The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind (The Frost Files)

by Jackson Ford

  “So since that night?”

  “Not really. Not for a while after, actually. It just… Having pancakes at that stupid diner became like our thing. We’d go there sometimes, just talk.”

  “You never told us.” I don’t mean to sound so insulted. It just pops out.

  Paul either doesn’t hear or pretends not to. “Anyway, we did get together, after a bit. Pretty good pancakes, I guess.” The tiniest flicker of a smile plays at the corners of his lips. “We decided to keep it outside work until we could figure things out, see if it was serious—we’d probably have to work together still, even if we didn’t stay together. That was her saying that, by the way, not me. I know she can be tough to deal with sometimes, but she’s… I don’t know. She has all these plans. Things she wants to do. She wants to look after her mom more than anything. And like I said, she wouldn’t take charity. If she couldn’t earn it through Tanner, she’d earn it some other way. That’s what she told me.”

  “But couldn’t you have just… I don’t know, given her money?”

  A bitter laugh. “Not with my credit rating. Or my child support payments.”

  “So the moving jobs,” I say. “The ones you had us do. You wanted to help Annie out?”

  “What, with money? No. God no. They pay terribly. But I wanted her to have something—something that wasn’t government work or moving drugs. Something she could be proud of. And for the record, they do make us look more legit. That’s part of it too.”

  That is both the sweetest and the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

  I stare at the back of Carlos’s seat, not seeing it. Instead, what I see is Annie. See her pride when she talked about her mom. See her grinning in excitement after she found Salinas. See her massaging Reggie’s wasted legs.

  She always put others first. The whole time. I never realised it before now, but nothing she’s done has ever really been about her.

  We have to go get her. We have to. Except…

  Except, if we do, then Salinas dies.

  Nobody’s talking any more. Nobody’s looking at each other. They’re all having the same thoughts I am. I take a deep breath. Then another.

  “You go to Salinas,” Paul says. He sounds miserable. “I’ll get Annie back.”

  I blink. “Not an option.”

  “I’m not leaving her.”

  “I get that, but we are not splitting up.” Suddenly I’m furious, although I don’t know whether I’m genuinely angry at him, or at any one of the thousand-odd people who want us gone.

  “Try and stop me.” Paul doesn’t meet my eye as he pops the car door, turning sideways to step out.

  “Wh—Hey, Paul!” I clamber out the car too, and then we’re all the sidewalk, all of us talking at once, Paul saying that there’s no way he’s letting Annie go, me asking him how he plans to break into a gang compound by himself, how he even plans to get there when we only have one car, Nic and Carlos trying to get between us.

  “Hold on. Hold on.” Carlos shoves his way between Paul and me, hands out. “Let’s just think. Splitting up may not be the worst idea.”

  This again. “Nope,” I say. “That actually is the worst idea.”

  “Yeah,” he says. A shocked, disbelieving smile flashes across his face. “This whole day, man. It’s all been bad ideas. This is just one more.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. He’s right. There are no good options here. None.

  “We can’t win this one, man,” he says. And we shouldn’t be trying to.”

  “What are you saying?” Nic asks.

  “I’m saying… I’m saying we cut and run. Fuck Salinas. Let’s just go.”

  “We can’t just leave him,” Paul says. “Or Annie.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He points to Paul. “Go get Annie. I can take Teagan across the border, get her somewhere safe.”

  I try to interrupt him, but he talks over me.

  “Every minute you’re in LA, you’re in danger,” Carlos says. “From Tanner, from the cops, from whatever psycho’s after Salinas now. I can help you get out.” He looks over at Nic. “You take off, dude. We got this.”

  “Look, my man,” says Nic. “I don’t know what you got going on here, but she’s the only one of you I actually knew before today. You think I’m leaving her now, you out your goddamn mind.”

  “Listen to me,” Carlos roars at him. “You don’t have the first clue what—”

  I’ve had enough. I grab hold of Carlos, pulling him along the sidewalk.

  “Stop,” I say. “Right now. Just fucking stop.”

  “A whole year years now I’ve had your back. Every step of the way I been there. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  I shut my eyes, hating that he’s right. Salinas or Annie. I can do one but not both. No, that’s wrong: I could do both, assuming that all the luck in the world is on my side. Assuming that the killer doesn’t get to Salinas while we’re off rescuing Annie, in which case we can just give up.

  And I’d lose every chance of finding out who this person is.

  Is that selfish? Leaving Annie with MS-13? Letting other people put themselves in danger? Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. There are no good choices here, but one has to be made. And it has to be made right now.

  “You’re right,” I say. “We’re gonna split up. But we’re not gonna run. Nic is gonna drive me up to Burbank, and then get the hell out of there while I handle things. You and Paul need to find Annie. I need you to do that for me, OK?”

  “And what about you? What about your chances?”

  “I can move shit with my mind, genius.”

  I smile. He doesn’t return it.

  “I’ll be OK,” I say. “I can’t go up to Burbank by myself—I’ll probably fall asleep and crash the goddamn car. But if Nic can drive me, I can figure it out when I get up there.”

  He looks at me for a long moment. Behind us, Paul and Nic have gone quiet.

  “Just run,” he whispers. “Please. Teagan, I’m begging you. You don’t have to tell any of us where you’re going. Just disappear.”

  I open my mouth to reply, and no sound comes out.

  He puts a hand on my head, pulls me close so his forehead touches the top of mine. “You’re my little sister, Teags. Mi hermanita.” The words are almost hissed. “I’d rather have you safe and never see you again than… than this. I know you’re strong, but this guy, he’s stronger. I don’t want you to fight him. Please.”

  I wrap my arms around him, hold tight.

  “Do this for me, cabrón,” I say. “Just… help Paul. Find Annie. Keep them safe.”

  We hold each other, rocking back and forth.

  And after a long time he nods.

  “Yeah,” he says. “OK.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Jake

  The neighbour’s body lies in the hall, the blood soaking into the cracks between the hardwood floorboards. Sandy and her brat are back in the pantry, and it’s a goddamn miracle that nobody heard their screams. And Javier is still not here.

  Jake paces in the ruined living room, Sandy’s phone in his hand. He can’t go find Javier—the man could be anywhere, and killing him in a public place is not an option. He doesn’t dare urge the man to hurry; he can’t afford for him to get suspicious. He needs him here, needs him to walk in unsuspecting, and that means he has to wait.

  He brings up Javier’s message chain, looking for the three blinking dots, listening out for the telltale sound of a car pulling into the drive. It’s now nearly midnight—what could possibly be taking him so long?

  No wonder you and Sandy split. The thought is bitter, satisfying.

  Chuy. He should call Chuy. No, he doesn’t dare. He has to handle this himself. Sun Tzu wrote, One who is prepared and waits for the unprepared will be victorious. They offer bait that which the enemy must take, manipulating the enemy to move while they wait in ambush. In ancient times, those skilled in warfare made themselves invincible and then waited for the enemy to become vul
nerable for steep ground if you occupy it first occupy the high on the sunny side and wait for the enemy when the rainwater rises and descends down to where you want to cross…

  Behind him a cluster of debris floats through the air, shattered frames and cutlery and chunks of wood from the ruined couches. He doesn’t notice. Nor does he notice how thick the air is, or how the horizon above the backyard fence has turned a vicious red. He doesn’t hear the sirens in the distance, the ones which have become almost constant now.

  Call Chuy.

  No.

  Jake wasn’t stupid. He’d told Chuy everything he knew about his past, but he understood that it wouldn’t come to anything. Chuy was a friend—a good friend, the very best—but he wasn’t God. He’d either get bored once the trail started to grow a little frosty, or keep going and run into the exact same problem Jake had: there simply wasn’t any information out there.

  All the same, it felt good. Having someone to listen—no, having someone who wanted to listen, there was a big difference. Watching Chuy bent over his phone, focused and intent, made Jake’s heart feel like it was going to explode out of his chest. In that moment he would have killed for Chuy. With a smile on his face. He relived every detail he could remember, along with the scraps he’d manage to gather over the past few years. That night, after Chuy dropped him back home, his sleep had been deep and dreamless, the best he could remember in years.

  Chuy had vanished for a second time. Dropped right off the grid. This time there was no leaden feeling in Jake’s gut—or at least, nothing like before. Chuy wasn’t going to betray him; he knew that now. It was amazing of him to try to find out what Jake had long given up on discovering, but he didn’t expect Chuy to actually do it. He even, with a kind of satisfaction, realised he knew what would happen: Chuy would show up in a few weeks, in that musty-smelling Civic, and they’d go toss shit around the junkyard for a while and then go hang out by the beach.

  That didn’t sound so bad.

  Four nights later, just as he was coming in from a long shift—washing dishes or manning a checkout counter, by then they were all blending into one—his phone leaped to life in his pocket. He dug for it, swearing quietly, knowing that at any second Garrett from the other part of the hostel was going to yell at him to shut the fuck up. He didn’t even look at the screen before answering. “Yeah? Wha—”

  “Outside.” Chuy sounded relaxed, laconic. “Let’s go.”

  It had been a long day. A long shift. Under normal circumstances, Jake would have told Chuy that he’d see him tomorrow. But there was something in Chuy’s voice. A note of eagerness behind the laid-back tone.

  Jake smiled to himself. Chuy’d probably got that thing from Bucktail, an old relative of his mother. Still, couldn’t blame a guy for trying. He owed Chuy a beer, if nothing else—he’d just been paid for that week’s work, which wasn’t much but surely enough to buy a sixpack or two.

  He’d sauntered out to the car, which was idling at the kerb round the corner. As he’d swung into the front seat, he’d said, “Hey, man, it’s good to see you and all, but it’s kinda late, so—”

  Which is when Chuy dropped the picture on his lap.

  For a moment his mind blanked. He didn’t—couldn’t—understand what he was seeing.

  It was a photo, colour-printed on flimsy paper. The printer must have been old, leaving streaky white lines across the image, but Jake could still see what it was. A little kid with blonde hair, bundled up warm, held tight to the chest of a smiling woman, both of them in a park somewhere. And the woman… there was no mistaking who she was.

  It was a photo he’d never seen before.

  “Told you,” Chuy said. His voice seemed to come from a great distance. “I got friends.”

  Jake hadn’t even been aware that the car was moving. He couldn’t look away from the photo. Could barely blink. He held the paper tight as if it would be caught by the wind and torn from him.

  “How?” he’d said eventually, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Chuy had grinned. “That’s my business. Took a while to dig that up—you didn’t give me much to go on—but there’s plenty out there if you know where to look.”

  “There’s… there’s more?”

  “A lot more.”

  “Chuy, I don’t… How did you…” He was almost gasping, unable to tear his eyes away from the photo in his lap.

  Chuy turned on the radio, more tinny salsa music flooding the car. They were on the freeway, and when Jake looked up, he realised they were heading north.

  “Tell me everything,” he’d somehow managed to say.

  “Hold on now,” Chuy had replied. “You gotta do something for me first.”

  No matter how many questions Jake asked, Chuy hadn’t answered. Just let them wash over him. Jake was delighted, furious, confused, terrified, all at the same time. His body felt like it was generating its own electrical field, one that would fry him, Chuy, the car, the whole world.

  He’d kept asking questions as they pulled into the junkyard, not even realising that they weren’t parking until they were already deep in the maze of cars. Chuy had winked, then got out, pausing for a minute to stretch, cricking his back as he gazed up at the stars. He could have been standing in his backyard, cup of coffee in hand, gazing out the sunrise and ready to face the day.

  Jake nearly fell when he tried to get out of the car. His body didn’t appear to be listening to him very much. “You went to College Springs, right?” he said, almost babbling as he came round the back of the car, where Chuy was now standing. “You must have done. But I checked there, and the records office said they had nothing. There was this one diner, and I thought someone might remember something, so—”

  Which was when Chuy popped the trunk. And for the second time that night, Jake’s words left him in a great hitching breath.

  Tonight—this night, in this house in Burbank—represents the end of something. A process. One that started when Chuy first opened that trunk.

  Jean Grey met Charles Xavier almost right after she started showing her powers. Spider-Man didn’t get bitten by a spider, then have to wait for eighteen years in a series of grey, dry foster homes.

  Jake wants to find out who he is, how he got his abilities. Who his mother was, his father—if that’s even possible. That’s still more important to him than anything. But that’s not his origin story, and maybe tonight is. The night that he, Jake, criss-crossed a burning Los Angeles and took down the bad guys in one fell swoop.

  The night he found out who he really is, once and for all.

  FORTY

  Teagan

  You know how sometimes you get so tired that you can’t actually fall asleep?

  It should be the simplest thing in the world, just close your eyes and boom. But you can’t. You just lie there, trying to think calm thoughts, knowing that it’s not going to work and cursing evolution for giving you a brain.

  That is me. Right now.

  It’s a forty-minute drive up to Burbank from UCLA, and I’m going over the plan again. One: get Javier Salinas out of there. Two: wait for the other psychokinetic to show up and stop him. Somehow. I’ll be honest, neither Nic nor I could figure out how that was going to go.

  Of course, none of this matters if Salinas is already dead. Or if the cops are watching the place. Or if Salinas shoots us when we walk in the door. Every part of this plan feels like a Hail Mary, but what the hell else are we supposed to do?

  And the whole time, the fire burns on the horizon. Fire we’re driving straight towards.

  “Can’t sleep?” Nic says after I change position for the seventh time.

  “Yeah. Think we can find like a Motel 6 and get some shut-eye for a few hours? Maybe order pizza?”

  He gives me a sideways look, his mouth slightly open like he’s trying to decide on the best way to answer.

  “Nic. I’m kidding.”

  “Sorry.” He shakes his head, eyes back on the freeway. “Long day.”
<
br />   “Yeah, well, someone had plum granita at N/Naka. You should have more than enough energy. Suck it up, buttercup.”

  He smiles, and for a second he looks like the Nic from before. Before he found out about the PK and the special forces and how I’m being framed for murder.

  The car slows as we negotiate a snarl of traffic.

  “So are you gonna tell me?” Nic says.

  “Am I gonna tell you what?”

  But of course I know what.

  We’re on 405 now, heading north, just outside Sherman Oaks—and for once the traffic is actually moving. I stare out the window, watching the lights pass by. The radio’s on, music playing, although I can’t tell which song—something with a very low, almost inaudible beat, like a human pulse.

  I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to relive the memories. Ones I’ve spent a very long time walling away, brick by brick.

  Then again, just because I don’t like talking about them doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

  “You said your parents gave you your…” He waves his hand. “Your thing.”

  “My ability, yeah. They genetically engineered me while I was in the womb.”

  “You can’t just… give someone superpowers by messing with their genes. Otherwise everybody’d have them.”

  “Everybody didn’t have my parents.”

  We’re heading east on the 101 now, running alongside the LA River. Out the window, headlights glitter in the dark.

  “My mom and dad got together at Harvard,” I tell him. “They were in the genetics department, two of the top students. They were so good the Department of Energy stole them to work on the Human Genome Project.”

  “How does that—”

  “I’m getting there. So, my mom had a twin brother. He didn’t have her brains, but they were super-close. He was a soldier, and in 1991 he got deployed to Kuwait.”

  A place I’ve only seen in pictures. Mom and Dad wouldn’t talk about it. Ever. They talked about the man they called Uncle Tony, a lot, but never about the war itself.

  “He was killed. And it… did something to my mom. Changed her. She became obsessed with trying to end wars—her and my dad both. They wanted to create a—”