Jackson Ford - Eye of the Sh*t Storm

A sudden quiet settles over the balcony. Even the wind has stopped.

“OK.” Robert claps the edge of the table, gets to his feet. “Looks like we’re all good to go here.”

“Thought you needed to call Pop,” Annie says.

“Naw, not a problem. Pop says I can do whatever I need to.” He rolls his eyes slightly at me, as if trying to say, Can you believe how difficult your partner is being ?

It is very tempting to beat him to death with his own phone. But I’m a hero and a classy human, so I restrain myself.

“So we can go ahead and test this?” Annie lifts the gun as she gets to her feet.

“Sure, sure. Answer me one question, though.”

“Uh-huh?”

His smile never wavers. “What’s China Shop?”

Double uh-oh.

Annie, to her credit, gets it together – just as well, because I can’t keep the alarm off my face. “Moving company. It’s the legit part of our operation.”

Robert leans back against the thick balcony railing. “So… you don’t do any work for the government?”

Triple uh-oh, quadruple goddamn-it and all of the yikes.

We don’t get a chance to deny any of it. Three of the bikers grab hold of Africa. They kick his legs out from underneath him, grabbing him in a chokehold as he goes over backwards. Three more hit Annie, wrestling her to the table. Two of them, Alan and the one-armed guy, grab hold of me, squeezing my biceps tight. Goddammit, who the hell tipped these assholes off?

“Get the fuck off me,” Annie snarls.

I need to do something, but I’ll have to play this very carefully. I’m not supposed to reveal my ability, even in cases where the people watching are unlikely to alert the media.

What happens next happens really freaking fast.

Robert pulls the modified H&K off the table, whips it up to point at Africa. He aims carefully, centre-mass, not wanting to hit his buddies. Then without another word, he pulls the trigger.

Or tries to. I don’t let him. Trigger stays locked. He snarls, chucks the gun to the ground, snatches a rifle from one of his buddies. I lock that one down too, all the while thinking, Come on, come on, find a way out of this .

Robert gives up and drops the weapon, jerks his chin at the men holding us. My heart skitter-beats as they heft Africa like a sack of grain. He roars, tries to buck them off. But like I said, he’s lanky and skinny and utterly useless in a fight.

And before Annie and I can say anything, before I can switch my PK to the men holding Africa, they lift him onto the balcony wall, and topple him over the edge.

There is a long, horrible second where he’s looking right at me. His eyes are wide, terrified. Disbelieving.

His feet flick upwards, as if saluting the deep blue morning sky. Then Africa is gone.

You’re probably wondering why I let that happen.

After all, what’s to stop me grabbing every object on the balcony, from guns to ashtrays to those cute directors chairs, and using them to beat ten shades of shit out of our biker pals?

That was my first thought too. The problem is that it reveals my ability in a major way. Reggie is always… well, everybody is always telling me to think before I act. And in this case, I actually do. There’s a better, smarter solution here.

Of course, it has a few problems of its own. I need to keep everyone’s eyes on me. I can’t tell Annie, or Africa. And it may or may not result in us all falling to our deaths.

I go fucking nuts, twisting and yelling. Alan has to plant his feet, jerk back as I try to smash his nose in with the back of my head. One of the other goons grabs my legs, ignoring my furious, angry howls. “You cocksuckers, what the fuck? What the fuck ? I’ll fucking kill you, I’ll tear your dicks off and play a drum solo with them, you – let go! ”

Thinking: That’s it, keep your eyes on me, don’t you dare look over that balcony …

With a mutual grunt, Alan and his accomplice lift my screaming self onto the two-feet-thick railing. Behind me, Annie’s breathing is hot, harsh, panicked. “Teagan,” she says, and the note of desperation in her voice is terrifying. God, I wish I could tell her what I have planned, even though I’d probably leave out the part where it might kill us all.

I lock eyes with Alan. No matter what happens, I have to keep their attention “I’m going to punch a hole in your skull, you bean-counting motherf—”

His expression doesn’t change as he and his buddy roll me right off the edge of the balcony railing.

I get a split-second glimpse of Annie, staring at me in horror. Then gravity takes me, clamping onto my stomach. I go head-over-heels backwards, the bright sunlight blinding me. The terror tries to wipe my mind clean, force me to give into it…

Just as I land face-first on the floating couch.

It’s four stories below the penthouse, hovering in mid-air. It’s a two-seater, with thick, squashy foam cushions, and I hit it like a sack of concrete. It punches the air out of my lungs, almost knocks me senseless. I nearly roll right off. But there is a tiny part of my brain that would prefer not die in a stupid way, and it makes me throw out an arm and grab hold. I come to a stop with one leg dangling off the edge, one black Air Jordan waving crazily in the open air.

No time, no time . I shoot the couch back towards the building while I hang on for dear life. A snap of wind sends snarls my hair around my face, and then I’m over the balcony of the twenty-sixth floor suite. That’s my cue. I tip the couch sideways, go as loose as possible—

—and roll right onto Africa.

He’s lying on the balcony, hyperventilating. Confirmed: his bony-ass frame does not make for a soft landing. I yelp as we crash together, rebounding off him and nearly braining myself on the leg of the outside table.

“Teggan, what—?”

My voice is a high-pitched, breathless hiss. “Not now!”

I zip the couch back out into open air, thinking: Please please please let it be fast enough .

I don’t have a mental lock on Annie. I can move inorganic objects just fine – metal, plastic, whatever – but doing it with organic objects is ridiculously hard. It takes time, and even sensing their position in space takes a lot of concentration. Which means that the couch isn’t lined up right when Annie comes dropping past the twenty-sixth floor.

She bounces sideways. She must have hit it just right – or wrong. Her legs and arms flail, her scream piercing the air. There’s a horrible, nauseating half-second where I’m sure that I’m not going to make it, that I can’t move the couch fast enough…

Then I do. I zip the couch underneath her, catching Annie on the downward arc of her bounce. Before anything else horrible can happen, I pull her and the couch towards us, not even letting it clear the railing before I dump her onto the balcony.

She rolls, bounces again, throws out her arms like a bouncer doing crowd control. Her face comes to a stop a foot from mine. Her mouth is slightly open, all the colour chased from her caramel skin, forehead shiny with sweat and eyes drifting in and out of focus. Africa grips my shoulder, squeezing so tight that my bones creak.

He opens his mouth to say something, then jerks back when I try to put my hand across it. I snap my head towards Annie, put a finger to my lips. Not that there’s any point. She is utterly, completely incapable of speech.

I lower the couch to the balcony, right next to the sliding doors. There’s no sound. Just the whipping rush of the wind beyond the balcony railings.

Then, very distant, from above us: “You see them?”