Page 14 of Slay Bells Ring

I mean, my face was close to his before, but that was when he was tied to the bed and all old-looking with thatbeard. This is… it’s different and I can’t really explain why.

And what’s worse? Even though I hate this man and don’t want him touching me at all, I find my hands clinging to his shoulders as if I’m scared he’s going to put me down on my injured feet.

I know, I know. Maybe I’m not as badass as I thought. Just a silly little girl in way over her head.

“If you wouldn’t have broken the bottle in the first place, all of this could’ve been avoided,” Kane says as he spins us and walks us away from the mess I made and the broken glass on the floor. And unlike me, he knows where to step and where to avoid.

“Fuck you,” I whisper, although it’s strength is lessened by the fact that he’s literally carrying my injured ass through the cabin while I hold onto him for dear life.

A low chuckle escapes him, and since I’m holding onto him like a spider monkey, I feel that chuckle in my core. His voice is low when he says, “You shouldn’t say things like that, Holly fucking Cooper.”

Ugh, God. This guy’s really getting on my last nerve. I bet he thinks he’s funny or something.

A few minutes later I’m sitting on the edge of my sofa bed, my feet dangling off the edge. Kane had revived the fire, and its heat is the only reason I’m not shivering. Though I’m not too happy about it, I try not to move my feet much while he searches the place for a first-aid kit or anything that might help the current situation.

I literally can’t believe I did this to myself. The only reason it happened was because I was trying to be spiteful and petty; I wanted him to feel a slight twinge of loss when he watched me drop his precious alcohol to the ground. Ifmy parents were alive, they might tell me that this just goes to show being petty hurts no one but yourself.

But they’re dead, and the asshole in the other room is the one who killed them, so I’m not too interested in what my parents might say.

Kane returns with an old kit and a new bottle tucked under his arm. My eyes shift from the bottle to the dark stain on his shirt—where I stabbed him. I was so freaking close. I just needed to put a bit more muscle behind it and I would’ve had him.

“You can’t spend an hour here without drinking, can you?” I ask dryly.

He shoots me a frown before he sets the kit on the sofa bed beside me. The alcohol bottle is placed on the floor near my dangling feet as he kneels down in front of me. “It’s not for me,” he says. “It’s for you.”

I’m seconds from rolling my eyes, but the asshole reaches for my left ankle, and I instinctively pull away. The action causes a sharp sting to travel up my leg, so I give it up and return my ankle to its previous position without saying a word.

Kane’s fingers wrap around my sock, slow to pull it off. I’ll give it to him; he’s very careful while he does it. He makes no sudden moves that might cause the glass in my foot to bury itself even deeper. Once that bloodied sock is off, he goes to the other and does the same. Once both socks are off and forgotten on the floor, he grabs the bottle.

“This is going to hurt,” he warns me as he opens the bottle. Without a second’s warning, he pours some of the alcohol over the bottom of my foot, one after the other, and I wince at the sharp stinging that follows shortly. Ashe sets the bottle down and goes to grip the bottom of my left foot with one hand, he glances up at me. “This is going to hurt worse. If you need to bite down on something—”

“Just pull it out,” I hiss, my fingers digging into the sheets.

I fixate my gaze on the fire as he goes for the shard in my left foot. I don’t know how deep it is, but I do know it’s on the front pad of my foot—something I apparently place a lot of weight on when I walk or stand.

Man, I really fucked this whole revenge thing up, didn’t I?

If I thought the sharp stinging that erupted in my foot when he doused it with the alcohol to disinfect it hurt, Kane pulling the shard out hurts ten times worse. I’m white-knuckling it even after he pulls the glass out and sets it on the floor—and when he goes to pour another round on my glass-free foot, it takes everything in me to not cry out.

“That one wasn’t too deep,” Kane says as he moves to focus on my right foot. “This one… this one looks a little deeper.”

God, I wish the man would stop talking. I wish—my thoughts go haywire when he does the same exact thing to my right foot. Grip it from the bottom, pinch the glass with his fingers, and pull it out of me.

Fucking hell. This one definitely hurts more. The glass was embedded in the middle of my foot. Even my toes are in agony… and then that agony intensifies when he pours that liquid fire onto it again.

My eyes start to water in spite of everything, but I refrain from crying out. My feet hurt like a bitch, but I don’t want this jerk to hear me cry out.

Kane rummages through the first-aid kit and finds some bandages that look like they’re at least ten years old. “You’re doing great,” he tells me. “Just a bit more and we’ll be done.”

“Shut up,” I mutter.

He stops what he’s doing and looks at me. “I could let you do it, if you’d rather not—”

“Just shut up and do it.” As if I want to lean forward and wrap my feet in bandages. No, he’s already down there, so he might as well finish the job.

I have only two words to describe the situation I now find myself in: this sucks.

Chapter Eight – Kane

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