Page 100 of Locke

He nodded once. “Three hours.”

Panting, she steeled herself and walked to the door. Her knees knocked together the entire way there. She put her hand on the handle and took a moment to stare at the floor. She whispered, “Chase me, Locke.”

A second later she was gone.

Thirty-Two

Kali

I rushed into the apartment, not even bothering to close the front door behind me. I didn’t have long. I wasn’t keeping track of the time, so I wasn’t sure how far behind me Locke was. The thought sent dread and anticipation zipping through my body. I didn’t have time to be at war with myself.

I dug into my underwear drawer, finding the zipper bag of money I’d saved for months. Quickly emptying it out, I counted the entire month’s rent and shuffled it aside. I then placed the bag with the rest of the cash in my biggest purse. I grabbed a few tops and pants, whatever that would fit and then the journal on my desk that hid photos of my childhood between the pages. I stuffed it into a backpack and then got out of there.

Leaving the rent on the kitchen counter, I didn’t have time to write Sylvia a note. I’d send her a text when I got the chance.

Hurrying out, I took the elevator down. My knees nearly buckled at the bottom, the reality crushing down on me. I was leaving everything behind. Just like that, I had lost three jobs, all of my income, the roof over my head, my roommate who’d been my friend for years—

None of those things meant anything to you.

Stepping out into the sidewalk, I scanned the streets, deciding my next move. Thing was, I wasn’t unused to discomfort. My bleak childhood had been filled with abuse and shitty living conditions. Living like that did not bother me. It was the choices that lay before me, each bridging into different realities.

I could leave Blackwater, but I didn’t know what was out there. That uncertainty unnerved me. At the same time, I could blend in with the drifters as I figured it out.

As I walked, I let my hair down, ruffling it in every direction. I bent down and scooped some dirt. I ran it down my arms and face. I could look roughed up, unattractive, the kind of person you don’t really look twice at. I stepped into a nearby alleyway and approached the large bin. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and spun it around in my hands. I needed to get rid of it. If Locke was listening, it meant he was following, too.

But then he’d come straight here and very quickly would find it abandoned. After sending Sylvia a quick text, I left the alleyway and placed the phone on a sitting bench in front of a shop instead. Within ten minutes, it would be stolen, and if this person was moving, it meant Locke was hunting the wrong person down.

Throwing the hood of my sweatshirt over my head, I walked away.

*

Nightfall hit, the darkness my playground as I continued to move, weaving up and down alleyways, blending in with the homeless, the drifters, the hookers and the addicts.

Locke underestimated me.

I was not terrified because I’d been here once.

A long time ago.

When the world decided to be ripped from me over the course of one hour under the summer sky. It was why I hated the light. Possibly more than Locke did.

I wasn’t running from my past because I couldn’t confront the emotions.

I was running from my past because I murdered a man once, and as he lay dying under that sunlight, I made an oath to never be a coward again. But moments like these, being right where I was when my family were ripped from me, it brought that old girl out in me. Like she’d been living dormant inside me ever since. Like I possibly had never shaken her entirely from myself.

And I’d tried so damn hard.

It was why I was so good at pretending. Why my performances were never questioned. Until Locke, of course.

And being in the dark right now, feeling her slink beneath my skin, her pain and sadness reminding me why it was bad to feel—I realized this wasn’t just a game Locke and I were playing.

I needed to start over.

To be away from that man for good.

I was in an alleyway of the very apartment I’d just fled from. I’d looped back around hours ago, knowing he wouldn’t double around. It was the hiding in plain sight bullshit I was good at doing. He was following an imaginary trail around the town. I fed the hints to him, making sure the crackheads saw me, the drug dealers noted my presence when I stopped to look at them. He was scouring Blackwater, but not here, and right now I needed that precious time to formulate a real plan.

One that had me exiting Blackwater right under his nose.

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