Page 26 of Slay Bells Ring

Holly rolls her eyes when I first give them to her, but after a while she’s nose-deep in one of them. She might make fun of them all she wants, but at least they’ll help keep her mind off her current situation.

I should feel shitty, not having anything to drink today, but as the day wears on, I feel great. Moving around helped out my back after a night on that pull-out, and keeping busy really gives me some focus. Helping Holly isn’t my problem, but I want to help her. I want it to be my problem. I feel responsible for her.

I want… God, I’d be a liar if I said laying with her last night didn’t make me want other things. Wrong things, things I shouldn’t even dream of because I have no right to.

Her body did fit perfectly against mine, didn’t it?

It must be early afternoon when I do some workouts. My shoulder is sore where I got shot; it really makes where Holly stabbed me feel like nothing more than a scratch. Still, need to keep the blood pumping and my body in tip-top shape.

Holly’s halfway through one of the books when she starts blushing and giggling. I get off the floor after doing some push-ups and stretch my arms as I watch her from the corner of the room. “What is it?”

Behind her hand, Holly’s voice is muffled but full of glee when she says, “The hero is in chains in some dungeon, and the main woman snuck into the castle tosave him, all by herself. But instead of rushing to get out, she… uh—”

I have the feeling I know where this is going, but I think I’d like to hear her say it. “She what?”

“She has sex with him before she gets him out of the chains.” Holly has to hide her entire face when she says it, as if she’s trying to keep me from noticing the intense blush on her cheeks. It’s actually kind of adorable. Who knew my little killer would get so flustered by a book?

It hits me a few seconds later. My little killer.My. The thought just slipped out, formed on its own, and the even stranger part is the thought doesn’t sound wrong.

In an effort to not linger on it, I say dryly, “Maybe I shouldn’t have given you those books after all. They might be a little too adult for you.” I walk over to the pull-out and act like I’m going to yank the book she’s holding away from her, but she jerks back and holds the book against her chest, like I’d have to rip it out of her fingers.

Holly stares up at me with a defiant expression. “I’m not a child, Kane. I can read about sex. I can read about as much sex as I want—” She pauses as she must think over what she’s saying. “Not that I’m saying I read a lot about sex, but I could if I want to.”

The corners of my mouth quirk upward. “Whatever you say.” I walk away from her, mostly to put distance between us. I sit down at the kitchen table.

Turns out, when you have nothing to do but pass the time, time crawls by slowly. It also means you have the time to think about things you shouldn’t, things that you normally wouldn’t. The wholemy little killerthing rings in my head the rest of the day. The thought echoes andbounces around in my head over and over until I can’t think straight, and it makes me want to pull my hair out.

She’s not mine. She’ll never be mine. I’m not a man who is unable to constrain his urges, but I have the feeling the more time I spend with her, the harder it’ll be. Hell, just look at what happened last night. I don’t know how I wound up so close to her. It was a mistake.

It sure as hell felt nice, but it was a mistake all the same.

God, I could really use a drink to help me forget all about Holly fucking Cooper and her problems. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be her pet fucking hitman by the time this shit’s done.

The day drags on. The afternoon turns to evening, and then evening turns to dusk. The snowfall outside makes the nighttime world look brighter than it should be. I don’t know if we’ll have company tonight, but best be prepared regardless.

I instruct Holly to pretend to sleep on her pull-out bed, and I take the chair I propped against the door and move it to the corner of the kitchen, away from the door and any windows if we have company. I’ll be in the shadows, ready to pounce before they realize I’m there. I keep Holly’s knife on my lap, ready to use it.

Not to kill, but to injure. To maim. To subdue into submission. It’ll be difficult not to simply kill the hitman—when your blood’s pumping and you’re in the thick of a fight, the last thing you want to do is hold back—but it’s absolutely necessary to find out who hired him.

Frankly, my money’s on this Howard fellow. Never met the man. Don’t know who he is, but he has everythingto gain from her death, just as he had everything to gain from the assassination of Holly’s parents.

But the hard truth is we won’t know for sure until we have proof.

I don’t know how deep we are into the night when Holly speaks from her bed: “Kane?” Her voice is different, softer, less sure, hesitant in a way she’s not usually. Her tone reminds me of when she admitted she was afraid to die.

“Yes?” I ask from my dark corner in the kitchen.

“I know this isn’t your problem. You don’t have to do any of this for me, so… um, I just want you to know that I appreciate your help. It doesn’t change what you did, but thank you.”

To think, it’s only the second time she’s thanked me, but unlike the first time, this one has heart behind it. And unlike the first time, when my adrenaline was pumping so hard it was difficult to hear her over the rush, I hear every single word. I hear the genuine appreciation in her voice, and it becomes ten times harder to sit there by myself, to simply wait for our next guest.

What I want to do… fuck, I want to go to that sofa bed and lay down with her again, as uncomfortable as it is. I want to pull her close and tell her everything’s going to be okay. The world and all its horrors could try to come through that door and I wouldn’t let a single one inside.

“You don’t have to thank me,” I tell her. “Now, it’s best if we don’t talk. Wouldn’t want anyone hearing us.”

Holly doesn’t argue with me, nor does she say another word. Together, we wait.

We wait and wait and wait. We spend all night waiting, even a few hours of early dawn waiting. We waituntil the sun bounces off the snow and illuminates the inside of the cabin. I guess last night wasn’t the night.

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