Page 20 of Sweet Silver Bells

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

P ain tore through Hunter the moment he drifted back to consciousness, his world no wider than the darkness behind his eyelids.

His knuckles throbbed, each fingertip a raw nerve set ablaze.

He scraped his index finger across his thumbnail and nearly screamed, but his lips refused to part, split and frozen, the skin on his face searing as if he had stood too long against a merciless wind, frost biting deep into his cheeks and brow.

There was nothing there at all—no nail on his thumb, the flesh underneath excruciating to the touch.

What happened?

He racked his brain, twitching various parts of his body, checking to see what else was injured. He calmed after he’d finished his inspection, learning that he was mostly sore and that the most serious damage was in his hands, his missing nail, and his knuckles.

His eyelids fluttered open, and he found himself back on the couch.

It wasn’t morning this time, and he was still dressed in the same clothes as before.

The smell of dirt clung to him, but it lacked the soft sweetness of potting soil.

This was rancid, ancient, the stench of decay and old earth, as if he had crawled through tunnels burrowed too close to leaking pipes and something foul that festered and fed on anything alive.

The haze still lingered, creeping through his thoughts, blurring the edges of what came before. The last thing he could grasp were those dark eyes—unyielding, merciless, carved from a hunger that would not be denied. She would take what she wanted. She would claim what she needed.

“Olivia,” he croaked, trying to roll on his side. He heard no noise, no response.

Where is she?

Hunter’s heart plummeted to the pit of his stomach.

Is she gone?

And if so, did she leave or was she taken?

If the cops had suspected her, had figured out that she was here, looking for the officer's murderer, surely he would be aware.

You’re a fool. No one could take Olivia against her will.

Of course not. If someone tried, he did not doubt that there would be more bodies to add to the collection of the dead, those who were victims of Olivia’s voice.

Her voice.

She had sung to him, and the haze was beginning to lift. She’d used him. She’d told him that he wasn’t enough, and she’d used him.

For what, he didn’t know, but his missing fingernails were more than enough proof that he had not been lying on the couch to rest.

Hunter wasn’t sure if he was worried, scared, or angry, so he settled at the point where all three of those emotions met.

“Olivia,” he yelled, and winced when the back of his hand and his fingertips rubbed against the back of the sofa.

Silence.

Fuck.

Hunter took a deep breath and held it in, as if he were about to dive underwater.

He marched right out the front door, leaving it open behind him.

The air stung against his raw face, while light snowflakes and small amounts of rain hit and sizzled on his lips.

He looked over towards the tree, where Olivia sat on the ground.

Her face was in her hands, and she was hunched over, sobbing, wearing clothes that undoubtedly came from the collection his mom had gone out and shopped for.

Most of the front lawn was covered in snow, but the six feet around Olivia had obviously been disturbed.

Ground and dirt flailed around her, dirtying and graying the lawn.

The area before her looked like a grave. A freshly dug grave.

Hunter looked down at his hands again, the skin raw, a fingernail gone, his knuckles aching.

No. No, that can’t be it.

“Olivia,” he uttered, too afraid to ask. He supposed that was what bravery was, though—doing something even when you were terrified, even when you expected the worst possible outcome.

There had to be another cop. Why else would she be sobbing in front of a freshly dug grave?

Olivia’s shoulders tightened, and she sat up, looking down at the recently moved earth, not daring to meet his eyes.

“Please tell me what happened.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

He walked toward her, boots still on his feet that did not press into the slush or snow because of the dirt stuck in the tread pattern.

“Olivia, you can tell me anything,” he said, his steps stopping when she turned her head, her eyes meeting his. He might have stopped because of that fear, but what it really was was heartbreak evident across her beautiful face.

His girl. His moon. His tree siren.

Hunter couldn’t watch her cry. He realized that he would kill all the police if it meant never again having to see her cry. For the first time in his life, he made a mental note to buy a hatchet. If he went down for Olivia, it would be swinging.

“Hey, hey.” Feelings that had frozen him now had him moving, rushing toward her and blanketing her in his arms, not minding the bite of the exposed skin on his fingers. “I’ve got you. I’m here. I’ll always be here. Olivia, I’m not going anywhere.”

She rested her head on his shoulder as they sat beside the grave, her sobs spilling out in shivers against his coat.

Hunter noticed every car that crawled past, felt his pulse jump whenever a horn blared or a stranger with a leashed dog paused to ask if they were alright.

He was used to it by now—being the hushed topic behind closed doors ever since Sarah’s death, the neighbor everyone watched from behind curtains.

He could live with the stares, the whispers.

So he pulled her closer, pressed his face into the curve of her neck, and breathed her in.

What a spectacle we are.

The world outside was lucky to take it in.

Hunter raised his face to Olivia’s, wiping a tear off of her beautiful, smooth skin, blinded by the horror that was his hands. She didn’t seem to mind or notice; she only looked at him.

“The grave, did I dig it?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her voice was bursting out, pushed forward by her sobs.

“We couldn’t find a shovel?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“What do you mean?”

Olivia got up to her feet, snow crunching underneath her. “I just say what’s in my heart, and it’s done, my song and wishes moving through someone’s brain. The order is obtuse, general; I don’t control any specifics. You chose to dig by hand.”

“I didn’t choose anything.” Hunter rose to match her. She looked at her feet, her head hanging in shame.

“That’s why I’m crying,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to control you. Something takes over me, my heart sings out and then suddenly, I’m a monster, a witch, the most horrifying of nightmares.”

Hunter’s mouth gaped open.

She’s ashamed.

“What?” She took a step back. “What does the expression on your face mean?”

Hunter shook his head and ran his hand through his hair, wincing, forgetting about his missing fingernails.

“Everything you say, whenever you open those beautiful lips, I somehow fall even harder for you.”

Olivia let out a cry, burying her face in her hands again. “You’re not angry? You’re not sending me away?”

Hunter shook his head and brought Olivia into his chest, his arms wrapped around her tightly. “I don’t think I could send you away.”

Olivia sniffed, “You’re right. I wouldn’t let you.”

Though it was a very real threat, Hunter reveled in it. He somehow needed her, and she seemed to need him. It was that simple, their differences aside.

“Who did I bury, Olivia?”

Her body shuddered under his weight until he could feel her back expanding and contracting, her breath steadying as she gathered the nerve to say.

Ages, multiple lives where their souls still connected, must have passed by as Hunter waited, until Olivia had finally found it, that courage. Hunter’s eyes widened, his body began to tremble when the words came out of her mouth, finalizing it, knowing that it could never be repaired.

“The television.”

Laughter erupted from him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed like that, felt joy and relief in a way where he felt ten years younger, where he could go through the darkest depths of hell with a smile, knowing that this happiness, this purest, most innocent sensation pulsed through him.

He was smiling like an idiot as he marveled at her confusion.

“I dug a grave with my bare hands in the snow, in the frozen dirt, for my television?”

Olivia nodded, her face solemn, untrusting of Hunter’s grace.

“Is the tree happier at least?”

She considered, looking at the bare-branched dark tree hovering too close to his roof, promising a gutter filled with leaves this next fall.

“It certainly appreciates it,” she said. “But I expect you’ll have a long way to go before happiness is its reality.”

“Will you help me get there?”

This made her smile. He would talk about trees all day if that were what stopped the tears.

“I will.”

Hunter’s phone chimed. Then it chimed again. And again.

I hate group texts.

He pulled it out of his back pocket, impressed that it hadn’t somehow been buried with the television since it rarely could stay in his pocket, and stared at the unlocked screen.

Celia 4: 54 pm:

See you all in an hour.

Darius 4:55 pm:

Do I still have to meet Tom?

Nina 4:56 pm:

You’ve met Tom so many times.

Sadie 4:57 pm:

RIP Tom.

Nina: 4:57 pm:

NOT FUNNY!

Elaine 4:58 pm:

Calm down, Nina.

“I’ve got to get inside and shower for the holiday market,” Hunter said, wrapping his arm around Olivia’s waist and moving her inside with him.