Page 4 of Slay Bells Ring

In all my life, I can’t say I’ve ever needed to know how to start a fire, and it shows. It takes me more than a few tries to get the fire going—even longer to get the fire burning hot enough to fill the cabin with some heat. I saw quite a bit of split logs just outside the cabin, underneath a tarp. It should be more than enough to last.

Once the fire burns hot enough, I sit back and crack open my first bottle. I don’t search the small kitchen for a glass. Don’t need it. Getting drunk is just one thing on my checklist for the holidays.

Eh, there’s not so much a checklist as there are two things. Just two. I’m not a complicated man. The first is to get wasted, and the second?

When the mountains are lost in a perpetual snowstorm, when the air is so cold and brisk it pulls the air outof your lungs and sends a chill down your spine… I’m going to walk out that cabin door and never come back.

I’ve thought about it before, lots of times. Taking a gun to my head and pulling the trigger just seemed like a quick, easy way out. Even taking a knife to my wrists or my neck would be too fast. I’m not a man who deserves any sort of repentance or forgiveness. The only thing I deserve is a slow, painful death, so why not let nature do what it does best?

It’s not so much that I’m suicidal. I don’t want to die because I don’t want to live. I just… I don’t know. I’m just tired, and no amount of rest and relaxation can help fix me. I’m broken. I’ve been broken for so long I don’t know what being whole is like anymore.

But I don’t want anyone’s pity. I don’t want anyone finding my body. I don’t want anyone to think of me after I’m gone, besides maybe a passing, ‘Hey, I wonder what ever happened to that guy?’

I’m good at what I do. This Christmas I’ll do it one final time.

Time crawls on, and I’m content to drown in my misery and acceptance of what’s coming. I’m in the middle of nowhere, so I don’t expect any surprises. Someone would have to go out of their way to come here, hence the reason why I didn’t bother locking the cabin door when I came inside.

Dusk coats the land, the sky a darkening pinkish color, when I hear the doorknob to the cabin twisting.

My head is a little fuzzy, but I’m not nearly drunk enough yet to start hallucinating. It takes a lot of alcohol to take me down. I labor to get up, and I set my bottledown on the small end table near the old chair I positioned in front of the fireplace before I walk towards the door.

I wasn’t hallucinating after all: before I can reach it, the door pushes open as someone steps inside, pulling a suitcase with her. She’s bundled up—her head is covered in a fluffy hood and her face is hidden behind a scarf. She’s short, too, beneath that puffy winter coat.

The moment the woman sees me, she freezes, and in doing so lets in the chill from the outside. “Who are you?” she asks.

“Who are you?” I demand. If she thinks I owe her anything, she’s wrong.She’sthe one who barged in on my final vacation, not vice versa. I’m too annoyed at the random intrusion to yell at her to close the goddamned door.

Her gloved hand tightens around the handle of her suitcase, one much larger than mine. And… pink. “I’m Georgina Hayes, and I rented this cabin until the new year. Now why don’t you tell me why you’re inmycabin?” Her tone is harsh and acidic, somewhat accusatory; it’s clear she genuinely believes she rented out this cabin.

Bullshit, of course, becauseIrented it out.

“Kane,” I answer her gruffly as I fold my arms over my chest. “And this cabin’s mine until then, so I suggest you turn around and leave. Maybe you typed in the wrong address or something. I don’t care, but you’re letting the heat out.”

Georgina pushes her suitcase aside before hooking her boot on the bottom of the door and pushing it closed behind her, all while still glaring at me over her scarf. “I’m going nowhere, Kane.” She pulls off her gloves, places them atop her suitcase, and then unzips her pocket so she canpull out her phone. With a few taps of her fingers, she flips the screen to show me a picture of this cabin… and the exact dates I rented it out next to it. “This is my cabin. Maybeyou’rethe one who’s in the wrong place?”

Fuck. My phone is back at home, where I left it on purpose, as is the confirmation email from the owners of the cabin.

“Well?” she asks. “Aren’t you going to show me yours?”

My jaw grinds. “I don’t have my phone with me.”

“Well, that’s weird,” she remarks as she turns her back to me, lowering her hood and revealing a thick mane of auburn-colored hair. “Who doesn’t bring their phone when they go somewhere? Although—” She pauses as she checks her phone. “—there is no service here anyway, so you’re not missing much.” Her scarf comes off next, and then her big, puffy jacket.

If she thinks she’s staying here, she’s out of her goddamned mind.

“Look, Georgina,” I start, but the moment she turns around, I’m hit with a brick.

Not literally, but I am thrown back in time when those big, green eyes meet my stare. Under the hood, protected by the fuzziness of the scarf, I couldn’t see just how vibrant they were. Pretty eyes. Eyes that, combined with the cabin around me, push me to remember a job I’ve tried for over a decade to forget.

The first job that made me wonder if I was cut out to work for the Guild.

Just like that I’m standing there, staring down at a frightened little girl, a girl who shouldn’t even be there,and I’m actually pointing a goddamned gun at her, like I’m going to kill her like I just killed her parents.

And the worst fucking thing is, I actually debate it. My first instinct is to pull the fucking trigger.

But I don’t. I can’t. God fucking help me, I can’t kill the kid, so I lower my gun and tell her, “You’re going to stay in that closet until morning, kid, and then you’re going to call nine-one-one. You’re going to do yourself a favor and forget you ever saw me here, just like I’m going to forget I saw you, got it?”

I don’t know what happened to that little girl. I couldn’t bear to keep up on the news, to check in on her. It would’ve only reminded me of what I almost did.

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