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

I let out a frustrated sigh. File all that alongside I can’t be racist, some of my best friends are black.

Nic made the wrong move with Africa. No question. But it was a move he made for the right reasons. He’s a successful lawyer – or was – and being black meant he had to work twice as hard for it. He would take justifiable pride in his skills. And here’s me, telling him he was wrong for doing it. Telling him he can’t possibly understand the situation that Africa and I live with.

All at once, I’m disgusted with myself. Nic relied on training, experience, and self-belief to try and fix a bad situation. When it didn’t work, I told him it was because that training, experience and self-belief wasn’t good enough. I, a white person without even a high school diploma to her name, told the black lawyer that he didn’t understand how the law worked.

But people died. If Nic hadn’t jumped in, Africa would have let us go. You were almost there.

If, if, if.

There’s the distant blat of a siren from behind me. I whirl around anyway, as if the cops were sneaking up on us. The empty storm drain doesn’t exactly calm me down. The amount of people coming after us is growing. Africa. Reggie. The Zigzag Man. Hell, even the National Guard now – Leo might have done some damage, but I can’t believe they’ll just let it go. They’re coming for us.

I am a bundle of nerves, and at this point I am actually looking forward to meeting up with Annie – if possible, the only person who is angrier at me right now than Nic.

The bridge is just ahead. A hulking shape in the darkness. “Can you see Annie?” I shout to Nic. He doesn’t reply.

As we get closer to the ruins of the bridge, the river changes.

By river, I mean the water in the centre channel. It’s burst its banks, gushing over the top and spreading across the concrete. We try to avoid it, but we can’t stop it lapping over the top of our shoes, soaking our socks.

At first, I think it’s just the rain – that what I’m seeing is normal. Annoying, but OK. Then I realise what’s happening. It’s doing this because of the collapsed bridge, which is acting as a dam, the river water bunching up against the crushed concrete slabs. Worse: debris has started to collect. Trash, old tires, hunks of dead bamboo. A floating, swirling mass of flotsam. It doesn’t look like the water is completely dammed yet; some of it is finding a way through, sneaking through the gaps in the wrecked bridge. But add even a little more debris into the mix… maybe stuff that’s floating towards us from upriver, right now… and if the rain keeps up…

I shake myself out of it. A flood is the least of my worries. Not when I’m in a concrete channel with sloped sides I can climb quickly.

“Annie?” I shout. “You there?”

Nic speaks over his shoulder, raising his voice so I can hear. “I think I saw someone up there.” He adjusts his grip on Leo, lifting his arm to point, indicating a spot at the top of the slope, up at the part where Main Street becomes the Main Street Bridge.

“Is it Annie?”

“Dunno. Let’s go.”

“How is…? Is Leo OK?”

“Still out.”

That’s the extent of our conversation.

We make our way up the sloped side of the channel, coming out under a miraculously-still-upright power line on Main Street itself, which is empty of traffic. On the other side of the street, there’s a figure, silhouetted against a distant streetlamp. Annie. Has to be.

“Over here,” I shout, passing Nic and moving to a slow jog. Man – now we have to explain to her about what went down at Dodger. That’s going to be a fun conversation, although it’s not like she can get any more pissed at me than she is already.

As I cross the street, I stop cold.

It’s not Annie. It’s not even a woman.

It’s Robert.

The frontman for the Legends. The biker gang from this morning.

Same patched leather vest, same hulking, tattooed arms. Beneath his bushy beard, there’s a very faint smile.

And around him, moving slowly out of the shadows: more of them.

I don’t know how these jack-offs knew where we’d be. I don’t care either. I have had one hell of a night, and I’m not about to let goth Santa Claus and his elves make it any worse. And since they know what I can do already, I figure I have free rein to throw some more concrete slabs at them.

Except—

Where are their guns?

They don’t have any rifles with them. No pistols or shotguns. Not a single firearm.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I never thought the absence of guns would scare me, but it does. I quickly scan the environment – nobody around, no phones pointed at us. A couple of security cameras. I crunch the insides of those, turn my attention back to the bikers. There’s a concrete trash bin on its side at my two o’clock. That’s a good start. I reach over and grab it, lifting it upwards.

“Uh-uh.” Robert lifts a finger. “You might not want to do that.”

“You might not want to try and stop me.”

“I’m sorry – who the fuck are these people?” says Nic.

Robert ignores him. “Just saying,” he tells me. “Your friend probably won’t be too pleased if you do.” He has the even, relaxed tone of someone walking down a beach.

“My fr— What?”

But I know what.

Annie.

“Pretty simple situation,” Robert says. “She’s with some of our buddies. I have to make a call every fifteen minutes to keep them happy. I don’t make that call, and well…” He shrugs. “Drop the trash can, honey.”

Behind me, Nic has gone dead still. Very slowly, I set the bin down. The clunk as it touches tarmac is way too loud. At