by Jackson Ford
Slowly, I move the car door towards the ground, aiming for a spot as close as I can to the boy. He doesn’t react, doesn’t even look up.
“Leo? Hey, Leo?” I point. “That spot there isn’t electrified, right? Next to you?”
He says nothing.
“I really don’t want to step off if—”
He shrugs without looking up. “It’s fine.”
I’m about to push him – you know, get confirmation that I’m not about to die – but something tells me not to. This boy might not be as murderous as Matthew Schenke, but he’s very much on edge.
Three inches above the ground. Two.
I close my eyes, and take the step.
I’m so primed for the shock that there’s a nanosecond where I actually feel it, my muscles going rigid, my heart seizing in my chest. When nothing happens, when my foot comes to a stop on the floor without a bazillion volts exploding through me, I’m hit with a case of the shakes so bad that I almost fall over.
I step off the car door fully, then lower it to the ground next to me. Then I sit down next to Leo. Very, very carefully.
He’s acting like I’m not even there, looking away from me, his shoulders still trembling. He’s scrawnier up close. Even his spiky fringe looks too big for him.
“So,” I say – and realise I’m about to clap him on the shoulder. I jerk my hand back, which fortunately is not something he notices. I shouldn’t be scared of him; he hasn’t tried to hurt me directly. Not yet anyway. He’s letting me sit next to him. But it’s like sitting next to a Bullmastiff pup – one of those breeds that gets to the size of a house by six months. It’s too young to know that it shouldn’t bite you.
“Hey,” I say gently. “Why was the… Zigzag Man, right? Why was he chasing you?”
“He makes you see things.”
Well, that’s not creepy at all.
“You were with your dad?” I ask, changing tack. He nods. “Can you tell me why he brought you here?”
He shrugs. A little boy shrug, left shoulder up, then right, then both down. “We were s’posed to go Compton.” Again, with the same over-emphasis, like the word is hard to remember.
“What’s in Compton?” It’s in South-Central LA, maybe an hour’s drive in traffic. Mostly black and Latinx – but didn’t I read that there’s a tiny Asian community there now too? Not much, maybe a thousand people, but still…
“My uncle,” Leo says. “He lives at, at 860 East Glencoe.” Running the words together, as if it’s something he was made to memorise, but doesn’t fully understand.
OK. I get it. His dad brings him to LA for… reasons. This Zigzag Guy chases them. They end up here, Leo’s dad leaves him – to lead their pursuer away, maybe? – and Leo electrifies the whole building. Good way to stay safe, I guess.
There are a lot of gaps in that story, but it’s a start.
“Did you come from the School?” I say. Almost whispering it.
“The what?”
“The… the School? Out in Albuquerque. There would have been more people like you there.”
He stares at me, four-year-old eyes blinking in confusion.
I try another tack. “Did you…” I pause. “Did you know a boy named Matthew? Matthew Schenke.”
A shake of the head. “Mm-mm.”
“He could move dirt around. With his mind.”
The second I mention the word dirt, a look of horror crosses Leo’s face. “Lucas. I hate him!”
Me too, kid. I shiver at the thought, the sensation of being buried in hot, concrete soil bubbling to the top of my mind. Lucas. Guess Matthew wasn’t his real name.
My gut clenches. It’s a different sensation from before – there’s no nausea this time, no hollow feeling. It’s like someone reaches down my throat, grabs hold of my guts and squeezes. I close my eyes, trying to breathe.
I have to keep it together if I’m going to get this kid out of here. I’ll get him to turn off his ability, and we can just walk out. No harm, no foul.
What the fuck do I do now?
Let’s say I do convince him to walk out with me – which is about as likely as 2Pac and Biggie suddenly bursting in to save the day. I hand him over to the team, and I know exactly what happens then. He vanishes. Tanner whisks him away to a secure facility – maybe even the one I was kept in, after Wyoming went to shit. After my brother killed my whole family, burned everything down, and the government found me.
Thinking of the facility is the exact worst thing I could possibly do right now. The anxiety and paranoia bubbling around my brain amplifies the memories, twisting and distorting them.
Waco.
A cluster of shitty, prefab buildings in the middle of a Texan nowhere. Shitty and prefab on the outside, anyway. Inside, they housed one of the most secure holding facilities on the planet. A facility built just for me. Teenage me, ripped away from everything she knew and loved, locked in a cell with no windows.
I can smell it all over again: the disinfectant, the shitty meatloaf and overcooked chicken legs they brought me for my meals, the sweet, cloying scent of the gas they used to knock me out when I went nuts. The psychiatrists, never the same person, none of them looking at me as anything but a freak. The tests. The constant, grinding, unending tests. The hours alone, knowing I’d never leave, so deep in the hole that I went beyond crying. The memories are so potent I nearly choke. On a good day, they stay firmly locked away in the back of mind. Not today. Today, the demons are in charge.
I was in the facility for four years before Tanner presented me with her deal: work for her, outside the walls.
Leo won’t just be there for four years. They’ll keep him there for much, much longer. His entire childhood. He’ll never see another boy or girl his age, never speak to anybody who doesn’t want something from him.
Jesus Christ.
Could I get him into the cops? Get him into… fuck, I don’t know, child witness protection? But that doesn’t stop Tanner – it just makes it harder for her.
And what about the Zigzag Man? He makes you see things – that’s what Leo said. Does that mean he has abilities? How safe would Leo be?
My mind runs away with itself, unable to stop. Maybe the Zigzag Man wants to hurt Leo and his dad – that’s one thing. But what if it’s more than that? Leo came from the same place Matthew did. Who’s to say that they don’t want to use his ability? He’s already able to electrify a massive building without breaking a sweat. What would happen if they plugged him into the power grid? Or a water source – the LA Aqueduct, for instance, the big channel out of the Owens River to the north, the one that supplies the whole city?
I’ll tell you what happens. A lot of people die. Instantly. Hundreds, maybe thousands.
Why the hell would anybody do that? What’s the endgame here?
I have no idea how to answer that.
China Shop. I get Annie and Africa to help me—
I grimace. They won’t help me – not on this. It sticks in my gut to say it, but we are not going to be on the same wavelength at the moment. We haven’t been for a while. Maybe Annie might have been on my side with this, but for whatever damn reason, she despises me right now. And Africa? He’ll point-blank refuse to keep Tanner out of the loop, especially since he thinks I’m not in my right mind. Reggie might help… but it’s a big might.
I’ve already been here way too long. The whole team will be going nuts, trying to contact me. And by now, Tanner’s probably considering contingencies. She might not send a missile into the building with me inside it – in her own twisted way, she values my life, and she doesn’t actually want to hurt me. But if she thinks I’m dead, she won’t hesitate.
Worse: even if she thinks I’m alive, someone above her might make the call. Tanner might be pretty high up in the intelligence community, but she’s not number one. She reports to people, too. People who don’t know me, or care if I make it through this.
“Hey,” I say. Keeping him talking won’t solve the problem,
but it might buy me some time to come up with a plan that doesn’t completely suck. “Can you tell me about the School? Anything you remember.” Well, OK, he never actually said he knew what the School was… but if he knew Matthew – Lucas – then they were probably there at the same time. Right?
“I want my dad.”
“I know. We’ll go find him in a minute. But if you could just—”
He looks at me then, and it’s like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“I want my dad,” he says again. “I gotta stay here until he comes back.”
Which is crazy all on its own, because how is dear old dad going to get back inside if Leo’s electrified the place? It’s little kid logic at work. Jesus, this whole situation is nuts.
“OK, that’s fine, that’s totally fine, we can just wait here. I just want to find out about the School you were at. Who was the boss there? Was there like a teacher, or—?”
But he’s hunkered down into himself, head almost tucked into his armpit. “I can’t talk to people without, without my dad,” he says again. And this time, there’s an edge to his voice.
Right then, it’s like the air gets thicker. Like the feeling you get right before a thunderstorm, when the whole world goes still.
The Bullmastiff pup, showing his teeth. And why wouldn’t he? This kid might not be a tiny psychopath, but who knows what he’s been through before today?
Which, of course, doesn’t stop a cold, greasy sweat from breaking out on my forehead.
I don’t always think things through. But I’ve been trying really hard lately – trying to make the right decision, not just the first one that pops into my head. So: what’s the right thing to do here?
Keep this kid safe. Keep him out of harm’s way. No matter how you look at it, that’s the responsible choice.
The problem is, he’s not safe here, and he’s not safe with China Shop. So: what’s left?
Which is when I say something that I know I’m going to regret, even before the words leave my mouth.
“Leo, listen to me,” I say quietly. “Your dad can’t get back in here.”
“Why not? I can stop the ’lectricity if—”
“But how will you know he’s out there?”
“I got a phone.”
“But… but, Leo, there’s no signal here. Not while your electricity’s on.”
He blinks at me, as if he doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
I’m guessing he knows he has the ability to kill people – he can control his electricity, after all. But he’s scared, and he’s not thinking. He didn’t think about how his dad would get back inside. He didn’t think about the cops arriving. And he didn’t think about the other people in the building, or the ones who came to check it out.
He looks down at the ground.
“I think I did a bad thing,” he mumbles.
“Oh, hey,” I say, reaching out to touch him, stopping myself just in time.
The only thought I can hold my head is: get him the fuck out of here. Get him somewhere safe.
“Leo… if you come with me, I promise I’ll get you to your dad.”
It’s a long time before he answers. When he does, there’s a different look in his eyes. A hard look. A look you shouldn’t see on someone his age.
“If you’re helping the Zigzag Man,” he says, “I’ll zap you.”
“… I know.”
“Or if you make me do anything I don’t wanna.”
“Got it.”
Slowly, I reach out for his hand, stopping just short. He hesitates for a few seconds, then takes it. His skin is warm, and very dry.
Despite my heart pounding hard in my chest, I manage a smile – and it feels like a genuine one this time. I give his hand a squeeze, then get to my feet, gently pulling him with me.
OK. Step one complete. Earn the trust of the little boy who could kill me instantly whenever he chooses. Time for step two.
“Hey, Leo,” I say. “Do you like hide and seek?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” I give his hand a squeeze. “Come on.”
TWELVE
Teagan
The scariest part of exiting the Big Green Storage building isn’t the cops. It isn’t the fact that I’m going AWOL on my team.
It’s Leo.
I’m not talking about his ability – he’s actually stopped discharging electricity into the building now, or at least, we’re inside his safety radius. It’s how he slips in quietly behind me as we head for the exit, moving quickly and quietly, his sneakers barely audible on the scuffed floor. He doesn’t make a peep. Kids aren’t usually this obedient, or this careful.
What kind of life has he been living, that he knows how to move this quietly?
We’re just coming up the stairs to ground level, our way lit by the flashlight on my phone. The nausea and headache subsided a little when I was speaking to Leo, but now they’re back with a vengeance. I make myself focus on putting one foot in front of the other, then doing it again, and again.
If I remember right, the south-west wall of the building is closest to the edge of the lot – no more than a few feet of open concrete, which is probably where they stash the dumpsters. Then, a tall chain link fence. From the brief look I got before I came in here, the land beyond the fence is undeveloped. Wide open. There won’t be much cover – and it’s broad daylight out there, which means I’m going to have to time this very carefully.
Shit. There’s a thought. I’m currently carrying two things that will allow Reggie to track me – my comms earpiece, and my phone. Both government issue, with built-in scramblers. Encryption. Whatever the fuck it’s called. Reggie controls them, which means she could definitely track me if she wanted, even if they were turned off. I winkle out the earpiece, using my PK to crunch its internals to pieces, doing it before I can second-guess myself.
I glance down at my phone – shit, it’s only 3 p.m.? I feel like I’ve been here for hours. I shake it off, wrap my PK around the internals, getting ready to do to them what I did to my earpiece. I pause for a second, trying to figure out if there’s any way to avoid doing this.
And that’s enough to make me think of Waco again. Of the cells and the tests, the knowledge that I might never get out of there. That my family was dead, and no one was coming to rescue me.
I won’t subject Leo to that. Not gonna happen.
This feels wrong. I’ve never turned my back on the team – not once, not ever. No matter how much we argue, or whatever crazy shit we get into, we’ve always been together. Doing this feels horrible. Sickening. It’s impossible not to hear Reggie’s calm voice, breaking down a problem, analysing it as she sips chamomile. Annie’s smile, back when it actually existed. Africa’s laugh, his giant hands pulling me into a bear hug. Am I really doing this?
“Sorry, Reggie,” I mutter. The phone goes dead as I snap a couple of key chips inside.
Which is when I realise I just killed our only source of light.
Oh, this is going well.
“Is it broke?” Leo says.
“Something like that. Sorry, dude. You’re not scared of the dark are you?”
“No,” he says, in a small voice. Then: “I’ve got one.”
“Got one what?”
There’s the click of an unlocking phone, and more torchlight blinds us. At that moment, there’s a footstep from behind my back.
I whirl, sucking in a startled, horrified breath. In that instant, I know what I’m going to see. It’s an image so clear in my mind, that I don’t doubt it, not for a second. I’m going to find Jeannette there. Africa’s girlfriend. Here, somehow, leering at me through a mouthful of rotting, brown teeth, reaching for me—
There’s nothing. No Jeannette. No anybody. An empty corridor, with nothing but flickering shadows.
“Are you OK?” Leo asks.
I can’t unclench my fists. “Fine,” I say, barely aware I spoke. The meth comedown… it’s making me see things that aren’t the
re, I know it is. So why can’t I shake the idea that there really was someone there? That even now, they’re waiting to strike?
“It’s my dad’s phone,” Leo says, dropping the light. “He gave it to me to play Dr Panda Town.”
“Is that right?” I say, still distracted, running my finger over the sticker on the phone case, a unicorn smoking a massive joint. A long time ago, my phone got stolen, right in the middle of me being framed for murder – yes, this is the kind of life I lead. Africa found it, and he knew it was mine because of the sticker.
God, I miss the old Africa. Before he was part of China Shop. Before he became obsessed with the job.
I pocket the phone. It’s dead, beyond even the best tracking Reggie can deploy, but I have no intention of leaving it for anyone to find. I pocket the comms earpiece too.
Most of the police presence is on the opposite side of the building, near the road. That’s where all the black-and-whites are. Of course, the cops aren’t stupid. They’ve got people watching the doors, back and front. In theory, nobody gets in or out of this building.
Which is a good strategy, if you assume that whoever you’re watching for will actually be using a door.
I echolocate, throwing out a wave of PK. It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for.
With Leo in tow – still eerily silent – I walk over to one of the storage lockers close to the stairs. I can tell from my PK that there isn’t much inside this one, and I quickly pop the lock with my mind, rolling up the door. The locker is almost empty, with just a couple of dusty boxes stacked against one wall. On one of the boxes, in big black Sharpie letters, is the word: TOYS. Which would be fine, if someone hadn’t drawn a ;-) next to the word.
Honestly, I’d rather not know.
“In here,” I whisper to Leo, ducking underneath the door. I sound pretty calm, given the insanity I’m currently involved in. He says nothing, not even a little woah at me using my powers. Then again, the first time he met me, I was on a magic carpet. And he grew up with kids who could move the earth around at will, along with God knows what else.
Once we’re inside the dark locker, I close the door behind us. Nothing I can do about the snapped padlock – I’ll just have to hope nobody notices. Instead, I concentrate on the exterior wall, feeling my way along it. “Please be cheap,” I mutter. “Please, please, please be—”
