Page 25 of Sweet Silver Bells

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

“ W e 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—everything looked normal again. Why?

Olivia looked too calm . As if this was just a detour, an accidental mess at a holiday event.

She shook her 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.

He couldn’t go back.

But this? He could do this.

Can I really?

No one had protected her.

Olivia wasn’t a monster. She was someone whose life had been cruel enough to teach her to cry alone.

If Hunter was going to live in a world where he accepted that the supernatural was real then he could live in a world where he could protect her from herself. An accidental outburst, ending innocent lives, would be a part of his own now.

Ding.

Ping.

Zaaap.

Bop.

The sound of phones lighting up with activity filled the air.

“Shit,” said Darius. “We’re taking too long.”

Hunter pulled out his phone from his pocket, wiping off smeared blood from the camera lens.

Suddenly, his phone started to vibrate in his hand, and the sounds of text messages turned into a nightmare as a piercing alarm echoed through the entire block.

He went to silence it, the alert only dying down when he read what was on the screen.

Emergency Alert

Main Street Stockbridge

Contamination units are on their way.

“Holy shit,” Sadie looked like she was about to throw up.

“This is what I’ve been trying to say. There are a slew of dead bodies on the ground. Everyone will be kept here for questioning, and who knows what else.”

Darius was right. They had to run.

The sirens were so loud that they sounded only a block away, and Hunter could hear the slamming of the van doors and the sound of dress shoes and heels clicking away from the news reporters, who had somehow arrived there quicker than anyone who could actually help.

“Let's go.” Hunter grabbed Olivia by the wrist and tugged, running out of the square, knowing his friends were behind him.

He saw a police car rushing down the block.

“Shit,” he yelled, “Duck down!”

They moved behind some trash cans, not the best hiding spot, but in the commotion, it did the trick, as no one noticed them or stopped them.

“Nina isn’t here,” Celia said as they stood up to keep going. “We have to make sure she’s safe.”

“There’s no time,” Darius said. “She’s looking for Tom. They got separated. She wouldn’t come with us.”

“We can’t just leave her behind,” Celia yelled.

Olivia looked over at Celia, her face a portrait of calm, her eyes sparkling. “Yes, we can.”

Celia’s face dropped, mesmerized momentarily before she matched Olivia’s slight smile and nodded. Olivia’s calm was infectious. Their group was on its way down the block again.

A helicopter flew overhead, a spotlight shining down in the dark that moved over them. Hunter might have had a heart attack then, but he kept going. A few people fleeing a dangerous scene were hopefully all they looked like.

That is all we are , Hunter reminded himself, his thumb massaging Olivia’s hand as he tugged a little more gently this time.

She had no problem keeping up. Adrenaline pumped through them as they played duck and hide behind this building, or “Quick, in this alleyway,” every time they saw a flash of red or blue.

We will be okay. You can protect her.

Hunter was growing more and more confident in this, knowing that he could, knowing that if she was a murderer then he was one as well, and they would go down in history together.

Stories would be written about them, the lore of the estate might change, and the tour guides would have something new and modern to tell.

He smiled, knowing his adult life was tied to that manor in more than one significant way.

Once they were a few more blocks away, they saw an occasional person out on the street, someone driving their vehicle without panicking.

There were no more emergency rescue vehicles, so they slowed down and stopped.

All of them were panting, and Sadie was wheezing.

She was older than them, too old for this, really.

“Did anyone see what happened?” Hunter asked, Olivia’s eyes widened in surprise at first, but she did a good job at masking that quickly.

“That’s the weird thing,” Elaine jumped in quickly, cocking her head. “It feels like I was in a dream, and now that I’ve woken up, I can barely remember it.”

“There was singing,” Celia said. “I remember singing.”

“That was the choir,” Sadie said. “Hunter, what do you remember?”

Hunter made a show of smacking his lips and looking down at the ground as if he were trying to grasp onto memories that were fading away. “I remember comforting Olivia, and then I blinked, and people were on the ground. It was . . . horrible.”

“I’m sorry, Hunter, seeing death like that must be extremely hard on you,” Darius said softly.

“Why would it be more so for him?” Elaine scoffed, pulling out her phone. “I’m calling a car. I can’t be here.”

“Because his late wife was found dead on the ground in her lab,” Sadie blurted.

Subtle.

“Hearing it so bluntly is not exactly helping.” Hunter sighed. Olivia put her arms around his torso and nuzzled her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.

He couldn’t think about Sarah right now.

“We can talk about something else,” said Sadie, changing the subject.

“What about Nina and Tom?” Darius pointed out.

“I’ll text her,” Celia said solemnly.

“What’s wrong?” Sadie asked.

“I just, I just have a bad feeling about Tom.”

Silence followed, and heads nodded. Tom's being missing wasn’t a good sign.

“I don’t think she found him in those bodies,” Hunter said, trying to comfort but failing. He wasn’t good at receiving sympathy over grief, and somehow that now made him unable to give it. This was who he had to be moving forward now. Someone strong, someone who could take care of someone like her.

Someone who could accept that people he knew would die and he would brush it off, pretending that he was surprised, shocked, that he had no idea what had happened.

The alternative was one that he couldn’t accept: Olivia locked up, studied, poked and prodded like the dead frogs that Darius was sent by the school district once a year for dissection.

If the trees rejected something as simple as a television, what would happen to the world if the human they had bonded with vanished altogether?

Hunter’s throat felt like it was going to close up, thinking of Olivia in that position. Hurt, scared, confused. It didn’t matter if she could take an entire town out with her tears because at the end of the day, her heart, her soul would still be in pain.

I can’t have that.

Seeing that grave in his front lawn had done something to him.

It was true that there hadn’t turned out to be a body in it, but at first, he had expected it, accepted it and was ready to move on knowing that someone’s heart and blood would forever decay under the tree that Olivia made him work so hard to please.

A silver Toyota Corolla pulled up as if it had appeared by magic, and Hunter nearly yelled out.

You’re too jumpy. You need to be less emotional for her.

“There’s our car,” Elaine said, pulling Celia towards the vehicle. She nearly ran toward it, missing Elaine’s touch altogether. Elaine turned back. “Do you want a ride, Olivia?”

“She’s with me,” Hunter nearly growled at the offer. He was surprised at how personally he took that. Elaine was a girl's girl; he knew that. He should be thankful that someone else was looking out for Olivia.

“Are you sure?” Elaine ignored Hunter, his blood boiling a little more, but the pent-up anxiety leaving his chest as Olivia nodded.

“I’m sure I’ll see you again,” Olivia said, urging the two to get in the car and leave.

“My ride is almost here too,” Darius said, pulling out his phone to check his app.

“Mind if I join?” Sadie asked. “I live just a few blocks down from you.”

More cars pulled up until no one from their small runaway group was left. Hunter and Olivia were back on his front lawn, staring at the grave and the tree.

“You lied.” Olivia turned to him. “You lied to protect me. Why?”

“I think it’s self-explanatory,” Hunter said.

“Tell me anyway.”

Hunter let silence fall between them as he took her face, lips, and jawline. She was so beautiful.

And lethal, like holly at Christmastime.

“Because every second since you came into my life has changed me.

You've made me want to become someone better—someone who can hold you when you cry, who wipes your tears gently enough that the plants won’t feel the need to protect you so fiercely.

When you touch them and feel joy, when you smile … that brings me peace, too.

You’ve lived so long in the dark—hiding in a forest where even the sky was out of reach. But you don’t have to hide anymore. I know what that feels like. I’ve done more than my share of it.

I’ve never met anyone I wanted to bring light to, not until you. And if you’d let me, I’d spend every day—every moment—finding new ways to heal your heart. Because you deserve more than darkness, Olivia. You deserve everything.”

Olivia’s lip quivered before she bit down on it.

“You have to kiss me now,” she said.

And Hunter did.

He kissed her so deeply that he might never come back up for air again.