The eyes. She was going to have to blind him. Jam her thumbs in as far as they would go and run like hell.
“You don’t have to be afraid. What’s your name?”
“Lucy.”
Her hands had been at her sides. Now, she slowly raised them.
“Lucy, did that man in the shower hurt you?”
She nodded.
“What did he do?”
“He tried to rape me.”
She shot her thumbs at his eyes, but he parried right and jumped back, laughing. Lucy ran for the open door. The man grabbed her and pulled her into his chest.
“Shhh,” he whispered as she struggled. “Don’t scream, Lucy.”
She kicked her legs and tried to head-butt him as he carried her out of the bathroom into the hotel room and threw her onto the bed.
“Relax!” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to get you in trouble.”
Lucy glared at him.
“You should be more careful, you know. Ten trips with an ice bucket in the middle of the night is bound to get somebody’s attention. Particularly if their room is next to the ice machine.”
“Mark was starting to smell.”
“Yeah, I noticed. But a few cubes of ice isn’t going to fix it. You here by yourself?”
She nodded.
“He didn’t try to rape you, did he?”
She just watched him, said nothing.
“That’s a nice piece of work in there,” he said. “That man must be double your weight, at least. How’d you pull it off?”
“I want you to leave.”
“Why?”
“Go!”
“Lucy, please. I know you don’t know me, but you can trust me.”
She stuck her chin out and fought back the tremor in her bottom lip.
“How’d you overpower that man?” he asked again.
“Straight razor.” She said it proudly.
“He flailed around a bunch, didn’t he?”
Lucy couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. It was funny. But loud and messy, too.”
The man eased down onto the edge of the bed. “Why’d you kill him?”
“They wouldn’t give me a room. I drove six hundred miles to come to this conference, and then they wouldn’t even give me a room.”
“’Cause of your age.”
“Yeah.”
“You ever done anything like this before, Lucy?”
She shook her head. “But I thought about it a lot.”
“Wait. This was your first time?” She nodded. The man got a big grin on his face. “Well, how was it for you?”
“Amazing.”
“Yeah?”
“The blood was beautiful. So warm. I took my clothes off and rolled around in it.”
The man’s eyes sparkled. “I remember mine like it was yesterday. I’d give anything to go back and do it again for the first time.” He reached his hand out. “I’m Orson.”
She shook it.
He looked around the room. “So our friend in the shower. Who is he?”
“A writer.”
“Oh, shit. What’s his name?”
“Mark Darling.”
“Never heard of him.”
