Eye of the Sh*t Storm by Jackson Ford (most romantic novels .txt) 📕

you could make them happen on a whim, you could make incalculable amounts of money. Enough to buy or create a safe haven for any number of enhanced individuals. Reggie doesn’t know what that would look like – it’s almost too big for her to wrap her mind around – but she’s already figuring out the rest.

“I’m impressed,” Reggie continues, almost spitting out the words. “Money’s one thing, but it only gets you so far, doesn’t it? Sooner or later, the government would find you, and they’d move in. They’d destroy you. Unless, of course, you made it almost impossible for them to do so.”

All at once, Reggie is back in Afghanistan, tasting the dust and the heat. She doesn’t even need the psychopath in black to get her there – she can see it clearly in her mind.

There was a term the military used when battling insurgents: asymmetrical warfare. Regiments of trained soldiers with their guns and tanks, powerless against random roadside bombs, RPG attacks, suicide strikes. A war they could never win, because they could never see the enemy.

What this woman is doing is the ultimate in asymmetrical warfare. How could you fight a war when the consequences of the attack left you completely unable to function? When you couldn’t even be sure that it was an attack at all?

And that was the genius of it. Sending children with abilities out into the world to wreak havoc was just the kind of thing that would draw unwanted attention… but to everyone else, an earthquake would just be an earthquake, no matter how deadly it was. Reggie had only discovered the existence of Matthew Schenke through a lot of digging, and not a small amount of luck.

She still has nightmares about what would have happened if she’d let it go, if she’d listened to the rest of China Shop and ignored her instincts. They would have written it off as just an earthquake. And when Cascadia was triggered? The even larger fault line, running up the west coast? Same thing. They wouldn’t ever have known it was an attack at all.

The woman didn’t need to destroy the United States, or capture it. She just needed to keep it on the back foot, always reacting, unable to respond effectively. Unsure if the attacks even were attacks. She can turn an enhanced individual lose any time she wants, and it’ll make her money. And every time it happens, it becomes even harder to stop her.

It’s Moira Tanner’s worst nightmare. Everyone’s worst nightmare. If she lets this woman take back the boy, the one who could electrify entire buildings, rain thunderbolts…

Dear God.

“I am sorry, by the way,” the woman says.

Reggie’s voice is cold fury. “There is nothing you could say right now to—”

“I tried to do this without hurting anybody,” the woman says, talking over her. “If Leo’s father hadn’t run—”

“Leo? The boy?”

“Mm. But he did, and I’m tired of chasing down Teagan and her friends. So I had to bring you in. Don’t worry – if everything goes to plan, we’ll all make it out of here alive.”

“Alive.” Reggie almost laughs. “That’s rich. How many people did you kill when you sent that boy Matthew to California? He was a monster, you knew he was a monster, and you still turned him loose.”

Before Reggie can continue, the woman says, “You use that word so freely. I would have thought someone like you would be more… understanding.”

“What word? Monster? Honey, that little boy hated everything and everyone. All he wanted was to do was burn the world down and spit on the ashes.”

The woman sighs. “Matthew – Lucas, I should say, that’s his real name, by the way – is…” She pauses. “Complicated.”

“Wrong. He was—”

“Is.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Not was. Is. He’s back with us now.”

Reggie’s heart stops beating. That’s what it feels like. Just frozen cold in her chest. The thought of that… no, goddammit, she will call him a monster. The thought of him still alive is abominable.

“He’s complicated,” the woman says again. “But he’s also one of us. He’s like me. Like Leo. And like Teagan, although I’m not sure she’d appreciate the comparison. And I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d use the word monster after all – it’s what I’d expect from someone who doesn’t have what we have.”

“Teagan’s no monster.”

“That she is not,” the woman says, a strangely warm note in her voice. “But she’d be called one, if people knew what she could do. All of us would be. We’d be seen as freaks.”

The seated man has stopped whispering. He’s humming now, a single tuneless note, almost inaudible. He hasn’t opened his eyes.

Reggie says, “The people I work for—”

“Moira Tanner.”

“So you do know her. Then you know how she operates, and you have to know that she’ll find you. We’ll find you.” Saying the words before she can stop herself, aware that she may no longer be part of the we.

“Good luck,” the woman says.

“And don’t, don’t, by the way, pretend like you’re so noble. Wiping out thousands, just to protect a few individuals?”

“Your point?”

“My p—? Jesus Lord, honey, if I have to explain, you’re way off the edge of the map.”

“If there were another way to do it, I would.” The woman’s calmness digs at Reggie like an itch.

“Whatever you say.”

“I don’t really mind if you believe it or not. Protecting myself, and those like me… it’s the only thing that matters.” Her voice hardens, just a little. “If the public knew what we were, we’d be dead. All of us. I’m simply making the first move. And if a few people die, well…”

“You do realise that you’re not making it out of this?” Reggie coughs suddenly, sharp and ugly, her diaphragm hitching. “The… hhhrm… the boy. Leo? He doesn’t want to follow you, does he? He wasn’t even supposed to be here – that’s what you said, right?” She laughs, a mad sound that feels like it comes from somewhere far deeper than the cough