Page 20 of Slay Bells Ring

Oh, my God. I don’t want to do this. I really, really don’t want to do this.

“How am I…” I can’t even finish the question. I’m nearly sick at the prospect of what’s ahead, of what I’m about to do.

Kane tries to turn his chest my way, but the movement casts a shadow over the hole. A new plan is in order, onewhich he thinks of instantly. He leans over and sets the bottle down on the floor, and then he goes for me. I’m too stunned at the sudden turn of events to realize what he’s doing before it’s too late.

His hands find my hips, and I’m picked up, moved like I weigh nothing. He brings me to his lap. Seriously, his freakinglap. In two seconds I’m straddling the guy, with tweezers in my hand, because he wants me to go digging around inside his body for a bullet.

The fireplace is behind me. Its warmth is only dimmed by the warmth of Kane’s hands as he keeps me steady on his lap by placing them on my lower back. The position is an intimate one; I might’ve straddled him before, but that was when he was tied up. Now? Now things are different.

The orange glow from the fire lights up his shoulder and the wound just beneath it. I’m small enough that I don’t block the light.

Never thought I’d be staring into someone’s bullet hole. There really is a first time for everything—and let me tell you, it’s just as nasty as you’d think it’d be.

Swallowing hard, I move the tweezers closer to the hole. The tip of the metal instrument is inches away from the bullet hole when I suddenly pull back. “I can’t do it,” I whisper. In my chest, my heart beats a mile a minute for a whole host of different reasons. The bullet hole, for one, and what Kane wants me to do in there, but I’d be lying if I say those two reasons are the only ones.

I hate him, okay? I do. I dreamed of killing this asshole a thousand different ways for the last thirteen years. I did everything I could to track him down and findhim, and when I finally come face-to-face with him, I’m filled with emotions other than hate.

“Yes, you can,” he tells me. “You can do it. Just think: it’ll hurt me like a bitch. You should be happy to do it.”

He’s right. This is going to hurt him. I should take pleasure in that.

I steel myself and bring the tweezers closer to the wound. The moment the steel disappears between his flesh, I gag and look away, and Kane’s hands tense on my back. He growls out, “You have to look at what you’re doing.”

Oh, right.

Even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I look at what I’m doing—and that means I stare into the bullet hole as I root around in there, trying to find the bullet that didn’t leave his body. I have to hold my other hand over my mouth as my gag reflex rises to the surface.

This is gross. This is so fucking gross. I want to vomit. I’m definitely going to be sick.

Kane, to his credit, holds back any groans. His chest does tremble with a sound he stifles when the tweezers go deeper, but all in all, he’s the epitome of badass.

Rooting around inside him isn’t the easiest thing, but the moment I go deeper, and ironically the very same moment I start to wonder if I’m going to have to dig my fingers inside him, I think I hit the bullet with the tweezers. It takes a little rooting around in there to grasp it with the tweezers, but once I have it, I’m able to pull it out of his body while trying not to throw up.

And when I see that blood-stained bullet in the light? I dry-heave like no one’s business.

Kane lets out an explosive sigh. “Good. You did good.” He lifts a hand under the tweezers, and I drop the bullet into his palm. He studies it like it no longer bothers him at all now that it’s not lodged inside his body, but I need to forget about this whole thing, so I drop the tweezers onto the bed and turn away. I’m so lost in that uneasy, sick feeling that I totally forget I’m still straddling his lap and that one of his hands still rests on my back to keep me steady.

“Fucker,” Kane whispers, and though I’m not watching, I’m pretty sure he tosses the bullet onto the corpse.

My stomach isn’t happy with what I just did, and I lean into his other shoulder. “I’m never doing that again,” I tell him. The only bright side here is I’ve been so preoccupied with almost dying and having to dig around in Kane’s body that my adrenaline pushed down the constant aching pain in my feet.

“You did good,” he tells me again. The hand remaining on my back drops to dangerous territory—my ass—and I’m seconds from telling him off when I realize he only dropped his hand there to help me off his lap.

Duh. Come on, Holly. A near-death experience shouldn’t put your mind in the gutter, especially when it comes to this particular man.

Kane slaps a bandage on the bullet wound before cleaning up the first aid kit. Once his shirt is on, he kneels over the corpse and says, “Now let’s see if there’s anything here.” He roots around the body like he’s used to handling corpses.

And I guess he is. He is an assassin, after all, a type of deadly most people would never understand. I, on theother hand, am not used to watching someone search a fresh corpse, so I have to turn away.

This little mission of mine was already complicated, but with more assassins? Things just got worse.

The thing that makes the situation even worse than it already is? The thing that weighs on me the most? It’s something I didn’t realize until I woke up with a gun in my face. I thought I was ready to die, that I’d gladly give my life in this cabin if it meant my parents’ killer would get his.

But I was wrong. I don’t want to die here.

Chapter Ten – Kane

I don’t pull the knife out until after the body is outside. I dragged him through the snow, around to the back of the cabin, and I piled some fresh snow on top of him after yanking out the knife. Pretty sure we’re in for a constant snowfall until after Christmas, so keeping the corpse hidden shouldn’t be an issue.

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