the bare floor of the record room with a thud, radiating pain like no other in her skull from the whiplash. She had to get out from under him--somehow someway.
She felt his hands repositioning hers, as one of his grabbed both of her hands and raised them above her head. He then took his free hand and placed it underneath her tank top. He skimmed his hand up and up until it found lace. Maria at this point was whaling from disgust, crying and pleading for him to get off of her. It was no use though. The whole thing just made him more turned on, and he began to knead her flesh over her laced bra cup.
“No!” Maria wailed repeatedly as she shook her head no. She peeked from the side of where her head turned and noticed the Heineken bottle just out of reach.
How did the bottle not cross the threshold of the glass on to the controls?
No time to think about that now! Looking up at Adam, who was now looking down at her navel, appeared to be completely fixated and distracted by her body. Maria somehow managed to get her right arm out of Adam’s grip, grabbed the Heineken bottle, and smashed it on Adam’s head as hard as she could. Shards of glass flew in all directions and Maria could feel the remnants of beer trickling down her right arm.
Adam screeched as he sat up cupping the back of his head, then quickly fell next to Maria’s side on the floor, wincing in pain. More green glass fell on top of her and Adam, but that didn’t stop Maria from making her move! Maria bolted from the floor, almost tripping as she ran out of the record room. As she dashed past the control panel, quickly pulling her purse and jacket and scarf off the hooks she turned to find Adam still on the floor, wailing in agony.
As she went to the door in hopes of escaping it all, she noticed a red light. It was the recording bulb on the control panel that caught her sight. The sound of the whole incident had been recorded. Maria’s head was pounding in pain, but she was clear-headed enough to know that she needed this as proof in case-- in case anything happened! Quick thinking had become second nature to her, ever since she went on alien escapades with the podsquad and her friends. She was a quick thinker, always was, but even more so now, especially under pressure. She quickly skimmed the control panel and found the location of the tape. With a nervous shaky hand, she flicked the off button to stop the recording and hit the eject.
“What the fuck? You bitch!” Adam cried as he was now standing in the record room towering in anger and pain. There was no glass window that now separated him from where Maria was standing at the control panel. Convinced that he might leap from where he was standing to where Maria was, she quickly confiscated the tape and ran out the door.
Racing down the hallway, she flew through the entrance doors of the building. The cold air hit her like sharp razor blades cutting her all over her body. She dashed around the corner, running down the street finally hitting a sharp right coming across stairs leading down to a metro station. She was out of breath and still very dizzy but she couldn’t stop, especially with Adam at her tail! Racing down, she could hear the doors of the building open in the distance and an infuriating scream of Adam Chase echoing the street as she raced down the stairs.
Taking each step quickly and carefully as possible, she shuffled her hand around in her purse, hoping to find a MetroCard. Running past a few people, she could hear the sounds of a train approaching the platform.
“Come, come on,” she cried to herself. Sliding the card through the machine, practically moved the turnstile itself with her body as she ran out to the edge of the platform.
Two metro doors opened right in front of her. No one got out, and she smoothly went in the car practically collapsing inside, clinging on to the nearest pole to break her fall. Looking around, doused in beer, and smelling of Heineken to her relief she found it to be empty. The doors closed and all of a sudden she turned from the sound of a loud “thud”. It was Adam Chase. He was on the other side of the metro car doors.
He slammed on the doors, with two tight fists banging repeatedly against the doors. As the metro train started down the track he continued cursing at Maria from the outside, even running beside it for a few seconds till he finally gave up for not being able to compete with the train’s gradual increase in speed.
As the metro entered the tunnel at full speed, Maria collapsed onto the floor in tears. Her thoughts for some reason went back to that goldfish that was still trapped in the tank at the recording studio. Knowing that the goldfish was still stuck made her feel sad and guilty. She knew it sounded silly, but she couldn’t explain the remorse she was feeling, because while the fish was still trapped, she had somehow escaped. She was safe, and now, finally free.
Note from the author: I will be updating every Friday. I am sorry if I am a bit late to some of you in the world. Please write a review and let me know if you like the story and if you think I should update it more regularly than just every Friday. I hope you all like it so far. Michael will enter the picture soon I promise. I can’t wait to introduce Liz and Max to you all. I am so proud of myself, that I have given the happy ending they deserve. Liz and Max forever but will Maria and Michael be ok too? Please do leave a review if you can, and predict what you think may happen or should happen. --------Santi