Page 55 of Locke

Alone, I did cry. I sobbed until it hurt, and when the tears dried, I carried the fuck on like I always did.

Part Two: Entrapment

Seventeen

Kali

Confession

I’ve spent a month straight thinking of him standing in front of me, asking me, “Dark or light?” I don’t know what he meant when he said I was both. I don’t even understand the question. All I know is I lied. I am nothing light. I am all dark. My centre feels like a black hole that I’ve spent countless years trying to fill.

I’m still sad.

I’m still broken.

And I’ve spent every night feeling my pussy throb because I can’t get his voice out of my head. It was deep, sensual. I feel my skin prickle just remembering it. Sometimes I look into a dark corner and I feel…like he’s there, staring at me the way he did in the club. I feel it so strongly at times, I think…and I can’t be certain…but I think when I stare into those dark corners, Max Locke is staring back at me.

I think…

I can’t believe I’m writing this but…

I think he purposely cornered his kill in that bathroom.

To get to me.

But that’s insane, and I’m insane, and it doesn’t make sense that he would murder a man knowing I was feet away.

But this is Max Locke we are talking about here.

Max Locke who looked at me like he was searching for my soul. I wonder if he saw it during out time together. Because I don’t feel it. All I know is I haven’t felt anything in so long. Until now.

And I’m crazy.

I’m crazy because that danger has awoken something inside me. Something wanting and dirty, and I want to feel that rush again.

Because now it’s starting to die out, and I’m growing cooler by the day. I thought I was healed, but it was just temporary. My time with that man now feels like a surreal and distant memory. Like maybe it didn’t happen. I’m not sore anymore. My bruises are healed. My pussy is no longer aching from his violation.

And I feel like I’ve lost something. I feel like I want to re-claim those feelings in that bedroom so that I remember what it’s like to feel my blood rushing, to feel my centre aching, to feel like I want the attention of a monstrous man who stared at me like he desired me—the real me.

What is wrong with me?

He said he wouldn’t let me go, but Locke has disappeared from my life. He lied to me. And those dark corners I look into are probably empty.

I worked three jobs.

Mondays to Thursdays I was working payroll at a small construction company that I had to take two buses to the middle of bumfuck to. The job was tear-my-eyes-out boring, but the part-time position was permanent, and I needed that stability. Even if it meant sharing an office with a seedy male boss who did the whole man-spread thing with his legs every time we spoke. Which was all the fucking time. Oh, and he always wore some kind of costume to work. Last week he was Batman, the 60s version with the spandex and yellow utility belt. His dick through those tights still haunted me.

But it was hard finding a job these days. Everyone needed skills and experience, and I was slowly chipping away at courses at a community college. I had a mountain to climb, and I was still at the very bottom.

It also helped Dino didn’t care I wore jeans and a sweatshirt to work. Which also prompted his teen daughter to make fun of said clothes when she sometimes dropped in on check runs.

On Fridays and Saturdays, I worked as a babysitter for a rich family in the new suburbs of Blackwater. I had advertised for this position months ago on a nanny site online with no hope at all of making contact. I didn’t have a car, didn’t swim well, or have a police clearance on hand. I didn’t know the Heimlich manoeuvre or have my CPR certificate. Literally, what chance did I have, right?

Except within two days I received a message from Clare Bellamy asking to babysit her kids.

Hello, Callie, my kids don’t have day-care on Friday, and I work away on Saturdays. My husband Ryan works from home, but he needs to be in the office. If you could babysit this coming Friday, that would be great.

Um, what? I said I would be there, especially when I noticed on her profile how much she was willing to pay an hour.

---