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

THIRTY-SEVENTeagan

So it turns out, you can totally fall asleep while escaping from a gunfight on the back of a really loud motorcycle.

We’re not talking deep, restorative sleep here. What I get are microsleeps, pulling me into unconsciousness for a second or two at a time even as Annie guns the engine and we zip through the deserted streets.

You want to know the really weird part? I dream. I didn’t think you could dream with this kind of sleep, but it turns out that’s not true. All you have to do is take copious amounts of meth, get into fights with a motorcycle gang, have a mysterious enemy plant horrific visions in your head – something I’m probably going to have to go back into therapy to process, by the way – all while transporting a superpowered child through LA.

In my dream, I’m back in Wyoming, on my family’s ranch. It’s one of those rare days when my mom and dad aren’t testing our abilities – I don’t know how I know this, but I do. No endless hours in the barn behind the house, where I attempt to precisely move metal rings with my PK while Chloe uses her infrared vision to identify objects behind a screen. She and I are out in the woods, on horseback, riding through rivers and winding our way through dense groves of lodgepole pines.

Keep up, Chloe says. She turns to look at me, but I can’t see her face.

Strangely, this doesn’t bother me. I’m happier than I can ever remember being. Every sensation – the wind in my face, the rough leather reins in my hands, the piercing blue of the cloudless sky beyond the pines – is crystal clear.

Where’s Adam? I ask. All of a sudden, it’s important to know where my brother is, although I can’t for the life of me explain why.

Chloe smiles. I know this, even though I still can’t see her face. She can be cold sometimes, going into her own head and freezing me out for days if I do something she doesn’t like. But not today. Today, she loves me, and she’s my sister and we—

Right then, I snap awake, jerking up into the real world so fast that I nearly topple off the back of the bike. My arms are still wrapped around Annie’s waist – God knows how I even managed to hold on while I slept. I reflexively squeeze harder, causing her to grunt in alarm.

We’re somewhere in Chinatown. The roads are clear of cars and debris, but the actual surfaces are cracked and pitted, uneven. The damage slows us to a crawl. The bike headlights cast the streets in an eerie glow. Every so often, I’ll spot a face peering out at us from an alley or broken window, gaunt and suspicious. But nobody stops us.

If my haywire sense of direction is to be trusted, we’re heading back to the river. As we turn onto Spring Street, the road drops sharply. It’s become a huge sinkhole, with a massive puddle of water at the bottom, maybe fifteen feet across. Yellow plastic barriers cordon it off on either side, as if approaching cars would somehow miss the gigantic gap. Then again, this is America. You can’t trust people to see what’s right in front of their faces.

The edges of the hole, where the sidewalks are, look OK. They dip sharply, but then rise again to the level of the street, narrow but driveable. Or rideable, I guess. The surfaces look damaged, but stable.

Annie takes it slowly, expertly tweaking the throttle, keeping us dead straight as we head down the steep slope, then up the far side. She pops us up on the far side of the sinkhole, turning us sideways so she can check on Nic. Turns out, he’s not doing as well as we were.

Nic’s into extreme sports. Rock climbing, surfing, snowboarding. He’s pretty good at them too. Apparently, that doesn’t translate to riding a motorcycle. He got to the bottom of the dip OK, but looks like he’s having trouble getting back up the slope. He’s taking it a snail’s pace, the engine revving in uneven bursts.

“Lean forward!” Annie shouts, hands cupped to her mouth. “Use your legs to grip the tank!”

Nic doesn’t appear to hear her. His gaze stays locked on the front wheel, his knuckles white on the handlebars. All at once, his bike accelerates, roaring up the slope. Leo yelps, squirming as he tries to hold on tighter.

“Brake. Brake. Brake!” Annie jumps backwards, swinging her long arm into my path, like I’m about to step into traffic. All I can do is watch, blinking stupidly.

There’s a moment where Nic almost makes it – where he seems to get things under control, stabilising the bike. The moment vanishes almost as quick as it arrived. He crests the top of the dip, front wheel up in the air. Then he comes back down with a bang, and dumps the bike.

Nic’s howl of pain even louder than the impact. Leo goes tumbling, bouncing across the cracked concrete.

Annie and I sprint across to them. Visions of shattered bones and concussions flicker in my mind, but as we get to the bike, Nic shoves it off him, then springs to his feet like a boxer jumping up off the mat. He has the wild-eyed, jittery look of someone who still isn’t quite sure if he’s OK or not.

Leo is on his feet too. His hands are scraped up something bad, but otherwise he looks unhurt. He totters across to us, his eyes almost as wide as Nic’s.

I don’t know who to go to first. So I choose the third option, which is to stand there gawping like an idiot.

Nic’s right elbow is messy with road rash, bits of grit and dirt embedded in it. He taps at it, winces, then flexes his legs. “That was fun,” he says, his voice way too high-pitched. Amazingly, he holds out a high-five for Leo.