Page 92 of Locke 2

Everywhere.

And in the midst of it, my dead sister.

I collapsed to the floor over her, screaming.

He should have come for me. Why didn’t he stop to look under the bed? Why didn’t I stop him from going into her room?

I begged her to wake up.

But she looked past me. She looked like a stranger. Not my Aurora. Not the little happy girl she was supposed to be. She was empty. Her eyes didn’t carry the glow of a wild little girl who wanted to fight dragons as a warrior princess.

I was supposed to protect her.

I screamed into the void, never stopping, even when arms wrapped around me and pulled me off my dead sister. Covered in her blood, I bucked wildly in the arms of the police officer that tried to console me.

I wailed until I couldn’t breathe, until I passed out and came to again.

I would never forgive myself.

I would never love myself.

At thirteen, my world went black, and I was submerged in darkness.

There was no light.

Thirty-Nine

Kali

Iwarily looked at Jem as we stood outside of his truck. He’d called me out here soon after Locke and Conor had left this morning. We’d had a big breakfast. I was still recovering from all that bacon.

“What’s going on?” I croaked, rubbing my queasy stomach.

“What do you mean?” he returned, rounding the truck.

“Where are we going?”

“We’ve got to tighten up loose ends.”

“We can do that with Locke and Conor, can’t we?”

“Oh, they’re going to be gone for a while. This is something we can do without them.”

After the beat down at the club, I wasn’t sure Locke would be merry about me knocking on doors without him. Though he did appear content this morning, and I was starting to believehe truly wouldn’t stop me from doing what I wanted, even if he disagreed with it.

We slipped into Jem’s truck, and he put us on the road, heading in the direction of town.

“This folder has the timeline before Lenny’s disappearance,” Jem said, handing me a folder with papers inside. “Flip through it and see what jumps out.”

I took the folder and opened it, going through the timeline. We’d really gotten through most of it, though.We didn’t speak for a few minutes. Mostly because I was not buying Jem’s story.

“Anything pop up?” Jem asked me, looking raptly at me for an answer. Red flags soared. Jem was not a chirpy dude, and he would not be staring so intently at me like what I had to say mattered so damn much to him.

I shot him a suspicious look. “Jem, what’s really going on?”

He had the audacity to feign ignorance. “Nothing, Kali. Why would there be something wrong?”

I raised the folder and shook it. “We went through most of the timeline. We questioned the neighbours and the landlord. We got a record of Lenny’s absences from the school. We got the information out of Keenan. We found the truck Tammy disappeared to. We’re closing in on the shelter she might be at. Then Locke got a hit on Arthur Ambrose employing those ex-convicts…” My words trailed off as realisation hit me. I glared at Jem. “He went to Ambrose, didn’t he?”

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