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

Yes, OK, fine, I should have tried to take him with me, gotten him to show me where Nic and Annie are. I have no idea how I would have pulled that off, but that was, in fact, the plan. Then he got inside my head, and I reacted… poorly. Hey, just because I’ve been trying to think through my decisions doesn’t mean I’m perfect, OK?

He crashes to the ground at my feet, out cold, legs twitching.

Right next to the bag of meth.

I drop to my knees to grab it. It’s surprisingly heavy in my hands, like it’s filled with wet sand. The rocks crumble ever so slightly under my fingertips. I can’t look away.

Sensing inorganic objects is incredibly difficult for me – I have to be in absolute fight-or-flight panic. But when I ingested that meth this afternoon… it was easy. Not just to sense organic matter, but to move it, with almost no effort.

If I took some of this meth now, if I snorted it, it would supercharge my PK beyond anything I’d ever felt before. I’d be able to find Annie and Nic and Leo in seconds – in fact, not only would I be able to know where they were instantly, but I could take care of anybody guarding them. Probably without being seen. And then fly us right out of here. Just lift us up and take us all the way to Compton. And the pain, the twitchiness, the shadow monsters? Gone, gone, gone.

This little bag in my hands could make all my problems go away.

I fumble at the Ziploc strip, actually getting a finger inside the bag, wondering what I could use to crush the rocks… when I realise my hands are shaking.

Trembling.

I stare at them, willing them to stop. They don’t. They shiver, like I’m an old woman with palsy.

It’s impossible not to think of Jeannette. Africa’s girlfriend. Did her hands shake like this? Did she feel this same burning need? Did she feel it as her teeth came loose in their sockets and her shoulders began to hunch?

Even now, even with the horror and the paranoia and the sheer revulsion blooming in my mind like ink in water, I can’t let go of the bag.

Can’t? Or won’t?

I make a noise that is a kind of hitching sob, and let the meth go. Put my head in my hands. No. No fucking way. I’m not doing it again. I don’t care how powerful it made me feel, how potent the high was. The crash was – is – one of the most awful things I’ve ever felt. Like a million spiders were crawling over every inch of my body, inside and out. And yeah, the meth would make it go away… for a while. But for how long? And if it became permanent…

God, I wish Africa were here right now. He’d know what to do. He could help. I crouch there, shuddering, paralysed. I’m desperate to run as far away as I can from the meth… and I can’t bear the thought of leaving it behind.

OK. OK. We can be smart about this. Meth is awful, horrible shit, but the clarity I felt this morning… I can’t just ignore that. I don’t have to take some now, and I don’t have to get addicted. When this is all over, I can… experiment. Maybe a tiny dose gets me all the advantages, without any of the downsides. If I do the drug in a controlled situation, as opposed to, you know, inside a burning car under a collapsed bridge, or in a biker hideout…

I can deal with the effects of the comedown for now. So far so good, right?

Before I can second guess myself, I drop the meth into my pocket. I don’t need it now. I don’t. I’ll just… hold onto it, figure out what to do with it later.

I stick my head out into the corridor. There’s nobody coming – I would have felt them by now – but I take a look anyway. I jam the door shut behind me, scrunching the lock mechanism with my PK, then head towards the central part of the depot. Annie and Nic could be anywhere, true, but I feel like I could wander the corridors for ever and not find them. I need to see if the bikers are guarding a particular spot.

And yes, before you ask, causing a ruckus and escaping was absolutely the right call. Whether I went for the meth or not, I don’t believe for one second that Pop would have let me any of my friends live. You don’t become the head of a motorcycle club – gang, cabal, whatever – without being ruthless as fuck. And if you’re a four-foot-tall Haitian woman, you’d better have a double helping.

Nic and Annie were dead the second I gave in to Pop. Maybe Leo too. Now? I have about fifteen minutes to find them. Less, actually, because it’s been a few minutes since Robert made the call, but…

I can still make that work.

The corridors are a warren of discarded trash, flickering lights, disused filing cabinets, bins full of rusting parts. Broken glass, too. I can’t even see where it came from – there aren’t any windows or anything. It’s as if the Legends scattered it around, thinking it might make the place a little more homely.

I have to get out into the main part of the depot, which is on my right. As the thought occurs, the world goes so woozy that I almost fall over. I have to grab the wall to keep myself upright, stay still for a second, a second I don’t have because it’s already been at least a minute since I left my little holding cell, and the twelve-or-so minutes I thought was enough time is looking tighter and tighter.

Soft, sprinting footsteps. Coming up behind me. I spin round, breath caught in my throat, almost over balancing. A shadowy figure rushes at me – Pop,