telling you to just send these pigs to prison and let your guys take care of them in there and…”
I paused, listening to my words closely.
Slowly, my breaths thinned out and the shock magnified.
“That’s it, then,” I whispered, making sense of everything. “I wondered…”
Locke let me talk nonsense as he leaned over me and opened the glovebox compartment. He pulled out a gun and gripped it firmly.
“Locke,” I said, petrified now as I stared at him, at his watch, at the part of his chest I suddenly knew held the key to everything.
He looked at me firmly, his eyes stone cold, answering my thoughts with, “I gave you my word. I didn’t lie.”
Then he stepped out of the car and strode to the bar, stopping once to pick up a wet leaf from the ground.
It took everything in me to work my legs and follow.
All the while, Conor’s words bounced around my head.
You’re the dove, I’m the raven.
The Hole
He had been left for dead.
Max was certain of it.
How long had it been since they’d come?
Since he’d eaten or had water?
This was a cruel way to go.
He lay in the darkness, unable to move. He was frozen and tired, and everything hurt. Everything.
He reached his hand out and felt for the car. He found it straightaway, tucked under the dirty pillow. He ran it along the ground, thinking of his mother, thinking of fear.
He hadn’t felt fear in so long. It must have departed with his soul.
No, that wasn’t right.
Fear departed when he pined for death.
But he didn’t view it as death. He thought of it as shutting his eyes and never waking up again. He wondered what that would feel like. Sometimes he felt like he was capable of letting go just enough to slip into that everlasting sleep.
Strangely, he held on, keeping his eyes open, blinking and never stopping.
An emotion still pulled at the bottom of his chest when he thought of his mother. She’d struggled for him. She’d gone days without food just so he could eat.
Despite what anyone said, she was a good mother.
“I love you, Mommy,” he whispered.
He did.
He loved her for loving him.
No one else loved him.
“Maybe Conor,” he wondered then. “Maybe he loves me like a brother.”
That was such a happy thought. He’d been careful not to have many happy thoughts. It just made the pain worse for later when the darkness ended and the light invaded him.
Whoever said that light meant good lied.
Whoever said that darkness meant bad lied, too.
They got it backwards.
Sometimes darkness was better than the light. Sometimes it was better not to see the monsters. The light exposed too much. It drove away the darkness, which was a safe place for Max. He preferred not having to witness the evil in the eyes of those capable of harm.
When they touched him with the light all around them, he found himself crawling into that dark part within himself. They couldn’t touch that part of him.
“I’m not scared anymore,” he whispered now, running his finger along the sharp end of the car.
It didn’t matter, though. Not anymore.
He suddenly didn’t know why he was holding on.
No one would even remember him.
No one was searching for him because they’d have found him already. They’d have noticed the doors in the ground.
Conor might not have even bothered when he couldn’t find him.
He shut his eyes this time, a calm feeling coming over him. It would be better to go.
He nodded to himself.
It would.
It really would.
There it was, the darkness and nothing more…
He tried to fall asleep. He tried to let go. He was close to slipping into that one place they could never find him – never touch him – when a loud creaking sounded out.
And just like that, the light flooded down the hole and Max stiffened. With eyes shut, the light invaded him still.
It wasn’t over then.
They were going to keep coming.
His chest moved faster and faster. He sucked breaths in, the panic rising but…nothing happened. There were no footsteps, no gruff voices, no hands grabbing at him.
Opening his eyes, he turned in the direction of the light.
One of the doors had been lifted open, and no one had come in.
Someone had opened the door and left it open…for him?
He stared and stared but didn’t budge. It was too good to be true. It wasn’t possible. He was probably dreaming, but…the dreams never felt like this.
No, no, this was real.
He tried to move but he was too weak. He struggled twisting his body