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

feet to our right, there’s a puddle of dank water, pooled on the concrete. A pigeon waddles along one edge, beak idly tapping at the water. Like all city pigeons, it gives precisely zero shits about us.

Leo crouches down, putting a hand on the concrete.

“Come on, dude,” Nic says. “Don’t—”

There’s a sharp bzzt – more felt than heard – and the pigeon explodes upwards with a panicked squawk. It flaps in place two feet off the ground, feathers flying, wings beating so hard that it nearly turns itself upside down. Somehow, it rights itself, and flies away, wobbling wildly, almost crashing into the side of the storm drain.

“Leo!” Annie gapes at him.

I collapse, howling with laughter. I can’t help it – Leo might have just committed a heinous act of animal cruelty, but I can’t stop thinking about how the pigeon wobbled and bobbled and flapped its wings at a million miles an hour.

I clutch my stomach, tears streaming down my cheeks. Leo is grinning like a fool.

“You can’t do that.” Annie is literally shaking a finger at Leo, a horrified expression on her face.

“I just gave it a little—”

“It doesn’t matter! That bird was just minding its own business!”

Oh God. My lungs are going to disintegrate. I’m down on my knees now, hands on the concrete, and I’m laughing so hard my face hurts. Everything we’ve been through tonight, all the insane shit… it’s all coming out. Even Annie is struggling to keep the disapproval on her face, shaking her head and grinning to herself.

But Nic… Nic isn’t laughing. Not even a little bit. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he says to Leo.

“I was just—”

“You think this is a joke?” It’s like something has given way inside Nic, an impulse that he can no longer control.

Leo falters. “I just wanted to show you something.”

“You could hurt people. You could hurt yourself. You could—”

Abruptly, Nic snaps his mouth shut. Looks away. Neither Annie nor I are laughing now.

Leo looks down, scuffing the concrete with the toe of a dirty sneaker. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well.” Nic still won’t look at him.

“I didn’t hurt myself.” Leo waves his hands in the air. “And the bird’s OK!”

And the pigeon is indeed fine. It’s giving the puddle a wide berth, but it’s back on the concrete, pecking for scraps at the edge of the slope.

For some reason, that makes Nic even angrier. “From now on,” he tells Leo, “don’t use your power. Not ever. You keep that inside you.”

“Nic, ease back,” I say. What the hell’s gotten into him?

“Yeah, man, relax,” Annie mutters, which surprises me a little bit. She’s not exactly a fan of Leo, or what he can do.

Nic looks between us, then takes a deep breath. “You’re right,” he says. “Sorry. Things are just getting to me.” It doesn’t escape my notice that he’s not looking at Leo when he says it.

Annie runs a hand through her hair. “Come on. Still a ways to go yet.” She marches off, setting the pace.

We resume walking in silence, Leo between Nic and me. The boy walks with his head down, dragging his feet a little.

“You are evil,” I tell Leo, although I make sure I’m smiling when I say it.

“It was just a bird,” he mumbles.

“Yes, it was. It’s OK this time, but maybe don’t do it again, huh? Or we’ll tell your dad.”

Leo blushes. “Nooooo.”

“Yeeeees.”

“Do you think my dad’ll be there?” Leo asks again. He looks worried all of a sudden, the pigeon forgotten.

Nic clears his throat. He speaks quickly, as if ashamed of his little outburst. “He will. And if he’s not, for whatever reason, we’ll find him, OK?”

“What if we can’t?”

“We will.” I nod towards Annie, who by now is a good fifty yards ahead of us. “Come on. We gotta keep up.”

“But…” And all at once, there’s panic on his face. “But you don’t know what he looks like! What if we saw him, and I didn’t see him, and you did, but you didn’t know?”

Following that particular burst of little-boy talk takes some doing, but I manage. “I’m pretty sure he would have seen you,” I say, hustling him along.

“Maybe you can show us a photo of him,” Nic says.

Leo skirts the edge of the puddle, and as he does so, his face lights up. “I know what he looks like!”

“All right,” I say. “That sounds good. Fire away.”

Leo thinks. “He’s really tall. He’s got black hair, and… and glasses.”

“Cool,” I say, exchanging a look with Nic. A look that says, We’ll be sure to keep an eye out for a bespectacled Asian man with black hair. Very few of those in California.

“When he left me at the place, he had a jacket like the people who work there. He’s got blue pants, and red shoes. Like, really red.”

As he talks, I come to a dead halt. Just stop cold.

“Thanks,” Nic says. “Got it. We’ll keep a look out, won’t we, Teagan?… Teags?”

He had a jacket like the people who work there.

Red shoes.

Back in the storage unit, before I found Leo… I found a body.

A man wearing exactly what Leo described.

No. No way. You’re imagining it.

But I’m not. I wish I was, I wish to God I was, but…

Leo’s dad left him in the storage unit. Hid him. Told him he was going to get help, that he’d be back soon. He told him to use his ability if he had to – if anybody came, and tried to take him. What if…?

What if Leo got scared? What if he was alone and worried and he got scared and used his ability—?

Before his dad had left the building.

My eyes meet Nic’s. His forehead creases with concern. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Leo looks between us, puzzled.

“I just…” I lift a hand to my face, let it drop. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Um, OK. What—?”

I push past them, moving into a jog, heading for Annie. I don’t know what I’m going to do – I have to