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

her feet, catches sight of the crawling Minnie, and goes fucking nuts.

In two strides, she’s over to him, and plants a gigantic kick in his chest. Full wind-up, running start, driving-from-the-hips pow. He gasps, mouth working like a goldfish as he tries to comprehend his snapped ribs, and the gasp becomes a horrid scream when Annie stomps down hard on his leg.

“Hey.” Nic’s voice is slurred, mushy.

“Annie!” I shout.

Annie doesn’t hear us, or doesn’t care. She drops to her knees, straddling Minnie’s body, and starts punching.

You never want to take a punch from Annie Cruz. Minnie’s face just… disintegrates. He tries to push Annie off, but he may as well be trying to lift a car. Each hit sounds like a watermelon being dropped onto concrete.

And throughout the assault, Annie doesn’t say a thing. Not a word.

Nic gets there before I do, but it’s only when I jump in to help that we pull Annie off – and even then, it takes every ounce of strength we have. Minnie has passed out, which is good, because his face looks like it’s been forced through a meat grinder.

Annie is crazy strong, twisting in our arms. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t even look at us. It’s only after I get in front of her and make her eyes meet mine that she starts slowing down, like a wind-up toy running out of juice.

“It’s OK,” I say. “You’re OK.”

Her shoulders rise and fall, rise and fall. She blinks… and then wraps me in a huge hug. The kind of hug that crushes the air from your lungs.

“I thought you were…” She trails off, buries her face in the top of my head, taking a shaky, trembling breath.

Then, abruptly, she lets go, leaving me gasping for air and wondering what the hell just happened. I was expecting her to say, Hi, thank you, good to see you. I wasn’t expecting… whatever that was. She hugged me as if I would vanish if she didn’t.

When I look up, she’s staring daggers at the unconscious Minnie.

A hand on my shoulder. Nic, pulling me into a hug of his own. It feels really freaking good. Like we never argued. Like this was how it was meant to be.

After a long moment, he squeezes, and releases. I have to fight the urge to keep holding on.

I keep an ear open for any running footsteps, any other bikers coming to check what all the fuss is about. There’s nothing. Just the steady patter of the rain outside the depot, the occasional rumble of thunder.

Guess I was right. This group, plus Pop’s goons, equals most of the bikers.

“Leo?” I ask.

“They took him that way.” Nic points over my shoulder, towards the north-west corner of the depot.

“They say what they want with him?”

He shakes his head. I can’t help but glance down at Minnie – or what’s left of him. He might have been able to lead us to Leo. Christ, if only Annie hadn’t…

I bite down on the thought. That’s not going to help anybody right now.

Together, we make our way over to the far wall. I take the lead, using the little PK I have left to scan for any enemies. None appear. Even when we get to a door leading to the main corridor that joins all the offices, there’s no one around. This section of the building is identical to the one I escaped from: same grimy corridor, same flickering fluorescents.

The little spurt of adrenaline I felt is fading fast, another microsleep dancing at the edges of my mind. I bite my lip, using the jolt of pain to focus. It works for about half a second, and then my thoughts run away from me. I can’t do a thing to stop them.

It’s only when Nic grabs me that I realise I’m about to walk right into a wall. “Easy,” he says, pulling me upright. “You OK?”

“Nothing a few thousand hours of sleep won’t… Hold up, what is that?”

“What?” Annie says.

I close my eyes, listening hard. Yeah, there it is again. It’s laughter.

A child’s laughter

Nic and Annie have picked up on it. They push past me, a new urgency to their movements. I hustle to keep up.

I’m still alert for the appearance of any more bikers. I am very much running on empty, and I’m not sure I have what it takes to deal with another group of them – even with Nic and Annie backing me up. But as we make our way through the office area, following the sporadic laughter, none appear. This place is deserted.

It doesn’t take us long to find the source of the laughter. It’s coming from behind a closed door on the second floor of the office area. There are grandiose gold letters on the door, now faded and chipped: ACCOUNTING AND RECEIVING. There’s a small window set above them, but it’s got a blind pulled down behind it on the other side.

I find Nic’s eyes. He flicks them at the door, and the meaning is clear. Anybody we have to worry about?

I concentrate, scanning the room with my PK. There are no guns in the room, nothing like that. There’s plenty of stuff in there… but it’s not what I expected. The shapes are unfamiliar. I run my mind over them, trying to understand what I’m feeling. Metal rods, bending in strange ways. What feels like a blackboard, or an easel. And is that a… plastic toy plane?

At that moment, there’s a delighted, childish shriek from behind the door. A little girl’s shriek.

Whoever was speaking in the low voice raises it. “Anastasia! Silencio, por favor, ya te dije. OK?”

In response, there’s more laughter. From other children.

What the hell?

Slowly, very slowly, I open the door.

THIRTY-THREETeagan

There are children there. Obviously.

And not just one or two. A good twenty of them. The youngest looks about three, and I’d put the oldest at maybe six.

The room itself used to be an office, a place where accounts would be accounted. It’s been