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

the biker Annie beat the shit out of back of the train depot.

Whatever. A phone is a phone. I don’t even need to unlock it to dial 911 – although it wouldn’t matter, because Minnie was a badass biker who thought passwords were for losers. My fingers punch in the number and are about to dial when I stop.

What if…?

No. I can officially say that is the dumbest idea I’ve ever had. It could blow up in my face in so many spectacular ways.

I raise my eyes to the injured man, the one with a single crutch. He’s trying yet again to get moving, and it’s not working.

And then I’m opening the phone, navigating to the contacts. It takes me no more than a few seconds to find what I’m looking for.

Phone calls and data are hit and miss in LA right now, but for once, the telecommunication gods are in a good mood. Robert’s voice comes through the connection loud and clear: “Who the hell is this?”

FORTY-EIGHTTeagan

I can’t help but smirk. Just a little. “I’ll give you three guesses but you’re only gonna need—”

“You made a big mistake.”

“Don’t ruin my line. Dick.”

“You’re fucking dead. You hear me? When we find you—”

“I know, I know, hung, drawn, quartered, remains scattered to the four winds, whatever. Listen—”

All at once, there are those muffled scratching sounds you get when two people trying to fight over one connection. Then there’s another voice in my ear. One belonging to someone I thought was dead.

“Ma petite,” Pop says. I knocked a couple of her teeth out, back when I escaped the train depot. Broke her nose. Her voice is very slightly mushy. “You had better run very, very far.”

I recover surprisingly quickly, given the circumstances. “Howdy, Pop. Glad you made it.”

She laughs – a surprisingly innocent sound. “You think your little soldiers cause me trouble? Your little soldiers are dead.”

A nauseous little hitch of guilt grabs hold of me. If tonight had gone differently, those soldiers would still be alive.

I push past it. Guilt can come later. If there is a later.

I need to move a lot of people very quickly, and I can’t do it if I have to spend that time helping people who can’t help themselves. A squad of bikes – hell, even three or four of them – would make a massive difference. They can zip in and out of the camp, getting the injured to safety.

“What you did to me?” Pop says. “What you did to my brothers? It will follow you for ever.”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Fucking zip it. You need to listen, and you need to do it right now.”

As quickly as I can, I tell Pop about the camp, and the flash flood. I tell her what I need her to do. Amazingly, she doesn’t interrupt.

I haven’t looked at a map, so I don’t know for sure, but it should be a quick fifteen-minute bike ride from Chinatown. That’s more than enough time for them to get down here, and give me a hand giving people out.

Assuming I can convince them not to murder me.

“You want to do some good?” I say. “Beyond just helping out a few kids? Get your ass down to the 710 where it crosses the storm drain. You’ve got about twenty minutes.”

“Is this a joke?” Pop says.

“I wish.”

“If you think we’re just going to—”

“Come help out, or don’t,” I snap. “I don’t have time to convince you, so you make up your own mind.”

With that, I end the call.

And get to work.

There’s a man frantically looking for his dog, who refuses to leave until he finds him. I close my eyes, zero in on the plastic buckle on the dog harness. I don’t stick around to enjoy the reunion, yelling at the man to get the hell out, already looking for the next target.

I rouse two drunks sleeping in a makeshift tent – two dudes snuggled up, spooning, one of them with his arm wrapped tightly around the other. When it turns out they are still drunk, and not inclined to move, I collapse their tent on top of them. They scramble to their feet in a panicked daze, taking in the chaos around them.

I dive into the sewers. The cavernous dark is lit by a dozen waving cellphone screens, and I use my PK to create a map of the rest, ignoring the burning headache at the back of my skull. I find the people without cellphones, without any source of light. A man who has lost his wheelchair. Three kids stoned out of their mind on God knows what. Some jackass trying to find a way out through the sewers, stumbling around with his hands out in front of him like a zombie. I send them all out towards the storm drain exit, ignoring their shouted questions.

No sign of Pop and the Legends. How much time do I have left? Ten minutes? Fifteen? I scramble back out into the storm drain, suddenly terrified of being caught unaware by the flood. But it hasn’t appeared yet in the channel to the north of us. I put my head down, focus on my PK and keep going.

There’s a steady stream of people heading towards my improvised exit now, but it’s not enough. Nowhere close to enough. It takes all the self-control I have not to scream at everyone around me, the dumb motherfuckers who are still here. I come across two more kids, hunting for their parents, and it takes me way too long – a whole two minutes, maybe three – to find them, zeroing in on an engraved money clip in the dad’s pocket. I don’t give them time to enjoy the reunion, slapping the mom on the ass as I run past, making her jump. “Go,” I say. “Right now, move!”

Right then, my exhaustion goes from a bubbling five to a screaming eleven.

I come to a shuddering halt, hands on my knees, the stitch in my side so