A stressed sound trumped whatever words Locke reached for. “Man, I don’t know. Kara’s spitting blood, and I’m scared as shit that tiny car is gonna get blown off the road before you get to them. But Willow’s gonna tell me she’s an adult and she can do whatever the fuck she wants, and if Nicky wasn’t in the car, she’d be right.”
“Doesn’t matter how old she is, bro. You’ll always be her dad.”
“And she’ll always be a reckless little shit when she forgets every damn thing we’ve ever taught her.” Locke’s voice cracked again. Then he sighed, frustration gravelling it into a low growl. “Fuck, I feel like the world is about to explode. Either that or I’m losing my fuckin’ mind again.”
My heart clenched, for different reasons this time. Locke had always been so steady. Unflappable in every clusterfuck we’d thrown at him. The hurt seeping from him now was tough to bear. “Babe, it’s okay. We’ll catch them. I promise.”
Babe. I called Orla that sometimes when I wanted to wind her up. But with Locke, for all it slipped out of me as easily, it hit different, and a pause stretched out between us. Not awkward, but loaded.
I love you
I didn’t need to say it. He knew.
Right?
Course he does. You’ve told him a thousand times.But if there was one thing this life had taught me, it was that you could never say it too much. Fuck me. If Priest had killed Locke, would I have met my maker believing what we’d shared until then was anywhere near enough?
My personal phone lit up, the tracker information buzzing through. I swiped at the screen, Locke’s silence growing heavier in my ear, but he spoke again before I could. “I fuckin’ love you. Whatever happens tonight or any other night, never forget that.”
He was gone before I could respond.
24
ORLA
Locke drove, restless hands clenched around the steering wheel, jaw set as I called Willow from every phone in the car over and over in the hope that she’d pull up and call back.
“Try mine.” Mateo passed his over from his position on the back seat, hawk-eyeing the road. “She ain’t got my number.”
Locke hissed through his teeth. “If she answers the phone to a fuckin’ no-name instead of me, I’m gonna kill her myself.”
Mateo pressed a fist to his rigid shoulder. “She’s not gonna answer, mate. Just covering all bases.”
Willow didn’t answer. The call rang out and I passed the phone back, wishing Locke had Nash in his ear like I had Cam right now, the rumble of my brother’s hog filtering through a stray AirPod I’d found in the footwell. For the two minutes they’d talked, the stress in Locke’s shoulders, the fear in his gaze, it had faded, but it was back now at full steam, however hard he tried to hide it.
“Can you call Remy again?”
I eyed the dot on the phone Saint had given us, the one tracking Willow’s car. “There’s nothing he can tell us. He’s at home and she’s still on the road.”
“What if that thing’s fuckin’ broken?”
Or worse, Willow and Nicky weren’t in the car at all, but I kept that potential horror to myself and used Locke’s phone to toss out a message to his brother-in-law.
Locke:Any sign? - Orla x
Remy:No. I’m at the bottom of the hill by the gate. She’d have to drive over me to get to the house. Do you want me to call Logan at the station? He’ll come home xx
I relayed that to Locke and he set his jaw. “Not yet. I don’t want him worrying about this when he needs to keep himself safe.”
“He couldn’t help get to them faster?”
Locke’s jaw ticked again. “No.”
I let it go, rubbing his thigh while I messaged Remy back, forgoing the trouble of introducing myself in favour of speaking to him as if I’d known him my whole life. It was what I’d done with Logan, and despite Locke’s insistence that his twin was grumpy and shy, he hadn’t seemed to mind.
Remy didn’t blink either. He sent me a picture of the gate he was sitting on,in the rain, a fact that belatedly occurred to me as a crack of thunder sounded above our heads, driving heavier sheets of water onto the road.
“How’s your visibility?” I asked Cam over the rumble of his bike.