Page 110 of Locke 2

You should never trust a man that listened to Frank Sinatra while whistling to himself in the backwoods of his cabin. This was an unspoken rule. It didn’t need explaining.

The doctor finished his meal and then ventured out into the woods with a rifle slung over one shoulder and snare wire in another.

This was an avid hunter, Jem surmised. He knew what he was doing. He walked in the woods like he was part of it. He knew the area like the back of his hand, and that was what made Jem wary.

When doctor fucking weird disappeared out of sight to set his traps, Jem studied the land. He may not have known it, but he was comfortable in it. He wasn’t a brilliant hunter like Locke and maybe this doctor cunt, but he could read the bush like a storybook. He could take apart the fine details and notice when it had been disturbed or altered.

Like the very trail that appeared behind the cabin. The grass had been trodden through. Branches had been snapped. This was a trail that had been used regularly. It didn’t take long for Jem to find it. He didn’t take the trail, but he moved around it, reading it from afar to see where it led to.

It was a hunter’s trail.

Or a trail that led to a hole.

Even then, as he trekked it, he hoped it was the latter. It had been a long week. His mind had ventured to very dark places.He’d touched upon memories he had done his best to silence. They never went away, but like a movie, if the volume was turned off, the feelings it evoked were less of a punch in the gut.

The colour in the sky began to change, growing darker. He hurried his pace, his desire for justice and penance outweighing the voice in him telling him to slow down and take notice of his environment.

He was so hung up on the crumbs in front of him, that it became all he saw and all he could focus on.

The trail ended at a small clearing.

He didn’t step into the clearing. He hid behind the trees, gaping at the floor. His heart was beating in his ears. Another indication he needed to calm down. But he was here now, at this small patch of land, and he couldn’t differentiate between the past and the present.

The bush could look so utterly familiar. Especially when it was laid out like this. With fake patches of grass and debris strewn over the very heart of the clearing. A passerby would have walked by. They would not have looked down and noticed. They might have taken a seat with their back against the body of that big tree there and munched on an apple, oblivious to the horrors beneath them.

“Fuck, Max,” Jem whispered to himself, like Locke was there beside him. “I’m coming.”

And that was likely the purpose of this whole endeavour.

A boy stuck in a hole. He’d lured the first one all those years ago when he was just a kid, and now he was going to pull the second one out.

They were the same.

Different names, sure, but the same in that they were innocent, and they were helpless and they needed saving.

And he just wanted to fucking save him.

He didn’t think. Jem reacted impulsively. He moved to the hole that sat beneath the grass, to where the boy was—

CRACK!

???

Oh, so that was how it happened then.

Motherfucker shot him and he had fallen to the ground.

He breathed through the pain in his stomach. Not a good place to get shot up in. Jem got shot before. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. The burn was something you didn’t forget. Then the bleeding that didn't stop without medical intervention. The inconvenient fact you needed a doctor to keep you from dying was when Jem knew he was in trouble.

Ironically, a fucking doctor shot him, so this was a cruel twist of fate.

Jem breathed long and deep. He needed to remain calm and look around. The sun was still in the sky and Kali was in the truck and he was out here—

“I recognize you,” said a happy voice. “The man from the coffee shop!”

Footsteps sounded around him.

A boot pressed into his side, and he sucked in a pained breath.

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