Locke 2 (Blackwater Boys #4)

Twenty-One

Kali

W hen I opened my eyes, I knew someone was there. I looked into the black corner, knowing it was looking back at me.

Fear rose in my throat. My flight response kicked in. I knew I should scream, but I didn’t. I just stared at the corner of my room, feeling the terror and my heart rapidly beating in my chest.

“Locke.”

I said his name as if willing the dark presence to be him.

Please, be him.

The shuffling sound disturbed the silence. It was so slight, yet it made me jump the same way a scream would.

A footstep sounded.

Then another.

A body emerged from the blackness. The silhouetted lines of a giant man in a suit. My vision spotted and then cleared. I let out a heavy breath and felt dizzy. Relief should have slammed into me when I recognized it to be Locke, but there was something all wrong about him. He was too stiff, too wrong as he approached me.

Yes, something about him was all wrong.

I clenched my pillow tightly as I waited for him to respond. When he didn’t, I reached my hand out. “You’re scaring me. Say something.”

I felt his eyes on my hand. A few moments dragged out before I felt his fingers lightly brush along the tips of mine. He didn’t hold my hand, though.

I sat up, my tiredness dissipating as I began to grow panicked. “Is it Lenny? Did you find him?”

Was he hurt? Was that why Locke was off? I began to tremble.

“No,” he answered.

My heart didn’t settle. “Then what is it?”

He continued to stand there, unmoving, but I felt his eyes on me. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That there was something sinister going on with him. How did you know?”

I swallowed and looked down at my now clasped hands. “I recognized myself in him.”

The silence went on for a breath and then two. “Kids come from bad homes all the time.”

“Yes, I know.”

“It’s a big leap to think this boy is in danger.” His tone hardened. “So, how did you know? What about him gave that away?”

I shrugged now, lost because I couldn’t exactly put it into words. “I don’t know, Locke…a feeling. I just…Something’s not right. Please, believe me.”

He didn’t say anything. I looked up at him, trying to observe him in the dark. My eyes had long adjusted by now, but I sensed that even if the light had been on, it wouldn’t help me discern the man. His silence was unnerving. Then I thought about what he said… He was pretty much asking how I knew something sinister was going on, and if he was asking that—

My heart paused. “You found something.”

At his silence, I knew I was right. Oh, my God.

“What did you find, Locke?”

To my surprise, he sat down on the edge of the bed. Or more like collapsed down. It looked like his body had given out the way he dropped his head down and ran his hands over his hair. He was close, but I felt the urge to get closer. I resisted as I waited for him to speak. Every second felt like agony.

Finally, he spoke. “There was a lock on his bedroom door. He slept on a hard foam mattress on the floor. There were no bedsheets, just a thin blanket, and there were no toys. Not a single one.” He paused. “There was a colouring book under his pillow. Of dinosaurs. His crayons were neatly packed away under his pillow. They were clearly very dear to him. They wouldn’t have been something he would have left behind.”

I listened keenly.

My eyes ached as I thought about the way Lenny’s face had brightened when he’d talked about dinosaurs. I wondered what he looked like when he discovered the colouring book I had snuck into his backpack. He’d given me such a warm look when he’d come to school the next morning. We’d locked eyes, and I briefly felt like he had dropped his little walls down. His dark eyes had held a bit of light in them, and now I worried the light would be gone when Locke found him.

Locke continued, and the words felt like a stab to the chest. “There were claw marks on the wall beside his bed, like he’d scraped through the paint to create a picture of something… and then there were drawings… He’d used the crayons…” Locke paused, like he was gathering himself.

I didn’t realise how close I’d gotten until I felt his suit brush along my bare shoulder. I’d leaned in, peering at his face, trying to catch his eyes, but they were tightly closed.

“Drawings of what?” I whispered.

He didn’t look like he was breathing. “Why did you call on me, Kali?”

I blinked at his gruff response. “I told you—”

“You think because I made it out once that I could somehow make another boy do it, too?”

My heart thumped now. “You know how to save him—”

“So, then I save him,” he cut in sharply. “And then what? He lives with the memories and the cold and the constant reminder of what the monsters did to him? You know what becomes of a boy like that? You’re fucking looking at one.”

I sucked in a breath. “You would leave him?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“If you could go back, would you have preferred to save yourself, or would you have rather someone else did it?”

He froze impossibly still for a moment. Then his face turned to look at me, and in the dark, his eyes looked white and wide. Was he surprised? Or shaken by such a question?

Abruptly, he stood up, and my heart did that quick tha-thump. It made me nervous when he got up because it might signal the end of his visit. But then again, what was the purpose of this visit?

“Why won’t you answer?” I asked quickly, willing him to stay by asking him a question.

“I’ve never thought of what it might be like to have been saved,” he answered, thoughtfully.

“Would it have made a difference?” I pushed, needing to know.

He sighed and spun around to look down at me. “I don’t know, Kali.”

“Just think about it.” My voice trembled. My desperation rushed out of me unexpectedly. I peered up at him, my eyes heavy with unshed tears as I forced a whisper, “Would it have changed things if you knew someone out there cared?”

He watched me intently. “Yes.”

I felt a tear slip. It burned down my cheek. I looked down, breaking our locked gaze, feeling relieved by his answer. “Then yes, I want to save him, even if he doesn’t come out the same.”

I ignored the pull I felt in that moment to look up. Because I knew I’d find Aurora standing by the end of the bed, peering knowingly at me.

“You’re sad,” he stated.

“I am,” I acknowledged.

“Even before this boy disappeared.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Was I so obvious in Blackwater?”

“You ignored it in Blackwater. When I met you, you were angry.”

“I’m temperamental.”

“No, you were angry at the world.”

“I was poor.”

“You were broken.”

I shot him a sardonic smile. “News flash, Locke, I still am.”

“No,” he returned, inquisitive. “You’ve been processing in this town. I see it in your eyes. You’re going back to the past. You’re looking for penance, but you won’t find it. Something else awaits you, little lion.”

“What?” I asked, looking back up at him, warmed by the nickname he used on me. “What am I going to find, Locke?”

“I won’t spoil it for you.”

“I like spoilers.” When he didn’t budge, I raised a brow. “I hope you don’t mean I’ll find peace. That inner peace bullshit doesn’t appeal to me.”

He still didn’t answer. He just watched me, and I knew what he was doing. Even in the darkness, he saw right into me. Where the raw pain lurked. But did he know how crazy I was getting? I felt like telling him, but then he might learn the true depth of lunacy he was dealing with.

He would leave.

No one ever stayed.

Even a monster like him had limits.

“Aside from visiting his room, have you learned anything else about Lenny?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

“I’m working on it.”

That bothered me. “I want to know, Locke. More than just that you went to his damn house and saw his bedroom. I want to know everything.”

“If you’re hurting as it is, it would do you no good to learn how dark this world is, Kali—”

“No, that doesn’t work on me,” I cut in, heatedly. I slid off the bed and came head-to-head with him. Well, more like I was in front of the damn wall that he was and craning my head to see his face, and even then, it was just the sharp stubbled line of his cut jaw. His eyes were dangerously black from this angle. Despite the hiccup of fear, I straightened myself and hissed, “I know how ugly the world is. Don’t presume I’m innocent.”

His lips curved. “I have never taken you as innocent, Kali.”

I eyed his mouth and tried to ignore the warmth pooling at the pit of me. “I’m like you.”

He nodded. “I recall saying that exact thing. You weren’t quite agreeable then.”

“Fine, whatever, I’m agreeable now. So, involve me. Don’t hold back, either. I want to know everything.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Goddammit. It took everything not to yell. “I do.”

“Kali—”

“My dead sister is standing at the end of the bed, watching us,” I cut in, cheeks burning with frustration. “She’s my version of processing, Locke. I like when she visits me because she doesn’t have a bullet hole in her head, and I don’t have to hold her cold dead body before she’s been put in the ground, knowing the embalmer pieced her skull together, and that it might fall apart in my arms if she gets too warm.” I inched closer, my voice trembling. “I moved from one hell to another, and I scraped by, bruised and bleeding. I know how ugly this world is, don’t you dare try to shield me from a truth I’m very well aware of.”

There.

I said it.

And he would either flee or tell me I was crazy.

Or maybe both.

I held my breath, preparing to have my heart torn to pieces.