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

by Jackson Ford

  Jake turns, his face twisted in a grimace. He deflects the first beam, but the second one hits him square in the chest. It knocks him onto his back, even as he manages to grab hold of it, sending it bouncing out into the yard through the smashed picture window. I don’t waste the advantage, getting to my feet and grabbing everything I can and attacking hard, launching every object in range at the figure on the floor.

  Something rises off the ground behind me—an oven, ripped out of the wall and torn in half, all jagged metal and shredded wires. I duck just before it poleaxes me, grab it as it passes over my head. Then I send it in a huge arc towards him, like I’m swinging a warhammer. He rolls away, and the stove buries itself in the floor with a noise like the world ending.

  I snarl, reaching for it, trying to pull it out of the ground—

  Except I can’t.

  It’s not coming. I don’t have the energy any more. I pushed myself too hard, and I’m running out.

  I ignore the feeling, going for smaller weapons, throwing glass and utensils and jagged shards of metal. They don’t fly as fast or as far, and Jake—up one knee, eyes blazing—bats them aside like they were nothing.

  I gasp, almost sobbing, push harder. Knowing I can’t do it, not caring. There’s an awful hollow feeling building inside me now, swelling like a balloon in my chest, nothing inside it but empty air.

  And still I keep going. Even as the objects I grab fall to the floor, having travelled no more than a few feet. Even as the insane noise begins to ebb. Even as Jake, slowly getting to his feet, a triumphant smile on his face, rips the torn stove out from the floor.

  He floats it over my head. I try to push it aside and get nothing. As the last dregs of my energy drain away, Jake spins the stove so the jagged metal edge is pointing right at me.

  FIFTY

  Teagan

  The seconds stretch into hours.

  I’m back on that corner. On Hollywood Boulevard, just as the sun is setting. The smell of grease in the food truck behind me, the scent of sweat and sunscreen and a very faint hint of pot smoke. The chatter from the passing tourists, the taco grease on my fingers. Light from the setting sun, filtering through the palm trees.

  Nic and I in the truck on the way over here. Both of us howling with laughter, my stomach aching with it, unable to even breathe. Unbelievably, perfectly happy. Just for a second. Right there. If I have to die with that being my last thought, I’m OK with it.

  No.

  Actually: no.

  I am not OK with that being my last thought. I am very much not fucking OK with it. That memory of Nic? Both of us laughing until we can barely breathe? That’s going to be the first of many.

  I can’t just push the oven away. He’ll come at me again and again, and pretty soon I won’t have anything left. I end it now, or it ends me.

  I go as deep as I can. I hold the memories uppermost in my mind, really focus on them. I refuse to acknowledge that my PK is almost spent. That’s a lie. That’s an illusion. It’s my body giving me false info, protesting because it’s tired. I focus on the memories and think about what it would be like to lose them. To lose everything.

  Then I push my PK out.

  I’m not even looking for strength. I want range. I want something that isn’t in this room, something he won’t see coming. My teeth grind together with the effort. Every atom in my body feels like it’s trying desperately to get away from the ones around it.

  I grab the beams in the walls and the roof. No go. He’s got hold of just about everything, wrenching it away from me even as the oven makes one final adjustment, one of the sharper metal points aiming right for my face.

  I’ve got maybe four or five seconds of this energy left. Desperate, I throw my PK as far as it will go, trying to find anything I can use, sending it out past the walls, past the truck in the driveway, past—

  The truck.

  The one Salinas must have arrived in.

  It hasn’t moved. Maybe Jake’s forgotten it’s there. Maybe he knows but doesn’t think he needs to use it.

  I can’t lift it. No way.

  I have to.

  The oven drops. I push against it with a fraction of my PK, slowing it down, making it shudder as our competing energies meet each other. It slows to a crawl, creeping towards my face, the torn metal getting closer and closer. I’m not going to be to hold it much longer.

  My back actually arches as I push the energy out, my eyes flying open. It’s like I’ve stuck my hand in a wall socket, one the size of California.

  I wrap the truck with energy. I slide it into the wheel wells, curl it around the chassis, dive deep into the engine. I tangle my mind around the steering wheel, the hubcaps, the tail lights. Above me the oven creeps closer, less than two feet away now.

  In the driveway the truck rocks on its wheels. One leaves the ground, just for a second, before dropping back down.

  It’s heavy. Heavier than anything I’ve ever lifted. I ask for more energy, somehow get it, feeling it crackle through my body. My bones are vibrating.

  All four wheels leave the ground, the truck gently rocking from side to side, metal creaking as it settles. I can’t lift it further. I can’t.

  I have to.

  I scream. No. I roar. It’s a deep, animal howl, and in that second I’m not sure if it’s me or something else entirely. Inside my shredded, tortured throat, already torn to pieces by the smoke and the rebar, something tears. The lance of pain is bright, sliding right into my stomach. But I don’t dare stop. I can’t. The metal above my head inches closer.

  Six feet. Seven. Just keeping the damn thing level almost kills me. I can see it now, looming through the destroyed wall, a hulking shape in the smoke.

  Now. Throw it now!

  At the very last instant Jake senses something. His pressure on the oven slackens, and he looks over his shoulder. At that moment I put all my energy under the truck and shove.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Jake

  He’s got her. She’s lost almost all control of her Gift, the objects in the room twitching and jerking like dying animals. She’s no threat—not any more. He’s laughing—hacking really, his throat and lungs stinging with every hot breath.

  Doesn’t matter. It’s almost over.

  A wave of resentment washes over him, fuelling his anger. How could he have thought that Chuy wanted to help him? Chuy—if that was ever his real name—just wanted to use him, use his ability for his own good. He probably would have given Jake up after this was all over—made a call, turned him in. Why wouldn’t he?

  There is a part of him—small, very distant, like a figure waving on the horizon—that is begging him to stop. He’s about to kill the only other person like him. Maybe the only one in the entire world. Has he really been through everything just to have it end here? With this girl dead?

  But even if he wanted to listen to this part of him, he’s beyond that now. The anger is black, joyous. Smooth as silk and hard as iron.

  It’s the righteous anger Churchill must have felt as the Allies entered Berlin, the anger that must have coursed through Boudica as she began her uprising. And didn’t they face people who wanted to trample on what they’d built? These leaders—these titans of history—they didn’t shrink or cower. They faced their enemies head-on. They looked them in the eye and refused to bow.

  A sound reaches him. The creaking and groaning of metal under stress. As he turns to look, the wall to his left is obliterated.

  The thing on the other side is as big as a meteor: a giant misshapen lump that was once a truck. Its weight punches through the plaster and wood and support beams, breaking them like matchsticks, letting in a gust of hot, horrid air like giant’s breath.

  In the split-second before it hits him, Jake has a sudden, vivid thought, one that makes absolutely no sense but is as clear as a bell ringing out into crisp air. Los Angeles is trying to kill me.

  He sends out one last, desperate burst of energy to try and stop it. But it’s not enou
gh, not for something so huge, not even to slow it. The truck isn’t moving that fast, but the sheer weight of it crushes his bones, turns his internal organs to pulp. It knocks him sideways, and as the full weight of it slams into him, there’s an unbelievable, nuclear-bright pop at the base of his spine.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Teagan

  I push the oven to one side with the very last of dregs of my energy. And this time it drains the tank for good. Like tilting back a glass to get the last few drops.

  The house is trashed.

  What our fight didn’t destroy, the truck did. It’s a miracle I didn’t get crushed. But despite my ripping out some of the wall beams and the truck taking out the wall and ceiling to my right, the house is still standing. The ceiling tilts down at an angle, part of it torn away. It looks like it’s ready to just slide right into the floor, but it holds. For now. There’s a child’s bed poking through one of the gaps, the rainbow-coloured comforter still tucked in.

  The truck is on its side, and underneath it…

  That gets me to my feet. I scramble up, breath ragged, stumbling across to Jake and dropping to my knees. It occurs to me that I should find Carlos first, but the one part of me that still has the ability to think says he’s gone. And then that part shuts down, because the thought is too awful to look at.

  The only colour in Jake’s face is the splash of blood on his lips: an almost delicate fan of it, flaring up towards his nose, as if an artist had held a brush over his face and given it a flick.

  I did this.

  It shouldn’t matter. He was trying to kill me, and I wouldn’t have been the first or the last. But it does. It fucking does matter.

  His eyes find mine. And it’s like he doesn’t know where he is. Or who he is.

  I have to save him. Whatever he’s done, he doesn’t deserve to die like this. I have to make up for what I did. And I can’t just let him die—not the only other me, not the one person who might understand.

  But I’ve got nothing. My PK is dead, fuzzing static, grey and useless.

  I grip his hand as tight as I can. He doesn’t have the strength to grip back, but I hold on anyway.

  “It’s OK.” I can barely speak. It takes me more than one try to get the words out; my throat is completely shredded.

  His mouth opens slightly, like he’s trying to respond.

  Then he’s gone.

  Crying is out of the question. There’s no moisture left in me to do it. I can’t scream—my throat won’t let me. So I ball up a shaking fist. Hit the ground. Hit it again, knuckles aching. Again, skin splitting. A fourth time.

  The smoke is thicker than ever, and the air has got hotter. From the flickering light, from the searing waves of heat that wash over me, I don’t have to look up to know that the fire is here.

  The HELLSTORM has arrived.

  And still I don’t move—not until I hear footsteps behind me.

  It’s a woman, clutching a young girl in her arms. The smoke has smeared her skin with soot, and her eyes… Jesus, her eyes. She’s in her forties, but her eyes have an age measured in centuries.

  The woman who was locked in the room off the kitchen. Salinas’s wife. His daughter. How did they get out?

  The door to their prison hangs off its hinges. It must have been ripped off in the fight. They stayed down until it was all over. Smart.

  “Is he…” She starts to cough, and the girl in her arms whimpers. Behind them there are flames—huge, towering flames, no more than a hundred yards away.

  “Yeah,” I say. It barely qualifies as a word.

  Which is when I hear choked groans coming from somewhere behind the car. A voice calling out for me. A voice I recognise.

  Carlos.

  “Get out of here,” I tell the woman, rasping the words.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine. Just go.”

  She hesitates for only a second. Then she’s gone, making her way around the debris, holding her daughter tight. The girl’s eyes meet mine over her mom’s shoulder, just for a second, before they’re swallowed by the smoke.

  I don’t know how I get to my feet, but I do. It feels like it takes years to actually reach Carlos. He’s sitting against the wall of the house—or what’s left of it. And his chest…

  He’s been impaled by a piece of rebar. It’s pinned him to one of the support beams, driving its way right into the steel. Most of the rebar is straight—all except for the last six inches, which is bent down by a few degrees where it juts out of his chest. The front of his shirt is black with blood.

  His eyes are bloodshot from the smoke. “Teagan,” he says. Unbelievably, his voice is clear.

  He betrayed me. He was working with Jake. And yet, in that moment, it’s like something that happened in another universe. The Carlos I know… it can’t be this person. It can’t be this torn, impaled body.

  The Carlos I know was the guy who always brought beef jerky on our missions so I’d have something to eat afterwards. I never asked him to do it; he just did.

  That Carlos made the world’s worst coffee and was the only Mexican I ever met who hated tequila. He drank whiskey, malt if he could get it, Jameson’s if not, and he’d knock back shot after shot and laugh when I couldn’t keep up.

  That Carlos had so many boyfriends and hook-ups that I could never keep them straight. He’d grin as he described his encounters in lurid detail, almost licking his lips with glee. But he was never cruel. He painted his lovers in the best light, even when things didn’t work out.

  That Carlos taught me Spanish swear words and went for walks around the block with me on hot nights in Venice Beach, talking about nothing. That Carlos would never betray me. Not ever. He’d never lie to me.

  There’s got to be a way to get him off the rebar. If I can do that, stabilise the bleeding…

  But I won’t be able to. The rebar is probably the only thing keeping him alive. If I remove it or pull him off, he’ll bleed to death.

  My PK isn’t going to help. I reach out, knowing it won’t work but doing it anyway, and get nothing but the same dead-TV static.

  “Help me,” he says. He doesn’t have the blood around the mouth, but his face is paper-white. He’s going into shock.

  He called him Chuy.

  Jake. When he was talking to Carlos. Why did he do that?

  Because Carlos’s full name is Carlos Jesús López Morales. In Mexico, he once told me, Chuy is a nickname for Jesús.

  It’s a small thing. It doesn’t change what I already know. But putting the last piece in place snaps something inside me. I make a fist, rest it against his shoulder. “Why?”

  When he doesn’t respond, I lift the fist, plant it on him. Not hard, but it still makes him groan. “Why?” I hit him again, harder this time, and now I’m punching his chest, not caring about how much pain he’s in. “Why?”

  But it’s all sliding into place. All of it. The whole time, ever since the red light was called this morning, he’s been urging me to run. Trying to get me out of the city. Talking about getting me into Mexico, having me vanish. He wanted to make sure I had no alibi for the killings.

  That’s why he came up here. When he couldn’t get me to run after Annie was snatched, he took matters into his own hands. Because he knew that Jake would try to defend himself. He couldn’t let that happen—if I was going to take the fall, I needed to be unharmed. Even if that meant Paul was left alone to save Annie.

  Which means they’re probably both dead.

  He used me. He and Jake wanted Steven Chase and Hayden and Salinas and God knows who else out of the way, and decided they would use me to do it. And I still don’t know why. I don’t know how Carlos came across Jake or where Jake even came from.

  I didn’t think I had enough moisture left in me for tears. Turns out I was wrong.

  “This morning,” I manage to say, “two men attacked me in Skid Row. Were they…”

  Despite the shock, he’s still lucid. “They weren’t supp
osed to hurt you. They were just supposed to keep you safe until this was all over. So you were out of the way.”

  “You tell me why.” My voice sounds like it comes from someone else. Someone not human. “You tell me why, right fucking now.”

  “You don’t…” He loses strength for a moment, sagging onto the rebar. Then he raises his head again. “You don’t know what they did. Chase, and Salinas, and the rest of them.” His mouth curls upwards in a bitter smile. “Look up El Agujero. Look up microfibres in the water. They deserved what was coming to them.”

  Microfibres. Like Mo-Mo said. But that can’t have been worth all of… all of this.

  “And me?” Tears sting my eyes, worse than the smoke.

  “I was trying to help you.”

  “By… by framing me for murder?”

  “By giving you a new life!” He almost yells the words, and a fleck of blood arcs out of his mouth.

  Which is when I understand.

  The motherfucker.

  The arrogant, selfish, stupid motherfucker.

  He thought he could do both. He thought he could take out these people, the ones he believed deserved to die for whatever reason, and rescue me from Tanner and China Shop all at the same time. He wanted me to run, far away, away from the cops and from Tanner and from all of it. He thought he knew what I needed, whether I wanted it or not. If it hadn’t been for my PK suddenly growing major teeth, maybe he would have succeeded. Never mind the fact that it would have put a target on my back for the rest of my short life, or that it would have ripped me away from Nic, or that I’d never be able to live in Los Angeles ever again. He thought he was doing me a favour. I’m sure if I asked him about our friendship, he’d say that he was helping me. That he wanted to get me out of a bad situation, get me to a place I could be free.

  “This whole time,” I say, “you knew there was someone else like me. Someone with the same abilities. And you never said a word.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  But the look on his face pushes through, despite the pain he must be in, despite the shock. It’s a pugnacious, almost childish look: a look that says I know what I’m doing, and you couldn’t possibly understand. It’s raw, boiling arrogance.