Chapter 2:

The Rapist

It had been a rather uneventful week in Arendelle. Queen Elsa had her meetings, and paperwork to fill out, but there was nothing to stress her out. She was thankful for that. Sometimes being queen could really take a lot out of her, especially if she had to deal with domestic affairs. As Elsa wrote her speech that she was going to give to the kingdom later today, Kai suddenly burst into her study, looking frantic with worry.

"Queen Elsa, please forgive my intrusion, but there is a woman here, who says she was just raped!"

Elsa's eyes widened, showing her concern. "Oh, my goodness. Bring her in, quickly!"

Kai left to retrieve the young woman, who came into Elsa's office with tattered clothes. There were bruises on her face, and her fingernails were broken. Elsa directed her over to a chair, where she ordered Kai to fetch her a glass of water and a blanket. The woman was still shivering was fear. It was as if her ordeal hadn't ended.

Elsa gave her a minute to compose herself, before she started asking questions. When the woman finishing drinking the glass of water, she turned towards Elsa, meeting her eye to eye.

"What happened? Who did this to you?" Elsa asked.

"I didn't see his face, because he had a mask on. I was walking down an alleyway to take a shortcut to my house, when this man jumped on me. He threw me to the ground, and started punching me in the face. I tried to claw back at him as much as I could, but he was just too strong for me. He told me to shut up and just let come naturally. I wasn't going to let him violate me, so I started screaming. When I screamed, he placed a hand over my mouth with one hand, and held a knife to my throat with the other. He said if I uttered a single sound, he would slit my throat.

I was so scared, but I did what he said. He then started to rip my dress off like some wild animal. He then thrusted himself inside of me, very violently. All the while, he kept the knife near my throat. I could feel the blade graze across my skin. I knew there was no way he was going to let me live after he was done with me. When he finished, he stood up, and told me to go home. That was all he said, before he ran off in the other direction."

"How long did he rape you?" Elsa asked.

The woman began to cry again. The memory was so painful. "Twenty minutes, but it felt longer than that. I can still feel him inside of me. I can still see the blade of his knife at my throat. Queen Elsa, you have to catch him, before he does this to another woman!"

"I will! We will find him, and bring him to justice. Nobody is going to get away with such a horrific act as this," Elsa assured. "It's going to be OK now. You can rest up in one of the guest bedrooms. I'll see to it that the guards search the town for this man. Do you remember what he looked like?

The woman shook her head. "Not much. He was wearing a mask, so I couldn't see his face, but he was wearing a red cloak if that helps. He was also very tall, and muscular. I know it's not much to go on," the woman said.

"That's alright. It's something, and that's better than nothing. Kai, take this young woman to one of our guest rooms for the evening. Afterwards, contact her family to let them know where she is. In the meantime, I'll send out a party to go combing the streets to find this man."

Elsa told the captain of the guards to send out ten of his best men into the streets. They were to interview anyone who might have seen something suspicious that day. Hopefully, the rapist would be found before he struck again.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Within the next few days, there were three more brutal rapes within the kingdom. Each one just as horrific as the last. The victims were much like the first woman; they were young, vulnerable, and alone at the time of the attack. In the last rape, the rapist was even more savage in that he bit down on the woman's breasts, leaving deep teeth marks. The bite marks were examined by a doctor, but all that he could gather from them was that it was which exact teeth left the marks. Dentistry wasn't advanced enough to tell them anything more.

As a ruler, these crimes deeply disturbed Elsa. She loved her people with all her heart, and to see them being hurt like this, was too much to bear. As a woman, the crimes disturbed her on a personal level. The concept of a man forcing himself onto a woman without her consent was the ultimate violation. It violated her body, her psyche, and spirit. She felt for these women as if she herself had been raped.

When another woman was raped, Elsa set a curfew instructing everyone to be in their homes by a certain time of day. The guards would go around the village to ensure that no one was out on the streets. She hoped that this would put a stop to such despicable crimes, but there was still the matter of catching the rapist. He had already brutally raped five women, he had to be a brought to justice!

She interviewed all the women who had been raped again, checking to see if there was anything else they remembered, but there wasn't much success in this.

Meanwhile, Anna did her best to comfort her sister during the whole ordeal. She too wanted to see the rapist brought to justice, but assured Elsa that they were doing the best that they could. This did little to help quell Elsa's worries. Within the next week, another woman was raped, while returning from a trip to a nearby village. This time, the rapist had taken a piece of her dress with him as some sick trophy. With this latest rape, Elsa's worries were at an all-time high. The curfew that she instilled wasn't helping. The criminal was still raping women, which led her to believe that he wasn't from Arendelle. If he was from another village, it had to be close, because most of the rapes had occurred within the kingdom. Elsa ordered the guards to visit nearby villages, interrogating the villagers for any possible new information. These rapes had consumed Elsa's thoughts and feelings. As long as the rapist was still out there, there wasn't a day that went by when she didn't think about it. If she had to do it herself, she vowed to find the animal responsible for such heinous acts, and punish him to within an inch of his life.

A/N: The story is going to jump between the past and present, just to let you all know. When you read the next chapter, it'll pick up where the first one left off, so don't get confused when you read it. Also, please leave a review and let me know how the story is so far. I'd appreciate the feedback.