Chapter 1.2.22 — Waiting / Lock 8

Emmett and McGuire exchanged numbers for their burner phones, then went their separate ways. He jogged the rest of the way home, still processing that he’d made his first superhero friend—

Emmett still wasn’t sure if it was a good idea.

Either way, he had another connection to the supers of Belport, and McGuire seemed to be a fellow mask like himself. Emmett supposed there was a chance that the eccentric super was actually a registered cape with the Summit of Heroes, but he doubted it.

Emmett thought back to his run in with Serenity and Hunter Nine. If all capes were like that, it might be awhile before he had any connections in the Summit.

~

Lock was still out by the time Emmett got home around eleven o’clock Saturday night, and Emmett didn’t see him the next morning, either.

He couldn’t be sure when it happened, but it felt like Lock was working even more than usual.

Emmett worried about his roommate. Between senior year and how much Lock worked, it was a wonder his roommate was holding it all together. Maybe they could talk about it if Lock came back today.

Then again, Emmett had been out more than usual, too. Some days, it felt like he only came back to the apartment to sleep. Between training, research, and making mods, Emmett had missed out on a lot of things this past month, and he felt guilty that he hadn’t been there all that much for Lock.

But, since Lock wasn’t back yet, Emmett put on music and spent Sunday on schoolwork and mods. Dr. Venture checked in once, asking how his recovery was going and reminding him to do calisthenics throughout the day to get his blood circulating. Emmett made sure every hour to do something, whether it was pushups, squats, or simply pacing the apartment.

Briefly, he looked at the small watch battery-like device that he’d brought back from his sparring match against McGuire. He peeled the gum off of it and carefully pried it open. It wasn’t just one disc battery, but three that had been crudely wired together… And that was about it.

The longer Emmett stared at the device, the more he was certain that it shouldn’t have been able to affect his arm. It shouldn’t have been able to deliver a big enough charge or even transfer a charge through his skin to the wiring beneath. The device should not have worked.

In the end, Emmett stuffed the broken gadget and the gum into a baggie and then into his pocket, resolving to ask Dr. Venture about it on Monday.

~

Lock came home Sunday night.

It was almost ten, and Emmett was winding down, laying on the couch and scrolling the news forums of Double Mask, Reddest Knight, and The Green Machine. Emmett sat up when he heard the door.

Lock walked in, looking shaken. He wasn’t wearing a hoodie like usual, and his black T-shirt and pants were cut up. He stood in the doorway, staring blankly ahead.

“Hey man,” Emmett said.

Lachlan’s eyes locked on Emmett, almost as if he didn’t recognize his roommate. Even the music felt quiet and drowned out.

It was a long moment before Lock responded. “Hey.”

Then Lock strode into his room. He came back out a minute later, having changed into a new set of black clothes and hoodie. He came over to sit on the opposite side of the couch, and Emmett sat up to give him room.

Lock sat with the hood pulled over his head and hands stuffed in his hoodie. He stared forward without blinking, without talking. There was blood on his cheek. It didn’t look like his.

Emmett reached over and grabbed a nearby napkin leftover from some other night’s takeout, and handed it to Lock.

“You’ve got blood on you,” Emmett said, pointing to his own cheek.

Lock took the napkin and stared at it before finally dabbing his tongue to it and wiping the blood away. Then he crumpled it up and held on to it.

“It’s not mine,” Lock said, as if that was all the explanation he needed to offer.

Emmett glanced idly at the blank screen of the TV, then back to his roommate. All thought of going to sleep in the next few minutes was long gone. Before Lock got home, Emmett had readied himself for jokes about Marianne. But not now.

Some shit had clearly happened and it was clearly on Lock’s mind. Emmett had seen Lock contemplative, angry, and even sad… but Emmett had never seen his roommate like this.

“Work was that bad, huh?”

The question felt stupid, but Emmett didn’t know what else to ask, and sitting in silence felt worse.

Lock nodded absently, then slumped down further on the couch. “Work… Yeah. It was a hard night.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Lock hung his head. For a solid minute, it looked like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. His head lulled. He licked his lips. He took a breath and then let it out.

Finally, Lock spoke.

“There was a, uh, fight today. At the bar. Couple of dudes. I went over and sorted them out, but they… didn’t deserve it.”

“If they were starting trouble at the bar, isn’t that what you guys are for?”

Lock shook his head meekly. “They didn’t deserve what they got.”

“Oh…” Emmett trailed off, thinking about the blood on Lock’s face. Emmett had known for a while that Lock worked at some rough places; he didn’t exactly hide his injuries well. But Emmett hadn’t thought about how much Lock might be roughing up others…

Damn. Lock had just been talking about roughing up multiple guys—not just one. Emmett would’ve been impressed if not for the look of shock on his friend’s face.

Just how bad did Lock hurt them?

But that wasn’t the question that Emmett asked.

“What do you mean, they didn’t deserve it?”

“They’re… I put them in the hospital.”

All at once, Emmett understood. Every other time, Lock was so nonchalant about his job, about the violence. He didn’t seem to care how badly he got beaten up, and until now, Emmett didn’t think Lock really cared about the violence he used either.

Lock was worried.

Emmett sighed and tried to think of something—anything—to say. It felt like Lock was floating away from shore and into a sea of misery.

“...The hospital is the best place they could be right now.”

“Yeah.” Lock smirked. It looked hollow, like he was putting on a face.

Emmett couldn’t help but ask, “Is there something else wrong?”

“I… I’m alright.” A second later, he sat forward and quickly grabbed the remote. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Alright.” Emmett leaned back on the couch and decided he’d stay up a little later, in case Lock could use the company. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

Lock flipped through apps on the TV, looking for something to fill the void. He didn’t say anything else.

Emmett stayed with his friend, but it felt like a wedge had been driven between them.

~ ~

Lock waited for Emmett to go to sleep before he went to the kitchen sink and washed the blood off his hands, and wiped dried specks off of the remote. Then he picked the scabs off his fingertips and washed his hands again. He’d been careful to hide the gore from Emmett—he couldn’t screw that up now.

Lock could still taste the blood.

He had to be imagining it, but that didn’t change anything. It certainly wasn’t a fucking comfort.

Lock stood in the kitchen, staring down at the stainless steel of the sink. He’d scrubbed it clean, but he bet there were still traces of blood. Microscopic, but still there.

Emmett’s words came back to him: ‘Let me know if you change your mind.’

What’s done was done. Talking about it wouldn’t help anyone—not Lock, and not those guys. There was no going back. There was no changing his mind.

Lock had taken the job offer.

He’d killed three people.

It wasn’t Lock’s first time. He’d killed two others during Gnosis’s experimental fights. Then two other supers. Then Porcelain.

But those were different.

Maybe it was because those had been in battle or just because they’d been supers who could fight back… Either way, those were different.

Tonight, Lock had murdered three people. It hadn’t been a fight, hadn't been a challenge. Lock had to throw his hoodie in a dumpster because it had so much fucking blood on it.

There was no going back now. The VP of Gnosis would get word about tonight. He would know that Lock carried out the job without fail, without question. He’d passed their test.

Lock had known not to trust Gnosis. He’d known the internship was sketchy, that the mutagen program was a gamble. Known that they were making him into a weapon when they’d started him on Mutagen-X. Lock had expected to do a stint on the front lines of one of Gnosis’s proxy wars as a black-ops super… So far, that was one of only two things he’d been wrong about.

And he’d known that this new job was something worse than pit fights with mutagen test subjects, worse than slaughtering foreign soldiers. He fucking knew it, and he’d agreed anyway.

The second thing that Lock had been wrong about was what ate at him from the inside while he stood alone in the kitchen, staring at a sink that had been scrubbed clean, but would never be truly clean again. Lock meant what he said to Emmett—

Lock was alright.

He might’ve been in shock earlier, but he was alright. And that was the worst part.

Working security became easy. Fights against test subjects didn’t rile him up anymore…

But why was murder so easy?

Had he really gone so far and been desensitized so much? Or had that horrible truth been there all along, and all Lock needed to do was tear off the scab?

Did it even matter?

It wasn’t just Lock’s life on the line. He couldn’t just walk away. He had his sister to think about. Lock knew too much—had done too much.

Gnosis would never let him out.

Lock’s face felt wet, and he wiped the tears on his sleeve. Better that than blood. Then he walked to his room and shut the door. All there was to do now was try to sleep.

And wait for the next text message.

~ ~ ~