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

concrete, as freezing water peppers my face and the flood makes one last, desperate lunge for us: I hold on.

We crest the edge of the storm drain. The van goes airborne, all four wheels leaving the ground as it roars into the open air. Whoever has me, and whatever goddamn vehicle they’re driving, does the same. For a split-second, I’m weightless. Completely free.

Then we come down with the biggest bang I’ve ever felt.

Whoever is holding me is strong, but the impact is enough to wrench me from their grip. There’s a tangled, panicked second where I’m still weightless, and then I hit the ground. Hard.

I roll, tumbling sideways, the sky and the van and the dirt spinning around me. I don’t get knocked unconscious. Exactly the opposite. There’s so much adrenaline and methamphetamine and terror burning in my body that I come out of the roll and stumble to my feet, hyperventilating, spinning in wild, jerky circles.

The skin on my hands has been ripped away, the raw flesh stinging. My left knee is sending up very urgent signals of pain, and every breath feels like it’s going to burn through the walls of my lungs.

It’s not just my knee, or my lungs. My whole body is a distant forest fire of pain, glimmering on the horizon but growing closer by the second. I don’t know if it’s the meth keeping me upright, or the adrenaline, or both. The world goes wavy for a long moment, tilting so badly that I almost fall over anyway.

I’m in a vacant plot of land bordered by the storm drain on one side, and warehouses on the other. It’s so similar to the place I first entered the storm drain with Leo that for a second, my poor, addled brain makes me think I’m actually back there.

The difference is that this time, there are people here. A lot of people. A hundred, maybe more. Dirty faces with soaked skin. And all of them staring at me. They’re not silent – there’s a hum of voices, rolling like waves across the crowd. Almost drowned out by the flood waters rushing past below us.

Almost, but not quite.

There’s a squeal of brakes, followed by a grinding blast of tyres on dirt. The China Shop van comes to a rocking, shuddering halt, Africa stumbling out, head snapping side to side, looking for me.

And just beyond him, screeching to a halt: a motorcycle. A big, red Harley-Davidson, and on top of it… Robert. He was the one who grabbed me when I came off the van.

He saved me.

Just beyond him are the other bikers. Pop is there too, soaking wet, her hair a mess, clambering off her gigantic ATV.

Someone in the crowd cheers.

It’s an exhausted, almost desperate sound. But it kickstarts something, and then the whole crowd is going nuts. Cheering, clapping, punching the air. Men and women, kids, dogs barking. The crowd surges forward, and for a moment, I have this absurd idea that they’re going to pick me up and drop me back in the river.

They don’t. They surround me, Africa, the bikers. They clap us on our backs, shoulders, grab our hands and pump furiously. Every touch sends bolts of furious pain through my insulted body. Through the chaos, I spot Alvin, of all people, hooting and hollering even louder than everyone else.

I just stare, my mouth hanging open. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

They know what you can do. They saw.

I don’t know what that means yet, but the crowd gives me a little bit of a preview. Because not everyone is cheering. Most people are… but there are others who are just gaping at me. The emotions on their faces are not just relief, happiness, excitement. There’s awe there. Fear. Disbelief.

And yet somehow, in this moment, in this hurricane of handshakes and back pats that make my body jangle with pain, it doesn’t matter.

“Thank you,” I murmur, as my hammering heart starts to slow, just a little. “Thanks. I… thank you.”

I’m still not completely sure I’m not dead. It feels like I’ve stepped into another universe. One of those places where everything is almost, but not quite, exactly the same.

In that instant, I lock eyes with Pop.

She is in the middle of a crush of people, but somehow, I have a clear line of sight right to her. And despite the fact that she just about everyone is congratulating her, she ignores them. In that moment, I am the only one she’s paying attention to.

You know the phrase balanced on a knife edge? I’ve never liked it. I know knives, and let me tell you, most of the ones in your kitchen right now are so blunt you could do a handstand on the edge and not draw blood. But I do think there are moments when everything hangs in the balance. When a situation could turn out fine, or go completely to shit, and the difference between the two scenarios is barely the thickness of an atom.

And as Pop looks at me, I can’t help but think of all the times we’ve clashed today. The meth I’ve stolen, the people who died, the gunfights and car chases.

But I also think of what we just did. The dozens – no, hundreds – of people we saved. She may have gotten there at the very last minute…

But she still came.

Pop looks at me. I look back. And for a few seconds, it’s just her, and me.

Then she shakes her head. Once to the left, once to the right, back to the centre. The very tiniest smile blinks onto her face, just for a moment.

And then, incredibly, she flips me a lazy salute.

In a daze, I return it.

Then she climbs back on her ATV, gesturing at Robert and the others to follow, and guns the engine. The crowd scrambles to get out of her way, and in seconds, the Legends are gone.

Africa is standing head, shoulders and chest above the crowd. He has