Locke 2 (Blackwater Boys #4)

Five

Kali

P atsy gave me the stink eye when I showed up twenty minutes late. I grovelled and apologised and almost considered asking her if she’d like me to perform a blood sacrifice to prove how sorry I was, but I shoved that asshole Kali deep away.

The day consisted much of the usual, except it was expected I would be on recess duty most of the days now that Patsy was too delicate to walk around. I gave her a bit of a stink eye though because she had quietly scheduled a trail walk with the principal that very weekend to some nature park so she could do some bird watching.

There was a lot of bush around Georgewel, and it wasn’t the kind of bush that always had pretty little trails. If Patsy Butte could bushwhack Georgewel’s steep terrains and thick forests to look at colourful birds, why couldn’t she do a bit of recess duty?

I made sure the donation lunch basket was loaded. I knew Lenny enjoyed fishing out the meat sticks, but they were always cleaned out. I started to make sure to slip one in the exact moment I knew he was going to it. It meant keeping a close eye on him, which I didn’t mind doing.

Lenny intrigued me. He was independent and he never caused a fuss, but that very quiet nature made him invisible among the kids.

That day his mom was late even more than usual. He sat at his desk with his backpack zipped up and ready. He had on a thin blue coat that wasn’t warm enough for this weather and was staring off. Patsy had left because of “reasons”, and it was just the two of us.

“You got anything planned when you get home?” I asked him, casually, trying to get a picture of what his home life was like.

He shook his head, his voice quiet. “No.”

“What do you do the moment you get home?”

“Colour.”

“What do you colour?”

“The sheets you give us,” he said.

I glanced at the print outs sitting on Patsy’s desk. I gave the kids something to colour in every morning before their first lesson. Today it was a pirate ship with a treasure chest full of gold alphabet letters. It was pretty cool, though it made Patsy roll her eyes because she was an asshole.

The fact Lenny had only these papers to colour threw me off. I played on through, keeping the shock at bay. “Oh, really? I can give you more if you want?”

His eyes lit up. “Yes.”

My heart clenched. “How about you tell me something you’d like to colour in? I can check to see if I can get that printed out for tomorrow.”

He went quiet, thinking. “Can you get a picture of a dinosaur?”

That was the most he’d spoken in one go all day. I smiled as he fiddled with his fingers. “That’s a great idea. I like dinosaurs.”

He looked up at me, his dark eyes meeting mine. His lips flinched up a little. “What’s your favourite?”

I didn’t know a thing about dinosaurs, but I’d seen Jurassic Park once. “Raptors. Yours?”

Now he broke out in a big toothy smile. “T-Rex.”

Okay, what little boy didn’t say T-Rex? “I like T-Rex, too. Imagine if dinosaurs were still around.”

His eyes widened. “We could ride them.”

I let out a surprised laugh. “Yeah, you know, that’s actually a good idea. Instead of cars, we’d ride dinosaurs around.”

He smiled at the thought, and my heart pinched.

I decided I wasn’t going to print out a freaking T-Rex picture. I’d get him a colouring book of dinosaurs. He would love that. I’d have to smuggle it into his backpack in case Patsy is a dick about me giving a kid a colouring book and lecturing me about treating all kids equally.

Lenny wasn’t like the other kids.

I heard fast footsteps just then. I poked my head out of the classroom. Lenny’s mother, Tammy, was hurrying down the hall. I frowned at the state of her. She was always unkempt looking, but today something was more off than usual. She didn’t meet my eye as she breezed past me. She never tried to talk with me. Being the TA, I wasn’t technically the teacher, so she didn’t have to play nice like she did with Patsy.

“Hey,” I said, forcing it out nicely between my lips.

She might have said a hi, I didn’t know. She blew a breath as she grabbed Lenny’s backpack and told him to get up. He did. She waited for him to grab the backpack, looking antsy. “Come on, Len. Hurry up.”

He put the backpack on without her help and then she went to leave. She didn’t grab his hand, didn’t ask him how his day had gone, nothing. She just expected him to follow. I studied her closely, noticing how hurried she was. Her lips were pursed into an angry scowl. She was particularly off today. Or maybe this whole picking up her kid from school thing was such an inconvenience.

“He’s got library day tomorrow,” I said, causing her to stop mid-step. “If you’ve read him the last book he took out, he can bring it back.”

Her head automatically shot to where I was standing, and then she quickly nodded, her answer flippant. “I read it. I’ll bring it back.”

I couldn’t help pushing it. “What was it called again?”

“I don’t remember, but I’ll have it in his bag.”

“Thanks, I’ll—”

But she was already gone, the scent of alcohol clinging in the air.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her that evening. She hadn’t read that damn book to her son. She didn’t even know what it was. The damn book was called The Fire Station, and it was about, you guessed it, a freaking fire station and fighting fires and all sorts of things about fire stuff and safety. You don’t forget a fifteen-page animated book about firefighters fighting fire.

I had such a bad feeling about her. Something felt all wrong. The way she ushered him out without even touching him. The way he just followed; his eyes trapped to the floor. His eyes had gone distant. He might have been following her, but in his head, he had escaped.

I was annoyed because I didn’t think there was anything I could do for Lenny. Patsy would put a stop to it, anyway. She didn’t want to care. She just wasn’t that kind of teacher, or maybe it’d been burned out of her after years of these kids blowing in and out of her class. Did that make a teacher desensitised? How much did you have to see before you got that way? The question I feared to ask myself was: how much would be enough for me before I learned to stop prodding?

I’d heard many times the teachers talk amongst themselves. They said never to bring work home. At the time, I thought they meant schoolwork, but now I was beginning to suspect it was more than that.

“How’d your trip to the doctor go?” Hal asked later when I was getting ready for bed. He’d just come home. Lately he wasn’t coming home at all. I was sure he was getting pretty serious with one of the coworkers. Selfishly, I hoped he wouldn't move out because I couldn’t cover the rent, and I didn’t want to get to know a roommate all over again.

“I got something to help with the anxiety,” I said.

“Which doctor did you go to again?”

“Nick Abbott. Know him?”

“Oh, nice. He’s a good one.”

“He is.”

“Easy on the eyes, too.”

“Definitely no complaints here.”

He laughed. “Well, he’s freshly single, so you might want to scoop him up.”

The laugh I returned sounded choked and awkward.

I thought of the doctor for a few moments, trying to feel any heat in my chest, but it was just little butterflies in my stomach. Oh well. Dude fished and camped around the mountain. He didn’t hunt predators down and throw their corpses in the trunk. The doctor was adventurous and capable, but he wasn’t dangerous and filthy.

I slid into bed and lay awake for a long time, tossing and turning. Aurora skipped around the room all the while, keeping me company. I was suddenly grateful for her presence because I thought I’d lost her on the sidewalk today.

“You want him to be hiding in the corner,” she chirped excitedly. “That would be scary. You like scary, right?”

I didn’t respond, but my eyes found the corner of the room. It was so dark, he could very well be standing in it, feet from where I was, and I wouldn’t know. My heart raced at the thought. Excitement made my heart jump and my lower half throb. I ran a frustrated hand down my face and tried to focus on my breathing.

“You wish you could stop thinking about him, but you’re always thinking about him.” She continued to torment me. “And that makes you so mad because you know he’s not thinking about you. If he was, he’d be here. He’d be in this very corner.”

Man, Aurora was savage.

Dahlia rummaged in her bed beside mine, and when I clicked my fingers for her to come, she refused. She wasn’t a cuddler at night. She buried herself under the covers instead and fell asleep.

Aurora continued to skip around the room as the hours ticked by.

No one was in the corner.

No one was hiding.

“I will always find you.”

Pain spread through my chest.

Liar.