Page 71 of Sweet Silver Bells
“No killing during Christmas,” she repeated. “If I’d had that rule before, maybe things could have been different.”
19
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
“We need to go.”
Hunter couldn’t process the words at first, until Darius repeated himself, pushing Hunter and reaching for Elaine.
Where did he come from?
Olivia stared at him, eyes bright, hopeful, even. What she was hoping for, what she expected from him right then and there, he didn’t know. He didn’t even think he could guess.
Screams. Hunter heard screams.
“Roger, wake up, help!” a woman cried.
“Has anyone seen Tom? Tom, where are you?”
Nina.
That was Nina stumbling around, checking the unmoving bodies on the ground. There must have been dozens. Hunter couldn’t look at them. He had to disassociate, choosing instead to focus on the woman with the moon necklace in her hand.
“We need to go,” Darius said again. This time, Hunter took a few steps forward from the pressure pushing against him, instinctively reaching out and grabbing Olivia’s hand. She wouldn’t be left behind. Not by him.
“What happened?” Elaine cried out, her cool-girl demeanor crumpling as her face twisted from holding back tears. “I don’t … I don’t understand.”
Hunter heard sirens in the distance growing louder as the seconds passed.
“Are you okay?” Celia stumbled towards Olivia, pushing Hunter back. “Elaine, Elaine, are you okay?”
“I can’t find Tom.” Nina was hunched over bodies, lifting their heads, blood on her hands that wasn’t hers. “Tom! You need to finish the turret, come back.”
No one knows.
“I think we are past worrying about drunk driving, but does anyone want a ride home?” Sadie made her way back to their group in the middle of the town square.
Hunter spun slowly in place. His ears rang. The world felt tilted, unreconciled with what had just happened. A minute ago, they were in a massacre. Now the Christmas tree sparkled innocently, the garlands were perfectly strung, the lights a bright, gleaming red. The vines were gone. The crowd was murmuring, confused but mobile. Some people dusted snow off their coats as if they'd just woken from a nap.
But the bodies were still there. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t making it up.
And yet—everythinglooked normal again. Why?
Olivia looked too calm.As if this was just a detour, an accidental mess at a holiday event.
She shookher head while Hunter’s coworkers and friends asked her if she had been hurt.
Of course, she wasn’t hurt. She was the weapon there. And all she did was cry.
“If I’d had that rule before, maybe things could have been different.”
That’s what she had said to him. She had been grieving her father, her childhood, her life. The song had triggered her. Hunter had heard her sing that song before, a song that existed in both of their timelines.
Of course, this would trigger her.
And maybe … maybe she had been hurt long before she ever hurt anyone.
He remembered what life had been like just a few days ago—drifting, numb, invisible even to the people who claimed to know him best.
