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

people with extranormal abilities, one of whom just electrified an entire building. He’s seeing a scared, haggard-looking woman – who looks, funnily enough, like she’s coming down off a meth binge – and a small child.

There might be an FBI windbreaker on my back, but it’s one that’s been torn and shredded by our run through the fence, scuffed with dirt, looking like it came from a gift shop. More importantly, he’s seeing us on this side of the fence.

He can’t have seen us come through, or seen me make the hole. If that were the case, he’d be a lot more aggressive. We’ve moved far enough away from the fence that he thinks we’re just passing through. The poor son of a bitch is on patrol duty, and to him, we’re nothing more than a couple of drifters – just two of the thousands moving in and around LA in the aftermath of the quake.

Fuck it. I’ll take it.

“What happened in there?” I say. “Seems like a lotta your buddies are out.”

“Nothing important, ma’am. Move along now.”

I can’t resist sketching a salute as I hustle Leo past the cop. He eyeballs us before turning back to the fence.

“This way,” I mutter to Leo, trying to keep my voice steady. Mercifully, the kid’s in duckling mode again, sticking close behind me.

We head directly away from the storage unit, moving towards the drop-off I spotted earlier. The land rises a little as we get close, the soil rougher, with more rocks pushing up through it. I’m expecting the same on the other side of the drop, but instead, it’s concrete. A long slope of it, running down to a wide channel.

The LA River.

See, Annie? I know what it is now.

Unlike the section we tangled with the Legends on, this part of the river isn’t concreted over. The sloping sides are, sure, but the flat part is a wide expanse of packed dirt and scrubby vegetation. A few bamboo groves sprout here and there, spreading jagged shadows. The actual channel of water is right at the bottom of the slope, on our side. No telling how deep it is, but it’s not flowing all that fast. There’s no one around.

Why did they concrete one part of the river, and not up here? Annie would know. If—

I close my eyes. Annie can’t help me now.

We need to get as far away as we can. It’s going to be a lot trickier here than it is on the river. There might be more places to hide up top, but there will also be more people. On the river, we should be in the clear.

“We’re gonna head down there,” I tell Leo, pointing. I’m worried he’s going to protest, but he just nods.

Now that we’re out in the sun, the meth comedown has ebbed a little. I’m still headachey and nauseous, but at least I’m not seeing things. I don’t imagine anyone creeping up behind me.

The slope is too steep for us to walk, so we scoot down on our backsides. Weirdly, it’s kind of fun, and I smile at Leo, hoping he feels the same way. But he’s turned away from me, looking north, towards the building clouds.

The water runs in a shallow channel, around ten feet wide. I’m worried that it’s going to be too deep to cross, but close-up, it looks like it barely comes up to my ankles. The other side is flat, hard-packed dirt, like the scrubland above, maybe two hundred feet to the opposite concrete slope.

We reach the bottom, still scooching on our backsides. I’m just wondering how to cross the water when I slip, dropping towards the channel. I throw a hand out to stabilise myself, which works for about half a second. Then I skid, arms flailing, right into the water. It’s only ankle-deep here, but it’s enough to completely soak my legs and my butt.

I sit in the shallow flow, breathing very hard through my nose, trying to think of nothing at all.

Leo manages to avoid ass-planting like me, but he can’t stop his feet hitting the water. His jeans are soaked all the way to the rip in his knee.

I don’t have the faintest idea where we’re actually going to go. Even trying to picture Glendale on my mental map of LA is like trying to see through thick mist. But if we can get further down the river, and up the far slope, there might be somewhere we can go. A café, maybe, or – what the hell – a homeless shelter. Get something to eat and drink. Figure out our next move.

“OK,” I tell Leo, forcing a smile onto my face. “It’s not deep. Come on.”

He shakes his head. Wraps his arms around his knees.

“Come on,” I say, the smile faltering. What is with this kid? He’s already wet, isn’t he?

“It’s cold,” he says.

“Yeah, well—”

“Where’s my dad?”

“He’s… I promised you I’d get you back with him, and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, OK?”

“You said he was outside.”

“No, I didn’t.” Am I seriously having this debate while sitting in a pool of water? I get unsteadily to my feet, the current eddying around my ankles. “I said I’d get you to him.”

“No, but, you said, he couldn’t get back in.” He hugs his knees tighter.

“I did, but—”

“No.” Long and drawn out. He shakes his head vigorously, then points. “If he’s up there, then, we need to go up there too. I dunno why we’re down here.”

Oh. I get what’s happening here.

“Leo.” I wade across to him. “We can’t go back up there. We don’t even know if your dad is—”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why can’t we go there?”

“Because…” I falter. “Because the cops will arrest us.”

He won’t look at me.

“Your dad couldn’t get back in to find you, and I know I said I’d get you back to him, but we have to go.”

In response, he hunkers down into himself.

“You’re not the Zigzag Man,” he says. I’m pretty sure he meant to say with the Zigzag