Eye of the Sh*t Storm

by Jackson Ford

  “Touch him and I’ll tear your face off.”

  Her expression doesn’t change. In a weird way, she reminds me of Tanner.

  “Just so you know,” I say, putting a confidence into my voice that I absolutely don’t feel, “I work for the US government.”

  She says nothing.

  “All hell is about to come raining down on you. But I tell you what. You let me go right now, me and my people, and we walk away. I’ve got bigger shit to fry than your little biker club.”

  Pop laughs. It’s a genuine sound, almost sweet, like a little girl’s laugh.

  “Something funny?”

  “No, I just like the fact that you called us a club. Most people talk about motorcycle gangs.”

  “Did you not hear the part about the US government? I’m serious, man. I’m talking special forces, Black Hawks, extraordinary rendition. Fucking drone strikes. Your day is about to get a lot more complicated.”

  “So the US government is going to let someone like you get taken by people like us? Where are these special forces, exactly? Where are the men in black, coming to take us to Guantanamo?”

  “Probably on their way.”

  “Maybe. But then, if I’m the government, why am I letting someone like you just wander around the storm drains? Especially after what you did to us before.”

  “You can ask them when they get here.”

  Pop sighs. Then she walks towards me, footsteps reverberating in the tight space.

  I blink at her. “What do you think you’re—?”

  I don’t get the rest out, because she slaps me.

  It’s not a hard slap. Just deliberate, precise. And here’s the thing about slaps: a punch will make you bleed, but a good slap will make you cry. You can’t help it. It’s a blunt strike to the sinuses, and your eyes will water a little no matter how much you try to stop it. Punches hurt your body. Slaps hurt everything else.

  I snarl, grab the first thing my PK touches – a loose metal bracket hanging on the wall. Then I rip it off, and send it hurtling towards Pop. Before it can touch her, she slaps me again, backhand. Stars explode in my vision, and my grip on the bracket goes fuzzy. It bounces off Pop’s shoulder, and she doesn’t even flinch.

  “Do that again,” she says. “See what happens to your friends.”

  I sniffle like a little kid. I can’t help it – my sinuses have swollen up, my cheeks hot and stinging. I glare at Pop, hating how small I feel.

  “Your story doesn’t fly,” she says. “Either you don’t work for the government, or you do, but you’re trying to go behind their backs. Doesn’t matter to me – you can talk all you want, but we’re still gonna do business.”

  “Do business?” I get out. My voice feels thick, foreign, like it belongs to someone else.

  “Why not? If everything were just a business transaction, the world would be a better place.”

  “So killing people, selling drugs and guns and shit… just business, huh?”

  She sighs again, as if the conversation bores her. “You know, in Haiti, people’s lives are bought and sold all the time. For almost nothing. America, you try to pretend you are better, but what is the prison system here? The healthcare system everybody has to pay for? How many lives go in and out, in and out, and it’s legal?”

  A half-smile. “Maybe it’s because you are white. You don’t see what’s right in front of you.”

  It’s hard not to think of Nic – of what happened back at Dodger Stadium. I want to spit something back in Pop’s face, but everything I can think to say feels wrong. And then there are all those people lined up at Dodger. A queue of weary, sick faces, knowing that the food they’re getting will have to be enough. How many of those faces were black, Latinx, Asian? How many were white? I don’t know. I don’t think I looked.

  She goes on. “And after the Big One, here in LA – you think the US government treats people fairly? They don’t give a shit. They never have. Now, we –” Pop taps her chest “– me and my brothers – we do way more than the government ever will.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She ignores me. “And at least we are honest. We don’t pretend to be something we are not.”

  “And what sort of business do you see us doing?” I ask the question before I can stop myself, knowing I’m being led down a particular path, and helpless to stop it.

  “Simple.” She digs in her pocket, pulls out her phone. Aims it at me, tilting her chin upwards. “Move something.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Do what you do. I want a record of it.”

  Oh. I see what’s going on here. “You think you can make money off me?”

  “Of course.” She shrugs, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “A lot of money.”

  “Yeah, OK.” I’m aiming for contempt, but can’t quite get there. My cheeks are still on fire.

  “You know, it’s a funny thing. You go apeshit on us in the middle of LA, throw around a bunch of shit with your powers, whatever they are, and not a single video or photo makes it online. Not one. Plenty of chatter, plenty of talk, but no evidence. Nothing.”

  “Yeah, that was on purpose.”

  “I thought as much. But you got people interested, all this talk on the streets now about this superhero who took down the Legends. Now there are a lot of people who will pay money for evidence of what you do.”

  “Wait, hold on, just so I get this straight. You’re going to just put out this clip of me using my ability—”

  “No,” she says, faintly offended. “I’m not putting it out anywhere. I’m just selling it to the highest bidder.” She pauses, as if thinking. “And maybe showing it to some of the people we run with. Can’t have them thinking we’ve gone soft.”

  “… Whatever. You think they’re actually going to believe it? It’s amazing what you can do with CGI these days.”

  “I only have to find one person who believes it. What they do with the video after is none of my concern.”

  “And after? You just let us walk out of here?”

  She at least has the good grace not to lie. “I don’t know. Maybe you and I can work something out, maybe not. We’ll see.”

  “Uh… no,” I say. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Maybe I need to explain how business transactions work.” She doesn’t lower the phone. “I’m offering fair compensation for your services. I keep your friends alive. Oh, and I’ll get you some food and—”

  Which is when she does lower the phone.

  Tilts her head. Looks more closely at me.

  “Hm,” she says.

  “What?” I snap.

  She ignores me, backtracking to the door, having another hushed conversation with Robert. She has her back to me, head out the door, completely unbothered at exposing herself. I can’t do anything but sit there and fume.

  This isn’t just a don’t-kill-anyone safe-word moment. One or two other bikers join the conversation, which gets more heated. Pop keeps her voice too low for me to hear, but she’s clearly insisting on something. After about a minute, one of her buddies puts something in her hand.

  Pop pulls her head in and locks the door, still with her back to me.

  “OK,” I say. “This has been a lot of fun, but how about we get to the part where—?”

  Pop has meth.

  I realise it before I’ve even finished speaking. She’s holding a small Ziploc bag of it: greasy, crystalline powder. No: it’s not as fine as the stuff we stole before. There are chunks in there, bigger rocks of the stuff. It hasn’t been cut yet. It’s pure. Even a tiny, tiny bit would do the trick.

  Pop’s mouth is moving. Words coming out. You could make a bag that size last for ever, taking no more than a little bit every day. How much does it cost anyway? What are they selling it for? They must have more here, too, bags and bags…

  Pop registers that I’m not listening, snaps her fingers. “I thought I recognised it.”

  My mouth has gone very dry. “Recognis
ed what?”

  She smirks. “The comedown. You’re feeling it aren’t you? Riding the old dragon. The stomach. The head.” She taps the back of her skull. “How are the hallucinations? Are you seeing the shadow monsters yet?”

  “The… what?” But I know what. The little flickers at the corners of my eyes. The dead certainty that someone is walking up behind me.

  “Your pupils aren’t huge any more,” Pop goes on. “But I bet they were, weren’t they? That’s why I didn’t spot it before. I figured the jitters you had on you were because of this.” She waves her hand at the room. “Robert says you weren’t like this before, so what was it? Did you decide to experiment? Take a little taste of what you stole? Good shit, isn’t it?”

  She’s still holding the bag casually in both hands. God, there are even bigger rocks in there, crystalline chunks. Put one on the counter, crack it with the heel of a knife. Scoop up the smaller fragments, pound them into clean, shimmery powder…

  “You only need a tiny bit.” Pop taps the bag, using the same two fingers. “Then the pain? The hollow stomach? All of that goes away. You’ll just feel good, all the time. And by the way, you should see what my lab boys are doing to this stuff. It just gets better and better. That gun shipment you tried to mess with? That was just the last batch I wanted to offload. Forget firearms – who needs the hassle, when the profit margins on this stuff are so high? It’s that good.”

  “What…? ” I clear my throat. “What do you want?”

  She shrugs. “We’re still gonna make a little movie, but I’ll keep it for myself. Little insurance policy in case anybody says we can’t control our spot. But other than that… you come work for me, and I keep you in top shape. No more shadow monsters. Oh, and your friends stay breathing.”

  And that’s when I know what I have to do. There’s no choice.

  “All right,” I say. It’s barely more than a whisper.

  “What was that?”

  “I’ll do it. I’ll do what you want.”

  The smile eats up Pop’s face. “I knew I could count on you.” She points the phone at me, still grinning. “Maybe… how about you move the chair you’re sitting on? Should be a piece of cake for you.”

  “Yeah,” I say, not looking at her. I get to my feet, unsteady, exhausted. Wishing there was another way. Feeling the burn and the ache and the horrifying, hot paranoia.

  I raise my eyes to look at the camera. Behind it, Pop’s grin gets even wider.

  “One thing,” I say.

  “What is it?” Pop replies.

  I grab the phone with my PK, rip it out of her hands, and jam it into her open mouth.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Teagan

  Pop staggers backwards, clawing at her face. She makes a strangled, gagging sound like a trapped animal. The top corner of the phone smashed a couple of her teeth in, and as she gasps for air, one of her shattered canines falls to the floor. Blood smears her chin.

  She tries to pull the phone out, gripping it in both hands, fighting it even as it worms its way deeper. To be fair, I don’t actually want to kill her, so I give her an assist. I rip the phone away from her mouth, and before she can react, I snap it at her face. Her nose explodes, spraying blood. I step back neatly, eyes never leaving her.

  Pop staggers, clutching at her ruined face, finally looking up at me. “You—”

  I pull the phone towards me, then send it flying at Pop’s forehead. She puts a hand up, trying to stop it, doesn’t get there in time. It hits dead centre, snapping her head back. She crumples like she’s been shot.

  The phone is wrecked, its screen destroyed. I let it drop, bouncing off Pop’s chest. Her eyes have the same unfocused look that I saw in Nic’s. I don’t even think she knows where she is right now.

  Hmm. Maybe I hit her a little too hard.

  Fuck it. Slap me? I slap back. And I slap a lot harder.

  I rip the door open with my PK. Robert’s there, along with a balding, heavyset gentleman with a huge beer gut and terrible tattoos. They both spin around, gawping at me.

  The dude with beer gut reacts first, bursting into the room. He gets brained by the chair I was sitting on, and collapses on top of Pop, who lets out a heavy whuf as he crushes her.

  Robert, to his credit, is a little smarter. He whips the phone up to his ear, turning, trying to run so he can make the call. I take the phone away from, snapping it against the wall. In response, he swings around and sprints headlong into the room, like a running back going for a tackle, hurdling Pop and coming right at me. I whip the chair up, holding it between us, intending to have him smack right into it. He comes to a stuttering halt, fury on his face, and grabs at the chair legs. For a second, he’s engaged in an awkward wrestling match with the thing, his eyes flicking back and forth between me and it, like he can’t believe his life has come to this.

  Pop has a knife in her jacket pocket. It’s not a killing-people-knife – or at least, I hope it isn’t. It’s a regular Swiss Army penknife. I have it out of her clothes and in the air in seconds, the blade flicked open and just touching the soft spot under Robert’s chin. He freezes, still holding onto the chair.

  The room goes woozy for a moment. I have to focus very hard to pull reality back. If I’m not careful, I’ll lose control. That would be all kinds of bad.

  “Where are they?” I snarl.

  “Fuck you,” Robert snaps back.

  “Sorry, I don’t know where fuck you is.” I dig the knife in just a little more.

  He lets go of the chair, tries to back up, getting away from the knife. I make it follow him until he’s right up against the wall. He keeps looking at the door, like he’s expecting backup.

  “I’ll feel them long before they get here,” I say.

  He grins. “You ain’t gonna kill me.”

  “You sure?” I say.

  But of course, he’s right.

  I’ve killed before. When my life was in danger. It messed me up good, gave me some banging nightmares. I really don’t want to do it again. And it’s as if Robert can see the indecision in my face, because that’s when he reacts. He snatches the knife out of the air, using my distraction to pull it away from his throat, then dives at me, arms outstretched.

  A dive that ends when I hit him in the head with the chair.

  Yes, OK, fine, I should have tried to take him with me, gotten him to show me where Nic and Annie are. I have no idea how I would have pulled that off, but that was, in fact, the plan. Then he got inside my head, and I reacted… poorly. Hey, just because I’ve been trying to think through my decisions doesn’t mean I’m perfect, OK?

  He crashes to the ground at my feet, out cold, legs twitching.

  Right next to the bag of meth.

  I drop to my knees to grab it. It’s surprisingly heavy in my hands, like it’s filled with wet sand. The rocks crumble ever so slightly under my fingertips. I can’t look away.

  Sensing inorganic objects is incredibly difficult for me – I have to be in absolute fight-or-flight panic. But when I ingested that meth this afternoon… it was easy. Not just to sense organic matter, but to move it, with almost no effort.

  If I took some of this meth now, if I snorted it, it would supercharge my PK beyond anything I’d ever felt before. I’d be able to find Annie and Nic and Leo in seconds – in fact, not only would I be able to know where they were instantly, but I could take care of anybody guarding them. Probably without being seen. And then fly us right out of here. Just lift us up and take us all the way to Compton. And the pain, the twitchiness, the shadow monsters? Gone, gone, gone.

  This little bag in my hands could make all my problems go away.

  I fumble at the Ziploc strip, actually getting a finger inside the bag, wondering what I could use to crush the rocks… when I realise my hands are shaking.

  Trembling.

  I stare at them, willing them to stop. They don’t. They shiver, like I’m an old woman with palsy.

  It’s impossible not to think of Jean
nette. Africa’s girlfriend. Did her hands shake like this? Did she feel this same burning need? Did she feel it as her teeth came loose in their sockets and her shoulders began to hunch?

  Even now, even with the horror and the paranoia and the sheer revulsion blooming in my mind like ink in water, I can’t let go of the bag.

  Can’t? Or won’t?

  I make a noise that is a kind of hitching sob, and let the meth go. Put my head in my hands. No. No fucking way. I’m not doing it again. I don’t care how powerful it made me feel, how potent the high was. The crash was – is – one of the most awful things I’ve ever felt. Like a million spiders were crawling over every inch of my body, inside and out. And yeah, the meth would make it go away… for a while. But for how long? And if it became permanent…

  God, I wish Africa were here right now. He’d know what to do. He could help. I crouch there, shuddering, paralysed. I’m desperate to run as far away as I can from the meth… and I can’t bear the thought of leaving it behind.

  OK. OK. We can be smart about this. Meth is awful, horrible shit, but the clarity I felt this morning… I can’t just ignore that. I don’t have to take some now, and I don’t have to get addicted. When this is all over, I can… experiment. Maybe a tiny dose gets me all the advantages, without any of the downsides. If I do the drug in a controlled situation, as opposed to, you know, inside a burning car under a collapsed bridge, or in a biker hideout…

  I can deal with the effects of the comedown for now. So far so good, right?

  Before I can second guess myself, I drop the meth into my pocket. I don’t need it now. I don’t. I’ll just… hold onto it, figure out what to do with it later.

  I stick my head out into the corridor. There’s nobody coming – I would have felt them by now – but I take a look anyway. I jam the door shut behind me, scrunching the lock mechanism with my PK, then head towards the central part of the depot. Annie and Nic could be anywhere, true, but I feel like I could wander the corridors for ever and not find them. I need to see if the bikers are guarding a particular spot.

  And yes, before you ask, causing a ruckus and escaping was absolutely the right call. Whether I went for the meth or not, I don’t believe for one second that Pop would have let me any of my friends live. You don’t become the head of a motorcycle club – gang, cabal, whatever – without being ruthless as fuck. And if you’re a four-foot-tall Haitian woman, you’d better have a double helping.