Slay Bells Ring

Chapter Two – Kane

There comes a time in every man’s life when he’s forced to reckon with the things he’s done. Granted, most men don’t have to reckon with sins similar to mine. I’m good at what I do. It’s what I was trained for my whole life, practically from birth. I grew up in the Guild, the Guild trained me, taught me everything I’d need to know, and then set me loose.

But everyone knows hitmen don’t live to a ripe old age. There’s never really any retirement. Not when you’ve seen what they’ve seen or done what they’ve done. There’s no pause button, no end game, no winning this thing.

Men like me die all the time. They die on a job, or they die from complications from a job. Sometimes they get so injured they become useless to the Guild, and then the Guild uses you however it wants. You become one of their analysts, or maybe a guard at one of their incarceration facilities. The Guild never lets you walk away.

I’m thirty-eight fucking years old. No kids. No family. Never had a girlfriend for more than a month. Couldn’t let myself get truly attached to anything or anyone that would hamper my judgment. I gave everything I had to every single job, and what did it get me?

A nice place, yeah. More money than I could care for, sure. It would be enough for most people to shut themselves off and not care. I was like that for a while, for years, but now that I’m getting older, I can’t shake the nagging feelings away.

I’m tired.

This thing’s been planned for eight or so months. I rented a cabin in the mountains for two weeks around Christmas. Figured it’d be a good place to do it.

Why a cabin in the mountains? What can I say besides some jobs just stick with you more than others?

The morning it’s time to leave, I grab all the cash I’ll need along with my car keys and a small suitcase. Nothing but the clothes on my back and a jacket. The rest is hard liquor. It’ll be enough. Before I leave, I abandon my wallet, ID, and phone on the island in the kitchen. Don’t need ‘em where I’m going.

The drive feels slow even though I speed and make the trip in record time. I arrive at my destination before two in the afternoon. The smallest, cheapest cabin I could find. Its nearest neighbor is miles upon miles away. It’s so far removed from civilization it doesn’t have electricity.

The key to the cabin is in a lockbox on the doorknob. After I input the code and pull the key out, I step inside the cabin with my lone suitcase and breathe in the woodsy, stale scent. Outside is a world of winter and snow; last I heard this area’s supposed to be nailed with a storm in the next few days. The perfect kind of weather to get lost in.

Being in this cabin feels… both right and wrong. Right in that this is where I ought to be, and wrong in that my surroundings induce a flashback to a certain job I’d rather forget.

In my line of work, you have to be mentally stable, steadfast in what you’re doing. Whether that means turning off your emotions completely or learning to enjoy what you do; it’s up to the individual. My problem is I never learned, could never switch anything off. I tried. God, I tried. Maybe I’m a weaker man than I thought.

I lug my suitcase to the only bedroom in the cabin and set it on the bed. I unzip it, grab the first bottle I see, and then set out to start a fire.

It ain’t time for my final curtain just yet. Freezing in this cabin ain’t how I want to go.

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 out of 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 bottle down 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’s the 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 in my cabin?” Her tone is harsh and acidic, somewhat accusatory; it’s clear she genuinely believes she rented out this cabin.

Bullshit, of course, because I rented 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 can pull 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. Maybe you’re the 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.

I mean, what kind of man can aim a gun point-blank at a little girl and debate on pulling the trigger? That job was a wake-up call, and I’ve never been the same since.

This fucking woman needs to get out of here, because every time I look at her I’m going to think about that night, that fucking mission. I came here to drown myself in my sorrows. I don’t need those big green eyes of hers as an extra reminder.

Besides, with her here how am I supposed to kill myself?