Page 68 of Locke

“Tattoos?”

“Scars. Like burns, even. I don’t remember the way they looked—just how they felt when I ran my fingers along them.” Locke brushed the air, like he was remembering it all over again. The hair, the sweat, the thick, bumpy lines on the man’s flesh.

Jem watched him, the shadows in his eyes worsening as he fought to keep his emotions in check. “I’ll ask around about him, alright? I’ll fucking tear apart the fucking town, but if I find him before you, Locke, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from his cutting his eyes out and feedin’ them down his throat! HIS BALLS WILL GET CUT OFF NEXT!”

Heads spun in his direction.

Wide eyes and horrified looks.

Jem’s vehemence and rage a dark cloud hanging over the room.

Locke folded the paper back up and slipped it into his suit pocket. “Calm down, Jem.”

“I’m just over it,” Jem retorted, on the verge of a breakdown. “Fucking had it up to here with this fucking town, Locke. When the time’s right, I’m gonna take that boat I have anchored in the bay and put this place behind me. Good fucking riddance, Blackwater, you cunt infested swamp!”

Locke, who looked like a cold-hearted, suited cunt, was now being glared at. Like he was the reason for Jem’s wrath.

“Probably should go,” Jem quietly said, mirroring his thoughts. “You’ve hidden out for a while. I think this is your first appearance around here since…”

Since Kali, he wanted to say.

“I should have been more mindful calling you out,” he added, giving him an apologetic look. “Won’t happen again.”

“I’m not afraid of anyone,” Locke replied, coming to a stand.

“Well, when you threaten to murder people in plain sight by shoving a fucking shovel into the ground…”

Locke smirked.

Jem was recalling what he did to Conor’s front yard the day an angry mob showed up to rid him from town.

“Be seeing you,” Jem said. “I’ll let you know what intel I get about that man…”

Nodding, Locke left.

He drove for what felt like hours, thinking of the list burning a hole in his pocket, of his mother’s killer who was out breathing somewhere, of that fucking girl he wanted so badly, it made him cross-eyed.

If the people who feared him knew of these vulnerabilities, they’d realize beneath the violence and allegations, he was just like them.

Obsession slithered beneath him, whispering, "Focus..."

He drove a little faster, thinking of changing out of these clothes and into something more…ordinary.

Twenty

Locke

That little lioness wouldn’t leave his mind. Fucking hell, he tried to think of something else, tried to find distractions because these urges for her were in the most depraved sense of the word. Oh, the fucking things he wanted to do. The pain he wanted to inflict. He needed to split her wounds wide open again. He wanted to horrify her and make her want it. He wanted her to beg for her destruction.

What a sick monster. What an unapologetic cunt he was. And he…

He did not care.

Not at all.

Not when he had a purpose.

Not when his chest did that tha-thump thing.

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