other man whose gun was raised at them, but he hadn’t fired.
Thames moved over top of Holden, gripping his wrist in one hand. He banged it against the floor as Holden bucked beneath him, hitting at Thames’ face with his free hand. One harder slam against the ground and Holden’s grip around the blade loosened. Thames quickly gripped the blade with his hand, uncaring that it cut through him as he ripped it out of Holden’s hand. Then he tossed it across the room, panting now as he sat on top of him, making sure he was going nowhere.
There was just the last man with the gun still raised at Locke, but he was wavering as he looked over the room, at the dead suited man on the floor, at the other with gigantic holes torn through his side, at Jem, whose shotgun was now turned in his direction.
“Drop the gun,” Locke demanded, glancing coolly at him.
Knowing he was outnumbered, he dropped the gun and raised his arms out, pleading, “I just follow orders.”
“No,” Locke replied cruelly. “You went off the grid is what you did.”
Then he shot him too. Straight in the face. The man was dead before he hit the ground, and now Locke was advancing in Thames’ direction, holding that gun steady as he approached.
“Who sent you?” Holden asked, staring up at Locke with surprise. “Was it Number One?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Locke retorted, and Holden went silent, his eyes crazed and panicked.
Locke stopped by at the bar, dishevelled and tired, right across from Jem who’d lowered the shotgun but was still gripping it tight. Locke slammed the gun down on the counter and began to undress. First the jacket went, and then he was unbuttoning his blood-stained shirt.
“You know ravens represent loss,” he muttered, looking back at Thames now who was staring back at him. “You endure the worst hell and come out reborn on the other side. Changed and blackened, like the plumage of a raven. Was that explained to you, Conor, just before you got inked?”
Thames nodded steadily. “Yeah.”
“When I climbed out of that hole, changed and blackened, a raven flew to me, stood by my side, staring down at me like he knew what I felt. I wanted to die, and he flew around me, cawing at me as if to tell me to keep going. So, I did.”
Locke slipped the shirt off and threw it down on the counter, turning so Thames could see him. Thames’ eyes dropped to Locke’s chest, and his body went rigid at the sight of the large tattoo of a raven right over his heart and shoulder.
And now he was undoing his watch, saying, “When I got out of there, I carried the faces of the men that hurt me for years and years. I kept thinking…how do I find them? I wanted my revenge, but I needed a way. I needed money. I figured instead of just defending criminals in the court, I could recruit them too. I could have a crew do the dirty for me, and while I did that, I needed to generate money, have my fingers in everything so that I could generate enough money to hunt down these people. I didn’t realize along the way I’d crack open a twisted world in this town we’d never known existed.”
Removing the broken watch, he settled it gently over his shirt on the counter and dropped his wrist to his side, but Thames caught the ink there.
He saw the number 1.
“Ever wonder why no one went looking for me?” Locke asked now. “I was in that hole for weeks, and yet everyone was looking elsewhere.”
Thames nodded. “Corruption.”
Jem stared down at the counter, saying nothing.
“They turned the other cheek because they were paid to do so,” Locke explained. “Sick fucks like Henry Tiller with their philanthropic image, pouring money in poor children, in that Boy Scouts he was obsessed about visiting every summer. Henry Tiller, with all that money, with all those businesses, decided to say hello to me in that hole. Do you know what that was like having to see him in town after I’d come out? To know what he’d done to me and never being able to confront him about it? I kept my mouth shut, put my head down, pretended I didn’t remember what happened in there, whose faces I saw, but I catalogued them all and waited for my time. Henry Tiller was sentenced to a prison far from