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

casually in both hands. God, there are even bigger rocks in there, crystalline chunks. Put one on the counter, crack it with the heel of a knife. Scoop up the smaller fragments, pound them into clean, shimmery powder…

“You only need a tiny bit.” Pop taps the bag, using the same two fingers. “Then the pain? The hollow stomach? All of that goes away. You’ll just feel good, all the time. And by the way, you should see what my lab boys are doing to this stuff. It just gets better and better. That gun shipment you tried to mess with? That was just the last batch I wanted to offload. Forget firearms – who needs the hassle, when the profit margins on this stuff are so high? It’s that good.”

“What…? ” I clear my throat. “What do you want?”

She shrugs. “We’re still gonna make a little movie, but I’ll keep it for myself. Little insurance policy in case anybody says we can’t control our spot. But other than that… you come work for me, and I keep you in top shape. No more shadow monsters. Oh, and your friends stay breathing.”

And that’s when I know what I have to do. There’s no choice.

“All right,” I say. It’s barely more than a whisper.

“What was that?”

“I’ll do it. I’ll do what you want.”

The smile eats up Pop’s face. “I knew I could count on you.” She points the phone at me, still grinning. “Maybe… how about you move the chair you’re sitting on? Should be a piece of cake for you.”

“Yeah,” I say, not looking at her. I get to my feet, unsteady, exhausted. Wishing there was another way. Feeling the burn and the ache and the horrifying, hot paranoia.

I raise my eyes to look at the camera. Behind it, Pop’s grin gets even wider.

“One thing,” I say.

“What is it?” Pop replies.

I grab the phone with my PK, rip it out of her hands, and jam it into her open mouth.

THIRTY-ONETeagan

Pop staggers backwards, clawing at her face. She makes a strangled, gagging sound like a trapped animal. The top corner of the phone smashed a couple of her teeth in, and as she gasps for air, one of her shattered canines falls to the floor. Blood smears her chin.

She tries to pull the phone out, gripping it in both hands, fighting it even as it worms its way deeper. To be fair, I don’t actually want to kill her, so I give her an assist. I rip the phone away from her mouth, and before she can react, I snap it at her face. Her nose explodes, spraying blood. I step back neatly, eyes never leaving her.

Pop staggers, clutching at her ruined face, finally looking up at me. “You—”

I pull the phone towards me, then send it flying at Pop’s forehead. She puts a hand up, trying to stop it, doesn’t get there in time. It hits dead centre, snapping her head back. She crumples like she’s been shot.

The phone is wrecked, its screen destroyed. I let it drop, bouncing off Pop’s chest. Her eyes have the same unfocused look that I saw in Nic’s. I don’t even think she knows where she is right now.

Hmm. Maybe I hit her a little too hard.

Fuck it. Slap me? I slap back. And I slap a lot harder.

I rip the door open with my PK. Robert’s there, along with a balding, heavyset gentleman with a huge beer gut and terrible tattoos. They both spin around, gawping at me.

The dude with beer gut reacts first, bursting into the room. He gets brained by the chair I was sitting on, and collapses on top of Pop, who lets out a heavy whuf as he crushes her.

Robert, to his credit, is a little smarter. He whips the phone up to his ear, turning, trying to run so he can make the call. I take the phone away from, snapping it against the wall. In response, he swings around and sprints headlong into the room, like a running back going for a tackle, hurdling Pop and coming right at me. I whip the chair up, holding it between us, intending to have him smack right into it. He comes to a stuttering halt, fury on his face, and grabs at the chair legs. For a second, he’s engaged in an awkward wrestling match with the thing, his eyes flicking back and forth between me and it, like he can’t believe his life has come to this.

Pop has a knife in her jacket pocket. It’s not a killing-people-knife – or at least, I hope it isn’t. It’s a regular Swiss Army penknife. I have it out of her clothes and in the air in seconds, the blade flicked open and just touching the soft spot under Robert’s chin. He freezes, still holding onto the chair.

The room goes woozy for a moment. I have to focus very hard to pull reality back. If I’m not careful, I’ll lose control. That would be all kinds of bad.

“Where are they?” I snarl.

“Fuck you,” Robert snaps back.

“Sorry, I don’t know where fuck you is.” I dig the knife in just a little more.

He lets go of the chair, tries to back up, getting away from the knife. I make it follow him until he’s right up against the wall. He keeps looking at the door, like he’s expecting backup.

“I’ll feel them long before they get here,” I say.

He grins. “You ain’t gonna kill me.”

“You sure?” I say.

But of course, he’s right.

I’ve killed before. When my life was in danger. It messed me up good, gave me some banging nightmares. I really don’t want to do it again. And it’s as if Robert can see the indecision in my face, because that’s when he reacts. He snatches the knife out of the air, using my distraction to pull it away from his throat, then dives at me, arms outstretched.

A dive that ends when I hit him in the head with