AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The thought struck her from out of nowhere, so it had to be heavenly inspiration. She needed a weapon.
Another footstep. The man was growing closer.
Arianna opened her eyes but didn’t look up at him. She searched frantically for a weapon. Something. Anything. A branch. An icicle. With the bench at her back, she couldn’t easily reach either.
She couldn’t run because of her impractical heels, so she needed to find … what about a ‘shoe weapon’ or dagger spike heel? She reached for her right shoe. Grabbing at the delicate straps, she tried to yank it free. There was no time to undo it.
It didn’t give.
“Well, then.” The man was directly above her.
She blinked up at him, horror making her mouth dry. Her heart thudded violently against her rib cage as she yanked on her shoe. Why wasn’t the clasp giving?
“I try to make it as painless as possible.” He licked his lips. “But you’ll probably fight. They always do. And then it ends up being a miserably painful death. Would you like to lie back and allow me to accomplish my work, or are you planning some last-ditch, futile fighting effort?”
Arianna hated this man. She’d never hated anyone like she did him. He’d violently murdered six women and she would be the seventh. One death a month. Would she be remembered as December’s victim?
“Fight!” she croaked out in a sort-of yell, but her throat was so dry it had little impact.
“All right then.” He grinned, dipped onto one knee, and grabbed her shoulder, raising the knife high in the air. The light from the lamp post glinted off the long metal blade.
Arianna looked into the eyes of her murderer and saw agony and certain death coming from that knife. She yanked with all her strength and ripped her shoe off her foot. Turning the heel, she plunged the spike into his abdomen with all her strength, and maybe some strength from heaven above.
The man’s eyes widened as a dark red spot blossomed on his white shirt around where the heel had penetrated his skin. He lowered the knife and grasped at the sparkly silver shoe stuck in his flesh. Yanking it out, he stared at it as if not comprehending that she could have wounded him.
Arianna should run. She knew she should, but she could only stare at the blood on his white shirt, sticky red covering the end of her five-hundred-euro, thirteen-centimeter Stuart Weitzman.
He chucked her shoe off into a bush and snarled at her, “I am going to make your death an absolute misery.”
“No!” Arianna screamed.
She ripped off her other heel with her left hand. Thankfully, the clasp popped open easily this time. He growled at her and tried to grab at the shoe, but Arianna slammed her right fist into the bloody spot on his shirt.
He curled forward, grunting in pain and surprise.
She scrambled to her feet, grasped the heel between both hands, and brought it down on his right forearm.
He dropped the knife with a howl of pain, seizing the shoe to rip it out of his arm.
Arianna didn’t wait around this time. She took off at a sprint back toward the castle. The icy path dug painfully at her bare feet, but her traction was a hundred times better without shoes. This pain was nothing compared to what she’d endure if the Gifted Genius caught up to her.
The murderer hollered at her to stop, but she wasn’t about to listen. She ran as fast as she ever had in her life, tearing her dress beyond repair and not even caring.
She might live.
Thank you. Please help.
They were the only phrases she could get through her mind. She repeated them over and over again.
Rounding a bend in the garden path, the castle and one of its lower entrances loomed in front of her.
“Thank you!” she praised heaven above between pants for air.
She flew across the open space and slammed into the door, gasping for oxygen, listening for footfalls coming from behind, and needing to be on the other side of this door.
Yanking on the handle, her eyes widened as she remembered there were security codes on the lesser used entrances. No!
Arianna pounded on the door. She punched in numbers on the keypad, screaming at the top of her lungs.
