Page 18 of Slay Bells Ring

“Please,” I whisper, and as I do so the man’s face changes. It morphs, and suddenly within a blink, he’s older. He’s got a few wrinkles around his eyes and a certain tightness to his mouth, and his brown hair is laced with a few strands of silvery gray.

What’s more—the most startling difference—is the fact that his eyes aren’t icy anymore. No, they just seem tired, and it’s a tiredness I can feel within my own bones. In my soul.

The man is slow to lower the aimed gun to his side and then offer me a single hand. That outstretched hand makes me feel a certain type of way, and my stomach twists as I stare at it. He doesn’t say a single word, but that hand says more than words ever could.

If I take his hand, he’ll help me out of the closet, yes, but at the same time I’ll have to turn my back on what he’s done. How could I ever trust that he won’t change his mind and kill me just as he killed my parents?

I hesitate too much. Before I can do anything, everything around me fades and—

I wake up.

What would normally be a cause for concern—a dream like that is, to say the least, totally unwelcome—is immediately pushed to the side when I realize there is, in fact, a gun pointed directly at my face.

“What—” It’s the only word I can get out before something big and black tackles the gun-holder, and I sit up and pull my blankets closer to my chest, as if that’ll protect me from whatever the fuck is happening.

The fire is dim, nothing more than heated embers, but it’s enough light for me to grasp the fact that there are two large men caught in a struggle just a few feet away. Theone who was holding the gun to my face tries to point it at me, but the second man grabs his wrist to stop him while simultaneously punching him in the throat. The gun-wielder gasps and drops the weapon to the floor, which my savior then kicks away.

Spoiler alert: my savior is Kane.

The two men are caught in hand-to-hand combat for a while, and I’m too dumbstruck to do anything but sit there and stare at them with an open mouth. Am I still dreaming? This is… what the hell is happening?

The stranger, wearing all black and a ski mask to boot, makes a dive for the gun. He manages to grab it, but instead of pointing it at me he takes aim at Kane. But Kane is too fast. Laying on the floor, pointing the gun at him, the man is a sitting duck for Kane’s wrath.

Before Kane kneels over him, the man pulls the trigger. I flinch instinctively; ever since that night three years ago, the sound of gunshots takes me straight back to that place. With that single shot, I’m thrown back in time, forced to relive that night. It’s a worse feeling than the dream I just had.

The shot must not have hit anything, because soon Kane holds the wrist attached to the gun and slams it on the floor to stop him from shooting again. In the next second he pulls out my knife and drives it straight into the guy’s chest, slamming it down so hard the steel cuts through skin and bone like it’s nothing.

And just like that, the guy’s dead.

Kane groans as he gets off the guy, leaving my knife sticking out of his chest. He lumbers toward me, the opposite of grace. He’s breathing hard, and thanks to thedim embers of the fire I can see the hard look on his face as he practically crawls onto the sofa bed with me.

“Little killer, are you hurt? Did he get you anywhere?” The questions sound urgent as he speaks them, but I’m still far away, shattered by that gunshot. When I don’t look at him, when I don’t respond or move a muscle, he grabs both my shoulders and gives me a gentle shake. “Holly, are you all right?”

My chest feels tight. My breathing is hard and fast, like I can’t quite catch it. Where’s a goddamned closet when I need one to hide in? “I can’t…” I manage to say in between sharp gasps. “I can’t breathe.”

His reply is immediate, “Yes, you can.” Kane’s hands move off my shoulders so they can cup my face and force me to look at him. “You’re okay. You’re fine. Focus on your breathing and slowing it down. He didn’t hurt you. I stopped him. It’s okay.”

I just witnessed him killing someone with my knife after nearly being shot in the face. It doesn’t feel all right. I don’t feel okay. But at the same time, I can’t argue with him because I’m still alive.

Kane smooths down my hair and repeats himself, “You’re okay. Nothing’s going to happen to you, I promise. Just breathe.” And then, without warning, one of his hands wrap around to the back of my head and he pulls me into him. Before I know it, both his arms are around me, and he holds me so tightly it doesn’t feel like he’s ever going to let me go.

“You’re okay,” he whispers. “You’re okay.”

I don’t want to admit it, but hearing him, feeling those strong arms around me… it does help calm me down and bring me back into the present. It’s opposite of what should happen—I should freak the fuck out when this man touches me—but I think the circumstances are a bit, uh,skewedright now.

The man is surprisingly calming, and it doesn’t take me long after that to catch my breath. I cling onto him for dear life, like he’s my lifeline to sanity, and I’m so focused on bringing myself out of the panic attack that I can’t think about anything else.

Such as all the reasons why I shouldn’t be holding onto this man and the one big reason why he shouldn’t have his arms around me.

I suppose I should thank the man—both for saving me and calming me down—but before I get the chance, a cold breeze gusts into the cabin, alerting both Kane and I that the assassin had left the door open. The world of snow outside is dying to come in, and it’s the only reason Kane pulls himself away from me. He goes to close the door. His next job is putting two more logs into the fire and re-heating the space.

And me? While he’s doing that, what do I do? Why, I stare at the dead body just a few feet away, at the gun he almost killed me with, and at my knife protruding from the stranger’s chest.

Holy shit. I almost died. The weight of what could’ve happened falls on my shoulders, and I’m sluggish in drawing my gaze off the corpse and landing it on the back of the man who, by all accounts, shouldn’t have lifted a finger to save me.

Kane didn’t have to leap into action to save my life, but he did. What’s worse is I don’t know how I should feel about that. Grateful, I guess.

“You,” I speak quietly, still in shock, “you saved my life. How did you…” The last I knew he was sleeping in the bedroom. Unless the man has amazing hearing, I don’t see how he could’ve heard any of it, let alone heard it early enough to come out and stop the assassin in time.

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