Slay Bells Ring

Chapter Five – Holly

Kane remains outside for the longest time. For so long, in fact, I start to wonder if he got lost out there. I didn’t hear his car start up, which means he’s just wandering the snowy landscape. Whatever. I don’t care. If he’s drinking himself into a stupor while pouting out there, let him. It’ll be easier for me to do what I need to do if he’s blackout drunk, anyway.

I spend the time by myself sitting by the fire, watching as the flames slowly eat away at the logs. My mind isn’t filled with any thoughts in particular. After all these years, with nothing but vengeance in my heart, I’ve mastered the art of disassociating. Zoning out. Shutting everything down until I’m just there. Not dead, but not alive, either.

That night shook me to my core. It terrified me. Facing death when you’re ten years old tends to do that to you. Trauma molds you, shapes you into what it wants, and unless you put in the work to fix yourself, you become a slave to it.

Howard wanted me to go to therapy, so I did for a few years, until it became clear it was a waste of time. I didn’t want to get over the deaths of my parents. The only thing I ever wanted was justice.

Justice for my parents. Justice for their last moments. Justice for the innocent girl who died in that cabin with them.

Kane is only the first. I’ll kill however many I have to until I find out who hired him, until every single person who had a hand in it lies colder than the snow outside.

I get hungry after a while, so I go for another one of my bars. By the time Kane comes back, it’s clear he’s either drunk or highly buzzed, because the bottle he took with him is nowhere to be found, and he drags his feet and slumps his shoulders as he walks, unsteady. He doesn’t even look at me as he stumbles by. The final thing I hear is the bedroom door slamming shut.

Kane’s nothing but a drunk. Honestly, it makes my life easier. His stash of alcohol isn’t in the kitchen, meaning he kept it in the bedroom. I hope he keeps drinking well into the night, lost in whatever is bothering him.

Tonight’s the night.

I wait. I stay hydrated. I do some stretching and calisthenics to keep myself limber. The impatience within me grows with each passing hour. Outside, day gives way to dusk and dusk to night shortly after.

I crawl onto my sofa bed, just in case Kane decides to venture out and check if I’m asleep. Call me psychic, but I don’t think he will. As I lay there, waiting for an ungodly hour, everything I want to do to that man comes to life, so vivid in my imagination I can taste his blood.

The fire dims. When it’s time, I slowly lift myself off the sofa bed and tiptoe across the cabin, stopping only when I reach the bedroom. The door is closed. It’s black in this area of the cabin, but my eyes are adjusted, so I see enough. My hand reaches for the knob.

Time for the true test.

As quiet as a mouse, I turn the knob. The cabin’s not made for privacy, so there isn’t a lock to be had other than the one on the front door. It opens with no resistance, and I poke my head in and find Kane sprawled out on the bed, his wide figure passed out, another bottle in the crook of his arm.

My family’s killer is a drunk. I’d say it dims my joy somewhat, but it doesn’t. Not even a little. I don’t care if it’s easy or hard; I’m going to kill this asshole one way or another.

I abandon him and his room, noiselessly returning to the living room and digging to the bottom of my suitcase. There I find some rope, and I tuck it beneath the crook of my arm. My family will have justice and I will have my vengeance.

In the bedroom, I get to work in the darkness. Ironically, the hardest part is taking away that bottle without making a sound, but once I do and Kane proves to me he’s out like a light, I make short work of the rest.

I tie the motherfucker up. Just his arms. I’m not too concerned about his legs. The way the bedframe is built, it’s easy to move his arms and tie him up wrist after wrist. All the while, the man doesn’t even wake. It’s pathetic, really.

Once he’s tied up, I pull out my knife and wait.

I don’t know what I expected, but I sure thought the man would wake up before noon the next day. Alas, he doesn’t begin to stir until the white wonderland outside is bright with the light of day peeking through the snowstorm.

The room isn’t that big. It barely fits the bed, a dresser, and a closet. When he unconsciously pulls at the restraints, trying to roll onto his side, I’m standing in front of the bed, my arms crossed, the knife glimmering.

“What…” Kane’s deep voice is low, gravelly, groggy in a way that tells me he could probably keep sleeping. His eyelids crack open and he tugs at his restraints again. “What the fuck?” Harder this time, and it’s the third time he does it when it dawns on him.

He’s tied to the bed.

When he pulls at the rope again, he lifts his head and immediately spots me. Under his beard, his lips curl into a scowl, his blue gaze ice cold. “What the fuck is this? Why am I tied up?” He notices the knife, but he must choose not to address it.

As I drop my arms to my sides, I wander around the bed, dragging my knife along its edge. “Honestly, a part of me was worried you’d know,” I tell him. “But you’re just a drunk. You’re pathetic, really. I had this picture of you in my head and this—” I gesture at his sprawling body on the bed with the knife. “—isn’t it.”

His dark brows furrow, but he says nothing.

I crawl onto the bed with him, swinging my leg over his midsection to straddle his abdomen. “This,” I whisper as I lean down toward his face, bringing my knife to his beard and raking the sharp edge through the unkempt hair lining his jaw, “isn’t the assassin I remember.”

Kane doesn’t flinch as he stares up at me, but he does keep scowling.

“Still don’t remember me? I guess I don’t blame you. I was a lot smaller than I am now. Just a kid who went to a cabin just like this one with her parents thirteen years ago.” As I talk, the expression on his face begins to change.

At first, he’s radiating nothing but annoyance, but then it’s like a switch flips inside him and that annoyance is replaced by shock and realization. “You’re the kid in the closet,” he whispers, the incredulousness plain on each word.

I give him a bitter smile. “Yeah, I am. The kid in the closet who listened to her parents die.” Moving the knife to his oh so tender neck, I growl out, “I’m not a child anymore, Kane.” I hold it so tightly against his flesh the sharp edge nicks his skin just enough to draw out a drop of blood. That drop oozes down the side of his neck and buries itself in his pillow.

“No,” Kane agrees with me, “you’re not.”

“I imagined this going a thousand ways, but I didn’t think you’d be a drunkard. What is it, hmm? Did killing all those people like my parents finally catch up to you? So fucking pathetic. At least own what you are.”

Kane swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing on his neck as he does so, causing his skin to press against the knife harder. “What am I, kid?”

He’s knows I’m not a fucking kid anymore. He literally just acknowledged it, so he’s only saying it to get a rise out of me. Fuck him.

“It’s Holly,” I growl out my name. “Holly fucking Cooper, and you know exactly what you are. You’re a goddamned monster.”

I can’t say what it is, but something inside him changes. At first he was shocked at who I am, but now? Now I get a glimpse of the man he truly is behind all that extra hair on his face. His expression hardens and his eyes are like knives. If looks could kill, I’d be a goner.

“Well,” he mutters with a hard frown, “Holly fucking Cooper, you better just kill me and get it over with, because if I get out of these restraints, things are going to get a lot harder for you and your quest for revenge.”

There’s the assassin. There’s my parents’ killer.

My lips curl into a smile as I lean down over him. My hair falls, and I’m close enough to his face that the stray tendrils block out the rest of the room. All I can see is his face. I pull the knife off his throat and bring the tip of it to his cheek as I whisper, “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You, of all people, should be.”

“I think I’ll be the judge of that. Now, why don’t you tell me who hired you to kill my parents?”

This is just the start of the game, and I’m going to have a hell of a lot of fun with Kane before I end him for good. Merry fucking Christmas to me.