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

an expanse of hard-packed dirt bordered by scrubby trees, with nothing in it but an old merry-go-round. As if someone wanted to build a playground, but ran out of money halfway through.

Beyond the dirt, the ground rises sharply, plateauing after perhaps fifteen feet of elevation. The river must be just over the hump. If she can get down there, intercept Teagan and Annie…

Well, she’ll figure that part out later.

There’s just enough ambient light here to see by. The rain has let up a little, which is good, but the ground is already muddy as all get out. Reggie eyes it, suddenly unsure. Is her chair going to be able to get through it?

All at once, she feels very alone. There really is no one around – not a single sign of movement from the dark houses. The cab turns left at the closest intersection, dropping out of sight. Probably glad to see the back of me, Reggie thinks bitterly.

“Come on, old girl,” she mutters, pushing the chair’s joystick. “Let’s keep it moving.”

The kerb doesn’t present much of a problem – it’s nothing more than a thin lip at the edge of the tarmac. The chair tilts as it clears the bump, the wheels digging into the mud on the other side. Moment of truth.

The motor whines, ratcheting up a notch. For a horrifying half-second, the wheels spin – and then catch, jerking forward. The ground looks muddy, but it isn’t quite deep enough to stop Reggie moving. Not that it’s easy; she bounces in her seat, rocking back and forth. Her shoulders ache, and the familiar tightness in her diaphragm is worse than usual.

As she passes the merry-go-round, a sound reaches her. The crackle of old leaves being stepped on. She snaps her head in the direction of the noise, off to the right. But there’s nobody there, no figures emerging from the trees.

Get it together. Reggie pushes the joystick even harder – she’s going to have build up a little speed to get up the slope ahead of her. Shouldn’t be too difficult. Her chair isn’t top of the line, but it’s powerful enough. Once she clears that, there should be a flat section where she can catch her breath, rest a minute. The river should be visible from there, too. She’s pretty sure she won’t actually see Teagan and Annie – that would be ridiculous – but at the very least, she can get a sense of the lay of the land. And once she’s on the concrete storm drain surface, things should be a lot easier.

Reggie’s chair eats up the muddy ground, the motor whining harder. She makes contact with the slope, lurching back in her seat as the chair tilts upwards. It’s a lot steeper than she thought it would be – for a horrible second, she’s sure she’s going to keep tilting, topple right out of her chair.

But no. She’s steady now, the motor rising to an angry pitch as it digs in. She slows right down now, inching forward, but that’s OK. All she has to do is keep moving.

Except: not even that is happening. The motor is going at full bore, and she’s come to a dead stop on the slope.

“Damn it, no.” She’s got the joystick as far forward as it can go. “Come on.”

Is there a setting she can change? An extra gear for her to engage? If she had a half-decent chair like she’d asked for, this wouldn’t be a problem.

The motor sounds wrong now – like it’s on the very edge of blowing something important. Cursing, Reggie lets the joystick go, engaging the brake. She’ll let the motor cool down, but she’ll be damned if she loses any ground.

A moment later, she starts to tilt backwards.

Her centre of gravity is too high. Without the forward motion to compensate, the front wheels are starting to lift off the ground.

Reggie teeters, breathing hard, frozen. In the split-second before the tilt becomes too much, spilling her out of her chair, she releases the brake. The chair coasts backwards, wheels rumbling as she hits the mud, rolling to a stop a few feet from the slope. The wheels and the bottom half of the chair are spattered with mud. Her legs too, brown and gunky up to the knees. For once, Reggie is grateful she can’t feel them.

She presses her lips together, trying to control her breathing. There are tyre tracks on the slope – Reggie barely made it three feet up before the motor started to struggle. Three measly feet.

Well, fine. She’ll just try it again. Take another run at it. She has come way too far to be defeated by a little hill.

Come way too far? That’s a laugh. All she did was call a cab, have a little fight with the driver. She’s barely gone fifty feet under her own steam.

Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare do this to yourself. Not now.

A minute later, she tries to climb the hill again. This time, she doesn’t even make it three feet. The motor starts complaining the moment she hits the slope – and this time, there’s the added smell of burning. Reggie is forced to drop back before it goes. The only thing worse than falling out of the chair would be the chair itself catching fire.

There has to be somebody she can call. But who? Africa? He’s off on his own mission, won’t even answer the phone – and if he did, there’s no guarantee he want to help her. He has gone way off the edge of the map. And – Jesus, what if he’s caught up with Tegan and Annie already? What if he somehow managed to stop them, or bring them in? The entire team could be back at the office right now, or en route to a pickup point to meet with Tanner’s people. She should have left a message at the office, something to let them know where she’s heading.

She tries Africa’s number anyway, but